Look at and tell me that something fishy isn't going on?
Why would Google so completely partner with NASA? - a government agency. Was Google pressured into it? Or is it simply a marketing ploy and a big-time chance to appease the stockholders? I don't buy it.
Read between the lines. This, to me, smacks of something more ominous in the making.
#4
NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space based weapons systems industry.
Soon to be operating under their new corporate name, "SkyNet"
Posted by: Steve ||
09/29/2005 13:52 Comments ||
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#5
Nasa has been using satelites to study the ozone and a number of other things for decades. Google is probably hoping to access the sat photos at some reduced rate. NASA is hoping for some decent press for a change and hoping to rent out some extra buildings to offset budget cuts.
I seriously doubt there is anything more to this than LucasArts taking over Fort Mason in San Francisco. Was the US Army hoping for Death Star Plans? Perhaps specs for cool white armor for the troops? Or did they just not need the buildings and someone was willing to deal with San Francisco's tax-crazy local government.
IT is the fundamental tenet of all terrorism, not least the wicked tenets of Al-Qaeda, that it seeks by the sheer inhumanity of its vicious assaults to rob those targeted of humane and measured responses. To achieve this the terrorists themselves have to behave inhumanely. Yet every terrorist, from the chiefs to the foot soldiers, is somebodyâs father or somebodyâs son. The effect on a family that discovers to its horror that one of its members is a committed fanatic is invariably traumatic. On Monday this paper reported the tragic case of Abdul Rahman Al-Suwailmi of Riyadh whose sons Ahmad and Muhammad were lured away last year to join Al-Qaeda.
"Lured away"? Like a coupla innocent sheep? Or nudged, guided, pushed into the inhumanity of terrorism by a system of holy men and institutions that's both indulged and fostered by the Soddy state?
Both young men simply disappeared. The first news their father had of them was the horrifying discovery they were both listed among the Kingdomâs most wanted terrorists. Now Ahmad is dead, aged only 20, killed in a shoot-out with security forces last month in Dammam. Having gone through the most awful ordeal a parent can endure â identifying the dead body of his or her child â Suwailmi appealed to 23-year-old Muhammad to give himself up. It is not simply that he does not wish to lose a second son; Suwailmi is revolted at the thought that Muhammad might shed more innocent blood.
I suppose I can sympathize, since I'm a father. I can't imagine the emotional effect it would have on me to learn that two of my sons were dirtbags, one of them now dead.
There are too many other Ahmads and Muhammads out there and they are all horrifying their parents and families. What is so notable about most Al-Qaeda terrorists being slain or captured is their youth. This is the secret of the sinister and worldly-wise bigots who plan and direct these terror crimes. They exploit the half-formed convictions of young people who have hardly attained manhood.
They appeal to the little bastards' idealism. Idealism is a belief in something larger than yourself, your family, and your community. Horst Wessel was an idealist.
The youth of every generation adopts ideals and imagines it has the power to change the world. It is this normal stage in young menâs intellectual and psychological development that Bin Laden and his followers seize and manipulate so insidiously. In effect they base their evil campaign of mass murder on the immaturity of hundreds of youths who can be persuaded that blasting apart the bodies of innocent men, women or children is a noble and courageous deed.
They're aided and abetted in this by governments that differentiate between "good" terorism — directed, for instance, against Zionists — and "bad" terrorism, directed against their interests.
This says all that is necessary about Al-Qaeda and its perverted cause that can only be advanced by duping immature and credulous youths.
But it says the same thing about Hamas, about the Chechens, about the thugs bedeviling Kashmir, and the lice infesting Mindanao.
Few men, wise in years, could ever find anything but revulsion for the principles and activities of these thugs. This is particularly true of the families who see their young men lured away by the siren promises of terrorist leaders that by acts of savage violence and depravity, the world can somehow be changed for the better.
Like Algeria was. That worked well, didn't it?
In the final analysis, it is hard to find much sympathy with the Ahmads and Muhammads of this world who, at a crucial moment, lacked the judgment and moral fiber to reject the call of terrorism.
It's hard for me to find any sympathy at all. But then, when I see another person, I assume they're a human being, not an infidel or some other type of subhuman.
It is however all too easy to appreciate the grief of the families of these young people. They are in fact the unseen and largely unmourned victims of Al-Qaedaâs evil because every day their hearts bleed a little more and their heads hang lower in shame at the wicked deeds of their children.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/29/2005 00:00 ||
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#3
"The trojan horses are marching disguised in patriotic camo, and their danger is real."
The ACLU and CAIR don't exactly have stealth agendas. And their affiliation with one another is hardly new. There maybe some valid points here, but if you're looking for an Islamist Trojan Horse, try Grover Norquist.
#4
When the ACLU acts to help people retain their free speech rights I generally think they do a good job and a service. After all getting the NAZIS the right to march in Skokie or hold a meeting in McArthur Park just hepled expose them for the assholes they were. But more and more I think the ACLU has been hijacked by individuals who have either a deep and abiding hatered of the United States or a simple desire to see civil society wrecked. To me the classic example is the 1st Admendment Church and State issue. All the 1st Admendemnt says is that Congress shall pass no laws regarding religion. It says nothing about towns erecting creches at Christmas or invocations at High School graduations.
#6
the ACLU has been hijacked
The ACLU has never been hijacked. It has stayed true to form. The ACLU was founded by pacifists, communists, and socialists. They have worked since then to subvert capitalism and individual freedom.
Google Roger Nash Baldwin or Norman Thomas or ACLU founders.
Posted by: ed ||
09/29/2005 14:03 Comments ||
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#7
"The Enemy Within"
ITYM, "all enemies, foreign and domestic".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/29/2005 14:13 Comments ||
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#8
While we rightly fight across the ocean to spread democracy, ours is being eaten away from the inside.
This is so true. The ACLU has been fanning the flames of the likes of CAIR, and we need to stop this movement and get a handle on it.
And now the ACLU has put our troops at greater risk with the pushing to get more photos released of Abu Graibe. This is so very wrong.
Posted by: Jan ||
09/29/2005 16:26 Comments ||
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#9
Perhaps it is time to scope some of these domestic enemies. Why limit the cheer to Fallujah?
... The Stones have put themselves on the front pages without putting themselves under fire because denouncing neocons allows them to be edgy without going over the edge. As recent history has shown, this is the surest and safest way to rescue one's fading career from permanent decline. Nowadays, Bush bashing is the last refuge of the has-been scoundrel, the panacea for pop stars of the past.
Over the last three years, one band after another, each presumably aware of its decline, has jumped on the anti-Bush bandwagon. To prove that they are healed, aging hipsters must first prove that they are sick â sick, anyway, of the war and President Bush. As long as they are still singing, they figure, the fat lady won't be. As the president's popularity has declined, along with public support for the war, Bush bashing has become more common, acceptable, and fashionable. And as demand has increased, so has supply.
Three years ago, we saw the first signs of the "aging hipster" syndrome when Steve Earle released a song called "John Walker's Blues," in which he laments the fate of the American Taliban. This song was followed by "The Revolution Starts... Now", an entire album dedicated to â or more precisely, against â George W. Bush.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/29/2005 15:08 ||
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#1
Is it possible they actually believe this stuff as opposed to walking through some elaborate commercial charade. The most spot-on thing about Spinal Tap (sorry, couldn't find an umlaut) was how stupid they were.
#3
This article is a hoot, but the author is obviously a lefty in grasping denial that the Stones, the Chix, etc. were dumped by the public as a direct consequence of their anti-American/Bush stance.
For other musicians resisting a fate of obscurity, the lesson ... was that the fate of the Dixie Chicks was not the inevitable result of antiwar or anti-Bush criticism.
yes it was. They alienated their "country music" fans, including me.
As the president's popularity has declined, along with public support for the war, Bush bashing has become more common, acceptable, and fashionable. And as demand has increased, so has supply.
wrong again. Just cause this is a fun article doesn't make this statement true. It's only true in the author's mind.
Also, it doesn't sound to me like the Stones got their attention but backed off, but realized the bombing of their records sales was a direct consequence of Neocon.
Sugar coating it may make the medicine go down smoother but the reality is that they tried to boost their fading popularity with Bush bashing and it backfired in a big way.
#4
Having already received the attention they wanted, the Stones subsequently backed off from the chance to create any further controversy. They didn't need it...
what I meant to say but didn't say well was... this sounds like fear from plummeting record sales rather than some sort of brilliant strategy.
Another year, another anti-everything rally on the Mall. The protesters insisted that 3.2 billion people showed up for the latest example of radical onanism; D.C. authorities put the number somewhat lower, but they're an arm of The Man, so what do you expect?
Cindy Sheehan was on hand to squander whatever moral heft accumulated during her Texas driveway campout, complaining that Hurricane Rita got more press coverage, topping off the weekend by getting arrested at the White House with a big grin on her face. She was also photographed hugging Jesse Jackson by a sign that demanded an end to the occupation of Palestine. Of course, "Palestine" is "occupied" as long as there's an Israel, or "Hymie Nation," as the good Reverend would have it. But that's off the subject. Impeach Bush!
At some point the adamantine skulls of the rally organizers might be penetrated by the realization that the "anti-war" cause is not served by letting the death-to-Israel crowd trot alongside, or diluting the message with a million other complaints. Middle America might have legitimate gripes with the administration's war policy, but its citizens are disinclined to side with hairy people who paint Bush as Hitler with dripping fangs. It's like holding a rally for lower taxes and inviting the Klan: doesn't broaden the base.
Consider the signage provided by ANSWER, an association of sclerotic collectivists, spotty anarchists and Kim Jong Il fans: "U.S. Out of Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, Korea, Philippines, Colombia, Cuba!" Yes, Haiti! No blood for ... for whatever they have. Skinny chickens. No blood for Gristly Poultry! Of course, it goes without saying that ANSWER would want the United States out of Afghanistan; it didn't want the Taliban overthrown in the first place, especially if the U.S. Imperial War Machine did the overthrowing. Better to let the Taliban drop stones on gays than give Bush something to smirk about.
Los Angeles also had a parade, studded with the usual smash-the-state flotsam. There were "No Blood for Oil" signs, the rally equivalent of shouting "Freebird!" at a Skynyrd concert. The Communist Party, a group that manages to keep a straight face when it calls for peace and freedom, was on hand, no doubt glaring at the Socialist Party: We will deal with those splitters later. One placard proclaimed 9/11 an "inside job," presumably planned to usher in our dark age of fascism, in which protesters are slushed in giant shredding machines and spread over Cheney-owned tobacco fields as fertilizer. OK, that doesn't happen, but wait until the elections are suspended in '09, dude ... FREE MUMIA! WHOOO!
Some of these folks might have marched in support of the Iraqi people before the war -- but only to lift the sanctions. Never mind if Saddam was let "out of the box"; what mattered was crippling the United States' ability to exert influence beyond the lower 48. (U.S. out of Aleutian Islands!)
The same idea animated last weekend's shambling gripe-fest: The U.S. is a ravenous death-beast responsible for all the world's ills, dude. (Oh, and Free Tibet.) If the U.S. retreats, goodness and mercy shall reign.
But while the People's Committee argues the finer points of distributing soy milk and organic honey, Iraq would become a haven for unopposed terrorists: purges, the end to nascent constitutional government, theocracy, al-Qaida triumphant. America would be revealed as the weak horse, a country that lacked the belly for the long fight. This is the message we wish to send?
Iraq isn't Vietnam, but it would be if we left. Mass death, tyranny, death to imperfect democracy and a grievous blow to American interests. The first three, however unfortunate, are the price the isolationist left is always willing to pay, especially if the corpse of the '60s is reanimated, complete with Joan Baez soundtracks. If only the National Guard could be persuaded to shoot some students again, it would be perfect. Besides, if al-Zarqawi takes over and slaughters his foes and imposes al-Qaida control over oil-rich Iraq, it's not like we're powerless.
We can always march and call him names.
Sept. 28, 2005
Posted by: Steve ||
09/29/2005 09:32 ||
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#1
Despite this being popular anti-anti-war rhetoric, I disagree. Iraq is well beyond collapsing if the US were to pull up stakes and leave. This is what I call "negative appeal", "We cannot leave or else..."
But Iraq is way beyond any destabilization short of a major invasion by a foreign power. It has been a "mopping-up" operation for over a year and a half now. The game is over and the Iraqis won.
So instead, let's consider "positive appeal". That is, Iraq as a victory. By itself, it is a victory. But the reality on the ground is far more than that. Iraq is becoming a major victory far beyond its own borders.
Traditionally, such a victory would mean that Iraq was now part of our "sphere of influence", from which we could stage offensive operations outside its borders, while denying it to the enemy. And this is also true of Iraq today. But that is a singular victory, a short-sighted understanding of all that has been achieved.
Iraq also serves as a focal point to concentrate an enemy dispersed to the four corners of the planet--an otherwise impossible to fight enemy. It draws them in to the "honey trap", wiping out an entire generation of militants from a dozen nations in the world. So in this way, Iraq is becoming a victory in a dozen nations, simultaneously! People who will no longer be tormented and intimidated by the violent and vicious amongst them.
But even that amazing strategy is not enough. And that is because Iraq is strategically the most important nation in the middle east. This, too, is far more than the traditional "sphere of influence" concept, and this is why the US has created a Middle East Command. From Iraq, this Command holds a decisive view over western central Asia, the entire middle east, and eastern Africa.
What an extraordinary accomplishment. A gain that must be held at all costs. An achievement that forestalls terrible wars, undermines dictators and supports democratization, reforms economies, crushes nuclear proliferation, protects the stability of the world oil markets, and promotes cultural and religious freedom.
To leave Iraq would be insanity, damning half the world not to chaos, but to its terrible and primitive status quo. A status quo of war, famine, genocide, fanaticism, racism, sexism, ignorance, dictatorship and endless other villanies.
All told, if Iraq is pursued to its conclusion, George Bush the younger will have only one peer as president.
Ronald Reagan freed half the world from communism. Bush may be able to claim freeing half the world from primitivism and barbarity.
#4
In any event, even if we left Iraq it wouldn't be "like" vietnam. The jihadi urge that accounts for alot of what goes on is a very different animal altogether and it would not simply end with the withdrawal of troops.
I agreed with the Flypaper theory until recently when I began to think of the Afghanistan/Soviet War as the training grounds it was.
All the tried and true jihadists who run the show today were at one time drawn to the flypaper effect of that conflict as it acted to disperse the radicalism far and wide.
Sure, plenty died, but more jihadists were created as a result of the conflict, not the opposite.
Where would Binny be today without Afghanistan? Probably getting blown by one of his 87 wives in the French riviera, same place all the other rich ass Saudi oil brats are when not lording over the peasantry of the Majik Kingdom.
The flypaper theory would be a valid theory were those coming to fightin Iraq all old Al Q members who were guaranteed to die when they came into the country. They aren't though, they are 20 somethings newly radicalized by the conflict, and they are likley surviving their little Iraqi vacations in large numbers and going home jihadi heroes.
I am willing to bet the suicide bombers are just a fraction of the foreigners coming in to play, likely they use up the Euro Islam fodder for splodeydopes first, and there are still plenty foreigners playing the game afterwards.
I wonder how many of those jihadi bastards are taking these skills and newfound radicalism with them back to whatever goatshit hole in the wall they are from.
Just like Afghanistan in the 80's and Chechnya in the 90's, the Iraqi conflict is becoming the Jihadi boot camp of choice.
Iraq and Chechnya are producing a well trained well indoctrinated cadre of jihadists who won't soon forget what they've learned.
If 20% of the foreign insurgents are from Algeria,as I recently read, it doesn't bode well for Algeria, or France. Just Yesterday a new Algerian jihadists group announced its formation and intent to target France primarily.
Not that I care that much about France, but as the pattern expands, we see the kinds of problems this training ground will create.
Does that support the position of the radical left? I don't know and don't care. They are mostly idiots and are likely on break from a WTO demonstration somewhere else, and this war protest was a convenient training ground for them.
I assume that the DC protests are representative of the flypaper effect domestically. The various protest groups might not have agreed before, but now they all do because it's convenient and because they've been in bond building situations. The psuedo normals are being introduced to radical thinking while in DC, and many will likely take it home and radicalize others with them.
I don't offer any answers though, just trying to evaluate what the effects of this conflict will be once we do leave.
#6
Elvis: I think the whole "training area for jihadis" concept is overrated. First of all, back in the days of Russia in Afghanistan, there were probably more Americans in country than any other foreign nationality. It was an Afghan on Russian war. Some of the later bad boyz were assisted by the US, but never given any real training.
Later, the Taliban permitted free entrance to al-Q. The foreigners who got any real training got it before the US invaded. Most of those who came to the region either crossed the border and died, horribly, or stayed in Pakistan, drank coffee in coffee shops, then returned home with tales of their exploits. Which is not the same thing as combat training.
The few real pros seen in Iraq today were trained for the most part by conventional armies, mostly Iran and Syria. And far more of them see dirt than ever see home again. Some Saudis cross the border via Syria, you'll note, since the bedouins in Arabia carefully watch the border. But no doubt, many more enjoy life in coffee shops in Damascus, returning to Saudi with tales of their exploits.
This leaves Europe, which is probably the most fertile recruiting ground left to the troublemakers. And yes, they do get a goodly number of idiots there, to this day. But they either stay in Europe, or their ticket, too, is one way.
Very few ever really leave either Iraq or Afghanistan. Their own comrades want them to stay, and the US wants them dead.
#7
Where would Binny be today without Afghanistan?
Odd. Binny spent quite a lot of time in the Sudan *after* the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan. If your theory -- that the Afghan war produced terrorists -- were true, then why did he leave Afghanistan after the Soviet pull-out, then return again later?
Just like Afghanistan in the 80's and Chechnya in the 90's, the Iraqi conflict is becoming the Jihadi boot camp of choice.
If, in fact, the Iraq war is producing terrorists, where are they? I've yet to hear of someone going to Iraq, leaving Iraq, and planning or carrying out a terrorist attack. Wouldn't that be the only clear indication that Iraq has become a training ground for terrorists?
The flypaper theory would be a valid theory were those coming to fightin Iraq all old Al Q members who were guaranteed to die when they came into the country.
So killing any newly-trained jihadis invalidates the flypaper theory? Sorry, but that makes no sense.
I assume that the DC protests are representative of the flypaper effect domestically. The various protest groups might not have agreed before, but now they all do because it's convenient and because they've been in bond building situations. The psuedo normals are being introduced to radical thinking while in DC, and many will likely take it home and radicalize others with them.
*sigh*
How many years have you paid attention to the left? One? Two?
All those groups have *always* marched together. They may carry banners for different "causes", but the root cause they all march for is the same -- hatred of the West, of freedom, and of the US in particular. It's all about different means to the same end.
As for the "pseudo normals" somehow being radicalized, again, you need to pay closer attention. The left hasn't been "moderate" in any sense since the early 1970s; there truly are "no enemies on the left" to them, and they'll gleefully march alongside ANSWER regardless of its alliance with tyrannies.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/29/2005 14:12 Comments ||
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#8
Iraq Isn't Vietnam, But It Would Be If We Left
There is at least one circumstance where Iraq is like Vietnam, and that is tolerating the use of countries next door as staging areas for infiltration of personnel and weaponry into Iraq.
#9
Elvis, the difference between the Soviet Afghanistan war and the Iraq war is that a lot of the mujahadeen survived that war due to Soviet ineffectiveness and US support.
From what I'm reading, we are killing the jihadis in Iraq at a far greater pace, a pace that is difficult to compare to the Soviet experience. While there may be a few that get out with new-found training, I'm guessing it is only that...a few.
Your comment about the Iraq war radicalizing muslim youth is another thing all together. It is quite possible that more muzzie youngsters are inclined to jihad now than before, but if they act on the urge and make their way to Iraq, they are likely to die.
#10
Iraq will never be like Vietnam in our lifetimes. Jungle will not grow in dry desert sands and moving all the ants, snakes, tiger, waterbuffallos, and tropical storms would be beyond even Uncle Sams airlift ability.
I defer to your expertise, but still have to wonder how many will not be killed and will return home with their newfound skill after the conflict has settled somewhat.
I don't argue that we should pull out to avoid training splodeydopes and guerillas or for any other reason, but I am trying to get a handle on the fallout from Iraq in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years.
Will things unfold as we plan in the region, or will something markedly different happen, and if so what will that different thing be?
THe war against the Soviets didn't train Arab Jihadis: the only thing Arabs did was hand cash and torture prisoners. It was Afghans who did the fighting and between them the really effective ones were Massood and Ismael Khan who, by Afghan standards were religious moderates while Hykmatiar (the proto Taliban) spend more time fighting Massod than the Soviets and Mullah Omar was a Mr Nothing.
Before telling that Irak trains terrorists who will be able to put in practice these skills in their respctive countries ask yourself if a country what skills learned there will be useful in their respective countries or if it would not be better to learn the manufacturing of bombs in say, Syria or even in England than in a country where at every moment death can rain from the skies.
I see your position, but don't think you are being realistic about Iraq producing new terrorists. Of course it is, they may be dying in Iraq in large numbers, but of course it creates new terrorists. The real question is, will they live through Iraq to tell the tale? That's my whole question here, and no, we aren't going to see the results until the conflict is settled down enough for them to need to find another fight elsewhere. So, if that is the only indicator of whether or not the Iraqi conflict is creating terrorists or not, which it may well be the indicator, we won't know for 5 or 10 years will we?
Any war waged by the west in any Muslim country now will create new terrorists. What are you joking me to submit any theory otherwise.
Any excuse for a young jobless muslim kid schooled in a typical madrassa to become a jihadi is a valid one in their world. That's rather obvious, especially when the Great Satan is involved.
I can hear the radical imams now-
"You ate pork while looking at a picture of Mecca. Jihad is justified!"
-any excuse for them will do.
Most, however, probably wouldn't go beyond talking smack about America and our policies until a convenient target is in their backyards. $3 and a cantene of goat's milk won't get you that far so if they can't hitch a ride, walk or ride a mule there it is probably too far.
It is very likely they never would have done anything but herd goats were we not conveniently next door in Iraq.
I personally don't really care if we are causing more short term terrorism because of this war or not. I can see the long term strategic benefit of a victory in Iraq, and a little short term terrorism is a small price to pay.
I hope more jihadis are coming in and dying personally, because that would make our job easier. Now we don't have to kill them later! I just am not sure that is how it will happen.
As for Binny, I don't even know what you are arguing. He received his jihadi training and experience in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets as did countless other Muja, you can't argue against that. As I said, I don't know what you are arguing.
I am very aware of Binnie's history. Whether he went to the Sudan and back to Afghanistan later is moot. Whether he hated America before or after that is moot, the point is, he got his solid experience in warfare in Afghanistan. Just as many other new jihadis will from Iraq.
and on this point-
The flypaper theory would be a valid theory were those coming to fight in Iraq all old Al Q members who were guaranteed to die when they came into the country.
I don't even know what you're talking about here? How the hell did you glean that from my comment.
My argument was that if we find that the jihadis we are killing in Iraq were not mostly already established Al Q terorists before the conflict, it invalidates a theory that says the conflict is good because all these known terrorists will be drawn to Iraq where we can kill them and be better off for it.
Numbers coming out of Iraq seem to indicate that the jihadis in Iraq are largely recruits radicalized or shall I say, activated(they were likely already radical but with no targets) by the Iraq conflict.
The question that matters for me is "are we killing these idiots in Iraq or are they going to be going home with newfound skill after the conflict has settled."
That's it, if we are killing them at a high rate, then cool, if we aren't then we need to kill more that's all.
By the by, Crawford is my family name, you wouldn't happen to know of any George Washington Crawford's in your family history would you? Israel's Gap, NC ring any bells for you? Any known Scotsmen hanging around the family tree?
Others have understood "that he would not allow his people to live and that he still refuses them the burial rights"
Translation from French by Sanda Kaufman
Post-colonialism, networks, exploitation and contempt
On June 29, 1994, while the operation Turquoise (French military operation in Rwanda presented to the public as a humanitarian operation) was sneaking out the authors of the genocide, and while the massacre of the Tutsis continued, the chief of staff of the French Army forces, Admiral Lanxade, talking on the Radio Monte-Carlo, insisted that he could not "be reproached for having armed those who kill". In support of his remarks he made an argument directly borrowed from the strategy used to dissimulate Franceâs responsibility in the Tutsi genocide behind the smoke screen of a tribal fight: "Besides", he continued, "the massacres were perpetrated with sticks, machetes, bayonets !" He probably imagined managing to bleach the French Army in the ears of listeners, inviting them to hold responsible only the immediate perpetrators for the massacre of Tutsis.
As far as the French citizens are concerned, it is even simpler: in light of testimonies such that of Lanxade, they are content to pretend that they have been manipulated in 1994, and since then. Does this argument exonerate the French civil society, and particularly its political class, from its incapacity to put a term to the underground, mafia-style management of the Franco-African relations that persisted for four decades? Nothing is less sure. Isn't it, in fact, our neglect and our inaction that made possible the institutionalization of a system of which the Tutsi genocide â a million assassinations â in Rwanda is but one manifestation? It seems almost a slip, following the permanent hijacking of the African natural resources by France, which requires the denial of democracy for the Africans.
In the 1960s, walking in the step with the world anti-colonial movement, France officially broke up with the majority of its colonies. It is only time for the Africans to realize that they were misled -- that a French neocolonialism was born, at the very moment when colonialism was dying out; that it did not cease weaving its net from the Elysee, under the watch of a Jacques Foccart, who was soon going to trap the African continent and to maintain it in an inextricable dependence. Foccart, who deceased 8 years ago, was the former right arm of the former French president General de Gaulle. He co-founded of the Civic Action Service (SAC) of sad memory, gathering delinquents in the service of the De Gaulle regime. It is he also, the former "Mr. Africa", who was at the origin of this cobweb, more known under the name of Foccart network, that organized many coups d'etat in Africa in the years 1960. At the base of this Machiavellian strategy, the newly independent nations never tasted in practice one ounce of this sovereignty promised by their new statute.
After having made this observation, it remained necessary to understand the mechanism by which this underhanded system could be maintained to our days, while no tenant of the Elysee considered putting an end to it, and even less denouncing his predecessors. It seems as if all outgoing presidents were giving their successors the keys to FranceAfrica, just as they transferred to them the keys to the nuclear weapon.
In the 1970s, it was the French politician Charles Pasqua who introduced the current president of the republic to the gangster system of FranceAfrica. Pasqua asserted himself with his elbows, like a post-De Gaulle version of Foccart, and did not hesitate to benefit the former French socialist president Mitterrand father and son with the advantages of his own network.
In 1986, the current president of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, has also recovered the Foccart network. From now on, borrowing from De Gaulle his very dainty formula "when I fart, Foccart stinks !" one no longer knows in which direction to sniff in order to locate the sources of flatulence of Chiraquia (France, n.t.). Darn, they are far too many !
The citizenâs vote weapon
The Rwandans are now endeavoring to democratically revive their country. Meanwhile, beyond challenging the impunity of the French strategists and collaborators to the Tutsi genocide, which conditions the political profile of future French generations, there is another means a democracy offers its people so that it can make itself heard - a citizenâs weapon citizen that does not evoke our national anthem, which is called the vote.
In 2007, the French will have to choose their new president and civil society would do well to wonder, starting now, about the opportunity of placing on the agenda of prospective candidates the issue of eradicating Franco-African underground practices. To avoid being reproached for sinning by naivety, we must ask ourselves if it is even possible to drag the esoteric practices of FranceAfrica under the light of political debate and if it is economically reasonable to hope to put an end to it. The problem is that this Franco-African Mafia has overtaken political circles as well as the media and that it knew how to distribute its rewards among those whom it needed.
The Hundred Days or The Spirit of Sacrifice ! We might think that de Villepin took out a subscription for the hundred days: a hundred days to restore confidence in the country. But especially, a hundred days to support actively, from his post of director of the cabinet of Foreign Affairs, the extermination of a million Tutsi men, women and children, in an ethnocide that the State civil servant, transgressing all conventions of the gentlemen, would try to dilute with the lowly thesis of the "double genocide".
This is an impossible stance, between the auto-attributed values of Praise for the fire robbers and the terrible remarks Villepin made on September 1, 2003 on the RFI waves, when had the audacity to speak about the "terrible genocides which struck Rwanda". By using the genocide term in the plural, he joined François Mitterrand, who inaugurated the expression at the time of the Franco-African summit of Biarritz in November 1994, triggering at once a polemic paralleling the ignominy of the "double-genocide" thesis. And now Villepin, hardly two years ago, put it in his head to take an active part in the revision campaign of the hundred days of the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda ! But he will no longer be able to claim to have found his words without risking discrediting himself in the world of the fire robbers !
However, the words exist neither to lie, nor to serve the deadly propaganda
All this does not even speak to the order to abandon the personnel of the French embassy in Kigali to the genocidal killers, which is likely to have emanated from the one of the persons in charge of the Quai dâOrsay (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs). And if this is not the case, then it came undoubtedly from the governing Cabinet to which our "national poet" belonged, and which, together with him, managed for France the Rwandan double-genocide...
Isn't it risky, for the image of France in the world, to elect to the presidency a man likely to be called in front of the courts for complicity in a genocide and to be condemned by them, given that there is not diplomatic immunity in this field? The question deserves to be asked.
At the time of the first live transmission of the French very popular tv show Everyone is talking about it, which, according to its animator Thierry Ardissonâs recent announcement, will happen probably in the presence of the current Prime Minister, it is not impossible to imagine that they will manage to make him share the limelight with some others, something he has understandably refused to date. Not much to see in this avoidance, however, considering the definition that the aspirant to the Elysee throne gives of the poet, who "plunges in the depths of the mirrors to drink the naked reality" (page 395). Is the poet no longer thirsty?
So when Villepin writes that "the international community only became aware too late of the gravity of the facts", it seems useful to remind him that it is not the international community which, more than one half million dead after the beginning of the massacre, continued to deliver weapons to the authors of the genocide, but France alone, with the permission of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose cabinet he fully directed then.
As for the "gravity of the facts", the current the Prime Minister knew it sufficiently to alert in time the international community; and this well before events of â94, since between 1992 and 1993, in his capacity as deputy manager of the Quai dâOrsay to the African and Malgasi businesses, alongside Paul Dijoud, he had been able to follow very closely the irreversible rise of tropical Nazism in Rwanda.
At that time, they already spoke of sending the Tutsis down the river to a place which they had arbitrarily decreed to be their origin. And not by boat, Mr. minister. During the genocide, numerous corpses of Tutsis would indeed be thrown in the Nyabarongo River for this purpose.
De Villepin also tries to legitimate the Turquoise operation by a "will of France to face the acceleration of the events on the ground". We agree. Except that it was in no case an issue of a humanitarian operation, as the government announced, but an attempt aiming to slow down the progression of the army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, whom it was necessary to prevent from taking Kigali in order to prevent Rwanda from leaving the French zone of influence.
The attempt of the Prime Minister to claim that at the time of this operation "France made the choice of the humanitarian intervention" is in the domain of the laughable. To rest a claim on the alibi of some hundred hospital beds conveyed by Turquoise to Rwanda, when we know the extent of the disaster unfolding there, would not hold water in front of the jury in court. The jurors would quickly understand that to put an end to the organized massacre of Tutsis was far from being de Villepinâs preoccupation or that of his friends, whose concern was rather to block from advancing the only force that planned to make it stop.
Villepin also declares that "France endeavored to shed light on the events", relying for evidence on "the exemplarity" of "the parliamentary mission of information chaired by Mr. QuilÚs (former French ministry of defense)". This is to ignore the many incidents that marked this investigation. Such is the absence of the testimony of the former chief of the French National Gendarmes Intervention Group (GIGN), Paul Barril, about whom Paul QuilÚs was happy to pretend that the undesirable witness was "unfortunately" at this time "in on assignment in the US". Mr. de Villepin, contrary to your declaration, France made all the effort to remove from the curiosity of its own representatives the man employed as link between the Rwandan genocidal government and the Elysee. He was the one who kept François Mitterrand informed every morning, when he read his reports submitted to him, with the croissants,by the godfather of his daughter, François de Grossouvre.
When Villepin chooses to enumerate some of the " tragic precedents" which "remind him that, in the face of serious violations of humans right (...), it is necessary to intervene without delay", he relies on the "Rwanda, Bosnia or Kosovo" examples. But why doesnât he rely on the "tragic precedent" for France of the electoral failure of the petro-dictator Denis Sassous Guesso? This was a popular disavowal, constituting a grave violation of the "rights of the FrancAfrican Mafia" ! This electoral failure led France at once, if we are to believe French inquiry magistrates who obtained the proof during a search at the French oil company Elf, to organize a putsch with the support of the genocidal Hutus. This was a tragic precedent, financed by France, which resulted in the death of men by the thousands.
Evoking the establishment of the International Penal Tribunal for Rwanda whose "refusal of impunity" de Villepin praises loudly and in writing, he does not have the discipline to resist adding that "it is truly the spirit in which France worked in favor of the International Penal Court". It is hypocrisy ! In truth, it is following a mobilization of the French civil society, led a few months before the convention of Rome by the socialist politician Elisabeth Guigou, that Jospin and Chirac were forced at the last minute to lend the official support of France to the International Penal Court. France obtained in exchange for its nationals a clause exonerating them for seven years from being pursued for war crimes. What is this fierce negotiation carried out for obtaining this indulgence, if it is not an incredible confession of culpability of our authorities ?!
Galouzeau de Villepin also knows, when the opportunity arises, how to become professor of applied political science. In his forum on Liberation, he explained the way in which it is necessary to solve the internal political crises in Africa; noting that "from principles nourished by the experiment a method can emerge for dealing with the crises". He praises his own method, which consists of a "conciliation around a government of transition charged to preserve the national unity".
It is either chutzpah, or lack of consciousness, but it is surely gigantic ! Several years earlier, when he was functioning as principal private secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, de Villepin had allowed shelter to be given within the French embassy in Kigali, to those who -- a few hours after having executed Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the Prime Minister of the true government of national unity, that had resulted from the negotiations of Arusha â were going to form, on French territory, the "government of transition" of which our presidential candidate is telling us. It was the the Rwandan Interim Government (GIR), more simply known under the name of genocidal government !
It is the story of an adventurous and recidivist character, which, atop an awkward harp, would like to melt among us like a cave cricket and even to be carried on the throne. A friend of the killers who pretends to hold as important "that no wall closes again as a tomb stone on frozen truths" (page 395 of Praise of the fire robbers).
Others have understood "that he would not allow his people to live and that he still refuses them the burial rights" [1], by denying the reality of the genocide which Tutsis underwent, by denying the reality of the genocide that Villepin and its colleagues took part in inflicting on them !
Notes:
[1] Paraphrase drawn from The injustice, in the collection Memorial from the Black Island by the chilian poet Pablo Neruda.
#1
To say the truth Villepin was acting on the orders of a right wing government who was trying to limit the involvement of France in the Rwandan conflict. had he had his way Francois Mitterand (socialist) would have had the French Army driving back the FPR (Tutsi) so genocide would have continued. Also the Rwandan president talls that he made a visit to Hubert Vedrine (I don't recall if he was Foreign Minister or his aide ie Villepin's predecessor) during the preceeding socilaist government and he was told "if you try to conquer Rwanda no Tutsi will be left alive". I hear the interview and the wording was (purposefully?) ambiguous: not clear if he was threatening or warning.
Just to recall that the main responsabilities with the genocide had to be laid at the feet of the socialists and specially of Francois Mitterrand.
Context: The right had been in power only for a year a the moment of the genocide (after 5 years of socialist government) and only for theree years in the thirteen preceeding years. In addition Foreign Policy has been traditionally the "reserved domain" of French Presidents since de Gaulle: ie it is the President not the First Minister or the Foreign Minister who determine France's Foreign policy. Even when the first minister (who has theorically the real power) in charge has been from an opposite party the President has ever been the real boss in Foreign matters.
#2
More context: the French President is the commander in chief so it is him not the first minister who can give orders to Army units. The FM can block military initiatives by not financing (that is how the operation for driving back the FPR was downgraded to pseudo-humanitarian Manta) but not initiating them.
#3
JFM,
If you ever want it I got about 45 mins hi-res video of that Ivory Coast shooting. Sent out by their national radio station as raw footage on a bit-torrent right after it happened. Amnesty Int. refused to look at it.
Summary of the plot of the first showing of the series âCommander in Chiefâ were badanov writing it.
The story opens with the democrat president listening to âGod Bless Americaâ sung by French school children. The president sits with a huge grin on his face not realizing that the words actually translate to; âGod Damn America, the land I loathe.â Network reporters report this fact adding a comment from the president's aide, âWe respect all cultures.â
While on the way back to the US, the president suffers a stroke and is incapacitated. He calls McKenzie Allen to his bedside, where he says to her: âYou're great furniture, but you have the political skill of a drug dealer. I am going to appoint the Speaker of the House. I want you to resign.â Allen agrees to resign.
But in a scene at the vice president's house, her aides are all in tears about the coming appointment of the Speaker.
âHe hates women,â cries aide Fred Burg, wiping his tears. âHe'll bring religion into the classroom.â
Dave says, â There there. If I have anything to do with it, I'm going to stop those bastards from bringing religion back into the classroom.â The remark lifts all spirits, then one aide, pipes in, â What about Muslims?â
âThat's not a religion., â says Allen. â It's an ideology, so it's okay, if children pray five times a day.â The aide is subsequently fired for even suggesting Islam is a religion.
In her address to congress after taking the president's post, someone switches off the teleprompter, so Allen saves the day by talking anyway and getting a standing ovation several times.
One day an aide rushes into her office and says: âA Nigerian woman human rights activist is being held by the Nigerians who say they are going to kill her.â
Allen responds: âThey will kill her over the dead bodies of whomever we send to rescue her.â
A National Security Council meeting is held and plans are set in motion for a rescue. As it happens a multi billion dollar aircraft carrier battle group just happens to be standing by off the coast of Nigeria..
But we see in a scene that cutbacks in intelligence and military readiness , and legal rules reimplemented by the Department of Justice have already affected the mission.
The SEALS return to ship with a black woman and an after action report. The Nigerians kill the woman human rights activist anyway, when the SEALS realize they were given the wrong address. The woman they rescued was someone held on suspicion of starting an Avon business.
The networks rush camera to the site of the battle reporting that more than 50 Muslims were killed in the raid. In a press conference, Allen vows to cut the budget of the agencies who screwed up this mission
#4
ABC insiders deny there's any connection between real-life presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and their new TV show "Commander in Chief" - where Geena Davis makes her debut tonight as America's first woman president. But it turns out the show's lead writer is a longtime Clinton campaign insider who held a top job in Hillary's press office.
"Writer Steve Cohen used to work for her in the 1990s, serving as the then-first lady's deputy communications director," reports the Village Voice.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/29/2005 13:56 Comments ||
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#5
I watched it and kind of liked it. I am curious that they clear villian is a GOP Speaker, I am guesing that they will go full-fledged "GOP Bad" next week. Next weeks plot is political dirty tricks and the like, care to guess who will be behind those? Look for a cross between Rove/Delay/Rumsfeld.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
IT is the fundamental tenet of all terrorism, not least the wicked tenets of Al-Qaeda, that it seeks by the sheer inhumanity of its vicious assaults to rob those targeted of humane and measured responses. To achieve this the terrorists themselves have to behave inhumanely. Yet every terrorist, from the chiefs to the foot soldiers, is somebodyâs father or somebodyâs son. The effect on a family that discovers to its horror that one of its members is a committed fanatic is invariably traumatic. On Monday this paper reported the tragic case of Abdul Rahman Al-Suwailmi of Riyadh whose sons Ahmad and Muhammad were lured away last year to join Al-Qaeda. 
... The Stones have put themselves on the front pages without putting themselves under fire because denouncing neocons allows them to be edgy without going over the edge. As recent history has shown, this is the surest and safest way to rescue one's fading career from permanent decline. Nowadays, Bush bashing is the last refuge of the has-been scoundrel, the panacea for pop stars of the past.
