via jihadwatch:
Did you hear that the Pope converted to Islam before he died?
No, you didn't? But that's all over Egypt. It's the latest rumor of the week. People who support it point to the fact that the Pope had dirt put on his corps ( an Islamic burial tradition) and that he wanted his memoirs burned to hide his secret conversion of course ( why else would he have them burned they would argue), which he showed in his establishing of good relations with the Muslim community and opposition to the Iraq war. The Pope, they would say without a shred of doubt in their voice, died a muslim. And some people actually believed that! Ain't that some shit?
Posted by: growler ||
04/27/2005 11:39:01 AM ||
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#9
Islamic Moses? 2000 yrs before Mo the pedophile.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2005 14:31 Comments ||
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#10
Oh yeah and what about Bill Gates converting??
In Muslimcloudcookooland ALL absolutely ALL of the greatest Western geniuses and saints were actually secretly muslim.
They say the same thing about Shakespeare with a completely straight face. One guy even presented a paper with what he called literary "evidence" that Shakespeare was a muslim since, he says, his plays could only have been produced by a man influenced by muslim ideas and concepts.
And Teresa of Liseaux, a woman who was singularly devoted to Jesus the Son of God and the Savior of the world, a woman who believed with all her heart in the Holy Trinity, is called the Littlest Muslim by some muslims. Just because she was famous and good. And they can't imagine how anyone could be good or uncommonly brilliant unless they are muslim.
The craziness is just off the scale. Its incomprehensible.
Intelligence official Major Ali al-Siyani may have been the real target of the attack at the economy ministry on Monday in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, say security sources quoted by the Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arab. In the attack, an explosive device was thrown out of a vehicle outside the ministry building, killing one person and injuring three.
It is thought the device was aimed at a military vehicle travelling down the road where the police academy is located, near the local customs offices. In response, the troops opened fire, killing a terrorist who later died from his injuries. The person killed when the bomb exploded was a student travelling through the area.
Security sources believe the attack was carried out by followers of the rebel Shiite Imam and former MP, Hussein al-Houthi, with the aim of killing an important figure from the military secret services. Al-Siyani was not injured in the attack though. Al-Houthi was killed last September by the security forces, after leading a three month uprising against the government.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 4:30:40 PM ||
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Al-Qaeda's Saudi branch posted its Sawt Al-Jihad online magazine Wednesday after a hiatus of several months, dedicating it to clashes earlier this month between militants and security men in the kingdom.
The 29th edition of the magazine, which runs to more than 40 pages, includes an editorial by Saud al-Otaibi, written before he was killed in the April 3-5 clashes and who is described by the authorities as Al-Qaeda's chief in Saudi Arabia. In the article, Otaibi denied Saudi authorities had "eliminated jihad (holy war)" in the kingdom and urged "those who could not join the mujahedeen (warriors) in the Arabian peninsula" to make their way "to Iraq or another front for jihad".
They should "target Americans and kill the enemies of God among the crusaders and apostates in the peninsula of the Arabs or elsewhere".
This article starring:
SAUD AL OTAIBI
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Sawt Al-Jihad
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 4:29:38 PM ||
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Inside Saudi Arabia today there's a national campaign against extremism. Television ads, billboards and even ATM machines drive home the toll of terror. The Saudis recently hosted a worldwide conference condemning all terrorism and declaring they've cracked down. "When imams preach intolerance or hate towards others, they are dismissed or punished," says Adel Al-Jubeir, a Saudi Arabian foreign affairs advisor.
Senior U.S. officials say the Saudis have changed significantly. Many clerics now speak out against jihad. Yet when it comes to killing Americans in Iraq, some send a very different message. "I praise the jihad against the occupiers in Iraq," said Sheik Aidh Al-Qarni on Arabic-TV. "Throats must be split and skulls must be shattered."
Another cleric says suicide bombings are forbidden inside Saudi Arabia, but outside they can be "a good thing." "There is nothing wrong with [suicide attacks] if they cause great damage to the enemy," said Sheik Abdallah Al-Muslih, also on Arabic-TV. In fact, in November 2004, 26 Saudi clerics published a religious statement urging Muslims to wage holy war in Iraq. "Jihad against the occupiers is a must," said the statement. "[It is] not only a legitimate right™ but a religious duty."
NBC News went to Saudi Arabia to talk to some of the clerics, including Sheik Safar Al-Hawaly, who signed the letter. "It is the right of all the people in the world to push and to resist the occupier," he says. Sheik Mosa al-Garni, who receives a government salary," told NBC News that jihad is justified because Americans are aggressors against a Muslim country. "The terrorist in Iraq is the American Army," he says. He urges young Saudis to go to Iraq to fight. "If you are physically capable, don't hesitate. Go with God's blessings," he says. The Saudi government acknowledges that none of the four clerics has been reprimanded or punished. A Saudi dissident says Saudi leaders engage in double talk.
Oh, duh.
"The public message says, 'Terrorism is bad.'The private message says, 'Terrorism is bad only when it's against us.' When it's against the infidels or other people, it's OK and even celebrated," says Ali Al-Ahmed with the Saudi Institute. However, a senior Saudi official insists that these clerics represent "a vocal fringe minority," whose views do not represent the Saudi government or religious establishment. He says the government cannot control these clerics because most are not on the payroll, and they are exercising their rights to free speech.
Which critics of the regime don't seem to have.
This article starring:
ABDALLAH AL MUSLIH
Learned Elders of Islam
MOSA AL GARNI
Learned Elders of Islam
SAFAR AL HAWALY
Learned Elders of Islam
SHEIK AIDH AL QARNI
Learned Elders of Islam
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 1:41:20 AM ||
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#1
CIA? Its just crying for wetworks. Where are they?
#2
Good for MSNBC for doing this article. They probably are only critizing the Saudis because Bush held hands with Abdullah but this makes me think Bush ought to hold hands more often with abdullah.
Here is an issue which, if the Dems were smart, they could jump on to make people think they were serious in the WoT.
Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan, seen in video seated to the right of the crown prince, is chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council. His sermons and words carry great significance. In an audiotape secretly recorded at a government mosque last October and obtained by NBC News, Luhaidan encourages young Saudis to go to Iraq to wage war against Americans. "If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so," says Luhaidan in Arabic on the tape.
Why, I do believe them's fightin' words.
He warns Iraq is risky because "evil satellites and drone aircraft" watch the borders. But he says going is religiously permissible. "The lawfulness of his action is in fighting an enemy who is fighting Muslims and came for war," says Luhaidan.
The sheik also says those donating money to the fight in Iraq should be sure it actually helps the cause. "This statement shows the real face of the Saudi government," says Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute, based in Washington. Al-Ahmed says that while Saudi officials, including Sheik Luhaidan, publicly oppose jihad in Iraq, privately some send a different message. "He is telling Saudis it's OK to go to Iraq and kill Americans and Iraqis and they won't be punished for doing that," says Al-Ahmed.
Just don't bring it home.
A Saudi spokesman twice denied the tape was authentic, claiming Saudi intelligence analysts determined it was "a crude fake." So NBC News called Luhaidan himself, in Saudi Arabia, and played the tape. Luhaidan confirmed those were his words, saying in Arabic, "Yes, this is my voice."
"But everying I said was a lie, all lies! Are we off-mike yet?"
But the sheik said what he really meant was that it's not worth it for young Saudis to go to Iraq and that the Iraqis are capable of fighting on their own.
This week, Saudi Arabia's crown prince met with President Bush on economic issues, including oil prices, and a White House official says the problem of extremism was raised.
This article starring:
SHEIK SALEH AL LUHAIDAN
Learned Elders of Islam
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 1:36:01 AM ||
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#1
Wow. It's a good thing they're our allies in the WoT. Just think if they were on the other side and supported...
Should we be worried about the threat from organised terrorism or is it simply a phantom menace being used to stop society from falling apart?
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares.
The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.
In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.
It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.
Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.
These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.
A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington.
Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.
The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.
They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.
The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to "see the truth"'.
The Power of Nightmares will be broadcast over three nights from Tuesday 18 to Thursday, 20 January, 2005 at 2320 GMT on BBC Two. The final part has been updated in the wake of the Law Lords ruling in December that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial was illegal. "And there was no such thing as the Holocaust because the Nazis were just actors wearing outrageous clothing in Hollywood movies!"
#3
The Beeb will keep up this blather because they are a useful idiot of the radicals---at this time. One day one of their brilliant reporters will piss off a jihadi and they will get boomed, sliced, diced, or shot. Then the beeb may change their story---or not.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 20:11 Comments ||
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#4
You know, if I was the british public, I'd not only cancel my service, but I'd demand a refund. These people running things like the BBC need to be locked away or used for the organ banks.
#5
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.
I'm really offended. The Beeb has left out my group, Americans Who Get Seriously Pissed When They Have To Watch Other Americans Jump Out Of Tall Office Buildings And Who Are Prone To Hold Violent Grudges For Damn Near Eternity. I don't know how many of us there are, but I think enough to merit a mention.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/27/2005 20:41 Comments ||
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#6
CBC (the Canadian equivalent to the BBC, which is even more anti-American and socialist, if thatâs possible) is airing this show and I saw one of the episodes. It basically said that al-Qaida is a fabrication that was the brainchild of the US Government during the trial for the 1998 embassy bombers.
As for Government conspiracies, it basically says that Islamic terrorism isnât such a big deal and that the governments are playing up these fears for their own agenda.
This âdocumentaryâ is a conspiracy theorists dream. Sadly, it would be laughable if so many didnât take these âtheoriesâ so seriously.
The Beeb must present this rebuttal precisely because such a network is proven to exist and the Beeb's agenda is desperately threatened by this knowledge.
The Beeb's case will be a strawman, simply demonstrating that terrorism is not perpetrated by a single monolithic organization, and that it is not the product of a single ideology.
It will not address the reality as I and other neo-Enlightenment thinkers see it: that the terror gangs are part of an enormous network of power-seeking ideologues, a global culture of media-based totalitarianism, each element blending into the next and including the BBC itself. Al Qaeda is a real, if loose, organization in and of itself. The 19 9-11 hijackers did not dream up and execute their plan all by themselves. It is only one of many terror gangs, all of which have informal contacts and common resources with at least some of the others. In turn, there is an obvious symbiosis between the institutional media culture and the terrorists themselves, with totalitarian academia (another nest of vile authoritarians) playing a supporting role. Besides their supreme confidence in their own fitness to rule, these elements have one other thing in common: they are threatened by the modern world, the world of the internet and rising incomes and rising literacy rates. Far from being progressives, they represent a reactionary force, a continuation of the centralized elitist power-structure that prevailed before the Enlightenment. Mass advertising, especially the classic "illusion of distinction" trope, has created millions of little aristocrats, the mass produced elites of pop-culture and middle-class status-seeking. That the terrorists find their main support among those who see, or hope to see, themselves as relatively privileged, from the 9-11 hijackers themselves to their campus moonbat apologists, is scarcely in doubt. The final elimination of this element, rooted in the conflicts and upheavels of the 18th century, is a natural step in societal evolution. The elitist institutional media are the key, fueling the elitist pretensions that drive the power-seekers. Their destruction is both necessary and inevitable.
Power to the people, death to traitors, death to the media lords.
#11
I'm reminded of a story from the darkest days of World War 2, the period just before the French surrender to the Germans in 1940. A Polish submarine, having escaped when Poland was overrun the previous autumn, was operating with the British. The captain's name was Boris. His crew spotted an Italian ship. Italy had just attacked reeling France, and Great Britain had declared war on the Italians.
Captain Boris, however, was informed that the Polish government-in-exile had not gotten around to declaring war on Italy, and he could therefore not attack the ship he had in his sights. The Captain, a man of action, instantly responded, "I, Boris, declare war on Italy" and promptly sank the ship.
BISHKEK: About 50 protestors ended a sit-in in the compound of Kyrgyzstan's national security service on Tuesday amid continued tensions following president Askar Akayev's ouster, witnesses and officials said. The protestors left the compound they had occupied since early on Monday after the authorities agreed conditional release terms for two of four men whose freedom the protestors were demanding, acting Prosecutor General Azimbek Beknazarov said. The four were detained on Friday on suspicion of involvement in the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir and on suspicion of illegal weapons possession, Beknazarov said. "Two of the detainees have been conditionally released... after we considered the difficult situation. If they violate their release terms they will immediately be re-arrested," Beknazarov told journalists. The two remaining detainees are in a "very severe" state of health possibly after being beaten in custody, Beknazarov added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Australian Political leaders have condemned comments from a Sydney Muslim leader that rape victims had no-one to blame but themselves.
Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohamad, 34, has been quoted by a newspaper as telling a lecture at the Bankstown Town Hall, in south-western Sydney, that women who wore skimpy clothing teased men.
A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No-one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world ...," Sheik Mohamed was quoted as saying in the lecture. "Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, mini skirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature."
NSW Premier Bob Carr said the sheik could face criminal charges if he made comments which incited rapes. "If anything the sheik says in future appears to be an incitement to the crime of rape ... I just want to assure him that the full force of the criminal law will be brought to bear," he told reporters.
Mr Carr said most Muslim Australians did not share the sheik's views. "I know he's appalled Muslim Australians, appalled Muslim Australians who know the sort of anger that will be directed at their community because of these extremist views that are not held by the vast majority of Muslims in this country."
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello also criticised the sheik's comments. "If such comments are made I consider them totally inappropriate, untrue and unhelpful," Mr Costello told reporters. "Australian women are free to dress in the western style and nothing gives an excuse for them to be molested in any way. This is Australia. Women are free to dress as they choose and they deserve to be safe on our streets and in our parks and they are entitled to respect."
NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden described Sheik Mohamad's comments as prehistoric. "This guy ought to go back to the cave where he belongs," Mr Brogden told reporters.
Efforts to contact Sheik Mohamad were unsuccessful. In his cave and won't come out, huh?
This article starring:
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello
NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden
NSW Premier Bob Carr
SHEIK FAIZ MOHAMAD
Learned Elders of Islam
Posted by: God Save The World ||
04/27/2005 11:32:23 PM ||
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A Swiss-based businessman accused by the US Treasury of providing financial help to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda carried a Saudi diplomatic passport, according to copies of documents contained in a book published on Thursday in Paris.
The documents include a letter from the US Treasury to the Swiss authorities, which says that al-Qaeda and its leader received financial assistance from the businessman Ali bin Mussalim "as of late September 2001". They also include a copy of Mr bin Mussalim's diplomatic passport.
The disclosures, contained in Al-Qaeda Will Conquer (Al-Qa'ida Vaincra), by the author Guillaume Dasquie, will be uncomfortable reading for the Saudi government, which has disputed any suggestions of official complicity in the attacks of September 11 2001.
The January 2002 letter from George Wolfe, then the US Treasury's deputy general counsel, says Mr bin Mussalim "has been providing indirect investment services for al-Qaeda, investing funds for bin Laden, and making cash deliveries on request to the al-Qaeda organisation".
The letter links him to the now defunct Bank Al-Taqwa and its founder, Youssef Nada. Both have been named by the US and United Nations as providers of terrorist finance.
Mr bin Mussalim was found dead in his residence in Lausanne last June, a month after reports of the US Treasury letter first emerged.
The existence of the letter has been previously reported by some news organisations, but Mr bin Mussalim's diplomatic status was not emphasised. According to the book, Mr bin Mussalim was found dead in his residence in Lausanne last June, a month after reports of the US Treasury letter first emerged.
The book draws attention to Mr bin Mussalim's role as intermediary in negotiations over the 4.3bn ($5.56bn, £2.9bn) Sawari 2 contract, signed in 1994 between the French and Saudi governments to supply frigates to the Saudi navy and for which it says he received 50m in commissions. Mr bin Mussalim's role in controversial financial dealings goes back to the early 1980s, when US prosecutors accused him and others of attempts to corner the silver market.
Other documents cited in the book include a flight manifest of the so-called bin Laden flight, in which members of the bin Laden family were flown out of the US in the days after the September 11 attacks. The manifest shows 29 people aboard the flight that flew to Le Bourget airport from Boston on September 20, after originating in Los Angeles and then flying to Orlando and Washington Dulles airport. This contradicts the number cited in the report of the 9/11 Commission published last year, which said there were 26 people aboard. The manifest shows the aircraft flew on from Le Bourget to Geneva and Jeddah.
This article starring:
ALI BIN MUSALIM
al-Qaeda
author Guillaume Dasquie
George Wolfe
YUSEF NADA
Bank Al-Taqwa
Bank Al-Taqwa
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 4:26:59 PM ||
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The car in which an Italian secret agent died shielding a hostage from US "friendly fire" in Iraq has arrived in Italy for investigators to inspect. An Italian air force cargo plane delivered the Toyota Corolla to a base near Rome days after reports suggested America had cleared its soldiers. Rome is still investigating the death of agent Nicola Calipari, who died as his car approached a US checkpoint. Prosecutors are due to examine the car at the Practica di Mare air base, the Associated Press news agency reports.
They just got the damm car? I hope we got a lot of good pictures before we handed it over.
Testimony from Ms Sgrena, a journalist for communist newspaper Il Manifesto, and a second intelligence agent who also survived, appears to conflict with what US soldiers said about the shooting. Analysis of bullet damage to the vehicle is expected to provide key data on how close the soldiers were to the car and from what angle they fired.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 8:51:39 AM ||
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#3
A good summary of Sgrena by Andrew Bolt: The power of lies. Truly a waste of skin.
Posted by: ed ||
04/27/2005 12:31 Comments ||
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#4
We should have put about 100 of those plastic stick-on bullet holes all over the car before we turned it over to the Italian ransom payers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 20:41 Comments ||
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#5
"On the day of Sgrena's release, Iraqi TV broadcast the interrogation by police of several local and foreign terrorists who had been hired to slaughter nine Iraqi policemen for $250 a head."
Is there substantiation for the ransom story? If so
Somebody in Italy gave murdering/human trafficking jihadis money.
The jihadis buy sustenance in the form of protection, food, ammo.
Iraqis and coalition soldiers die from that ammo.
And now someone floats the notion that we should be supplicant to Italy in accepting our report? Phooey.
#6
Jules,
Take your pick from a list of Iraqi TV translations: CONFESSIONS OF CAPTURED TERRORIST.
Just from the first item #630: Muhammad Ramadhan: I slaughtered two while they held them for me.
Interviewer: How much did you get for this slaughtering?
Muhammad Ramadhan: The three of us got $1,200 in total.
Interviewer: $1,200 for six slaughtered people?
Muhammad Ramadhan: Each of us got $400.
Interviewer: $200 for each slaughtered person.
Muhammad Ramadhan: Yes, sir.
Posted by: ed ||
04/27/2005 21:27 Comments ||
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#7
Jules,
I may have misunderstood. If you are asking for verification by the Italian gov that they paid ransom for Sgrena, then you won't get it. They are not going to officially admit they paid blood money for that communist bitch. Money that will be used kill hundreds or thousands of Iraqis and to atack US troops (who are supposedly an ally). But here is a BBC report detailing ransom rumors. Italy's ransom dilemma The Italian media have been carrying unconfirmed reports that 6m euros ($7.9m, £4.1m) changed hands to free Ms Sgrena. The government has not confirmed the claims, but for the first time there has been no official denial either.
When two young Italian aid workers were freed in September 2004, then Foreign Minister Franco Frattini denied that a ransom had been paid. But MP Giuliano Selva said the denial was "purely official", and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spoke of a "difficult choice which had to be made".
...
Talking to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno said thought it "very likely" that a ransom had been paid, and justified the move. "It is far preferable to pay a price that is relatively low compared to the value of a human life and to the political price of being blackmailed into pulling out the troops," he said.
Posted by: ed ||
04/27/2005 21:41 Comments ||
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THE suspected leader of al-Qaeda in Spain condemned the September 11 attacks, the Madrid train bombings and all acts of terrorism at his trial today, calling them a violation of Islam.
Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas is the prime suspect in the trial of 24 men accused of belonging to al-Qaeda and is one of three charged with mass murder over the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. "I deny it (terrorism) and I vigorously reject it in front of the whole world. ... I am not saying it to defend myself or anything. I say it because I feel it," said Barakat Yarkas, accused of recruiting and indoctrinating international militants. "I was never happy about it (September 11). ... They were completely wrong because Islam does not allow it," he said.
"I had nothing to do with that if there are any doubts," said Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, who was in jail at the time and has been since November 2001.
Earlier today and yesterday, Barakat Yarkas denied being a follower of Osama bin Laden and denied providing aid to hijacker Mohamed Atta during his visit to Spain in July 2001, two months before Atta is believed to have piloted one of the planes into the World Trade Centre.
This article starring:
ABU DAHDAH
al-Qaeda
IMAD EDIN BARAKAT YARKAS
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:12:47 AM ||
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#1
Okay. I've repented. Can I go now?
Posted by: Abu Dahdah ||
04/27/2005 8:53 Comments ||
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TORONTO: The Muslim Canadian Congress has expressed shock at the statement of a Bangladesh cabinet Minister who claimed that criticising Jamaat-e-Islamiis tantamount to criticizing Islam. In a report published in the Dhaka newspaper The Daily Star, Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami was reported as saying that speaking against Jamaat-e-Islami amounted to a conspiracy against Islam.
"And speaking against me is the same as speaking against JI, so shut yer fudge up and do as yer told!"
Rizwana Jafri, president of the MCC said she was shocked at Mr. Nizami's equating of Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami as one and the same. "This indicates a very fascist streak among Islamic fundamentalists who will do anything to destroy democracy and install Taliban type governments across the Muslim world."
This is from the Muslim Canadian Congress? Wow, my surprise meter is working, after all.
She added that the Muslim Canadian Congress denounces such claims in clear terms as absolutely unislamic and undemocratic. It shows a clear lack of understanding of Islam's divine peace-message.
She must not get out much
Tarek Fatah, a Board member of the MCC said any party who was complicit in the genocide of the Bangladeshi people in the 1971 Liberation War and worked as collaborators, should hang its head in shame instead of lecturing about Islam. The jamaat-e-islami's record is tainted as anti-democracy, not only in Bangladesh, but also in Pakistan, from where it draws much of its origin. As Muslim Canadians who cherish democracy and a separation of religion and state, we are alarmed at the silence of the Bangladeshi government in dealing with islamic fundamentalist forces that are trying to destroy the intrinsically democratic nature of Bangladeshi society.
We'd believe you more if you called yourselves "Canadian Muslims", but it's a start
Throughout Muslim history such efforts to monopolise Islam as the ownership of a selected few hardliners has caused immense harm and bloodshed; it is time to stop this in Bangladesh. Rizwana Jafri
President
Muslim Canadian Congress
www.muslimcanadiancongress.org
This article starring:
MOTIUR RAHMAN NIZAMI
Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 11:25:55 AM ||
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#1
No, Steve. "Canadian Muslims" uses Canadian to modify the noun Muslim, placing emphasis on the international status of the the religion. "Muslim Canadian" is one of many varieties of putatively loyal Canadian citizens, and that is the direction we want them to go.
(CNSNews.com) - "We've received reassurances from very reliable sources that Senator [George] Voinovich has obtained a new and fair outlook on the Bolton nomination." So says Move America Forward, a group that strongly supports Bolton's nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Somebody must have gotten him a tractor
Move America Forward said it has "indefinitely suspended" its radio ads blasting Voinovich for his surprise announcement last week that he did not feel comfortable supporting Bolton's nomination.
Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, joined Democrats in expressing concern about Bolton's dealings with co-workers and underlings. That forced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone a vote that would have sent Bolton's nomination to the full Senate for anticipated confirmation.
"At this point in time we believe John Bolton's nomination will progress from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Mr. Bolton will be able to receive an up-or-down vote from the full U.S. Senate - which is the way it should be," said Howard Kaloogian, co-chairman of Move America Forward.
Move America Forward said it spent tens of thousands of dollars airing radio ads throughout the state of Ohio on more than a dozen news/talk radio stations. The ads ran from April 21-25, and the pressure tactic apparently worked. "On Thursday, the day the ads began running, Voinovich's office phones were jammed with callers and computer e-mail in-baskets were clogged with messages related to the Bolton confirmation. It was no better Friday," Move America Forward said in an email message. Move America Forward says the attacks on John Bolton stem not from his qualifications, but from a "smear campaign" by anti-Bush Democrats.
"The U.N. has its lowest approval ratings in the history of the organization, and John Bolton is exactly the kind of strong, pro-American ambassador we need to take on the corruption and anti-Americanism that is becoming a dominant presence at the U.N., Move America Forward said.
Move America Forward board members are now mulling an "effort to persuade" Democrats Sens. Russ Feingold (Wis.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.) into voting for Bolton. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on Bolton's nomination on May 12. So far, all eight Democrats on the committee have opposed Bolton's nomination; and a tie vote would result if even one of the committee's 10 Republicans were to vote against him. It's still not clear what Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) will do on May 12.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 9:06:16 AM ||
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#1
If Voinovich had actually made the hearings, I think I'd have been less outraged. But for him to come in and say "Sorry--no, really: sorry--that I missed the hearings..."
#4
Frank: I can't agree. I told Voinovich I'll never vote for him again, and I meant it. He may have come around, but if he had done his job, Bolton would already be confirmed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/27/2005 10:35 Comments ||
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#5
Where the hell is Sen McConnell? LBJ never would have tolerated this nonsense from his troops when he was whip.
Bush needs to recognize that he won in 2004 because of national security Dems who crossed over to vote for him and that it's precisely these voters who loathe Kofi's Circus the most. If he doesn't get Bolton over the hump, then his party will be back to where it was in 2000.
Can't win national elections on religious/moral issues alone, folks. Turn up the heat and get Bolton over to Turtle Bay asap.
#6
Robert: Do reconsider. I know the Senator in a distant way, and he's done some things to help out a charitable organization I'm associated with. He's one of the good guys. He may have stumbled here (I wonder if the MSM didn't spin his words to make it look worse than it was, but that's another issue for another thread), but he recovered, and Bolton's going to be confirmed. Cut 'im some slack.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2005 10:54 Comments ||
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#7
Not if Bolton's not confirmed. Sorry, but this is huge. If Bolton goes down, Don Kofi wins, and his mafia circus will continue as before.
Voinovich didn't bother showing up for the hearings, then plays the "grow in office" card to curry favor with the press.
He may be a wonderful guy, but he wasn't elected to be a wonderful guy. He was elected to be a senator, and a Republican senator at that.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/27/2005 11:01 Comments ||
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#9
I am sick and tired of our senators and representatives shirking their duty and waffling out on basic issues. I said as much in my letter last Sunday to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (warning hat tip to Seafarious!). She has seemed to find the light in a timely fashion.
Voinovich was elected by his district to represent them in Congress. He was absent from one of the most important hearings affecting our relationship with the UN. Excuses are no excuse. He is acting like Senator Kerry acted for decades. A couple of sacrificial lamb senators and representatives that feel the WRATH of the citizen voters will straighten up the rest.
We are in a culural war with our enemies at home as intense as our dealings with terrorists on foreign soil. The battle for the soul of these United States, as well as for its very existance is in our hands for the next generations. Our so-called allies in Europe hope that we fail. The responsibility falls on our shoulders. Voinovich needs to feel the outrage of the citizens.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 11:29 Comments ||
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#10
I am ready to reward $$$ the GOP after they confirm the Judicial nominees that deserve it. On the flip side they won't see another dime if the falter and give in to the Demoncraps demands. I already gave $25 to the guy who is running to replace Jeffords (I will send more each month). But so far that is the only political contribution I am willing to fund. I know I am small potatoes, but a lot of us potatoes can feed a big organization.
#11
Mike - I'm with Robert on this one. I will always remember the look of abject horror on Mrs. V's face as she ran into the emergency room after their daughter was struck (and killed) by a drunk driver. My heart still breaks for them as I also have lost a child and know the feeling. BUT - we elected George to act like a Republican and fight for the values we hold. Getting Bolton in is part of this, but a very important part.
If he won't represent my interests in the Senate, I'll vote for someone who will.
#13
That, I can agree with. Way to rant, Paul! 'Course, you know that the tradition is for the winner to buy drinks for the rest of us . . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2005 12:35 Comments ||
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#14
I third that nomination! Way to go, AP!
Posted by: BA ||
04/27/2005 12:37 Comments ||
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#15
well - you all assume you know what I put in my email...I truly regret calling him a "pig-faced lying asshole....." and that was just the start... :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2005 12:41 Comments ||
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#17
Sometimes all you have to do is show the dog the stick you're going to beat him with before he slinks away.
Frist needs to start using the stick on the Dems who are blocking congress from doing its job (voting constitutionally on the nominees).
Salzar from Colorado showed his true colors - basically lied during the campaign about wanting a straight up or down vote on all the nominees.
If he had made that stand during the campaign, he would not have been elected. I wonder how many more lies and broken promises he will try to get away with?
by Chad Garrison, River Front Times. EFL; hat tip to LGF.
In a south-city Saint Louis Bread Co., a young auto mechanic named Samir puts down his coffee long enough to carefully eye the other patrons. Assured no one is paying him any mind, he lowers his voice to a guttural whisper, fidgets with the zipper on his black tracksuit and rubs his grease-stained fingers along a finely manicured goatee. Then, in a syncopated rhythm of street slang and accented English, he transports himself back in time to a bitter-cold December night in Iraq.
It had to have been the most sublime moment of his life. Samir tells how he arrived in Tikrit as an Arabic interpreter for United States Special Forces in late 2003, how he peered into a hidden bunker and heard a voice begging for mercy, how he reached into the darkness and pulled out Saddam Hussein.
"I was so angry," says Samir, who immigrated to St. Louis eleven years ago after fleeing Iraq. "I began cussing at him, calling him a motherfucker, a son-of-a-bitch -- you name it. I told him I was Shiite from the south and was part of the revolution against him in 1991. I said he murdered my uncles and cousins. He imprisoned my father.
"All these years of anger, I couldn't stop. I tried to say the worst things I could. I told him if he were a real man he would have killed himself. I asked him: 'Why are you living in that dirty little hole, you bastard? You are a rat. Your father is a rat.'"
In Arabic, Saddam told Samir to shut up. And when Saddam called him a traitor, an enraged Samir silenced his prisoner with a flurry of quick jabs to the face.
"I punched Saddam in the mouth." . . .
Good on you, Samir.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2005 10:59:34 AM ||
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#1
Great reading, but I'm not sure that it was a wise thing to go on the record with all the details. The various references to physical intimidation - slappings, beatings and such - might be ammunition of sorts to the scumbags at AI and HRW.
#3
More attrocities by American soldiers. Get the ACLU on the phone.
Posted by: Henry Panky ||
04/27/2005 13:53 Comments ||
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#4
Samir has told his story before:
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=&D=8/25/2004&ID=41521
Posted by: Tom ||
04/27/2005 14:50 Comments ||
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#5
I'm more concerned about the details given about him. I imagine the number of goateed Arab auto-mechanics in St. Louis named Samir can't be a very high two-digit number. Anyone who watched TV last year (20/20? 60 Minutes?) saw his face. Please watch your back, sir.
Posted by: Rex Rufus ||
04/27/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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Minuteman Project organizers will tell members of Congress today that "ordinary citizens sitting in lawn chairs" stopped a flood of illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that if the country's elected leaders "will not defend our nation's borders, American citizens will." Organizers James T. Gilchrist and Chris Simcox will tell the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, during a closed meeting, that the Minuteman volunteers shut down alien traffic along a 23-mile section of border while bringing nationwide attention to a national security crisis, of which porous borders and illegal aliens are key components. "We demonstrated that ordinary citizens have not only the will, but the means to secure our border," said Mr. Gilchrist, a retired California certified public accountant and combat-wounded Vietnam veteran.
Mr. Simcox, a Tombstone, Ariz., newspaper publisher and founder of Arizona's Civil Homeland Defense Corps (CHD), also will tell the caucus that the volunteers were successful "simply by maintaining a presence on the border," adding that 15,000 new volunteers "are ready, willing and able to do the job our president and Congress will not do. "There is no compromise; we will continue to exercise our civic duty until relieved by the National Guard or the U.S. military," Mr. Simcox said. "The Minuteman Project's phenomenal success proved that our borders can be secured. Now it's time to take our message to Washington -- where the real battle begins."
More than 800 Minuteman volunteers have been on duty along the border east and west of Naco, Ariz., at one time or another since April 1, part of a border vigil to protest the lax immigration policies of Congress and the White House. Mr. Simcox, whose CHD has reported more than 4,100 illegal aliens to the U.S. Border Patrol since November 2002, said the new volunteers will be ready in October to control illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border from California to Texas. "We will package up what we've done here and do it again as a multistate border project. We will tell the government to do its job in securing this border or we will shut it down ourselves," he said. Mr. Simcox and Mr. Gilchrist also are expected to say that in addition to proving that extra people on the border can deter illegal immigration, the Minuteman Project also established that the Mexican government -- if it wants to -- can exert control on its side of the border. They said Mexican police, humanitarian workers and military personnel intercepted northbound migrants south of Minuteman observation posts, warning that "armed vigilantes" were waiting to hurt them. The Mexican government transported the would-be border crossers to Aqua Prieta, 25 miles east, and Nogales, 80 miles west, where illegal-alien totals later skyrocketed. "It is clear the Mexican government clamped down on their side because of us," Mr. Simcox said.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 9:11:13 AM ||
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#1
The Mexican government transported the would-be border crossers to Aqua Prieta, 25 miles east, and Nogales, 80 miles west, where illegal-alien totals later skyrocketed. "It is clear the Mexican government clamped down on their side because of us," Mr. Simcox said.
Clamped down, my ass. The Mexican government is clearly aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Read that again: THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT is aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
So, when is the U.S. government going to start taking this matter seriously?
#2
When a third party focused on 1) protecting the border and 2) helping American working families puts candidates on the ballot who can knock off congressmen in 2006 and 2008.
#4
I'm glad to see the Minutemen plan to continue the effort until relieved properly. The threat is entirely too real to wait for the Government to figure it out for themselves, since they have not bothered to do so for the last 3 1/2 years. I do understand that there are likely painful budgeting costs for the Government to do the job properly, but this is a medication -- like the cost of carrying on in Iraq -- that just must be swallowed, no matter how bitter.
#5
And the threat is going to get even greater if Senor Chavez Lite gets elected president in Mexico. Looks like he'll be on the ballot now; his strength is heaviest among the poor, who are desperate to get over the border, so it's probable that this will only escalate.
#6
By this time next year we'll all have to have a passport to get back into the US from Canada or Mexico but the illegals will still be able to walk right on in.
I was am a Bush supporter but he has failed the country on this issue.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
04/27/2005 11:48 Comments ||
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#7
Earth to Karl Rove: get on top of this issue before your opponents do.
Don't assume that a) the Dems will continue to let this golden electoral opportunity pass them by; and b) single-issue independent candidates will not arise in crucial southwest swing states.
#9
lex: Don't assume that a) the Dems will continue to let this golden electoral opportunity pass them by; and b) single-issue independent candidates will not arise in crucial southwest swing states.
Actually, I think this isn't much of an opportunity for the Democrats. Hispanics (except for Cubans) generally vote Democratic. Having more Hispanics in-country will help shore up the Democratic base for the long term. Anything that Democrats can propose, in terms of tightening enforcement, Republicans can top. The fact is that we're stuck with the status quo because the Republican party knows we don't have any place else to go, and Democrats don't dare to alienate their base.
#10
Not so, Zhang. First, the hispanic vote is now in play. Bush made serious inroads into socially-conservative hispanic counties along the Rio Grande in 2000 and extended his share of their vote in 2004. I believe he got ca 40-45% of the hispanic vote in TX. The Dems realize they have a problem and are seeking ways to address it.
More importantly, the problem contains an opportunity. "Hispanics" includes both legal and illegal immigrants. The former are being crushed by shit-wage competition from the latter. I suspect that legal immigrant tradesmen, if someone would actually bother to go out and talk with them, could be the most prominent advocates of border control.
Note the parallel with bilingual education: the political classes and the MSM simply assumed that latino parents favored this for their kids, when in fact huge majorities opposed it and wanted English-only education. In LA IIRC these parents even voted out a latino school board member who was pushing bilingual education.
Counterterrorism officials said on Tuesday that they did not believe Zacarias Moussaoui's statements that he had been involved in a plot to fly an airplane into the White House as part of a plan to free an Islamic cleric serving a life sentence for terrorist acts.
Mr. Moussaoui, in pleading guilty last Friday to six counts of conspiracy to engage in terrorism, insisted that although he was a member of Al Qaeda and had trained to fly planes into buildings, he was not part of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Instead, he said, he was preparing to participate in a different plot on a different day to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Muslim scholar serving a life sentence for conspiracy to blow up New York landmarks in 1993.
Prosecutors and investigators, accustomed to Mr. Moussaouiââ¬s unpredictable, often angry courtroom ramblings, were surprised by the assertions, said the counterterrorism officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of the investigation remains classified. After more than three years of investigation, they had never heard of or found evidence of such a plot, they said, and in the days since Mr. Moussaouiââ¬s plea, they have not uncovered any information to corroborate it.
Mr. Moussaouiââ¬s statements about his plans were imprecise. He said he had planned to use a hijacked plane to fly Sheik Rahman to Afghanistan.
But he also said, "I came to the United States of America to be part, O.K., of a conspiracy to use airplane as a weapon of mass destruction, a statement of fact to strike the White House, but this conspiracy was a different conspiracy than 9/11."
Mr. Moussaoui has a strong motive to disassociate himself from the attacks: he faces a trial before a jury over whether he should be put to death or imprisoned for life. He told Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court that he would fight the death sentence and that linking him to Sept. 11 would lead the jury to hold him responsible for those killed in the attacks.
Justice Department officials have insisted that Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks, was directly involved in them. They point to a statement signed by Mr. Moussaoui in connection with his guilty plea in which he acknowledged that he misled investigators the month before the attacks, when he told them he had enrolled in flight school for the pleasure of it.
The authorities said that at the time of his arrest in August 2001, Mr. Moussaoui could barely have flown a small plane by himself, much less piloted a wide-bodied airliner.
Prosecutors also noted, in the statement of facts that accompanied the guilty plea, that he had acknowledged a personal relationship with Osama bin Laden, who is said to have had a fondness for Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen born in Morocco. Mr. bin Laden, by this account, had selected Mr. Moussaoui to take part in an aircraft attack and urged him to "follow his dream," which investigators said meant a suicide attack on the White House.
Whether the White House was a target on Sept. 11 remains unclear. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who helped plan the attacks, said during interrogation that from the start, Mr. bin Laden had wanted to attack the White House, according to the final report of the independent commission that investigated the attacks.
But Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, regarded the White House as a "difficult" target, according to the report. At a meeting on Aug. 3, 2001, Mr. Atta told Mr. bin al-Shibh that he would keep the White House under consideration, but wanted to keep the Capitol as an alternative, the report said.
Initially, authorities believed that Mr. Moussaoui was a backup pilot for United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. In the months before the attack, the intended pilot of that plane, Ziad al-Jarrah, was uncertain that he wanted to participate, the officials said.
After one clash with Mr. Atta, the commission report said, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks, ordered Mr. bin al-Shibh to "send the skirts to Sally," a coded instruction to wire money to Mr. Moussaoui so he could begin training.
Mr. Mohammed denied in his interrogations that he had ever thought of Mr. Moussaoui as part of the Sept. 11 plot, the commission report said. Mr. Mohammed said that he believed Mr. Moussaoui was to be part of a "second wave" of attacks that never materialized.
Some investigators suspect that even though Mr. Moussaoui was a favorite of Mr. bin Laden, other Qaeda operatives regarded him as unstable and undisciplined.
Beyond that, there was no evidence that Mr. Moussaoui had met the other Sept. 11 hijackers, which investigators said indicated he was not meant to take part in the attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:20:35 AM ||
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Syria has not withdrawn a significant part of its intelligence presence in Lebanon, undermining its claim yesterday to have ended its 29-year intervention in its western neighbor, U.S., European and U.N. officials said.
The international community yesterday welcomed the pullout of the last of 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon. But the continuing presence of covert Syrian intelligence operatives would violate the promise President Bashar Assad made to the United Nations last month to withdraw all Syrian personnel. It would also contradict a letter the Syrian government wrote to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday saying that the withdrawal was complete.
U.N. member states and the Lebanese opposition have told the United Nations that Syrian military intelligence has taken up new positions "in the south of Beirut and elsewhere, and has been using headquarters of parties affiliated with the government of Syria as well as privately rented apartments for their purposes," said a report Annan made to the Security Council and released yesterday.
The report notes that Syria and the pro-Syrian government in Beirut have denied those allegations, and it confirms that Syria closed its intelligence headquarters at Beirut's Beau Rivage hotel. But the Bush administration, which with France co-sponsored the U.N. resolution requiring Syria's pullout, said Damascus is not yet complying. "Some have left, but not all," said deputy State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli.
Syrian intelligence is also deployed in Palestinian refugee camps and communities, some of which have suddenly grown larger, U.S. officials and Western diplomats said. One Palestinian community in the eastern Bekaa valley, which is tied to the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is of particular concern, as are strategic locations inside the Lebanese border with Syria, Western envoys said. The PFLP is based in Damascus.
Syria's intelligence network has been its chief means of influencing Lebanese political and economic life for almost three decades. About 5,000 Syrian intelligence operatives were deployed in Lebanon, U.S. and European officials said.
The United States is counting on a new U.N. verification team sent to Lebanon this week to investigate Syria's intelligence presence and to provide "a considered judgment" that will "inform our deliberations" at the Security Council. If Syria does not comply, Washington and Paris may propose punitive steps, Ereli said.
A well-placed European envoy added: "The Syrians will be walking a tightrope for quite a bit of time to come, both within Lebanon and with the international community."
The Lebanese government told the United Nations that the withdrawal is complicated by family ties and a network of informers among Lebanese citizens, the U.N. report notes.
"In the many years the Syrians have been there, they've inserted themselves pretty deeply in Lebanon, including in intermarriage," said a senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. "They've abandoned their headquarters, but they're still integrated in Lebanese society in a way that can be difficult to detect. So even though their formal presence is over, there is still a significant residual presence we need to look at."
At the same time, the State Department called the troop pullout an "important first step" in the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1559. "We think today is a historic day for Lebanon and its people," Ereli told reporters.
The next test will be the level of foreign interference in Lebanon's national elections, due in four weeks. "Is [the withdrawal] indicative . . . of better and bigger things to come? I guess the jury's still out, and it's hard to say. One would hope," Ereli said.
"We would hope that we see, obviously, elections in Lebanon that lead to a government that is not tainted by foreign interference, and we would hope that we see . . . the kind of further disbanding and disarming of militias, and the kind of stability, institutional development and broader regional prosperity," he said.
In a second flap, the new U.N. report is itself the focus of controversy because the revised text issued yesterday omitted the toughest criticism of Syria, including an assessment that its military intelligence shares responsibility for the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. His death triggered the local and international backlash that forced Syria to withdraw.
The revised text also eliminated language that said Syria "interfered with the details of government in Lebanon in a heavy-handed and inflexible manner," according to a copy of the original report obtained by The Washington Post.
Despite protests by U.S., French and British officials, Annan last week delayed the report until after Syria's military withdrawal. The envoys urged Annan not to water down the report and expressed concern yesterday that key paragraphs on Syrian and Iranian activities in Lebanon were nonetheless cut, Western diplomats said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:41:24 AM ||
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#1
Sometimes the hired help, those UN twits, need reminding just who works for whom. Cutting unsavory bits out of reports? Based on what UN Military intel, pray-tell?
The UN is worthless. Delays, Interference. Even when handed a fait-accomplis, and who would ever believe they wouldn't leave intel agents behind and attempt to subvert the Lebanese push for democratic independence - besides some MSM collaborator anyway, they presume to edit it? A UN verification team? Of what, Syrians? Iranians? Considered judgement, eh? And they will have what skills and what political affiliations? The endless sham continues unabated.
More wank-o-matic waste, obfuscation, and malfeasance.
The US and like-minded members should pass out their own report and tell Kofi & Co to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. This insane farce has gone on far too long.
#2
The left over Syrian intel assets in Lebanon will likely decay over the next few months since their effectiveness was mostly related to the military (the uniforms could arrest people and bring them to the Syrian intel goons for torture).
The UN idiocy will likely be a subject of ridicule in Lebanon pretty soon also. At least 70% of the population is anti Syrian and when the UN waffles, they are seen as stooges, so the UN isn't doing itself a favor here (this while spending $$$$ paying itself overtime for creating a useless report_.
#3
will be interesting to see who's the victims in "nameless violence" in the coming moths. I'd expect the Lebanese people to know who the Syrian informers and intel people are, and do something about it
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2005 10:23 Comments ||
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Syria tried to turn humiliation into celebration yesterday as as its troops bade farewell to Lebanon and were welcomed across the border by crowds waving Syrian flags and pictures of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
But the ceremonies orchestrated by Damascus and its Lebanese supporters were dampened just a few hours later by a warning from the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, that Syria had not yet met all the demands of the UN security council.
In particular, he cast doubt on whether Syria had fully dismantled its intelligence network in Lebanon.
"Some [UN] member states, as well as members of the Lebanese opposition, have asserted to me that Syrian military intelligence has taken up new positions in the south of Beirut and elsewhere, and has been using headquarters of parties affiliated with the government of Syria as well as privately rented apartments for their purposes," he said in a report to the council.
Although the Lebanese and Syrian governments had assured him this was not true, he said: "Representatives of the government of Lebanon and other parties have also asserted that difficulties of completing a full withdrawal of all persons associated with the Syrian intelligence apparatus in Lebanon might arise."
This doubt was linked to the fact that Syrian officials had established family ties in Lebanon over the past 30 years, and to the existence of a network of informers among Lebanese citizens.
There were scarcely any reminders at yesterday's hour-long goodbye ceremony in Lebanon of the intense international pressure that had forced Damascus to pull its forces out, nor of the explosion on February 14 that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, and triggered huge anti-Syrian demonstrations in Beirut.
To all appearances, the Syrians were leaving behind a grateful nation, their job well done. "Brothers in arms, thank you for your sacrifices," the commander of Lebanese soldiers told the departing Syrian troops. "Thank you for your sacrifices," his men repeated.
There was an exchange of medals, too; Lebanese medals for General Rustum Ghazaleh, the Syrian intelligence chief who until recently was the most feared man in Lebanon, and for President Assad's brother-in-law, Brigadier General Assef Shawkat.
The Lebanese army commander, Michel Suleiman, who yesterday praised Syria's role in bringing peace to Lebanon, got a Syrian medal in return.
As Gen Ghazaleh arrived at the border crossing into Syria, accompanied by 10 carloads of intelligence agents, Lebanese civilians saluted him and one gave him a poster saying "Thank you Syria".
Elsewhere in Lebanon reactions were more muted. Lebanon's new prime minister, Najib Mikati, a mobile phone millionaire with Syrian business links, spoke of "a new political era in the relations between the two brethren countries" and looked forward to "close cooperation in all fields".
Among the anti-Syrian opposition there was nothing to match, or even approach, the jubilation witnessed five years ago when Israeli troops left southern Lebanon.
One reason for that is that many people are still unconvinced they have seen the end of Syrian influence.
"Syria had enough time to infiltrate all the national institutions in Lebanon," said the former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel. "Syria controls the presidency, the parliament and the government and all the other institutions and political parties. Syria was creating a creeping annexation policy and it won't be very easy to get rid of the consequences of this hegemony."
Anxious not to be seen as having buckled under international pressure, Damascus has portrayed its withdrawal as an implementation of the 1989 Taif accord, on terms amicably agreed with the Lebanese government, which fortuitously coincides with the demands of security council resolution 1559.
In his report yesterday, Mr Annan said "significant and noticeable progress" had been made towards implementing some provisions of the resolution, especially concerning Syria's commitment to withdraw all its troops, military assets and intelligence apparatus.
While it is now obvious that thousands of Syrian troops have gone from Lebanon, proving to the satisfaction of the security council, and particularly to the Americans, that they and the intelligence agents have all left may be another matter.
UN experts were due yesterday in Damascus, where they hope to obtain maps of Syria's abandoned positions and final reports on the status of its military and intelligence presence in Lebanon. The team will then travel to Lebanon, where they will attempt to verify that the withdrawal is complete.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:10:08 AM ||
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The U.S.-led group that scoured Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has found no evidence Iraq hid such weapons in Syria before the U.S. invasion in March 2003, according to a final report on the investigation. The 1,700-member Iraq Survey Group (ISG), responsible for the weapons hunt, also said it found no Iraqi officials with direct knowledge of a transfer of WMD developed by former President Saddam Hussein.
The report is the final addendum to the investigators' September report that concluded prewar Iraq had no WMD stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and that its nuclear program had decayed before the U.S.-led invasion. The Iraq Survey Group, led by CIA special adviser Charles Duelfer, ended its physical searches for WMD last December. The new report posted on the CIA Web site said: "Based on evidence available it is unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place. However ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials." It said investigators "found no senior policy, program or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD. Indeed, they uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that have been secreted to Syria," the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Of course not.
These aren't the WMD's you're looking for.
You don't need to see his identification.
He can move along now.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
04/27/2005 0:01 Comments ||
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#2
Words to the wise:
cum grano salis
(magnus)
I'd feel better if it were DIA doing this. The CIA has bitten the weenie way too many times to trust their work without DoD corroboration anymore. And nevermind the Syrian nerve agent in Sudan. It didnt happen, because the CIA says so.
#4
"...no evidence Iraq hid such weapons in Syria before the U.S. invasion..."
On the other hand, Syria hiding such weapons in Lebanon after the U.S. invasion began -- that's another story.
"...found no Iraqi officials with direct knowledge of a transfer of WMD..."
The Sunni Triangle is still awash in beheaders, bullets, and IEDs -- who's gonna spill the beans now?
Posted by: Tom ||
04/27/2005 9:03 Comments ||
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#5
'd feel better if it were DIA doing this.
I'm with OS. I'd much sooner rely on the Department of Indian Affairs than the Central Intelligence Agency. If it is not in an electronic intercept or satellite image, the CIA could not find it if it was as big as a Chinese embassy.
A demonstration by relatives of Lebanese prisoners detained in Syrian jails demanding the release of their loved ones outside Parliament turned violent after one of the demonstrators beat an arriving lawmaker's car with a Lebanese flag, leading to a clash with army troops and riot police. The Lebanese Red Cross said 16 people were wounded, six of whom were sent to St. George and Wardieh Hospitals for treatment. "The army pushed us and jabbed us with their rifle butts!" cried Intisar Hussian al-Ali, one of the demonstrators who had marched to Beirut's Parliament from the UN House where relatives of Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails have been staging a sit-in for the past two weeks. "We came here peacefully. We just wanted to hand the members of Parliament copies of our demands, it is just one sheet of paper asking for the Lebanese government to acknowledge the detainees and get them out. The least they could do is just take the sheet!" said Ali, who is demanding the release of her husband detained for six years in a Syrian jail under suspicion of being an Israeli spy. "But they wouldn't listen, they kept moving and drove over our feet with their fancy cars," said Ali, whose daughter, age 3, suffered a cut lip and a bruised leg during the clash.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The rumors on several jihadist Web sites say a new message from Osama bin Laden is coming soon. It's been almost four months since one of those videotapes or audiotapes surfaced. There was a flurry of bin Laden messages at the end of last year. First, a videotape appeared four days before the U.S. presidential vote -- the one Sen. John Kerry cited in post-election interviews as contributing to his loss to President Bush. Two more messages appeared in December. It seemed that bin Laden had re-emerged, at least as a propagandist, and that he was becoming increasingly brazen in getting his word out.
But now he's gone quiet, and at least one analyst says that could be good news. "I don't think he's got anything to say at the moment," says Paul Eedle, a freelance journalist who began monitoring al Qaeda and Islamist Web sites before the September 11 attacks. "At least nothing that bin Laden can point to as a success." Eedle says the last round of bin Laden's audio and video appearances reflected the rise of the Iraqi insurgency. That was a few months ago when, at least possibly in bin Laden's view -- and the insurgents' -- "victory looked possible," says Eedle, a former Reuters correspondent who specializes in reporting on the Middle East and militant Islam, and is currently writing a book about al Qaeda's propaganda and media strategies.
After the videotape on the eve of the U.S. election, there were two messages in December. One indicated how quickly bin Laden seemed able to respond to news events if he wanted to, praising Saudis who launched a terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah days after it took place. The other, which received less attention because it came on the heels of the Indian Ocean tsunami, concentrated on Iraq. Bin Laden cheered on the attacks against the Iraqi provisional government. He also praised insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying al Qaeda was joining forces with the Jordanian-born militant. Al-Zarqawi's group, which has claimed responsibility for numerous car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, already had renamed itself al Qaeda in Iraq, and he had publicly pledged his loyalty to bin Laden. "The dear mujahed brother Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq, so we ask all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds," bin Laden said on the audiotape. That message was before the Iraqi vote. Even though a wave of bloody attacks was feared as the date approached, the real news of the election was its success, Eedle says.
Eedle has been working on setting up a news agency in Iraq. He says the feeling among the Iraqi reporters and editors he's working with is that the elections not only succeeded but also have forced Sunnis sitting on the fence to join in the political process. Which leaves bin Laden, who has made Iraq a centerpiece of many of his messages and his call for a global jihad, with not much to say, Eedle says. But there is a flip side. A talking bin Laden may be easier to catch -- or at least that is the theory. Trace back one of his messages, and you might find the man.
However, the hunt for bin Laden seems to have gone as quiet as he has. Last month, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told the BBC that Pakistani forces had their best chance of capturing bin Laden last year that but they lost the trail. Pakistan is where most intelligence analysts suspect the al Qaeda leader is hiding, probably somewhere along the mountainous border with Afghanistan, so Musharraf's assertion that the trail has gone cold can't be good news. Musharraf told the BBC that Pakistani forces had come close to bin Laden: "There was a time when the dragnet had closed, and we thought we knew roughly the area where he possibly could be," he said. "That was, I think, some time back ... maybe about eight to 10 months back." The Pakistani government launched a military campaign in the previously autonomous border area of South Waziristan during the last two years. There were numerous clashes, 48 by the government's count, between the military and what it called al Qaeda militants. The result? More than 250 government troops were killed, according to a Pakistani official. But that campaign is over, and the troops are largely gone from the border area. Now a different approach is being tried. This time, the U.S. government has launched a media campaign in Pakistan, using radio, TV and print ads that call on Pakistanis to give up bin Laden and other leading al Qaeda figures, in exchange for millions of dollars of rewards ($25 million for bin Laden). So far, there haven't been any takers.
We only need one, don't we?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:28:57 AM ||
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#1
"rosebud"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2005 8:16 Comments ||
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#2
a new message from Osama bin Laden is coming soon
Sweeps week coming in May. Got to boost those ratings to keep the ad revenue up.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 8:39 Comments ||
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The rumors on several jihadist Web sites say a new message from Osama bin Laden is coming soon.
As soon as the Flash animation is finished, then it'll be released. Until then, sit tight.
#5
The O-man should find a job as a cooler in a casino. Seriously....think about it.
1) Goes off about Fahrenheit 911, and Mikey Moore's career is so cold now it's Arctic.
2) Does a John Kerry promo....and he's stuck preening in the Senate.
3) Salutes al-Zarqawi, and the insurgency gets its ass handed to them.
Just put ol' string bean next to some guy on a hot streak, and he'll be giving all that cash back to the dealer. Probably with interest (yes, I know, un-Islamic, but a job's a job.)
Can't wait to see who or what he gives his next shout out to. Just remember.....short it. Hard.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/27/2005 14:56 Comments ||
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Paul Eedle and Desert Blondie are right. OBL doesn't have much to crow about. Afghanistan and Iraq are free. Bush has been re-elected. Libya has given up nukes. Syria has left Lebanon. Arafat has a toe tag. And the Saudi royals are at the ranch in Crawford. Aside from making himself a superb target, what has he got to show for his jihad?
Posted by: Tom ||
04/27/2005 15:07 Comments ||
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#8
a t-shirt from Islamabad?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2005 15:21 Comments ||
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#9
a t-shirt from Islamabad?
"I got bombed at Tora Bora"
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 16:45 Comments ||
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#10
"a t-shirt from Islamabad?"
Which says on the back "I wanted to wage global jihad and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt"
The al-Qaeda terrorist group, led by the notorious Jordanian leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, launched its first Kurdish website on Tuesday. The new website - known as Pegy Jehad or live Jihad - contains a Fatwah with up-to-date news on terrorist activities in Iraq. The homepage also contains anti-Shiite banners and a photograph of Baghdad's former governor Paul Bremer embracing a leading Shiite cleric while standing next to the American US secretary of State Colin Powell.
Users of the website have the opportunity to send and receive news through a series of email addresses opened through the hotmail internet email provider.
Pegy Jihad is al-Qaeda's first website in Kurdish. Previously, the propagation of Kurdish documents and recordings was left to a group known as Ansar al-Sunna, which mainly operates in Kurdistan.
The organisation is an outshoot of Ansar al-Islam, a group with ties to Iran and whose administration officials have links to al-Qaeda. Ansar al-Sunna began in September 2001 and came from the unification of several Islamist groups originating from the mountains of northern Iraq on the Iranian border. In March 2003, US special forces attacked and scattered most of the Ansar al-Sunna fighters. The group is responsible for the many attacks against the Kurdish political parties.
Posted by: phil_b ||
04/27/2005 4:38:39 AM ||
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The United States military has not yet managed to catch Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top Al Qaeda-linked terrorist in Iraq.
That's why we're still after him, I'll bet...
But they have perhaps snagged the next best thing: his laptop. In today's Internet world even a brutal terror figure apparently carries his life on a personal electronic device.
Only a copy. I keep my real life on the desktop in the basement. My laptop only has copies.
A February raid by a covert US military unit came so close to Zarqawi that he fled from the vehicle in which he was traveling on foot, leaving his computer behind, say government sources.
Why was he traveling on foot in a vehicle?
On the hard drive was everything from information about Zarqawi's medical condition to pictures of himself, kept in a file labeled "My Pictures."
I have one of those folders, too. Matter of fact, it's got some pictures of Zarq. But none of me. I'm afraid Boris would get one and stick pins in it, thereby aggravating my arthritis...
"His computer has provided a treasure trove of information," says a Pentagon official who asked to remain nameless.
Comes as a surprise, huh?
Zarqawi is a bear-like Jordanian-born figure renowned even among terrorists for his brutality. He has set himself up as the top Islamist terror figure in Iraq, although his exact relationship with Osama bin Laden and the rest of Al Qaeda's leadership remains unclear.
Other than the fact that he's done obeisance to Binny, acknowledging him as lord, master, and owner, there's little evidence they have anything to do with each other, right? Who the hell writes this stuff?
On Feb. 20, he was traveling from Fallujah to a meeting in Ramadi when covert US forces almost caught him, the Pentagon believes. During the raid, US troops pulled over a car as it approached a checkpoint. As they did so, a pickup behind turned and sped away.
"Tires, don't fail me now!"
When they caught the pickup the US personnel found the computer, over $100,000 in euros, and two Zarqawi associates.
... named Thing 1 and Thing 2...
Zarqawi himself may have escaped by rolling from the truck under an underpass, then fleeing on foot to a safehouse somewhere in the vicinity. "We were extraordinarily close to getting him," says a high-level military official who regularly travels to Iraq.
"Missed him by that much!"
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that as well at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. But he declined to elaborate, citing the sensitivity of revealing operational details.
"I can say no more!"
"But you ain't said nothin' at all!"
Terror experts note that Zarqawi's apparent escape is a blow.
Lemme 'splain to the "terror experts" I'm still waiting for my Terror Expert Secret Decoder Ring, by the way: We get to make multiple attempts to catch Zarq. He only gets caught once, and then the game stops. That's the way the rules are written...
His capture would not end the participation of Islamist terrorists in the Iraqi insurgency, but it would certainly demoralize them, and it would remove an energetic and creative terror figure. But the computer might contain contacts, financial information, and hard data about his relationship with Al Qaeda. "That would be solid gold [information]," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corp.
Thanks, Bruce. We'd never have caught that without your input. The computer might also contain nothing but spam and dirty pictures and a letter he started to his Mom and never finished. Likely it'll contain both valuable stuff and trash. But Bruce has no idea what's there.
A European intelligence official says that he is not sure Zarqawi was ever in the truck.
"I wudn't there, an' I din't see nobody. They're prob'ly lying about the whole thing."
But the information on the computer was very valuable, he confirms. Among other things, it may indicate that Zarqawi is in worse physical condition than previously believed, and taking painkillers as he recovers from a wound to his stomach.
Gutshot, was he? Boy that's gonna hurt. Ouch. Dang. Keep gulping those vicodins, bucko.
He also points out that the captured cash was in euros, not dollars, and indicates that the terror network likely maintains a functioning logistical connection with Al Qaeda's European branches.
Likely shows the money came from Europe and not from Nebraska.
The importance of the captured Zarqawi aides is not clear to clueless reporters. Back in February - without mentioning the near-miss of Zarqawi himself - the Iraqi government announced that a raid had captured Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, allegedly a key Zarqawi lieutenant. Mr. Qutaybah arranged for transportation and safehouses, and moved money and equipment around the country for the Zarqawi network, according to the Iraqi government. The raid also netted a man who occasionally acted as Zarqawi's driver, one Ahmad Khalid Marad Ismail al-Rawi, said the Iraqi government. One top Al Qaeda figure thought to at least serve as a liaison to Zarqawi's network is named Abu Hadi al-Iraqi, says former CIA official Michael Scheuer. There have been rumors of his presence in Iraq - even of his death in an attack - but those have not been confirmed. "If he turns up in Iraq, that's an important thing. And its even more important if they captured him," says Mr. Scheuer.
In the past, Zarqawi has been something of an independent operator, at times even competing with Al Qaeda for prized recruits and funds. But the US believes Zarqawi is now firmly entrenched in the Al Qaeda camp, said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at Tuesday's Pentagon press conference. "The intelligence experts in our government, and, I believe, in other governments, believe they have engaged in a process and become connected in a variety of ways - maybe people, maybe money," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
That said, the US and its partners are doing all they can to put pressure on him and his associates, tracking their money and recruits as well as the terrorist leaders themselves. "I think he's on the run," Rumsfeld said. "A lot of pressure is put on their funding, recruiting, movements and our folks keep scooping up people engaged in various aspects of their work. The more they scoop up, visit with them, the more they learn and go out and scoop up others."
This article starring:
ABU HADI AL IRAQI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
ABU QUTAIBAH
al-Qaeda in Iraq
AHMED KHALID MARAD ISMAIL AL RAWI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Michael Scheuer
TALIB MIKHLIF ARSAN WALMAN AL DULAIMI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:22:41 AM ||
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kept in a file labeled "My Pictures."
So, he's a Windows guy.
escaped by rolling from the truck under an underpass, then fleeing on foot
Pretty nimble for a guy with one leg
taking painkillers as he recovers from a wound to his stomach.
Pray for septis
Posted by: Steve ||
04/27/2005 8:35 Comments ||
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I do enjoy how Secretary Rumsfeld can turn a phrase.
"...and our folks keep scooping up people engaged in various aspects of their work. The more they scoop up, visit with them, the more they learn and go out and scoop up others."
#3
US SPOKESMAN - Well we've studied his laptop extensively and discovered that he's got a thing for Israeli gay porn and he's pretty pathetic at Solitare. We've also learned that his copy of Windows is unregistered and we've informed Redmond.
#14
Let's see..escaped on foot (but don't know his whereabouts)to a nearby safehouse...
Any one else see a contradiction here?
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/27/2005 21:33 Comments ||
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His e-mail inbox contained dozens of messages concerning "male enhancement". CIA analysts are still studying these, but have already drawn some preliminary conclusions.
The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there. Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year. He said the search for WMD in Iraq -- the main reason President Bush went to war to oust Saddam Hussein -- has been exhausted without finding such weapons. Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s.
But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war," Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA's Web site Monday night. He cited some evidence of a transfer. "Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined," he said. "There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation."
But Mr. Duelfer said he was unable to complete that aspect of the probe because "the declining security situation limited and finally halted this investigation. The results remain inconclusive, but further investigation may be undertaken when circumstances on the ground improve." Arguing against a WMD transfer to Syria, Mr. Duelfer said, was the fact that all senior Iraqi detainees involved in Saddam's weapons programs and security "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria." "Nevertheless," the inspector said, "given the insular and compartmented nature of the regime, ISG analysts believed there was enough evidence to merit further investigation." He said that even if all leads are pursued someday, the ISG may never be able to finally determine whether WMDs were taken across the border. "Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place," his report stated. "However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."
Speculation on WMDs in Syria was fueled by the fact that satellite images picked up long lines of trucks waiting to cross the border into Syria before the coalition launched the invasion. Mr. Duelfer previously had reported that Syria was a major conduit for materials entering Iraq that were banned by the United Nations. Saddam placed such importance on illicit trade with Syria that he dispatched Iraqi Intelligence Service agents to various border crossings to supervise border agents, and, in some cases, to shoo them away, senior officials told The Washington Times last year.
Today, U.S. officials charge that Syria continues to harbor Saddam loyalists who are directing and financing the insurgency in Iraq. The Iraq-Syria relationship between two Ba'athist socialist regimes has further encouraged speculation of weapons transfers. Several senior U.S. officials have said since the invasion that they thought WMD went to Syria. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the war, said in his book, "Inside CentCom," that intelligence reports pointed to WMD movement into Syria. In October, John A. Shaw, then the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told The Times that Russian special forces and intelligence troops worked with Saddam's intelligence service to move weapons and material to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 1:31:05 AM ||
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Arguing against a WMD transfer to Syria, Mr. Duelfer said, was the fact that all senior Iraqi detainees involved in Saddam's weapons programs and security "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria."
Well! There you have it, folks. Some Ba'athists deny moving WMDs to Syria. Case closed, move along now.
Former Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been arrested at his home in Kathmandu, a spokesman for his party, the Nepali Congress-Democratic, has told CNN. Deuba was arrested early Wednesday after refusing to appear before the Royal Corruption Control Commission, formed by the government, declaring it to be unconstitutional, said the spokesman, Minendra Rijal. The commission had charged Deuba with distributing unauthorized funds to party workers and irregularities in awarding a multimillion-dollar water-supply contract. "The Royal Corruption Control Commission is unconstitutional," Rijal said. "And this arrest is inhuman." This week, the government also arrested a member of Deuba's cabinet, Prakash Man Singh, for the same reason.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/27/2005 12:08:32 AM ||
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Three key Sunni Arab lawmakers have resigned from the dominant United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), Aljazeera has learned. The three, Fawaz al-Jarba, Mudhar Shawkat and Abd al-Rahman al-Niaimi, announced their resignation on Tuesday from the UIA which is led by Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim.
Fine. Seethe and be damned.
The three MPs said they were resigning in protest against the attempt to marginalise Sunni Arabs.
Seems to me the Sunnis are the ones doing all the marginalizing.
They also expressed resentment against what they called foreign interference in ministry-making decisions, reported Aljazeera. The three Sunni MPs had fought the 30 January elections on the UIA platform which won 140 of the 275 seats. Al-Jarba was in the running for vice-president before Ghazi al-Yawir was chosen for the post.
Hmmm. They're members of a party that controls 140 seats out of 275. Sounds pretty darn marginal to me.
Their decision to quit came even as the five-man committee representing Sunni Arabs and headed by Vice-President al-Yawir held a meeting with Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jafari to review allocation of ministerial portfolios, Aljazeera said, quoting informed Iraqi sources. The meeting discussed the possibility of including another ministerial portfolio for the Sunni Arabs. "The ministries offered to us, that of culture, governorate affairs, labour and social affairs should be replaced with that of education, commerce, planning, public works and housing, for example."
Sorry. Sunnis are not to be trusted with education. And the Sunni clans can't have all the public works projects. Thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Sunni Arabs have demanded the post of deputy prime minister, the portfolio of education besides six other ministries. Spokesman of the Iraqi National Front Tariq al-Hashimi told Aljazeera there were intense negotiations with al-Jafari. "We received an offer for six portfolios to our demand for seven. The basic problem relates to the portfolios," he said.
Posted by: seafarious ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Six out of seven portfolios comes to 83% success. So what's the problem? Not being in the catbird's seat any more got you depressed? You only got 40 seats out of 278 because you listened to your idiotic Muslim Clerics Association. Learn or die, and grow up a little.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 0:51 Comments ||
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#2
Why be logical when there's an opportunity to seethe?
Posted by: trailing wife, national treasure w/two melon ballers but no French presses ||
04/27/2005 3:08 Comments ||
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#3
tw -- Two? *gasp*
Lol! I never had much use for "civilization" - did without it for the first 20 yrs, in fact - and then I finally tried a little. New world. The mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers like me eventually discover the value in the "shaken, not stirred" subtleties. I got it - and get it, now. Civilization has some merits and deserves preservation, heh. I'm glad you're passing it on.
#4
Of course two, .com, so that the daughters don't fight when it comes time to use them. I have two old fashioned espresso pots, too, the stove-top style that makes Italians weep in memory of the one Mama had on her kitchen stove. (None of those new-fangled hissing things for me!) Literally, in fact -- I was shocked at the response when I brought them to the table. The world needs us both -- I'll preserve choice bits of "civilization" (but not Stephen Glass compositions, 'k?) and you keep the world safe to be civilized in. And then, young man, we will discuss your foolish delusions about knuckle dragging... but do feel free to abase yourself until then, should you feel the need. I think that ex-wife of yours got a few things wrong there ;-)
#5
Lol! Perfection posted, heh. And now I get it regards the two-fisted melon attack profile I had imagined... Re: espresso - I believe I know which style you mean... heirlooms, methinks... Le Ex had ambitions that a mere 3 or 4 cleaned out husbands could not provide. She's slowing her rate of consumption, finally, but still pursuing economic independence. She seems to enjoy waxing nostalgic with me. I have a rather different reaction, heh. What was this thread topic? Lol! ;-)
#6
I would be very wary about marrying anyone who has been divorced more than once.Seems to me that the multi-divorced person should take a hard look at what they are/aren't doing right.Certainly they should re-evaluate how they choose a mate.For me,I have been married/divorced once.It sucked and I am not going through that painfull crap agin.
#7
Thread topic: seething when grossly unrealistic expectations are unmet.
.com, I think you are thinking about the wrong pot. Mine are $11 for 6-serving jobbies, and can be found in coffee shops near universities, and little shops serving an international clientele with limited funds.
Gentlemen, I am sorry that you met up with parlor spider females ("Come into my parlor," said the spider to the fly), but at least you are better off than my brother, whose spider drove him to suicide. Of course, he did thusly avoid the pain of divorce...
A Palestinian commander responsible for a ruthless campaign against suspected "collaborators" in the Gaza Strip was promoted on Tuesday by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to overall security chief. Colonel Rashid Abu Shabak, head of the Preventive Security Service (PSS) in the Gaza Strip for the past three years, would now also be in charge of the force's branch in the West Bank. Abu Shabak, a former security prisoner in Israel, served for many years as deputy head of the PSS under Muhammad Dahlan. He was appointed by Yasser Arafat three years ago following Dahlan's resignation.
Earlier this year, Israel agreed to remove Abu Shabak from its list of wanted terrorists as a goodwill gesture toward Abbas. Israel had accused Abu Shabak of masterminding the attack on a schoolbus in Gush Katif in which two teachers were killed and three children seriously injured. All three children were from Kfar Darom and lost parts of their legs in the attack. Sources in Gaza City said on Tuesday that Abu Shabak had been responsible for the arrest of at least 100 suspected collaborators over the past few years. They pointed out that many of the suspects were now standing trial and could face the death sentence if convicted.
The decision to expand Abu Shabak's jurisdiction to the West Bank has raised many eyebrows among senior Fatah officials. The West Bank branch of the PSS was headed for many years by Jibril Rajoub, who was dismissed by Arafat more than three years ago. "The appointment of Abu Shabak as commander of the Preventative Security Service in the West Bank will create many problems," said a top Fatah operative in Ramallah. "I don't think many of the security members in the West Bank will accept a commander from the Gaza Strip."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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"I donât think many of the security members in the West Bank will accept a commander from the Gaza Strip."
They'll change their minds, once he arrests another hundred collaborators and arranges for a couple more Israeli school buses to get blown up...
LAHORE: The government is paving the way for direct US aggression in NWFP under the pretext of its anti-terrorism policy, said Syed Munawar Hassan, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) secretary general, while speaking at the Media Elites Forum (Mehfil) on Tuesday. "US statements that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is in the Afghan-Pakistan border area indicates the US thinks of NWFP as the hub of the Al Qaeda network," he said. Hassan said that the expected military operation in North Waziristan, following attacks on South Waziristan, to hunt terrorists should be debated in parliament prior to any attack.
He said that while the government was purchasing vehicles for VVIPs, 54 million Pakistanis lived below the poverty line with no access to medical, educational, sanitation or clean water facilities. Hassan said that the government's claims that it was removing the VVIP culture and spending on poor people were false. "The government purchased 22 Mercedes Benz cars worth Rs 1.8 billion in the last three years. 41 cars including 31 Mercedes are already being used by VVIPs and now a Mercedes car worth Rs 11 million is being purchased for the National Assembly speaker," he added. He claimed that World Bank and International Monetary Fund teams would prepare Pakistan's budget. He said that the government tried to control the high budget deficits of the last five years by increasing sales tax and tariffs on oil, electricity and gas. But this also increased poverty and corruption, he added. Hassan urged the government to reduce poverty, combat tax-evasion, reduce sales tax by up to 5-6 percent, and cut the price of petroleum, electricity and gas.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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He claimed that World Bank and International Monetary Fund teams would prepare Pakistanâs budget.
There's a challenge for ya, Mr. Wolfowitz. Fix PakLand's budget. Kinda like trying to make a car with a bent frame new again.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 0:46 Comments ||
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#2
He needs the "experts" from Used Cars. Just roll back the odometer, some bubble gum, a little paint - voila! Good as new! As long as it's not red paint...
#3
Access to medical, educational, sanitation or clean water facilities is unislamic. JI knows this. Poor medical care, teaching only the kroran, no sanatation and disease infested water those are all true islam.
President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday resolved that he would not make a U-turn on Kashmir by any means. Speaking to PTV, President Musharraf said he wanted to comfort Kashmiris by resolving the Kashmir issue once and for all. "My intentions are very clear. I want to comfort Kashmiris and lessen the suffering they have been bearing for decades," he said, adding that all his efforts aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute with India. However, he said that Kashmir was a difficult and complicated matter between India and Pakistan and therefore no timeframe could be given for the resolution of the dispute. "I want to tell all Pakistanis and Kashmiris that I am doing this with all my sincerity, more for Kashmiris than for Pakistanis," he added. President Musharraf said a lot of thought and sensibility was required to carry forward talks on Kashmir. "I expect all Pakistanis to support me in my effort to resolve the Kashmir dispute," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Read my lips.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
04/27/2005 9:50 Comments ||
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The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that it is alarmed by what appears to be a renewed scorched-earth campaign by the pro-government militias in Sudan's Darfur region.
"Oh, Jean-Claude! I am so alarmed!"
"Me, too. Are there any of those croissants left?"
"The burning of villages seems to have resumed," Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr), told journalists. In October and November last year, some 55 villages were torched after earlier being abandoned by their residents in the face of attacks by government-allied Janjaweed militia. Staff from the UNHCR last week visited a settlement near Masteri in western Darfur which exiled villagers said had been burned earlier this month, said Pagonis. "This gratuitous act is clearly a message to the former residents not to return home," she said. "We are concerned because acts like this - on top of the displacement of some two million people from their homes - threaten to change the social and demographic structure of Darfur irrevocably." Relief agencies say that killings and rapes are still taking place in Darfur, a region the size of France where a small contingent of African Union monitors has struggled to restore security.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Posted by: Captain Renault ||
04/27/2005 8:25 Comments ||
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#3
Next thing ya know, it'll be SEARED, SEARED in their mind!
Posted by: BA ||
04/27/2005 10:41 Comments ||
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#4
Just keep away from those oil reserves.
Posted by: Jean Desmarais ||
04/27/2005 10:42 Comments ||
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#5
No worries, Jean, the ChiComs have the oil reserves part covered.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/27/2005 11:05 Comments ||
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#6
Remember our cut, comrade. btw, still waiting for your signature on those Exocets...
Posted by: Jean Desmarais ||
04/27/2005 11:24 Comments ||
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#7
The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that it is alarmed by what appears to be a renewed scorched-earth campaign by the pro-government militias in Sudan's Darfur region.
Why are they alarmed?
Are they afrain the murdering bastards won't leave any young refugees the UN wankers can rape?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/27/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#8
The Jordanians are concerned there won't be any sheep left.
Iraq's prime minister-designate on Tuesday proposed a 36-member Cabinet - including three deputy premiers from the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. Ibrahim al-Jaafari discussed his proposal Tuesday with President Jalal Talabani, said the premier's spokesman, Abdel-Razak al-Kadhi. Talabani's three-member presidential council must sign off on the list before it is submitted to the 275-member National Assembly for a vote. Talabani has already indicated he would not exercise his veto and a vote could take place as soon as Wednesday, lawmakers said.
Late Tuesday, Jaafari met Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading member of the winning United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), Kadhi said. Under Jaafari's proposal, Iraq's majority Shiites would get 17 ministries, according to Ali al-Adib and Hadi al-Ameri, two lawmakers from the UIA, which controls 148 seats in Parliament. Eight ministries would go to the alliance's Kurdish allies, six to Sunnis and one to a Christian, the lawmakers said. Fouad Massoum, a senior member of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, confirmed most of the breakdown, but was not aware that a ministry would go to a Christian faction.
Hoping to end months of haggling, Jaafari has also decided to appoint three deputy prime ministers - one each from the country's main ethnic and religious groups - lawmakers said. According an earlier report by Al-Iraqiyya television, Roj Nouri Shaways, a Kurd, former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, and Sunni MP Saad al-Lehebi were all named as deputy premiers. It also said Saadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni, was named as defense minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Who was it who said, "Democracy is like making sausage, not something you'd want to watch, however much you enjoy the result."
#3
a remark similar to the sausage comment is generally attributed to Otto von Bismark --- however, I'm not sure he really said it (no videotape of the CNN interview)
#4
A 36-member cabinet... What unit will they set up that will actually accomplish things? Somewhere under 20 is the limit for an effective meeting. Do we need to send them a copy of Parkinson's book?
The Palestinian Authority outlined plans on Tuesday to take immediate control of all land and property in the Gaza Strip vacated by Israeli settlers after their departure from the territory this summer. Hours after the announcement, two Qassam rockets exploded in the Israeli city of Sderot next to the Gaza Strip after nightfall, witnesses said. A spokesman of the Israeli rescue service said there were apparently no casualties.
Speaking after a meeting of his Cabinet designed to prepare for this summer's historic pullout, Prime Minister Ahmad Qorei said the government would not allow anyone to profit personally. "We are preparing both at the administrative and security levels to take control of the situation on the ground," Qorei said. The Palestinian Authority would "take control of all the land, and all issues concerning private property will be examined by a special tribunal." Qorei also warned anyone tempted to try and buy a house directly from one of the 8,000 settlers that such a transaction would be considered illegal. "Any purchase by Palestinians or a third party of lands to be evacuated or on which settlements are built will be considered illegal," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has predicted that the pullout, expected to start in July or August, will be followed by widespread looting. The Palestinians are determined to prove Sharon wrong, with one Cabinet member revealing that several plans drawn up to deal with the aftermath of the withdrawal have already drawn up by ministerial commissions.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/27/2005 00:01:00 AM ||
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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.
Inside Saudi Arabia today there's a national campaign against extremism. Television ads, billboards and even ATM machines drive home the toll of terror. The Saudis recently hosted a worldwide conference condemning all terrorism and declaring they've cracked down. "When imams preach intolerance or hate towards others, they are dismissed or punished," says 
The car in which an Italian secret agent died shielding a hostage from US "friendly fire" in Iraq has arrived in Italy for investigators to inspect. An Italian air force cargo plane delivered the Toyota Corolla to a base near Rome days after reports suggested America had cleared its soldiers. Rome is still investigating the death of agent Nicola Calipari, who died as his car approached a US checkpoint. Prosecutors are due to examine the car at the Practica di Mare air base, the Associated Press news agency reports. 
TORONTO: 
Minuteman Project organizers will tell members of Congress today that "ordinary citizens sitting in lawn chairs" stopped a flood of illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that if the country's elected leaders "will not defend our nation's borders, American citizens will." Organizers James T. Gilchrist and Chris Simcox will tell the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, during a closed meeting, that the Minuteman volunteers shut down alien traffic along a 23-mile section of border while bringing nationwide attention to a national security crisis, of which porous borders and illegal aliens are key components. "We demonstrated that ordinary citizens have not only the will, but the means to secure our border," said Mr. Gilchrist, a retired California certified public accountant and combat-wounded Vietnam veteran. 
A demonstration by relatives of Lebanese prisoners detained in Syrian jails demanding the release of their loved ones outside Parliament turned violent after one of the demonstrators beat an arriving lawmaker's car with a Lebanese flag, leading to a clash with army troops and riot police. The Lebanese Red Cross said 16 people were wounded, six of whom were sent to St. George and Wardieh Hospitals for treatment. "The army pushed us and jabbed us with their rifle butts!" cried Intisar Hussian al-Ali, one of the demonstrators who had marched to Beirut's Parliament from the UN House where relatives of Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails have been staging a sit-in for the past two weeks. "We came here peacefully. We just wanted to hand the members of Parliament copies of our demands, it is just one sheet of paper asking for the Lebanese government to acknowledge the detainees and get them out. The least they could do is just take the sheet!" said Ali, who is demanding the release of her husband detained for six years in a Syrian jail under suspicion of being an Israeli spy. "But they wouldn't listen, they kept moving and drove over our feet with their fancy cars," said Ali, whose daughter, age 3, suffered a cut lip and a bruised leg during the clash.
The rumors on several jihadist Web sites say a new message from Osama bin Laden is coming soon. It's been almost four months since one of those videotapes or audiotapes surfaced. There was a flurry of bin Laden messages at the end of last year. First, a videotape appeared four days before the U.S. presidential vote -- the one Sen. John Kerry cited in post-election interviews as contributing to his loss to President Bush. Two more messages appeared in December. It seemed that bin Laden had re-emerged, at least as a propagandist, and that he was becoming increasingly brazen in getting his word out. 
The United States military has not yet managed to catch 
Gen. 
Former Nepali Prime Minister 
A Palestinian commander responsible for a ruthless campaign against suspected "collaborators" in the Gaza Strip was promoted on Tuesday by Palestinian Authority Chairman 
LAHORE: The government is paving the way for direct US aggression in NWFP under the pretext of its anti-terrorism policy, said Syed 
The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that it is alarmed by what appears to be a renewed scorched-earth campaign by the pro-government militias in Sudan's Darfur region. 
Iraq's prime minister-designate on Tuesday proposed a 36-member Cabinet - including three deputy premiers from the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. 
The 
