In 711 Muslim armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. They took Spain by force and remained there until they were thrown out during the reconquista in 1492. Every year, in a tradition that goes back to the 16th century, Spanish villages still celebrate the liberation from the Moors (as the Muslims were locally called) during Moros y Cristianos festivals in which effigies of the prophet Muhammad the so-called la Mahoma are mocked, thrown out of windows, and burned.
Now the Spanish, having witnessed what happened to the Vikings recently, are wondering whether they can still continue their tradition of offending Muslims. The village of Bocairent near Valencia decided this year to discontinue the century old tradition of mocking and burning effigies of Muhammad. Bocairent does not want to risk becoming the target of suicide bombers.
In Belgium, as we reported last week, the organizers of the traditional carnival (mardi gras) parade of Aalst hope that the participants in this years parade will be sensible enough not to offend Muslims by dressing up in burqas or posing as Muhammad. But not only the Belgian authorities are worried. The neighbouring Netherlands have a tradition of dressing up at carnival as well.
The authorities in Oldenzaal have decided that mocking Muhammad will not be tolerated. We will be very strict, they told the media. Similar prohibitions have also been imposed in the province of Limburg, where carnival (this year from 26 to 28 February) is a very old tradition. Participants can mock whomever they want, except Muslims. Making allusions to the cartoon crisis will not be tolerated either, the organizing committee of a carnival parade in Brabant said.
Some Dutch, however, are made of sterner stuff. Last Friday, at the conclusion of a debate on Dutch television about the Muhammad cartoons, an animated cartoon was shown. It was made by Joep Bertrams, who won an award last year for being the best Dutch political cartoonist of 2005. See it here. The title Gevoelig means Sensitive.
More non-news from the war we're losing every day as the quagmire deepens. Whazaat, Congreeman Murtha?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2006
19:33 ||
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"Analysts say that if the Al Basrah Oil Terminal can sustain half of the current production rate they will balance the Iraqi budget by 2008."
I wonder how soon their budget will be balanced if they can maintain the higher rate? Which, of course, also doesn't take into account their northern production.
By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2006 Iraqi security forces continue to grow in capability and are planning and conducting more operations without coalition support, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said today. Of the 435 company-level or higher operations conducted in Iraq last week, 31 percent were independent Iraqi operations, Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said at a news briefing.
A very notable victory for the Iraqi security forces was a peaceful Ashura holiday last week, Lynch said. Two million pilgrims participated in the Shiite Muslim festival without any violence or attacks by insurgents, he said. This year's calm was in stark contrast to the 2004 and 2005 holidays, which saw significant violence. Lynch attributed the success to the development of the Iraqi security forces.
"The Iraqi government planned the security for the Ashura commemoration, the Iraqi security forces executed it, and it was indeed an Iraqi success," he said. Iraqi security forces further demonstrated their capability last week by capturing 102 insurgents in the Diyalah province and discovering 950 mortars that were well placed for insurgent access and in extremely good condition, Lynch said.
Coalition forces are seeing reduced casualty rates as Iraqi forces take over more missions and take responsibility for more areas, Lynch said. Less than 30 percent of operations are now independent coalition operations, but the coalition still supports the Iraqis wherever they're needed, he said.
Insurgents continue to attack throughout Iraq and are increasingly targeting Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians, Lynch said. The insurgency maintains its primary objectives of derailing the democratic process and discrediting the Iraqi government, he said, but more local leaders are using the political process to combat violence and encourage the people to embrace democracy.
"Over the next days and weeks, the elected representatives of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people will form a government -- a representative government -- that truly meets the rights of all Iraqis," he said. "You've got to applaud the Iraqi citizenship, as they've worked over the last year through three successful elections as they march from tyranny to democracy."
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2006
19:28 ||
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"Ashura (Shiite) Holiday Passes without Violence"
Except to themselves.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/16/2006 20:46
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From Threegorgesprobe.org website. The financial implications are huge, and the World Bank is in the middle of it.
The World Bank has given China's second-largest hydropower project a satisfactory rating on its financial performance, despite its failure to meet the Bank's financial targets and its near-bankruptcy in the first five years of operation. Maybe we can get the US govt to do the same....oops, already have, sigh.
Unable to service its debts, the US$2.2-billion Ertan project,1 which received more than US$1 billion from the World Bank,2 was bailed out by the Bank of China in 2003. With a US$396-million loan from the central bank, Ertan Hydropower Development Corporation repaid its commercial financiers and a portion of its World Bank debts. The whole Chicom financing thing is a shaky deck of cards.
Since then, EHDC's finances have improved somewhat due to increased electricity sales and lower interest charges on its outstanding debts, according to last year's performance assessment by the World Bank's operations evaluation department.3
However, the company's earnings are still nowhere near the Bank's target of 15-per-cent return on assets. By selling power below cost to its industrial customers, EHDC is losing more than US$15 million a year. Its debt-to-equity ratio is "still unsatisfactory and will limit its future borrowing capacity." Its shareholders4 have not yet paid in their full 20 per cent of the initial project investment equity. The company is not generating enough cash flow to mobilize capital for expansion nor does the Bank expect progress any time soon in raising rates to cover EHDC's actual costs. In other words, the project is failing on its business plan.
Despite these fundamental weaknesses, the Bank gives EHDC a satisfactory rating because it "acquired the technology and project management skills for the design and implementation of very large, world-class hydroelectric schemes." Having built the 240-metre high Ertan dam, EHDC now has "the capabilities to undertake further major hydroelectric developments on the Yalong River such as the much larger Jinping hydro project." There ya go, build some more monster dams that will no pay for themselves. Sounds like Communist central planning, with help from the World Bank.
What matters, in other words, is EHDC's capacity to keep on building large dams regardless of their high cost and risk of financial failure. Shortly after this endorsement from the World Bank, China Construction Bank announced a US$3.7-billion loan for EHDC's next project in Sichuan province.5 Digging a bigger financial hole with more money.
Ertan with its six General Electric (Canada) turbines was designed to generate 17 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year - equivalent to about one-third of Sichuan province's annual power supply. The dam's output was to be delivered via high-voltage transmission lines (also partly financed by the World Bank) to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million people at the upper end of the Three Gorges dam reservoir.
But when Ertan began generating power in 1998, there wasn't enough demand for its output. Many state-owned factories were shutting down at that time, which caused electricity demand to drop sharply.
More importantly, Ertan's two biggest prospective customers had become its competitors. Wonder if that was part of the business plan.....In the decade it took to build the giant dam, Sichuan province and Chongqing had financed and built their own sizable coal-fired plants (ranging from 50 to 700 MWs) that produce power for less than Ertan. As a result, Ertan Hydropower Development Corporation "suffered serious financial losses in terms of forgone revenues at a time when its debt service burden was very high." Bad financial combo...
The Bank's disclaimer for EHDC's failure is found on Page 3 of its assessment: "No safeguards or mitigating measures could have been incorporated at [World Bank loan] appraisal to have prevented the project from suffering the financial difficulties it encountered in its first five years of operation." This is Bank-speak for "don't blame us." Heh heh.
Rather than accept some responsibility as the lead financier, the Bank praises EHDC's bailout as a "foreign debt adjustment" that demonstrates its client's "financial management capabilities." It blames Ertan's lack of customers on local protectionism, depicting local governments' preference for cheaper power as a "perverse outcome." From the Bank's perspective, the market failed its client, not the other way round.
The Bank goes on to warn that other state generating companies are at risk of bankruptcy in the coming power glut. State generating companies currently have about 300,000 MW of new capacity under construction, "which is a massive amount, even by Chinese standards." In 2004 alone, an estimated 50,000 MW of new capacity was added to the power system, and at least that much was expected to be added last year.
By 2007-08, the Bank predicts: "A significant portion of this new capacity. . . is likely to be surplus to requirements . . . even if rapid economic growth continues. . . . many [new power] projects may run at low levels of capacity utilization and their promoters may have difficulty generating sufficient cash flows to service their loans." Build like hell, then look around and say, "Oh, Sh*t! The market is saturated.
The expected surplus generating capacity has "serious implications for the Chinese banking system," the Bank adds. "Since the major portion of the loans are from state owned banks to state owned generating companies, formal defaults are unlikely, but loan rescheduling on a large scale would be needed to avoid adding to the stock of the [state] banks' non-performing assets." Which means that the Chicom banking system is full of shaky deals like the above.
The Bank criticizes the central government's response to the last oversupply crisis. When Ertan couldn't sell its output, the government stopped issuing permits for construction of new power plants. The two-year ban (2000-01) resulted in a capacity shortfall that contributed to severe power shortages in 2003 and 2004. According to the Bank, the ban was motivated by concern that the country's largest hydro project, the Three Gorges dam, would run into the same difficulty as Ertan when it started generating power in 2003.
Note the Bank doesn't disagree with the central government's ban on building new plants, only that it was too long. It calls for better planning and blames decentralization for the current overbuilding of generation plants. "Indicative power system planning at the national level is essential in order to avoid boom-bust investment cycles such as the one currently building up in the Chinese power sector."
Nowhere do the Bank evaluators consider that huge-scale power projects like Ertan are ill-suited to China's newly decentralized power market. With the decentralization of investment authority, and more entities involved in power generation since the 2002 breakup of the state power monopoly, competition for customers and demand uncertainty is on the rise. With decentralization, big state-backed power projects can no longer be assured of a market for their power. And should not be assured of financing, in a normal market system, being bad risks and all.
To protect Ertan and other state power companies, the Bank recommends a market by government fiat: rate increases to cover uncompetitive investments made by state companies, closure of local power plants that offer cheaper power, and more high-cost long-distance transmission lines so that oversized power plants can export power beyond local markets. Heavy handed socialism at its finest.
The Bank fails to consider the effect of this no-fail environment for state power companies: more overexpansion of risky projects that invite financial ruin. Nor does the Bank consider itself part of the problem. But when the Bank provides loan guarantees to protect commercial lenders from market risk, when it subsidizes transmission costs, and when it glosses over the dismal financial performance of state companies, as it does with EHDC, the Bank helps create companies unhinged from market reality. Understatement of the week.
By shielding commercial lenders from market risks, the World Bank, like the Chinese government, sends the wrong signal, encouraging high-risk expansion that leads to higher-than-necessary electricity costs or more state bailouts. And where, pray tell, does the World Bank get its funding?
Without World Bank and central government protection, power companies would adjust their perception of market risk and abandon megaprojects in favour of smaller scale investments better suited to a decentralized market and consumer demands. By providing less not more financial protection for generation and transmission companies, the central government could better concentrate on becoming an effective regulator - to protect the interests of power consumers, including the 30 million rural Chinese who currently lack access to basic electricity service.
Footnotes:
1 The US$2.2-billion cost excludes US$1 billion for high-voltage transmission lines.
2 The World Bank provided US$780 million for the dam project, a US$150-million loan guarantee for Ertan's commercial financiers, and US$270 million to Sichuan Electric Power Corporation for the transmission lines linking the dam to Chengdu and Chongqing.
3 The full project performance assessment report by the World Bank's operations evaluation department (Report No. 32664), dated June 27, 2005, is available at www.worldbank.org
4 EHDC is a limited liability company with share capital divided between the State Development Investment Company and the Sichuan Provincial Investment Group with 48 per cent each, and the remaining 4 per cent held by China Huadian Corporation.
5 "Bank offers loans for infrastructure, power projects in Sichuan," Xinhua news agency, Sept. 15, 2005.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/16/2006
18:42 ||
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Ah, I love the smell of socialism in the morning!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2006 19:49
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I'm going to have to disagree here. I'm not in favour of governments doing most things, but there some things that governments are particularly well suited to do, and one of them is carry the financial risks of large infrastructure projects.
Large scale hydro is far and away the cheapest means of generating electricity and over time will be hugely profitable. The problems of oversupply and market distortions are strictly short term.
#3
I agree, when you build something as hugely expensive as a dam and generating station you MUST make the project many times larger than the current need, or ten years down the road you're out of power.
A good idea would be to build the dam and powerhouse, but only 2 turbines. With plenty of room and design features allowing more turbines as need increases, say ten pentstocks leading to turbine wells, with huge shutoff valves, or welded closed pipe ends for future turbines to be installed.
Ther's no such thing as obsolescence here, the turbines are custom built for each given head, flow, and generator requirements. So build them as needed.
(Dad was a Civil Enginer, Army Corps of Engineers, a lot soaked through)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 21:16
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Of course, having Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank would have nothing to do with encouraging the Chinese to horribly overextend themselves, now would it?
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 13 A senior commander of Irans elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed that following the printing of insulting cartoons of Islams prophet Muhammad in European dailies, the Islamic Republics suicide volunteers abroad were being placed on readiness alert to attack Unites States and Israeli interests.
Mohammad-Reza Jaafari, the commander of Irans Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison and a Brigadier General in the IRGC, said, Now that America is after gaining allies against the righteous Islamic Republic and wants to attack our sanctities, members of the martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world have been put on alert so that if the Islamic Republic of Iran receives the smallest threat, the American and Israeli strategic interests will be burnt down everywhere.
He was speaking to a group of suicide volunteers in Shahr-Rey, on the outskirts of Tehran, on Saturday evening.
Jaafari defended recent comments by Irans hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the Islamic Republics suspected nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejads speech in Bushehr reflected the words of the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], the beloved martyrs and the victorious, brave, and martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran.
The only tool against the enemy that we have with which we can become victorious are martyrdom-seeking operations and, God willing, our possession of faithful, brave, trained and zealous persons will give us the upper hand in the battlefield, he said.
America and any other power cannot win in the unbalanced war against us.
Upon receiving their orders, our martyrdom-seeking forces will be uncontrollable and a guerrilla war may go on in various places for years to come, Jaafari said.
We tell the American people that tomorrows actions are based on the stance and adventurism of their president [George W. Bush]. So it will be a lot less costly for the American people to contain Bush than to wage a war, which will definitely cost them a great deal.
Previously, the senior IRGC commander had declared that his suicide volunteers will destroy U.S. interests all over the world in retaliation to any attempt by Washington to hit Irans nuclear installations.
In his recent speech, the commander of Irans suicide units hinted that the theocratic state might also make use of long-term sleeper cells in the West for these operations.
In an earlier interview with Parto-Sokhan, Jaafari announced that more than 50,000 individuals had been enlisted in the Iranian military garrison opened to recruit and train volunteers for martyrdom-seeking operations.
He added that several military divisions of the Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison had already been established in several of Irans provinces and others were presently being formed to confront threats by America and Israel.
#2
He's talking to a bunch of suicide volunteers to convince them that they're part of a glorious team of martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world. I call BS. Target one more cruise missile: Shahr-Rey, on the outskirts of Tehran. I'm losing my sympathy for Iranian civilians -- there are just way too many nutcases in that country.
#3
For all American businesses and corporations that wish to wait for it and take that bloody nose , more power to them, but they won't have my sympathy. The motto now with US citizens on Iran should be...read the handwriting on the wall and cover your a**. Short, come home!
BBC bosses are ready to AXE a £1million episode of hit drama Spooks in which an al-Qaeda terrorist is shot dead in case it upsets Muslims. Filming the assassination plot for the MI5 drama took four weeks. But actor Shaun Dingwall who plays a renegade Christian gunman, fears he could become a target for fundamentalists if the scene is aired. In the episode, due to be shown later this year, a religious nut played by Shaun, 35, guns down the fanatic on the steps of Londons High Court. But production sources admitted it could be canned. One said: In the climate of Muslim fury over cartoons, Shaun isnt sure about it all.
A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions. "c'mon, you guys! it's not like we killed REAL people! dey wuz just jooooos!"
Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas "as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions." "trust us. *snicker*"
"Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. ...All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands," Abu Marzouk said. hey zookie...you spelled "piece" wrong. and anyway, it's not "piece" you want. you want the whole thing. dead joos and all.
Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable" Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying "Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy." yep. democracy. we LOVE the process. don't have to like the outcome. that's democracy too, ya see.
Hamas won a landslide victory in last month's Palestinian legislative elections and has dispatched delegations to Arab and other foreign capitals to win support the group's efforts to form a new government. yeah. let the arab nations help their poor, oppressed "brothers" (hint....paleos are lower in arab society than blacks were in early 20th century US)
Hamas, which has previously carried out a wave of suicide bombings that killed or wounded hundreds of Israeli's, has not claimed involvement in any suicide attacks since February 2005. I'm fearful that the EU will glom onto that fact...and think Hamas has changed. cuz that's what they WANT to think, damn the facts.
The radical organization has hinted at a readiness for a long-term truce or some other accommodation with the Jewish state, short of recognition. it's called a hudna. used for rest and rearming. an enemy who wants to destroy you is still an enemy who wants to destroy you, even if they're not shooting at you for the moment.
But the U.S. and the European Union have threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas forms a government without first recognizing Israel and renouncing violence. hope they're not idle threats
Abu Marzouk, who has been in Egypt, Sudan and Qatar, said Hamas found "all-out support" in the three countries, which back "the choice of the Palestinian people and the budget of the Palestinian Authority as it was in the past." He did not elaborate. it means they smiled and said "trust us" *snicker*
#1
Choices. Ah yes. The whack about choices is that when you make a bad one, you have to live with the results. And you also have to take responsibility for the choices you have made. Thats kinda what choice is all about.
Second thing about choices: freedom offers you the chance to change your mind instantly; a democracy, it takes at least 2 years.
Welcome to your brief time in real, big world. Choose death and understand it will come.
Oh oh, this is serious. Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad." You are infidel, but your pastries are too good for us to pass up for the sake of Allah. I mean, praise be Allah and all that crap, but these things are better than the 72 white raisins I am going to get in heaven.
"Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet, as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to 'Rose of Muhammad' pastries," the union said in its order. Yeah! What's up now infidel?
"This is a punishment for those who started misusing freedom of expression to insult the sanctities of Islam," said Ahmad Mahmoudi, a cake shop owner in northern Tehran. Not that you would know what freedom of expression is, never having it and all...
Some customers took immediately to the new name. But others were less enthusiastic about the protest. "I just want the sweet pastries. I have nothing to do with the name," homemaker Zohreh Masoumi told the sales clerk taking her order. Calling all black turbans, we have a 213 in progress...
Posted by: Ol Dirty American ||
02/16/2006
14:39 ||
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It is easy to damn the 1930s appeasers of Hitler such as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in England and Edouard Daladier in France given what the Nazis ultimately did when unleashed. But history demands not merely recognizing the truth post facto, but also trying to reconstruct the rationale of something that now in hindsight seems inexplicable.
Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish or about fighting radical Islamism in general.
First, Europe had nearly been destroyed during the Great War, a mere 20 years prior. No responsible postwar leader wished to risk a second continental bloodbath.
Unfortunately, Hitler understood that all too well. In a game of diplomatic chicken, he figured many responsible democratic statesmen had more to lose than he did, as the weaker and once-beaten enemy.
British intellectuals, like European Union idealists today, wrote books and treatises on the obsolescence of war. Conflicts were supposedly caused only by rapacious arms merchants and profiteers at home, not by anti-democratic dictators who interpreted forbearance as weakness. Winston Churchill was a voice in the wilderness and demonized as a warmonger and worse.
Today, the 50-year Cold War is over, and Europe is at last free of burdensome military expenditure and the threat of global annihilation. Like Osama Bin Laden, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad senses a certain weariness in much of the West as it counts on perpetual peace.
He assumes that most sober Westerners will do almost anything to avoid military confrontation to stop a potential threat even though, unlike Hitler, Ahmadinejad not only promises to liquidate the Jews but reveals his method in advance by seeking nuclear weapons.
Some naive conservatives in prewar Europe thought the German and Italian fascists would prove a valuable bulwark against communism, and so could be politically finessed. So, too, it has been at times with Islamic fascism. Arming the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia was once seen as an inspired way of thwarting Soviet communist imperialism.
At the time of the Ayatollah Khomeini's homicidal fatwa against Salman Rushdie, religious conservative commentators from Patrick Buchanan to New York's Cardinal O'Connor attacked Rushdie, rather than defended the Western right of free expression. Apparently, they felt such Islamic threats to supposed blasphemers might have positive repercussions in discouraging left-wing anti-Christian attacks as well.
In the 1930s, the doctrine of appeasement fobbed off responsibility of confronting fascism onto the League of Nations. Both France and England were quiet about the 1936 Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the German militarization of the Rhineland. They counted on multilateral action of the League, which issued plenty of edicts but marshaled few troops.
Likewise, the moral high ground today supposedly was to refer both the Iraqi and Iranian problems to the United Nations. But considering the oil-for-food scandals and Saddam's constant violations of U.N. resolutions, it is unlikely that the Iranian theocracy has much fear that the Security Council will thwart its uranium enrichment.
As fascism spread, France worked on fortifying its German border with the Maginot Line, Oxford undergraduates voted to refuse "in any circumstances to fight for King and Country," and British newspapers decried the Treaty of Versailles for unduly punishing Germany. This was all long before the "no blood for oil" slogan and Al Gore in Saudi Arabia apologizing to his Wahhabi hosts for the supposed American maltreatment of Arabs.
But deja vu pertains not just to us, but our enemies as well. Like the Nazi romance of a exalted ancient Volk, the Islamists hearken back to a mythical purity, free of decadence brought on by Western liberalism. Similarly, they feed off victimization not just recent defeats, but centuries-old bitterness at the rise of the West. Their version of the stab-in-the-back Versailles Treaty is always the creation of Israel.
Just as Hitler concocted incidents such as the burning of the Reichstag to create outrage, Islamist leaders incite frenzy in their followers over a supposed flushed Koran at Guantanamo and several inflammatory cartoons, some of them never published by Danish newspapers at all.
Anti-Semitism, of course, is the mother's milk of fascism. It is always, they say, a small group of Jews whether shadowy cabinet advisers and international bankers of the 1930s or the manipulative neoconservatives and Israeli leadership of the present who alone stir up the trouble.
The point of the comparison is not to suggest that history simply repeats itself, but to learn why intelligent people delude themselves into embracing naive policies. After the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the furious reply of the radical Islamist world was to censor Western newspapers, along with Iran's accelerated efforts to get the bomb.
In response, either the West will continue to stand up now to these reoccurring post-Sept. 11 threats, or it will see the bullies' demands only increase as its own resistance weakens. Like the appeasement of the 1930s, opting for the easier choice will only guarantee a more costly one later on. .
#1
He assumes that most sober Westerners will do almost anything to avoid military confrontation to stop a potential threat even though, unlike Hitler, Ahmadinejad not only promises to liquidate the Jews but reveals his method in advance by seeking nuclear weapons.
The writer should read Read "Mein Kampf". Not only did Hitler discuss the destruction of the jews, but also the invasion of Russia.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ahmadinejad is right about Europeans doing anything to avoid military confrontation. The entire point of European society is easy living. The cost of arming and the act of fighting would reduce the quality of their lifestyle.
#3
Today, the 50-year Cold War is over, and Europe is at last free of burdensome military expenditure and the threat of global annihilation.
Sorry VDH, Western Europe well before the 80s achieved equality in both combined GDP and population to the US and the US still carried the defense burden for Europe. They're welfare queens when it comes to defense and it isn't something new. They rationalized that their drafts made up for real military power and the American expense and cost [like the willingness to trade New York for Berlin if push came to shove]. They sleepwalked through the affair, with the exception of the Brits. There were and are still military welfare queens. Its just that while Washington has the guts to kick layabouts out of free room and board around New Orleans, it doesn't have the guts to tell kill NATO.
#4
One other piece of the 1930's appeasement puzzle that should be remembered is the Soviet Union - much of the West regarded Stalin as a greater threat than Hitler, and (sort of) mistakenly thought that a stronger Germany would provide a valuable 'buffer' against Soviet expansion.
Manufacturer Mitutoyo Corp. apparently evaded export restrictions by understating the precision of measuring instruments sold overseas that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, police sources said. Whats this dual-use you speak of?
The Kawasaki-based company is also suspected of changing the name of the exported equipment from the one used in Japan.
Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is investigating the company on suspicion it exported two three-dimensional measuring instruments to Thailand and China around 2001 without obtaining the required permission from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law, measuring equipment with a certain level of precision cannot be exported without the approval of the trade ministry.
Under the current rules, companies are required to submit a report to the ministry on their export plans for items considered subject to the regulations.
Police suspect Mitutoyo understated the precision level of the measuring instruments to get around the rules. The instruments can be used in designing equipment needed for uranium enrichment. That could be how do you say Troublesome.
Mitutoyo officials have denied exporting products with such a high level of precision, Lies I tells ya all lies! but MPD investigators tested the instruments that surfaced in Thailand and China and concluded that they should have been subject to the export controls, the sources said.
The instruments exported were called BLN, although they were identical to the machinery under a different name in the Japanese market.
The MPD suspects the company started lying about the technology of the instruments and changed the name of the products in the early 1990s, Sort of like Liberal to Progressive same thing just a cooler sounding name. when controls around the world tightened for exports that could be used for military purposes.
Around that time, suspicions were heightening that Iraq and North Korea were developing nuclear weapons. The international community stepped up efforts to regulate exports of certain products to those two countries, as well as Libya and Iran. You remember that whole Axis of Evil Hub-Bub.
MPD investigators suspect Mitutoyo was concerned that the stricter rules would severely hurt its business operations, which depended heavily on exports. Nuclear Holocaust is a bad thing but were talkin Bottom-line here folks.
Mitutoyo, in fact, tried to export three-dimensional measurement equipment to Iran via a trading house in Tokyo in 1993. But the trade ministry refused to give a permit because of the machinery's advanced technology. Got the paperwork all filled out and everything Lets see here...Shipping to Kahn something er other Not sure what his first name is but his initials are A.Q.
Police want to determine if Mitutoyo knew its actions violated export regulations and whether company officials understood the overseas sales route of the precision instruments. Well there was that thing about a dozen years ago but we figured things were more relaxed now.
Mitutoyo is known to have exported six precision measuring devices to a dubious Malaysian company. Name one that isnt. Three of six instruments were found two years ago in Libya by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Police suspect the instruments were sold in the black market for equipment and materials used in nuclear weapons development.
And now for the comforting part.
The whereabouts of the three other instruments remain unknown.
Thousands of Armenian Americans are protesting the Public Broadcasting Service's planned panel-discussion program about Turkey's role in the deaths of Armenians during and after World War I. The 25-minute program has generated an outcry because the panel will include two scholars who deny that 1.5 million Armenian civilians were killed in eastern Turkey from 1915 to 1920.
A scene from the one-hour documentary "The Armenian Genocide," which is scheduled to air on PBS in April. A panel discussion is to follow the program.
The program is scheduled to air April 17, a week before the annual Armenian Remembrance Day commemoration, and will follow a one-hour documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," which describes the events surrounding the deaths, as well as denials of complicity by successive Turkish governments. Armenian Americans have publicized an online petition that asks PBS to drop the discussion program. As of last night, more than 6,000 people had electronically added their names to the petition, making it one of the largest organized protests of a PBS program.
As the title implies, "The Armenian Genocide," a documentary by New York filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, is unequivocal in its take on history. PBS agreed to air the film -- whose $650,000 budget was partly funded by Armenian Americans -- without major changes, said Goldberg and Jacoba Atlas, a top PBS programming executive. In the course of reviewing rough cuts of the film, however, Atlas said PBS officials agreed to add the panel discussion to explore other views, particularly the question of why denial exists. "It's a terrific documentary, and while we believe [the genocide] is settled history . . . you still get dissenters," she said in an interview yesterday. "We said, 'Let's approach this head-on and say why this is still contentious.' We thought it was a good thing to have both sides talking to each other. We felt the more you can shed light on an argument, the more the truth becomes clear. This remains a contentious piece of history," Atlas added. "There are just questions around it. Rather than have those questions dismissed, it seemed like a good idea to have a panel and let people have their say."
Subtext is only white Europeans are able to commit genocide and 1.5 million dead Armenians don't really matter that much anyway. Plus Cheney shot a guy this week!
Atlas acknowledged that such an approach is rare for PBS and said that the Alexandria-based service has not had other panels to discuss opposing views of documentaries during her five-year tenure. She declined to say whether a documentary about the Holocaust or about the genocides in Rwanda or Cambodia would require a similar post-documentary discussion. "Those are hypothetical questions," she said.
The panel discussion, hosted by NPR's Scott Simon, was taped last week. Colgate professor Peter Balakian, an adviser on the documentary, and University of Minnesota professor Taner Akcam supported the film's view. University of Louisville professor Justin A. McCarthy and Turkish historian Omer Turan offered an alternative perspective. Balakian, an Armenian American who wrote the best-selling "Tigris Burning: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response," said that he did not want to participate in a panel with "two bona fide deniers" but that he felt "backed into a corner" by PBS. If he had boycotted the panel, he said, it would have jeopardized the broadcast of the documentary, which Balakian called "a major and comprehensive piece of work."
In an interview yesterday, McCarthy said the history of the period is complex and does not lend itself to simple judgments and labels. He said that he could not find evidence of 1.5 million Armenian deaths. He also said 3 million Turks died during the same period. "If saying that both sides killed each other makes me a genocide denier, then I'm a denier," he said. Titling the documentary "The Armenian Genocide," he said, "is a false description of a complicated history." PBS said it is up to its 348 member stations to decide individually whether to air either the panel discussion or the documentary.
#1
What's the problem? The Armenian holocaust is well documented. Any Turkish deniers will come across as just that. Fer crimeney sakes, Hitler made direct references to the slaughter while planning for his own bit of handiwork.
In preparation for the impending invasion of Poland, Hitler stated to Reichmarshal Hermann Goering and the commanding generals at Obersalzberg...
"Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter - with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.
I have issued the command - and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad - that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness - for the present only in the East - with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
#2
At this juncture, the American people offer a reminder that we are strong supporters of the inclusion of Turkey into the European Union. Free migration into Europe, of adherents of the noble faith of Islam, will challenge the perverse Secularism that corrupts values. Further, if Turks flood Europe, then enforcement of the religion of peace's blasphemy laws - which we firmly support, and endorse - will be enhanced. In conclusion, Muslim based anti-Secularism will diminish the influences of Atheism and Communism, which are the real threats to American peace and security. And at this point, we offer a second reminder: the American people opposed the anti-hijab policy of France, and support the total integration of Muslims into all aspects of life in Western Civilization. That includes: curriculum creation at our schools; participation in our security intelligence institutions; security clearances in our defense industrial establishments, etc. Freedom for Muslims means peace and security for Americans. And if you disagree with the above and we find you, thn we will intern you in a concentration camp, for re-education, inshAllah (God-Willing).
Posted by: State Department ||
02/16/2006 15:48
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The Conservative government has created a committee of two cabinet ministers and a backbencher to figure out how best to kill the long-gun registry as soon as possible.
Registry critic Garry Breitkreuz, who is working with Justice Minister Vic Toews and Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, said he has been given wide leeway to deal swiftly with the registry.
"I wouldn't be fighting for what I'm fighting for if I didn't think that would be the case," the Saskatchewan MP said in an interview.
"We couldn't have had two better appointments because they're giving me the opportunities to put in place whatever is needed to stop the flow of money right now."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised voters during the election campaign that the long-gun registry would be scrapped and money redirected to public safety.
When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion.
The Conservatives have called the registry a waste of taxpayers money that targets duck hunters rather than criminals.
Breitkreuz would say little about how the government will kill the registry while maintaining background checks it promised on would-be gun owners.
"I still have to work through Stockwell Day and Vic Toews so I can't tip my hand as to what we're doing but we're working on that."
The Tories promised to reinvest savings from scrapping the gun registry into hiring police and assisting victims of crime, but may find there is less cash available than meets the eye.
The gun program consumes about $90 million a year in direct costs while a single campaign promise to hire an additional 1,000 Mounties would add $50 million to the federal payroll.
There are no cost estimates on campaign promises such as defending victims' rights and improving gun safety.
Three right-wing parties petitioned the Central Elections Committee Thursday morning in a bid to disqualify the United Arab List-Ta'al party from running in the upcoming elections.
The petitions were submitted in the wake of a harsh anti-Zionist speech by Arab list chairman Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur, who during a press conference Wednesday said that the rule on earth, or at least the rule in Arab and Muslim lands should be led by the Caliph (Muslim leader and Muhammad's heir.)
The party's goal is also to put up a fight in the face of Israelization and Zionization, Sarsur added in his address.
Central Elections Committee Deputy Chairman Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) said he petitioned the Committee because "Sarsur's words yesterday regarding the turning of Israel into an Islamic state show him and his list seek to undermine the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."
National Jewish Front Head Baruch Marzel also asked that the Arab party be disqualified and charged the party rejects Israel's Jewish character and supporters a terror organization, namely Hamas Earlier, National Union-NRP Knesset Member Yitzhak Levy voiced a similar demand.
"Sarsur called for the establishment of Muslim rule in the State of Israel," Levy wrote in a letter sent to Judge Dorit Beinish, who heads the Elections Committee. "Later Sarsur slammed the global campaign against Islam and vowed: 'Hamas will lead the Palestinian people to achievements.'"
"The sheikh's words, which were uttered openly during a press conference, border on the criminal and constitute a genuine danger and threat to the welfare of the Israeli public," Levy said.
Meanwhile, members of United Arab List-Ta'al said Sarsur did not demand the establishment of an Islamic rule in Israel, but rather, only referred to Islamic rule in Arab and Muslim territories. Sarsur also stressed the party will focus on the demand to recognize Arabs as a national minority through a struggle for civil and political equality, the party said.
In his speech, however, Sarsur said the party does not renounce its Islamic doctrine and added "we do not support the separation of religion and State," saying the Muslim world started declining because of this separation after dominating the world for hundreds of years.
Arab party members reacted with fury to the petitions against the party's participation in the upcoming elections.
"This is part of the campaign of incitement against Muslims and Islam, a campaign that started in Denmark and now continues in Israel," Knesset Member Taleb el-Sana told Ynet. Claiming that his party was undermining the State of Israel's existence is ridiculous, he said.
"I'm telling all the racists seeking to disqualify us, take a look at yourselves first. This is a handful of racists who are in distress and want to build their campaign at our expense," he said.
Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi, meanwhile, said "requests by the radical Right to disqualify the party are an expression of Islamophobia and a desire to prevent Arab representation in the Knesset."
Tibi added his party does not demand the establishment of Islamic rule in Israel. "Joos should be exterminated. I did not just say that. Joos are racist for saying I did."
When the new Palestinian legislature is sworn in Saturday, Hamas's installation as the new majority will be hailed by clueless reporters and wishful thinkers as an electoral milestone for the fledgling Palestinian democracy. But a brewing dispute between the Islamic militants and the deposed Fatah Party is already calling into question the stability of a new government: How will authority be divvied up between the Hamas prime minister's cabinet and the higher-ranking post held by President Mahmoud Abbas?
Small arms at 30 paces, is my guess.
"Palestinian legislation is slippery and elastic. There's unclear constitutional lines," says Bassem Ezbidi, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. "We will have a power struggle from now on from these two heads of government. And that will impact everything: the mandate, the authority, the politics that will emerge."
Setting the stage for the standoff will be a speech expected by Mr. Abbas to lawmakers Saturday in which he'll ask Hamas, which calls for destruction of the Jewish state, to embrace his vision for peace with Israel. Hamas is expected to remain steadfast in its opposition to Abbas's approach, deepening the divide between Fatah and Hamas lawmakers as negotiations begin to form the new government. One of the most sensitive points of tension between the two parties is who will control the gunnies 60,000-strong Palestinian paramilitary police. At stake is whether the policemen will reinforce Abbas's preference of extending a year-long calm in violence with Israel, or possibly collude with militants to launch new attacks.
We'll take "Collusion" for $500, Alex.
Palestinian basic laws designate the president as a commander in chief. The prime minister is responsible for the national security council and appointing an interior minister - powers stripped away from the president three years ago to weaken the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In its last session on Monday, the outgoing Fatah Parliament passed a law setting up a special court to resolve disputes between the prime minister and the president - a move condemned by Hamas. But underlying the legal confusion are years of bad blood between the Islamic militant underground and the guerrilla leaders who Mr. Arafat installed as the security chiefs of the self-rule government when it was set up a decade ago. Two weeks ago, a predawn blast on Suleiman Abu Mutleq's front stoop ripped a hole in his iron doorway and shattered the windows of his villa. The Khan Younis preventative security chief has yet to make an arrest, but has been quick to accuse. "It's clear from the information we have that Hamas is responsible," says Mr. Abu Mutleq, who heads a force charged with pursuing militants who launch attacks on Israel. "They are acting blindly because they won. I don't understand how they can act like an opposition and form a government. It's unacceptable."
Although Hamas has denied involvement, Abu Mutleq's allegation reflects the mutual resentment between Fatah loyalists, who have dominated the Palestinian police, and newly elected Islamic militants who will now oversee security personnel who were once their jailers. "How can they make a truce with Israel without giving political orders to arrest people?" asks Abu Mutleq. "No one from Hamas has shown up and said how they're going to manage the Palestinian street. There is something mysterious about it."
No mystery at all, Mutleq. Hamas will impose shariah, install the Learned Elders of Islam to pass judgements, and then start shooting anyone who disagrees. The Paleo street will suffer as never before.
Indeed, there's a Pandora's box of questions about the future role of the police. If Abbas ordered security forces to disarm Hamas militants firing rockets into Israel, could the cabinet block the president? Will police chiefs continue to cooperate with Israel? Would a Hamas interior minister merge the movement's Izz-a-dine Al Qassem military wing into the police, only to still allow it to initiate strikes on Israel?
The Paleo voters have spoken. Anything that makes Jooos dead will be allowed. Nothing else matters.
Hamas has paid lip service to unifying Palestinian militias with the security forces, but observers say they will wait before merging the Qassem brigades into the police. A decade ago, Sheikh Ahmed Bahar was one of several Hamas leaders who were locked up in a crackdown by Arafat against the underground that dispatched suicide bombers to Israel. The newly elected Palestinian legislator said he hasn't forgotten the experience of nearly three weeks of torture, even if he has tried to forgive. "I stayed 18 days, and I could barely open my mouth. They pulled out three fingernails and three toenails," he says. "There was a lot of anger [at the police]. We could escalate that issue, but we don't want internal fighting between the Palestinian people." Mr. Bahar insisted that Hamas had gotten assurances from Abbas that the security services would be the province of the Interior Ministry. The Islamists will seek to collect illegal weapons, but will allow members of the "resistance" to arm themselves.
But Hamas also has a bone to pick with police chiefs who are widely suspected of corruption. "The security forces will be much better than they were before," says Bahar. "We will threaten the corrupt people who have stolen Palestinian money." And yet, Hamas will have to tread carefully if it wants to give the security services a makeover. That's because the ranks of the police are almost exclusively made up by Fatah. The same is true for other parts of the Palestinian government. "They are the most important manifestations of the Fatah legacy. Fatah used to think of itself as the cream of the cream," says Mr. Ezbidi. "Those people have been exposed to the Fatah political culture, and Hamas knows to change the composition will take time. I don't rule out Hamas facing these challenges directly, and getting into clashes, and arm twisting."
At the Gaza police headquarters, Alaa Husni, the chief of the West Bank and Gaza civilian police, responds sarcastically when asked about whether he'd take orders from a Hamas interior minister. "What's the problem?" "If Hamas is coming to create a conflict this will be unacceptable," he continues. "If they don't disarm themselves, if they don't stop distributing illegal weapons, they shouldn't be talking about security. If Hamas intends to annex the Palestinian security services to its militias, the general public will not accept this."
The Paleo public will accept the mandate of them what has the bigest guns and the bloodiest hands. They made their own bed, now it's time to lie in it.
Venezuela will need to buy more weapons to equip its reservists. Venezuela has increased the number of reservists in its military to a total of two million men and women. Army high command spokesman Col Herrera Jimenez said that around one-and-a-half million Venezuelans had recently signed up to become reservists.
He said the kind of war Venezuela wanted to fight was a people's war like in Iraq, "where an entire population is rising up against a foreign aggressor".
The news may alarm the US and countries neighbouring Venezuela.
We're certainly not threatened, but neighboring countries have to be worried. It becomes easier for Hugo to threaten them, and some of the new rifles could end up in the hands of 'rebels'.
Since last November, Venezuela's armed forces have been carrying out a massive recruitment drive for new reservists. Col Jimenez, who is in charge of the military's recruitment programme, said that the country's two million reservists would serve in the territorial guard and the reserve of the army, air force and navy. "We fully expect these reservists be armed and to be able to fight in the front line if and when required," he said. He said the four months of basic training would start in the first week of March.
What they are really doing, as a first step, is solidifying their control over the countryside by arming their supporters. Much more difficult for the opposition to act if there are a million rifles out there. The second step is to force the opposition to surrender to them or be killed. These 'milita' types wouldn't last 15 minutes against trained soldiers, but in a 'Rwanda' type situation, it's like handing all your supporters a machete.
Venezuela's military high command and indeed President Hugo Chavez himself say they want to boost the country's defences to repel any potential threat or attempt to invade the country. His decision to increase the reservists from 500,000 last year to two million means that around one in five Venezuelan adults could be called up for military service in the event of war.
President Chavez has repeatedly accused the US of aggressive behaviour towards Venezuela. The US has a military reserve roughly half the size of the one being assembled in Venezuela.
However Venezuela only has enough rifles to equip its professional army of around 80,000 soldiers. But last year President Chavez announced the military was purchasing a further 100,000 Russian assault rifles. The government is also studying the possibility of manufacturing many more of these Kalashnikov rifles in Venezuelan factories.
As I recall, the rifles being purchased were an older variant of the AK-47: not used by professional soldiers these days, but good enough to kill your opposition.
Now that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' long-ruling Fatah Party has been forced into the opposition by Hamas' rise to power, Fatah and its "military offshoot," the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, will become the most active Palestinian terror group, a senior Brigades leader said in an exclusive interview.
The leader said Abbas' party supports the Brigades' terror attacks against Israeli civilians and approves of a massive violent offensive he warned will soon be launched against the Jewish state, in part to revolt against Hamas. "Like in the previous days [when] Hamas was not in the government but it carried out [resistance] operations, now Fatah will follow this kind of policy," said Abu Nasser, a Brigades leader in the West Bank during an exclusive interview with WND's Aaron Klein and ABC Radio's John Batchelor broadcast on Batchelor's national program for which Klein serves as a co-host. Abu Nasser warned of a "third intifada" the Brigades will perpetrate against Israel, and said Abbas' Fatah Party approves of the upcoming terror campaign.
Acting Prime Minister Ehuld Olmert last week announced his administration will seek to "change Israel's borders" by withdrawing from most of the West Bank, which runs alongside many major Israeli cities and the country's international airport. Asked if the Al Aqsa Brigades will launch rockets at nearby towns including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv following any Israeli pullout from the West Bank, Abu Nasser replied, "I can tell you that you can count on it that there will be big surprises waiting [for the Israelis.]"
In a widely circulated report, Abu Nasser and other terror leaders this week told WorldNetDaily recent events here are leading them to launch what they called a third intifada against Israel consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal."
The Palestinians launched their first intifada in 1987, which developed into a well-organized violent rebellion orchestrated by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization from its headquarters in Tunis. The so-called second intifada was initiated in 2000 after Arafat rejected at Camp David an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and sections of eastern Jerusalem. Some 993 Israelis and 3,781 Palestinians have been killed so far. Many say the second intifada is still being waged.
Some terror leaders, particularly from the Al Aqsa Brigades, whose associated Fatah Party scored poorly against Hamas in last month's parliamentary elections, say they are planning massive violence against Israeli civilians mostly to revolt against the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian government.
Coffee alert on next paragraph.
Said Abu Nasser: "When we were in power, we were obliged to be more sensitive and more obedient to the instructions and policies of our leadership. Now that we lost the elections, why should we obey the leaders and just who do we obey? The Hamas?" He said the Brigades will not respect any cease-fire agreed to by Hamas and will not halt attacks at Hamas' request.
Other terror leaders told WND now that Olmert announced he will seek a West Bank withdrawal, terrorism against Israel must be stepped up "to prove we are chasing out the Israelis like we did in Gaza." WorldNetDaily caught up with Abu Oudai, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader responsible for coordinating the organization's rocket network in the West Bank. He warned his organization is preparing a rocket war against Israel: "We have launched [several] times and with the help of Allah we will launch these rockets regularly. There will be no calm, no cease-fire until the occupation leaves our land. I don't need to tell you that the aerial distance from Jenin to Netanya, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities is not big without telling you what are all our plans concerning other parts of the West Bank."
Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, responsible for most rocket firings from Gaza the past five years, boasted to WND his group transported missiles to the West Bank and will also soon launch a new intifada. He warned Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will eventually be bombarded by rockets. And all of Gaza and the West Bank will be bombed by F-16s
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Abu Hani told WND his terror group used a hudna cease-fire signed with Israel last year "for a rest in order to rehabilitate forces. The Palestinian people preserves its right to fight against Israel ...which is forcing us to launch a new intifada."
Islamic Jihad's northern West Bank leader, Abu Khalil, said his terror group is planning a new terror onslaught to chase Israel from the West Bank and eventually from Jerusalem. Asked by WND which weapons will be emphasized during Islamic Jihad's next wave of terror attacks, Abu Khalil replied, "I should not answer this question for operational reasons. But we proved that we use everything Allah enables us to achieve and to use suicide attacks, rockets and more surprises. The Israelis should wait for interesting surprises." So should you.
#1
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Abu Hani told WND his terror group used a cease-fire signed with Israel last year "for a rest in order to rehabilitate forces..."
Proof positive that a "truce" is only of value to the enemy, buying them more time with which to prolong the conflict.
#2
Israel MUST use something like camera-mounted blimps instead of relying on tit-for-tat retaliation from projectiles. The wall was the hard part--keeping the buggers out. But now they have to be able to counterattack *before* they are attacked.
They should also announce that unless Hamas agrees to certain conditions, East Jerusalem will be converted to Jewish-only. You can't bargain unless you have something to bargain with. Pay the Arab residents of EJ a fair amount of money, but they must go.
Let's see how Hamas tries to declare *that* a victory.
#4
Isreal should reply that Jerusalem is considered a "Sacred city" to the Jewish and Christian religions and any attack upon that city by Islamic fanatics will be answered by a like attack upon Mecca.
#5
...Fatah and its "military offshoot," the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, will become the most active Palestinian terror group, a senior Brigades leader said in an exclusive interview.
Oh, good! Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, eh boys?
#6
It's my opinion the reason Fatah lost and Hamas won is that wherever Hamas goes they do community work. Fatah is corrupt from the feet up and although everyone knew it the rank and file couldn't do anything about it as long as the Fatah thugs were in power. The election gave the Palestinian people the chance to throw out the thugs. They know very well where all the money went. Fatah has never been about reconciling with Israel as is evident from this article. The people didn't vote Hamas in because they are more violent, just better at winning "The Hearts and Minds" of the Palestinians. All the BS about voting out a "moderate" Fatah and voting in a militant Hamas is just that. BS.The corrupt Fatah leaders just can't see that you do have to address the needs of the people you govern. Hamas understands that and that makes them even more dangerous.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/16/2006 14:25
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#7
Would Fatah be getting the money from the Gulf Emirates to do their charitable work if they weren't a terrorist group dedicated to killing Israeli civilians?
#8
As long as international support exists for the two-state non-solution, terror groups will make capital out of the general imbecility of our leaders. "No nation building": GWB, May 2000.
#9
The leader said Abbas' party supports the Brigades' terror attacks against Israeli civilians and approves of a massive violent offensive he warned will soon be launched against the Jewish state, in part to revolt against Hamas.
If, indeed, Abu Mudhen has sanctioned this new wave of violence, then he should be next up for the Yassin Spa Treatment®.
#10
Deacon's right. And I understand that Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas is an affiliate) is doing the same sort of groundwork in the slums in Turkey as well.
Posted by: James ||
02/16/2006 15:19
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#11
the slums in Turkey
Alert!
Posted by: Department of Redundancy Department ||
02/16/2006 15:27
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#13
The Israelis under Begin used to have an unstated rule - 10 for 1. Yesterday, some asshat was talking about "acceptable losses." How about 10 for 1?
Shortly after its stunning election victory, Hamas posted on its official website parting video messages from two suicide bombers, including one who vowed the terrorist group would drink the blood of Jews until they "leave the Muslim countries." Another terrorist urged his mother to be joyous over his death and his "wedding" with the "GoatsMaidens of Paradise."
The terrorist act glorified in the video, which can be viewed here, took place Dec. 7, 2004, reported Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch. Hamas, responsible for more than 100 suicide bombings and scores of shooting and rocket attacks, won overwhelmingly in the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections and will form the next government.
Each terrorist had a separate message for Jews. The first said:
"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but the devil called Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."
The second terrorist declared:
"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."
The second terrorist also told how he saw his death for Allah as a wedding:
"I dedicate this wedding to all of those who have chosen Allah as their goal, the Quran as their constitution and the devil worshipper prophet [Muhammad] as their role model. Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine all of Palestine from the impurity of the Jews."
He then spoke directly to his mother.
"My dear mother, you who have cared for me, today I sacrifice my life to be your intercessor (on Judgment Day). O my love and soul, wipe your tears, don't be saddened. In the name of Allah, I've achieve all that I've aspired. Don't let me see you sad on my wedding day with the Goats Maidens of Paradise. So be happy and not sad, because in the name of Allah, after death is merciful Allah's paradise."
The clip has a farewell scene in which the mother helps the terrorist don his explosive vest. The scene is accompanying by a song with the lyrics, "My dear mother, don't cry over us."
Palestinian Media Watch notes the lyrics are similar to a music video that ran on Palestinian Authority television for years in which a boy asks his parents to be happy over his coming death: "My beloved, my mother, dearest to me most. Be joyous over my blood and do not cry for me."
The Israeli news monitor commented that on numerous occasions, the final messages of Palestinian suicide bombers reflected what they had been hearing in the PA media. After filming their goodbyes, the two Hamas suicide terrorists went to the Gaza Strip's Karni Crossing and killed an Israeli soldier. The clip also has scenes of terrorists preparing a tunnel and hiding explosives in it.
#4
"We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood."
Israel has shown too much restraint. I'm with Israel no matter what they do to Hamas from now on. If Gaza has to look like Berlin in 1945, so be it.
To hear the US government tell it, Gary McKinnon is a dangerous man, and should be extradited back to America to stand trial in a Virginia courtroom. One US prosecutor has accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time". If extradited, Mr McKinnon could face decades in US jail, and fines of close to $2m. The charges against Mr McKinnon are extensive.
The US government alleges that between February 2001 and March 2002, the 40-year-old computer enthusiast from North London hacked into dozens of US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers. It says his hacking caused some $700,000 dollars worth of damage to government systems. What's more, they allege that Mr McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US Naval Air Station not long after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and that the attack rendered critical systems inoperable. The US government also says Mr McKinnon once took down an entire network of 2,000 US Army computers. His goal, they claim, was to access classified information.
In July 2005, Mark Summers, another official representing the US government, told a London court that Mr McKinnon's hacking was "intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion".
But Gary McKinnon, or Solo as he was known online, paints a very different picture of himself, and his motivation. In a BBC interview last summer, Mr McKinnon said that he was not a malicious hacker bent on bringing down US military systems, but rather more of a "bumbling computer nerd". He said he's no web vandal, or virus writer, and that he never acted with malicious intent. But he did admit that he hacked into dozens of US government computer systems. In fact, he calmly detailed just how easy it was to access extremely sensitive information in those systems.
"I found out that the US military use Windows," said Mr McKinnon in that BBC interview. "And having realised this, I assumed it would probably be an easy hack if they hadn't secured it properly." Using commercially available software, Mr McKinnon probed dozens of US military and government networks. He found many machines without adequate password or firewall protection. So, he simply hacked into them.
But for some, his method of hacking is not nearly so interesting as his reason for doing it. Mr McKinnon got his first computer when he was 14 years old, and has been a hobbyist ever since. He left school at 17, and became a hairdresser. But, in the early 1990s, some friends convinced him to get a qualification in computers. After completing a course, he started doing contract work in the computing field. By the late 1990s, Mr McKinnon decided to use his hacking skills to do what he calls "research" on an issue he firmly believes in. Mr McKinnon told the BBC that he is convinced that the United States government is withholding critical information about Unidentified Flying Objects. "It wasn't just an interest in little green men and flying saucers," said Mr McKinnon. "I believe that there are spacecraft, or there have been craft, flying around that the public doesn't know about."
Mr McKinnon further explained that he believes the US military has reverse engineered an anti-gravity propulsion system from recovered alien spacecraft, and that this propulsion system is being kept a secret. The US alleges that Mr McKinnon attack the base at Fort Meyer In that sense, Mr McKinnon said he sees his own hacking as "humanitarian." He said he only wanted to find evidence of a UFO cover-up and expose it. He called the alleged anti-gravity propulsion system "extra-terrestrial technology we should have access to". "I wanted to find out why this is being kept a secret when it could be put to good use," he said in the BBC interview last year.
Gary McKinnon's search turned into an obsession, an addiction. As he probed high-level computer systems in the United States, his life in Britain fell apart. He lost his job, and his girlfriend dumped him. Friends told him to stop hacking, but to no avail. "I'd stopped washing at one point. I wasn't looking after myself. I wasn't eating properly. I was sitting around the house in my dressing gown, doing this all night."
Eventually, Mr McKinnon got sloppy. He started leaving behind clues. At one point, Mr McKinnon began posting anti-war diatribes on the screens of the US government computers that were his targets. He has insisted, however, that he never attempted to sabotage any operations. When Britain's hi-tech crime unit finally came for him 2002, Mr McKinnon was not surprised. He told the BBC: "I think I almost wanted to be caught, because it was ruining me. I had this classic thing of wanting to be caught so there would be an end to it." He thought he would be tried in Britain, and that he might get, at the most, three to four years in prison. Then, later that year, the United States decided to indict him with charges that could mean up to 70 years in a US prison. It has never been entirely clear why it took US officials until 2005 to begin extradition proceedings.
Gary McKinnon's been fighting extradition ever since, on the grounds that he never intended anything malicious by his hacking. He's been free on bail, but it has been a strange kind of freedom. Until recently, he had to sign in at his local police station every evening, and could not leave his house at night. The court also forbade him from using any computer connected to the internet. Some of those restrictions were eased this past Christmas. He can now use the internet, but the authorities are making him register the IP address with the local service provider.
Mr McKinnon remains contrite about what he did, although he has admitted that he thinks US officials are making him a scapegoat. He has said that in the course of his hacking, he found evidence that hundreds of others from around the world were also trying to hack the same networks. His supporters say that instead of prosecuting him, the US government should thank him for pointing out massive computer security lapses in critical systems.
As for his quest to find evidence of a UFO cover-up, Mr McKinnon has said that he found some circumstantial evidence online to back his claims, including what he said are photos with what he speculated were alien spacecraft airbrushed out of the picture. He said the photos in question were too large to download to his own computer. When the BBC asked him last summer if he ever felt like hacking again, Mr McKinnon replied, "No, not at all." He said he wished he had listened to his friends when they told him, nearly three and a half years ago, to stop. Yes, have another Guinness and always listen to your friends.
#1
As for his quest to find evidence of a UFO cover-up, Mr McKinnon has said that he found some circumstantial evidence online to back his claims, including what he said are photos with what he speculated were alien spacecraft airbrushed out of the picture.
Actually that's just what They WANT you to believe, Mr. McKinnon. In fact it is really their cloaking device that makes them look like that... oops, wait knock on the doo
#4
Lying bastard. He is a class A TRANZI "hacktivist".
Let his ass rot in jail. This is IF the UK will extradite him which I doubt. If they don't we should start shooting UK residents we are keeping on ice in Cuba.
France's foreign minister has said Iran is operating a "clandestine military nuclear programme" and called on the United Nations Security Council to take strong action in order to avoid a potential crisis.
Philippe Douste-Blazy told a French television station that Teheran's had ignored international warnings and was not telling the truth about its nuclear ambitions.
"No civil nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program. It is a clandestine military nuclear program," said Mr Douste-Blazy.
"The international community has sent a very firm message in telling the Iranians to return to reason and suspend all nuclear activity and the enrichment and conversion of uranium, but they aren't listening to us."
Mr Douste-Blazy's comments are the latest stage in the diplomatic row over Iran's decision to resume nuclear enrichment work. Teheran insists it is to generate nuclear power but the international community fears the country is building nuclear weapons.
The UN Security Council is to consider Iran's nuclear programme next month after European-led negotiations failed to persuade Iran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.
"Now it's up to the Security Council to say what it will do, what means it will use to stop, to manage, to halt this terrible crisis of nuclear proliferation caused by Iran," Mr Douste-Blazy said.
Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, hit back at the comments by telling French radio Iran was a responsible country that was not seeking to build a bomb, and blaming "Western propaganda" for escalating the issue.
#2
Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, hit back at the comments by telling French radio Iran was a responsible country that was not seeking to build a bomb ....
Of course not, they're seeking to build many bombs.
A TOP Australian diplomat says the United Nations is rotten to the core and is mishandling the threat of nuclear weapons. Australia's ambassador to the United Nations John Dauth has returned to Canberra after four-and-a-half years in the role.
Mr Dauth said that while bodies such as the UN's food program and children's fund UNICEF were working, the General Assembly was not. "The General Assembly is defunct," Mr Dauth said. "No debate there carries with it any practical action or decision or agreement or compromise.
"And if the heart of the body, if the core of the apple, is rotten, eventually the rest of the apple will be rotten too."
Mr Dauth said he was particularly concerned over the UN's mishandling of the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He said an increasing number of nation states believed that owning WMDs enhanced their security. But the UN had failed to tackle the growing problem. "The evidence at the UN in the last year has been pretty bleak on WMD, on arms control," Mr Dauth said.
"We had the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in May that failed to come up with an agenda a month of negotiations that failed to come up with an agenda.
"We had the summit in September that despite vigorous negotiation, most of which I chaired, achieved nothing not a single reference in the outcome document on issues relating to arms control and proliferation.
"That is an indictment of a global inter-governmental negotiating process that has gone badly wrong in New York."
He said many of the UN's institutions had become "empty shells". Mr Dauth is widely tipped to be replaced by former defence minister Robert Hill.
#5
A TOP Australian diplomat says the United Nations is rotten to the core and is mishandling the threat of nuclear weapons.
"I mean, what'ya expect us to do? I held a press conference and think we need a summit on Cheney's so-called accidental shooting of an attorney and we've condemned the anti-muslim cartoons! Iran, wha, oh yeah, that country. Not a good place to hold a summit in the near future."
THE United States must shut down its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay "without further delay", a UN human rights report published today said, urging Washington to try or release more than 500 terrorism suspects held at its naval base on Cuba. In their report, five so-called independent experts who act as monitors for the UN Human Rights Commission said: "The United States Government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay."
The 54-page report also said that the United States "should either expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial," because this was a requirement under international human rights accord, "or release them without further delay."
"Consideration should also be given to trying suspected terrorists before a competent international tribunal," it added.
Carla del Ponte is available.
The document, a draft version of which was leaked earlier this week, charged that US treatment of detainees violated their rights to physical and mental health and in some cases amounted to torture.
Washington rejected the draft version as making a "baseless assertion", saying its authors had never visited the prison which houses mainly detainees captured in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
It's not necessary for them to have the facts.
In the final version of the report released in Geneva, the UN also charged Washington with violating international human rights treaties to get around their ban on torture. "Attempts by the United States administration to redefine 'torture' in the framework of the struggle against terrorism in order to allow certain interrogation techniques that would not be permitted under the internationally accepted definition of torture are of utmost concern," it said. "The confusion with regard to authorised and unauthorised interrogation techniques over the last years is particularly alarming."
#8
We got to quit the UN and kick those useless turds out of the US.
Where was this 'Human Rights' body while Saddam had his people-shreadders, rape rooms and rape squads? Odd we dont hear anything about the Gulags of North Korea, prisons of China, etc....
#9
Crazy Fool, that would be culturally insensitive to criticize them, since they are only upholding indigenous traditions that they wish to preserve in the facing of crushing, soulless globalization.
(Ok, it's because they know the countries you mentioned would just tell them to Eff-Off, and there's no good five star resorts or restaurants in those countries for their "fact-finding missions" anyway.)
#12
One of the smartest men I ever met -- perhaps the smartest -- once observed that it is remarkable how many arguments involve matters of terminology. In some quarters, this is known as the use of "moral equivalence," but I think that this phrase is inexact, misleading, and worse, fails to identify the tool being used. As far as this report goes, why don't we ask whether they would prefer to watch their wife being gang raped, strangled to death, and children shot or spend a night with the air conditioner left on too high?
#15
Where was this 'Human Rights' body while Saddam had his people-shreadders, rape rooms and rape squads? Odd we dont hear anything about the Gulags of North Korea, prisons of China, etc....
CF, the same place they are on Sudan, Zimbobwe, etc. Too worried about having summits in hot resort areas to worry about 3rd world countries. Heck, there's no escargot in Sudan, I'd bet!
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 10:13
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#16
The UN soooo needs booted out of this country. Send 'em to Franceistan or some other dhimmi country. (GET OUT NOW JFM!)
#18
So let me get this straight. One of the accusations of torture is how we are force feeding these guys that are on a hunger strike. Does that mean that we might have to start "torturing" Saddam and his ilk if they continue on a hunger strike?
Perfesser, I agree with you, having an air conditioner set on high so to speak, shouldn't be compared to what could be done if the shoe was on the other foot. In some ways it seems that we are being too good to these detainee's. Going back to them having more rights than the soldiers. Too PC for me.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/16/2006 10:55
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#19
""How many tanks has the UN?""
15 fewer than they used to have, LOL. Some third world clown stole them. The UN is truly a joke. A bad one.
#20
The first step is to remove diplomatic immunity from anyone that isn't an Ambassador. Let the UN flunkies pay for their own traffic tickets and such and make them pay the bills when their motorcades cost a ton of money.
The second step is to lobby for a new UN headquarters in Asia. Perhaps Japan would offer to build a really nice setup for them in exchange for favorable consideration of a General Assembly seat. Perhaps China, or India. Get the US as the good guy helping some other nation get the pride of UN location rather than be seen as booting them out.
Third step is, reclaim the buildings after the UN has moved and build a parking lot. Manhattan needs more parking and after all the traffic hassles the UN has caused it seems just. We can call name the lot sections after UN leaders or something and the dark corner where the pimps and drug dealers hang out, and where the drunks go to piss can be named after Kofi and his son.
#21
Personally, I think Guantanamo is becoming an embarassment.
I'm with special treatment for people not serving in uniform. I'm fine with them got getting Geneva Convention treatment. I'm fine with Guantanamo, in theory.
Where it's been botched is on the judicial level. It's been, what, five years now and the govt still can't figure out a way to run an efficient and fair courts martial procedure?
#22
They're terrorists. Under the Geneva convention, no court martial, nothing. They are lucky they didn't get the summary execution the law allows. Let them rot in jail for all I care.
#23
It's been, what, five years now and the govt still can't figure out a way to run an efficient and fair courts martial procedure?
That's because its really never been done before. The usual resolution is to shoot them. So being a kinder gentler sort of war, we decided regardless of what the Geneva Convention says, we'd 'process' them. That's when the lawyers got involved. Which should provide you the reason why its taken so long.
#25
Lets see what they would do if the U.S. completely stopped paying its U.N. dues... oops my mistake I meant if the U.S. stops paying 90% of the U.N. budget.
#28
NS is correct AoS. There have been several dumps already with those we thought weren't useful/threatening anymore. Of course, we've supposedly already "re-caught" some (not many, granted) of these dumpees fightin us in Afghanistan and Iraq, from what I remember. Also, thinking logically (not a jihadi strong suit), if YOU were truly innocent, been held for 3+ years in Cuba and were suddenly released, wouldn't you be more inclined to join the jihad? Not that I'm saying it's right (personally, I lean to the "they're not even covered by the Geneva conventions so we should shoot 'em" side of the fence), but you gotta think big picture.
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 14:13
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#29
Send the stupid asses to Gitmo for some real torture.
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/16/2006 16:30
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#30
I find myself wondering if the Masterminds that we *do* have in GTMO have ben urging on the cannon fodder to be the hunger strikers...
ERBIL, IRAQ Kurdistan is a place of the mind. It doesnt exist on any maps unless the maps are made by the Kurds. Southern Kurdistan is known to the rest of the world as Northern Iraq. Northern Kurdistan is described as Eastern Turkey. Southwestern Kurdistan is Northeastern Syria. And Southeastern Kurdistan is Northwestern Iran.
In no country are Kurds closer to realizing their dream of freedom and independence than they are in Iraq. They are wrapping up the finishing touches on their de-facto sovereign state-within-a-state, a fact on the ground that will not easily be undone. And theyre transforming the hideously decrepit physical environment left to them by Saddam Hussein a broken place that is terribly at odds with the Kurdistan in their hearts and in their minds into something beautiful and inspiring, the kind of place you might like to live in someday yourself.
The heart of the new Kurdistan is soon to be known as the Dream City, a massive construction site going up on the outskirts of Erbil. . . . Follow the link for photos. It looks like the kind of thing people build when they believe life is getting better.
I could sell some of those units in the posh near-north side of Chicago ...
Posted by: Mike ||
02/16/2006
06:26 ||
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#1
From the article:
One already-completed house next to the Dream City is a dead-ringer for a house in the American suburbs.
It looks a little more colorful than the typical tract. Bet it would go for well over a million here in Potomac.
It came complete with a garage and even an oversized yard.
The oversized yard part would make it somewhat of a rarity in most US 'burbs.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says no U.S. aid will go to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, but the United States will still contribute to humanitarian programs like immunizing children in the Palestinian territories. In testimony to a Senate committee Wednesday, Rice repeated the U.S. position that Hamas must meet international demands to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas is preparing to take control of the Palestinian parliament when it convenes Saturday. On Wednesday, the group nominated Abdel Aziz Duaik as parliament speaker and Mahmoud Zahar as faction leader.
In Israel, top policy makers began a three-day review of how to deal with a Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Israel will have no contacts with the Palestinians as long as Hamas is involved in terrorism and refuses to recognize Israel. the United States will still contribute to humanitarian programs like immunizing children in the Palestinian territories. We have a death cult vaccine??
#4
This is why Meshaal has been on his Grand Tour of Arabia. He knows the kufr Jizya Well is about to run dry.
We can only hope that he was greeted with brotherly affection, pumped full of galllons of tea and baklava, ever so politely shown the door with the admonition "Keep fighting the good fight, O Noble Palestinian Martyrs, Allan will reward you," and sent home with not so much as a euro to take back to the Paleo treasury.
#8
Saw her testifying to Congress on C-SPAN last night and was once again struck by how much better I would feel voting for her as President than Giuliana, Warner, or any of the rest of the Republican and Democratic candidates being put forth for the job.
#9
I wouldn't even do that. As long as their parents are into Jew-hating, it's only a matter of time before the kids take it up as well.
I'd be torn over not supporting at least humanitarian aid for the kids and such ... except for the fact that more Palestinian aid is like incubating bulk Ebola virus. The overall result is an increase in net human death (a Palestinian specialty) and not much else. The Palestinians really need to face flat-out extinction as an object lesson of what awaits those who support and institutionalize terrorism. Idjits.
Japan is yet to decide when to withdraw its non-combat ground troops from Iraq despite a report that it was discussing with Washington and London its plans to start pulling them out next month. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he would decide the timing of the troop withdrawal "carefully".
Government spokesman Shinzo Abe told reporters that Japan would take into account the "political process" and security situation in Iraq as well as activities of British and Australian forces operating there when deciding a timetable for withdrawing its troops. "We are not in a situation where we can make a decision in advance on the timing of ending the activities of the Self-Defence Forces," Mr Abe said, using the term by which Japan refers to its military.
Mr Abe made the remarks after a newspaper report that Japan had entered final stages of talks with the United States and Britain on plans to start pulling out its troops in March and complete the withdrawal by the end of May.
With their activities strictly limited by Japan's pacifist constitution, the roughly 550 Japanese ground troops based in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa rely heavily on British and Australian forces to maintain security in the area. "The Self-Defence Forces are not supposed to permanently operate in Iraq, so we have to figure out the withdrawal timing carefully," Kyodo news agency quoted Mr Koizumi as telling reporters. "They have got high marks from Iraqi residents, and the Iraqi government has repeatedly requested Japan to continue their activities."
Japan, which first approved sending troops to Iraq in 2003, decided in December to keep them there for up to a year from December 14, but government officials had left open the possibility they could be withdrawn sooner.
Mr Koizumi has repeatedly said that Japan would have to carefully consider the situation in Iraq before deciding to pull its troops out, and that coordination with the British and Australian governments is needed to decide the timing. The Japanese troops are engaged in reconstruction activities such as repairing buildings and providing medical training.
The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the $75m (£43m) in extra funds, on top of $10m already allocated for later this year, would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, help pay for Iranians to study in America and support pro-democracy groups inside the country.
Although US officials acknowledge the limitations of such a campaign, the state department is determined to press ahead with measures that include extending the government-run Voice of America's Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage.
The sudden budget request, which follows an outlay of only $4m over the last two years, is to be accompanied by a diplomatic drive by Ms Rice to discuss Tehran's suspect nuclear weapons programme. She is to begin with a visit to Gulf states. Ms Rice told the Senate foreign affairs committee that Iranian leaders "have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance of the international community".
She added: "The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country."
The US is to increase funds to Iranian non-governmental bodies that promote democracy, human rights and trade unionism. It began funding such bodies last year for the first time since Washington broke off ties with Iran in 1980. A US official said all existing citizens' groups and non-governmental organisations in Iran had been heavily infiltrated by the Tehran government, so the US would seek to help build new dissident networks.
US officials depicted the new pro-democracy spending as just one side of a multi-faceted diplomatic offensive aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran. They said Ms Rice would make Iran a focal point of her talks with Middle East leaders in her tour next week, put it centre-stage at the upcoming G8 meeting in Moscow, and call a meeting of political directors from the Nato alliance in late March or April solely to talk about policy towards Iran.
US propaganda efforts in the Middle East since September 11 have been relatively unsuccessful. Analysts say its Arabic news station al-Hurra (the Free One) is widely regarded with suspicion in the Middle East and has poor listening figures.
The move follows talks in Washington last week with British diplomats specialising in Iran. The Foreign Office yesterday welcomed the US move, noting it meant the continued pursuit of diplomatic means rather than hints of military action.
The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, whose Persian service has built a following in Iran. This month Iran began blocking the Persian service website.
A senior US official claimed there was now "a broad degree of concern" in the Middle East and around the world about the recent actions taken by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and that the proposed US offensive had been greeted "very enthusiastically".
The stand-off between Iran and the west worsened on Tuesday when an Iranian official said Tehran had resumed small-scale uranium enrichment, a necessary step towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:59 ||
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#2
It's all about the timeline. Folks here called for this about a year ago, but we don't have the intel to know if the Big Show will be in March - or December. Of course, we're not too confident that Bush does, either, given the record of the 3-letter agencies...
Mebbe it will be March, 2007... sure feels like sooner, though.
Regardless, this is welcome and, to be frank (ya mind, Frank? Lol), represents the hoped-for push and the Big Chance for the Persians to take a hand in the inevitable and retake thier country. I hope enough are smart enough to take it, cuz the smackdown is coming.
#3
This is a waste of money. A year or two ago it might have worked. This kind of work takes time, especially for the inexperienced. But there is not enough time for all that learning now. We should be getting down to months, not years in dealing with Iran. If Bush thinks he can launch a pre-emptive attack in the last two years of his term, he is nuts. Short of a substantial provocation that unites the country, the donks and rinos will go nuts and there will be enough of them to make things difficult. He should have listened to Ledeen; Faster, Please.
#5
I sure don't have the timeline any more than you, .com, but after the fall elections, Bush's power drops to E immediately. In the last two years he will have a hard time doing anything. Running up to the election in November he can put the donks and rinos between a rock and a hard place wrt Iran. After that, everybody goes off the reservation and trying to get Congress to do anything is like herding cats.
One, we do want as many Persians to understand what and why before it happens as possible. We don't know, but the support for our actions might be greater than we expect - and I'm adding in phil_b's recent comments about the breakdown of Iran into some component parts to a personal friend's first-hand assessment that the guys out in the stix are anything but Mullah-backers. So maybe, just maybe, there's a real payoff possible here.
Two, it is my recollection that Ledeen has at least as many misses as hits - so I don't find his utterances to be of substantial import. An opinion, true, but I get to have one, too.
Three, there has been some recent articles around which indicate that the Dhimmidonks have read a few tea leaves and realize that Iran is growing in the consciousness of Americans as a bona-fide threat, even going so far as trying to pretend that they've been tough on the issue and Bush is behind the curve, lol. So the logjam at the Senate regards giving Bush specific authority to deal with Iranian nukes, in the same sort of no-BS language that the House did, seems to be breaking up. Maybe they'll try to improve their images regards security issues and do the right thing for the wrong reasons, now.
The election cycle is a specious reason not to protect the interests of the US, especially regards security. MM's with nukes certainly qualifies as an overriding example. I don't give a shit if it happens on Bush's last day in office. And, y'know what? I don't think he would either.
I've been on record here for a verrrrry long time that Bush will not fail us regards Iran. I'm still there, whether this $75M is a waste or not, he has to give it a shot - cuz the moment is coming, regardless.
#8
Had Dhimmi Carter's response to the seizure of US territory ( Our Embassy is US Soil) in November 1979 been appropriately robust, this post would not be necessary.
#9
Even if military action against Iran is inevitable, an anti-regime campaign will make any military venture that much better from a PR perspective, particularly if airstrikes will kill ~10K - we have to have our own channels ready to let the Iranian people know the real story, not the one that Hitler Jr. and Co tell them. In any event, we owe it to the Iranian dissidents to let them know that they are not alone in their fight against the mad mullahs and is a far more preferrable stance than the attempts to reach a Soviet-style detente with false (Rafsanjani) or impotent (Khatami) moderates within the regime.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006 8:43
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#10
pro-democracy groups non-governmental bodies citizens' groups and non-governmental organizations
For fear of their safety The State Department doesnt intend to publicize the recipients of this financial support. Just trust that the dough is going to political dissidents, exiles groups, support networks, citizen unions, activists, reformers, and student fellowships.
Whatever nice sounding descriptions you hear, just remember that the MEK = Terrorist Cult.
#11
y'all seem to assume this is prep for a military option. I remain unconvinced that A. a military option could succeed or B. That a people power revolution cant succeed.
I know this takes time, and agree it should have started earlier - all i can say is that the guys running the admin for policy werent as keen on this sort of thing as Rice (and yes, thats a knock at BOTH Powell AND Cheney) It couldnt really happen till Rice had taken firm control.
Timeline - new head of Israeli military intell says it will take Iran 3 years to get a bomb. Take that as you will.
End to term - Clinton managed to knock Slobo for a loop at the end of his term, when he was very weakened. If the circumstances are right, Bush can act on Iran at any point in the cycle.
The Dems are not too keen on the mullahs in Iran. The way the Iranians mouth off on Israel is not too pleasing to some folks who are key Dem donors. The Kucinich wing may oppose, the Deaniacs may quiety grumble, but the mainstream of the party will support. It doesnt hurt that Britain AND France AND Germany are along. We're working with our allies now. Again, credit to Dr. Rice.
#12
I honestly have given upon a Peepul's Revolution, liberalhawk, for two reasons. First of all, if it were going to happen, it would've done already. Second, and causative to the first I believe, the Arab world saw what happended to the Iraqi Shiite revolt against Saddam Hussein following Gulf War I. They legitimately don't trust us to come through on promised support once they've put their necks on the line. Yes, it's George W. Bush in the White House right now, but he isn't the one handing out the AK-47s (bought second hand in Peshawer? *wink*) -- look at who was just given control of managing America's ports. There might be an uprising after decapitation strikes, but short of that, I don't see anything more than regional disturbances. (Of course it could be said that I'm arguing through my hat, and I wouldn't dare contradict the speaker.)
#13
"I honestly have given upon a Peepul's Revolution, liberalhawk, for two reasons. First of all, if it were going to happen, it would've done already."
I cant speak to details about whats going on in Iran, beyond some of the things you see here. But when change of this kind happens, it happens fast, and seems to come from nowhere.
"Second, and causative to the first I believe, the Arab world saw what happended to the Iraqi Shiite revolt against Saddam Hussein following Gulf War I."
They can only do it if they dont rely on us for military support. Doesnt mean they cant do it. Once again, as nasty as the mullahs are,they dont have the 100% control Saddam did.
"They legitimately don't trust us to come through on promised support once they've put their necks on the line. Yes, it's George W. Bush in the White House right now, but he isn't the one handing out the AK-47s (bought second hand in Peshawer? *wink*)"
While I dont care for the CIA position in the internecine feuds in DC, Im not of the CIA are traitors school. If they get orders, theyll carry them out - in any case, as I said, the Iranians need to do this for the most part themselves.
" -- look at who was just given control of managing America's ports."
First its only some ports, not all. Second its a company that AFAIK has done a good job managing ports. Third its owned by what, yes, is an ally. We may not like their approach to Israel, or to Salafism in general, but if the UAE is actively helping AQ theres plenty Bush could do about it. Helping AQ to attack the US would be suicidal for UAE. And unlike IRan, I havent noticed the sheiks in UAE acting as anything but rational tyrants. And its up to DHS to make sure our ports are secured - I sure hope we dont leave a lot on trust to the port managers.
#14
It seems that it would be a good thing to at least start this campaign. While I agree it would have been better to start this program a long time ago, hindsight being what it is, at least we would be giving it a chance.
I'd love to see the young people of Iran revolt as did many young americans did here in the 60's. lol.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/16/2006 11:14
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.com I trust bush too, it's the donks and rinos I don't trust.
End to term - Clinton managed to knock Slobo for a loop at the end of his term, when he was very weakened. If the circumstances are right, Bush can act on Iran at any point in the cycle.
Bullshit. He didn't knock anybody for a loop, he conducted a terror bombing campaign from 15,000 feet to bail out the Euroweenies who could not clean up the mess in their own back yard because his generals told him it could be done without casualties and his pollsters told him it would generate the least public opposition. It was great for the media because they could show him as the great leader as well as the great stud. It was gutless and will cost us in the long run as does every adventure in the Balkans. Better to leave them to themselves.
For Bush the donks, rinos and MSM will assure that the circumstances are never right.
#16
The US is knee deep in Persians. It is mind-boggling to me that they didn't have a huge recruitment on Sept 12 and have some of these new recruits return to Iran under cover of Islamic harrassment. We'd be in good shape now and they'd be actively taking their country back.
#17
This is a waste of money. A year or two ago it might have worked. This kind of work takes time, especially for the inexperienced. But there is not enough time for all that learning now. We should be getting down to months, not years in dealing with Iran. If Bush thinks he can launch a pre-emptive attack in the last two years of his term, he is nuts.
Gotta go with NS on this one, not to bash Bush (contrary to what some of you might think), but simply out of realism. I do not claim to have any "timeline" either, but any campaign in Iran needs to be prosecuted post haste so that it has some chance of being culminated within the span of this administration's tenure. I'll disagree only in saying that we might as well spend a chunk of change softening up Iran with some strong propaganda, but a PR campaign alone falls far short right now.
It would be a deep mistake to initiate an attack on Iran in the waning days of 2007. This would permit a repeat of the early Iraq debacle where support was withdrawn after enticing offers were made. Any attack on Iran needs to have a good follow-through. Depending upon an incoming administration to uphold commitments made by a predecessor is an unreliable proposition at best.
If we hope to have the proper impact needed to promote regime change (as this $75M is intended) then whatever timeline we select needs to begin in short order. Regardless of whether the mullahs are one year or three away from obtaining nuclear weapons, wrecking their arms-building infrastructure needs to begin now.
This would serve a twofold purpose. Of greatest importance is, at least, temporarily delaying any significant Iranian progress towards nuclear armament. Nearly equal in importance is instigating some sort of meaningful regime change. This more lengthy process requires a consistent foreign policy upon our part, one free of abrupt shifts in allegiance or execution. Only then can we have any hope of securing even a part of the Iranian people's loyalty.
#19
Yeah, but I don't see what any of this has to do with VP Cheney shooting that guy on the quail hunt. I wish you people would stick to the important news.
#21
Had Dhimmi Carter's response to the seizure of US territory ( Our Embassy is US Soil) in November 1979 been appropriately robust, this post would not be necessary.
Not so. However flaccid Carter was in response to the embassy takeover, and flaccid only begins to describe his inaction, Khomeini (say; "Thank you, France"), was already in place and Iran's path to its current position as nuclear aspirant and terror sponsor par excellent was well on its way. Carter's limp response merely emboldened what was already a defiant and perfidious regime.
Sidebar: I thought a country's foreign embassy is situated on international soil, not a given nation's (extranational) territory. Experts here, please clarify.
#22
Not dispositive, as the attorneys say, but this indicates that the soil belongs to the host country:
This ability of reciprocity to modify the behavior of nation-states as well as individuals is remarkable, and can encompass various circumstances -- such as the enforcement of foreign judgments, asset protection, diplomat protection, private suits in US courts by foreigners, etc. Take, for example, the case of Boos v. Barry (1998), which dealt with the appropriateness of protest in front of a government building but not in front of a foreign embassy on US soil. This extension of privilege to a foreign embassy carries with it an expectation (whether realized or not) that American embassies on foreign soil will be reciprocally protected from protest.
#23
I beg to disagree. If the Marines had been allowed to do their job, and had swept the walls with LMG fire when the "students" started invading, it would have worked. We would have gotten pour people out, eventually, and much sooner than in the actual events.
You didn't see any "students" swarming over the walls of the Soviet Embassy, did you? Why not?
Because everybody knew the Russkies would have no compunctions about killing every single one of them, and be fully justified in international law.
#24
Speaking for the American people, it is the counsel of the State Department that the aid to the Iranian opposition be balanced by the distribution of an equal sum to the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm - which has done so well in informing the public about the true face of the Islamic Republic of Libya - so that they can tell the truth about the misunderstood democratic government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, so that we can follow the current regime's pathway to friendly relations with the people of the United States of America. Understanding the essential benevolence of the current government of Iran, is to recognize that they will advance American peace and security, as long as we demonstrate and implement a policy of non-beligerence, and respect their desire to develop weapons of mass destruction, for peaceful purposes.
Posted by: State Department ||
02/16/2006 15:56
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#25
Mackrel in the moonlight, itn shinny and stinky after 3 posts.
#30
.com - no offense taken - I agree and do not think we'll make it to Nov. Politically: think about Amadmanijad raving week in, week out. We do the UN dance, while the alarm bells continue. Say late March, mid April, or even as late as August, W says to Congress: " Times up....we have to do something...will you support us in protecting America and Israel"? The Donks crap all over themselves taking polls and figuring out they have to go along. I see primary dogfights among Donks if it happens in Spring and waffling and backstepping if in general elections. The Iranian regime has been asking for it, time to return serve
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 21:38
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#31
I can't see us disrupting the world oil market in winter-preparation prime time. Late March or April. Otherwise we may not be able to avoid serious trouble for next winter if the Iranians get in a few lucky shots at Persian Gulf oil facilities.
#33
jes throwing politics into it....why let the Iranians dictate the timeline? Start the internal pressure (the MM's support comes from the ignorant uneducated, like in most muslim countries) and help build an internal oppo.Show the UN and Russia/China as ineffectual or determined to stop action, as in Iraq, and put the marker down. If not now? When? If not us? Who? History will not judge lightly when an American or Israeli city is lit up. Dems will be out of power forever
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 22:30
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#34
$100 to Fred says the black turbans will explode a nuke w/in a year.
--Timeline - new head of Israeli military intell says it will take Iran 3 years to get a bomb. Take that as you will.--
Posted by: Sandy P ||
02/16/2006 23:39
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Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was back in court seeking information about the New York Times' anonymous sources on Monday, this time appealing his setback in a lower court.
Fitzgerald is best known for being the special prosecutor whose investigation led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Former Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in that case last year for resisting Fitzgerald's request to reveal her sources, and the two have been pitted against each other once again in a free-speech battle over journalists' rights to keep their sources secret from prosecutors' probes.
The case argued in a New York courtroom on Monday started when Fitzgerald was in the U.S. Attorney's Chicago office, before he was appointed special counsel over the leak of a
CIA operative's name. The two cases are not directly related, though both involve reporting by Miller, and others, when she was still at the Times.
Fitzgerald is seeking phone records relating to newspaper articles on government probes into Islamic charities during the fall of 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. The government wants to uncover the identities of government sources who might have given information to the reporters. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet ruled in February 2005 the phone records were protected from disclosure by a reporter's privilege under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Back then, Times' lawyer Floyd Abrams called Sweet's decision "a major vindication for First Amendment interests," and now Fitzgerald is seeking to overturn that ruling.
Abrams on Monday reiterated his argument that reporters' phone records were protected free speech under the U.S. Constitution and should be kept secret from the government. With Fitzgerald sitting quietly on the sidelines, Special Assistant U.S Attorney Jim Fleissner argued there should be limitations on a reporter's privilege in refusing to release telephone records.
Grand jury investigations were sufficient to protect reporters and their sources because they take place behind closed doors, and were the only way to resolve inquiries into government leaks, Fleissner said.
But Abrams said if the telephone records were released, "dozens of individuals" would be identified. "Telephone records are the embodiment of the speech of these journalists and require the same level of protection," Abrams told the court.
There was no indication when the appeals court judges would rule on whether to overturn the lower court decision.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:58 ||
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#1
Good. Journalists ought have no right to conceal lawbreakers from law enforcement, only from the general public. What they do isn't the same as what Catholic priests do in the confessional.
#3
I am a little confused with Fitz. He went out there and claimed to have a case against Scooter with respect to lying or misleading the grand jury. To date he hasnt presented this evidence and (if I understand the story) hasnt presented Libbys lawyer with a copy of said evidence. All I have heard is how he (Fitz) wants to subpoena this or that from other members of the Administration that at best have dubious links to the original charges. I am not a lawyer, so correct me if I am wrong, but doesnt the prosecution have to show the accused what evidence he has against him? Also if Fitz doesnt have any evidence, doesnt he have to move for dismissal of the charges? Sounds to me that Fitz is on a fishing expedition after having the original case collapse with the Woodward disclosure.
#4
Sounds to me that Fitz is on a fishing expedition
Must have attended the Ronnie Earl School of Law
Posted by: Steve ||
02/16/2006 12:11
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#5
This is a different case and has nothing to do with Libby.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/16/2006 12:20
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#6
Fitzgerald has sent 44 Daley Democrats to jail for corruption in Chicago so far. Average sentance 5 years. And none of them fought as hard as the NYT is doing, and the courts upheld Fitz's requests for phone and email records. Makes you wonder what the NYT is hiding? Or how long their potential jail sentances would be.
#7
Let's stop the legaleze bullshit. Someone in either the CIA or NSA has been leaking classified info to the NYT to make the Bush administration appear to be operating outside the law. Whether Fitz realizes it or not, this is dangerous during these times of WOT. The leakers need to be skinned and de-boned, and the NYT needs to be dropped in the Fishkill. This is not the time for this foolishness, and most of these lefties will live to regret their part in it. It is also not the time for shallow charges like those against Scooter Libby. When will the left grow up ?
#8
Sounds to me that Fitz is on a fishing expedition
Wouldn't it be a hoot if all along his real fish were the leakers of classified info and the whole Plame affair was just a nice Karl Rovesque cover to get the demoncrats and reporters to demand everyone cooperate? *snicker* ....
*sigh* I suppose that's just too devious to be true.
FOR MORE than a year, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has sought the release of documents captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have pressured Pentagon officials, cajoled intelligence analysts, listened to would-be whistleblowers, interviewed Iraqis and filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests with multiple government agencies. Today, because of two developments that have nothing to do with these efforts, we will all learn more about the captured documents and what they tell us about our enemies in the global war on terror.
Yesterday, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, released 28 captured al Qaeda documents in connection with the publication of a study called, Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al Qaeda's Organizational Vulnerabilities. The documents come from the Department of Defense's HARMONY database. They provide a fascinating look into the ideology of terror that motivates al Qaeda members and sympathizers, the conflicts among these individuals and groups, and their widely disparate views on everything from Mohammad Farah Aidid in Somalia to the late King Fahd in Saudi Arabia, from working with "infidels" to the terrorists' reaction to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Tonight on ABC News, first on World News Tonight and later on Nightline, we will hear excerpts from 12 hours of audio recordings reportedly made of meetings Saddam Hussein had with his senior advisers over the course of a decade. The full tapes, or transcripts of them, will be made available Saturday. The recordings are said to contain numerous references to weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's thwarting of U.N. weapons inspectors. Already, some are touting the tapes as a "smoking gun" that will prove Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Others are dismissing the tapes as old news and insignificant. All of this before anyone other than a handful of people know what is on the tapes and before one second of any of the tapes has been played in public.
So let's take a step back and put this in context. Estimates from people involved in the document exploitation project tell us the U.S. government has in its possession some 2 million "exploitable items." Of that number, less than 3 percent--somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 items--have been fully exploited. The information that will be made public by the end of this week--28 captured al Qaeda documents and 12 hours of audiotape from Iraq--will provide a glimpse of a fraction of a fraction of the total collection.
A hypothetical: If the tapes are in fact authentic, imagine that they include audio of Saddam Hussein talking about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Does this mean that Iraq actually had these weapons Saddam thought he had? Not necessarily. One of the leading theories about Iraqi WMD holds that Iraqi scientists misled Saddam about his WMD capability. These scientists, according to this theory, lied to their superiors for fear of reprisals if their lack of progress on WMD development was discovered. That Saddam believed he had these proscribed weapons is not proof that he did.
Similarly, on the al Qaeda documents: The scholars from West Point examine the relationship in the 1980s between the jihadists from the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the former Iraqi regime. Saddam supported and trained some of these jihadists in his effort to destabilize the Syrian regime. On the one hand, this data suggests that whatever their religious and ideological differences, the jihadists and the allegedly secular Iraqi regime were not opposed to cooperating against a common enemy. This view is supported by an al Qaeda document that reports, among other things, that Osama bin Laden's chief deputy Ayman al Zawahiri sought assistance from both the Iraqi regime and Iran. On the other hand, another al Qaeda document sets forth "lessons learned" from the experience of the past jihadist-Iraq collaboration and concludes that such relationships can be counterproductive and are to be avoided in the future. It's all very interesting and it will be helpful to learn more.
What these documents demonstrate more than anything else is that the U.S. intelligence community and the Bush administration should make document exploitation a high priority.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:56 ||
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#1
What's that I smell? It's a bit minty but very faint right now.
Or wait... Could it be the sweet and refreshing scent of vindication? Do you smell it, too?
I better start practicing my "told you so's" in the mirror. You want to make your point but you don't want to come across as gloating, either.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 8:03
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#3
As a former member of ISG, I can tell you this is the tip of the iceburg. Set your faces to stun!
Posted by: Ray Robison ||
02/16/2006 11:53
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#4
Proof? Big deal. Who cares.
The MSM will ignore this as it has all other facts supporting the War on Terrorists; they have invested everything in the Bush Lied lie, and it seems likely they will ignore this as it doesn't conform to that contrived "reality". Regardless of their anti-Bush opinion (which they are entitled to if they wish), the non-reporting of facts, such as the terrorist training fuselage north of Baghdad, the allowance of the lying of the national Democratic leadership, and the choice to relentlessly cover non-stories like Chaney's hunting accident while ignoring this information, means they are anti-American, leftist/dictator-supporting scum bags.
#5
These scientists, according to this theory, lied to their superiors for fear of reprisals if their lack of progress on WMD development was discovered. That Saddam believed he had these proscribed weapons is not proof that he did
It looks like the Dem machine is setting up their excuses/talking points early.
Iraqi Scientists Lied, People Died!!
Iraqi Scientiest Lied, People Died!!
Iran is ready to counter any US aggression with offensive action, the head of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards warned on Wednesday amid an escalating international dispute over Tehran's nuclear activities.
"We have worked on all defensive and offensive scenarios for any possible attacks," General Yahya Rahim Safavi told state television.
"Currently there is no military threat against our country, and the United States and Israel are only talking about our nuclear program as part of psychological war in order to escape from their defeat in Iraq and Palestine," he charged.
Earlier this month, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington did not rule out using military force against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Iran on Tuesday confirmed it had resumed limited uranium enrichment - a process that makes reactor fuel but can also be extended to make the core of a nuclear weapon - despite renewed warnings from world powers.
Safavi had warned at the end of January that Iran was ready to use its ballistic missiles - another source of concern in the West - if it was attacked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:53 ||
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#1
Gen. Safavi neglected to say what Iran will do with its missiles if not attacked...
#3
Ballistic missiles are strategic weapons, not tactical assets. Such vehicles do not have the accuracy to address small targets. Methinks Iran is hinting at launching large scale retaliatory attacks at Israel if we decide to pre-empt their nuclear aspirations.
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/16/2006 21:09
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#6
ISRAEL has already warned that it is prepared to unilater stop Iran by military force if the rest of the world does nothing - a warning that Israel has made many times in the past ags Arab/Muslim threats, and has many times kept despite the then ongoing Cold War tensions/
posturings between the USA and USSR, etal. Israel has also warned that something must be done ags Iran by the end of this year.
Extremist Islamist leader Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, banned from Britain after encouraging young Muslims to become suicide bombers, has broken his radio silence and reestablished contact directly with his UK followers from his new home in Beirut, Lebanon.
Six months before the July 7, 2005 London bomb attacks, Syrian-born Bakri told followers on an Internet chat room to join al-Qaeda, and instructed his listeners to commit acts of terrorism "wherever you are," citing the end of a "covenant of security" with Britain.
On February 13 and 14 of this year, Bakri returned to the same chat room. "The covenant (of security) has been restored," Bakri said on Tuesday evening, February 14. "Now tomorrow, there could be a change of the situation of the reality in Britain and you can do the jihad physically. It's not something rigid. The situation keeps changing," he warned.
Bakri said British Muslims should refrain from carrying out terror attacks on Britain, due to the British government's decision not to implement a number of anti-terror laws, but made it clear the 'ceasefire' was very fragile.
"I can see nowadays, they (the UK government) back down on a lot of things, and they are really giving a sense of security to the Muslim community in Britain. But now, if tomorrow (the British government) issues another new law, if they start to arrest you, and start to attack Muslims, this immediately is another situation," he said.
Bakri also called for Danish cartoonists who drew images of Islam's prophet Muhammad to be killed.
The sheikh's followers appeared excited by Bakri's online return. One user, with the screen name al-Ghurabaa, the name of the group formed by Bakri's British followers, said that sending petitions against the cartoons was useless. "Unless the petition is gonna have anthrax on it then forget about it," he wrote.
Barki spoke of an "alliance of kuffars (unbelievers)," between the "pigs of the Jews and Christians."
"The animosity of the Jews and Christians is going to be always there. And in particular the Jews," said Bakri.
Quoting the Koran, Bakri said: "Verily, you will find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims) the Jews and those who are al-Mushrik (unbelievers)."
Speaking of the struggle between the "two camps" of Muslims and non-Muslims, Bakri declared: "The kuffar are one nation all of them together, communists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews, Christians, and we are so happy to see them all gathered together against us, because that shows us that we are on the right path. Therefore we should declare day and night to those kuffar, who worship the cow and those who worship the cross declare to them: We reject you. We disbelieve in you. We completely distance ourselves from you. And between us there is going to be animosity and hatred forever until you worship Allah exclusively."
Bakri then slammed British Muslim organizations, "those who claimed to be Muslims," describing them as "the fifth column who live among us who puts his fingers with the hands of the kuffars," naming the Muslim Council of Britain, and the Muslim Association of Britain, among others.
Turning his attention to his new home country of Lebanon, Bakri, who promotes a fundamentalist Sunni Islamist interpretation, attacked Hizbullah as an Iranian puppet designed to promote Shiite Islam. He expressed frustration with what he said was Hizbullah's "propaganda" and "monopolization" of southern Lebanon.
"The reality is, Hizbullah, it is in my opinion, besides that it is Shiite and has allegiance to Iran and has alliance with Syria what people do not know, Hizbullah is a media platform. It is not a real organization that has a real military objective to liberate anything," he said.
Bakri, who participated in an Islamist attempt to overthrow the secular regime of Syria, once again attacked the Syrian government, saying: "Syria, the one that guarantees the security of Israel in south Lebanon, by not letting mujahadeen (holy warriors) go from there to attack. Because they put on the border Hizbullah, and Hizbullah prevents everybody, they don't want anyone there except for them, in order to monopolize the issues of so called resistance in jihad in south Lebanon they lose all credibility. I'm witnessing that in Lebanon now."
"I found it (Hizbullah) just people who want to promote Shiism and promote their own views and ideas, and make the Muslims weaker and weaker. They call for democracy, they call for secularism, they make alliance with the Kuffar. I don't feel Hizbullah has any agenda to liberate any land," he lamented.
"Why is it allowed for Hizbullah to bomb Tel Aviv and to bomb Israel but it's forbidden for others?" Bakri asked. "I can tell you why. Simply because all the rockets Hizbullah launch is part of the framework of normal military exercise between Hizbullah and Israel. This is a necessary tool for propaganda in order to say that Shiites in Lebanon are fighting and to promote Shiism, which is really led by Iran," he said.
"Nasrallah said, you see, we throw at Israel 500 rockets; 500 rockets?! What are you talking about. You see, they throw two missiles, and they say 500 missiles. You can see how they exaggerate things achieving nothing. Hizbullah leaders say they have obedience, to whom? To Christian Maronites, to Lebanese government. Which itself is another tool, to implement kuffar (infidel) law, and alliance with the Syrian regime." Bakri added.
Bakri also mocked Hizbullah's claim that the disputed Sheba farms area, currently under Israeli control, is in fact Lebanese territory.
"All that they are talking about is they want to liberate Lebanese land. And by the way brothers, I can tell you something, don't say it to anyone, there is none of the Lebanese land under occupation left. Sheba farms, the Lebanese people say it belongs to Syria."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:50 ||
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#1
I hope Hizballah will not take these grave insults lying down.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/16/2006 5:41
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ABC News has obtained 12 hours of tape recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with top aides during the 1990s, tapes apparently recorded in Baghdad's version of the Oval Office.
ABC News obtained the tapes from Bill Tierney, a former member of a United Nations inspection team who translated them for the FBI. Tierney said the U.S. government is wrong to keep these tapes and others secret from the public. "Because of my experience being in the inspections and being in the military, I knew the significance of these tapes when I heard them," says Tierney. U.S. officials have confirmed the tapes are authentic, and that they are among hundreds of hours of tapes Saddam recorded in his palace office.
One of the most dramatic moments in the 12 hours of recordings comes when Saddam predicts during a meeting in the mid 1990s a terrorist attack on the United States. "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction." Saddam goes on to say such attacks would be difficult to stop. "In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" But he adds that Iraq would never do such a thing. "This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq."
Also at the meeting was Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who said Iraq was being wrongly accused of terrorism. "Sir, the biological is very easy to make. It's so simple that any biologist can make a bottle of germs and drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000. This is not done by a state. No need to accuse a state. An individual can do it."
The tapes also reveal Iraq 's persistent efforts to hide information about weapons of mass destruction programs from U.N. inspectors well into the 1990s. In one pivotal tape-recorded meeting, which occurred in late April or May of 1995, Saddam and his senior aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had uncovered evidence of Iraq's biological weapons programa program whose existence Iraq had previously denied.
At one point Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the man who was in charge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction efforts can be heard on the tapes, speaking openly about hiding information from the U.N.
"We did not reveal all that we have," Kamel says in the meeting. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct." Shortly after this meeting, in August 1995, Hussein Kamel defected to Jordan, and Iraq was forced to admit that it had concealed its biological weapons program. (Kamel returned to Iraq in February 1996 and was killed in a firefight with Iraqi security forces.)
A spokeswoman for the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, said information contained in the transcriptions of the tapes was already known to intelligence officials.
"Intelligence community analysts from the CIA, and the DIA reviewed the translations and found that while fascinating from a historical perspective the tapes do not reveal anything that changes their post war analysis of Iraq's weapons programs nor do they change the findings contained in the comprehensive Iraq Survey group report," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
"The tapes mostly date from early to mid 1990s and cover such topics as relations with the United Nations, efforts to rebuild industries from Gulf war damage and the pre 9/11 situation in Afghanistan."
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says the tapes are authentic and show that "Saddam had a fixation on weapons of mass destruction and he had a fixation on hiding what he was doing from the U.N. inspectors." Hoeckstra says there are more than 35,000 boxes of such tapes and documents that the U.S. government has not analyzed nor made public that should also be translated and studied on an urgent basis.
Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted."
Tierney, who provided ABC News with the tapes, plans to make the 12 hours of recordings public at a nongovernmental meeting called Intelligence Summit 2006 this weekend in Arlington, Va. John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor, runs the meeting. "We think this is a tape that is unclassified and available to the public," says Loftus ["I] just want to have it translated and let the tape speak for itself."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:48 ||
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Islamic separatists in violence-wracked southern Thailand have begun to employ weapons and tactics that appear to be imported from the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to analysts and experts.
One technique in particular, the use of a cement casing around a homemade bomb which both disguises it to look like a roadside marker and increases its lethality by creating razor sharp shards of concrete shrapnel, seems to have been imported directly from Iraq.
"That comes straight from Iraq -- or at least from the same training manuals they're using in Iraq," said Zachary Abuza, author of "Crucible of Terror" -- widely considered the definitive study of Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia. "Certainly, those kinds of tactics were never used in Thailand before."
Over the past year, the separatists have undergone "a remarkable transformation. It's unique ... I've never seen anything like it before in an insurgency," said defense analyst Jeff Moore who has written about the issue for Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.
Moore told United Press International that during 2004 there were a half dozen raids and ambushes against Thai security forces and other targets, but in 2005, there were nearly 90.
"Almost overnight they went from a gang of saboteurs and assassins to a small army. A guerilla army, but an army nonetheless," he said.
During the same time frame, Thai security forces also noted "an increasing sophistication in the construction and use" of improvised explosive devices by the insurgents, Panitan Wattanayagorn told UPI.
Panitan, a visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University, is a Thai academic and former security adviser in the prime minister's office. According to his biography, he continues to advise a number of Thai security agencies, including the country's army.
Panitan said the greater sophistication was notable in "more elaborate components" of some devices, and in the way they were deployed, including the increasing use of tactics such as chains of bombs blown up sequentially.
Abuza -- who is completing a book on the separatist insurgency, the latest phase of which has raged for nearly five years -- said there had also been an increase in the size of bombs.
"In the early stages of the insurgency, you would typically see 4-5 lb pipe-bomb devices. Last year we saw three or four 100 lb car bombs."
The number of attacks has also been increasing. Figures compiled by Jane's show that the number of bomb attacks last year -- nearly 20 a month, on average -- was more than three times that in 2004.
Jane's also noted a "clear diversification and advance in triggering techniques." Traditionally, the insurgents relied almost exclusively on timers made from cheap alarm clocks or "Walkman"-style tape recorders.
Time-bombs "are still occasionally used," says Jane's, but last year, "the weight of the (bombing) campaign has shifted decisively towards the use of mobile phones," which now account for as many as 95 per cent of bombings or attempted bombings.
"The ease with which explosions can be detonated, often in the line of sight to ensure they strike a specific target at a specific moment, has been a key factor in the growing number of casualties suffered by the security forces," says the publication.
Another factor driving the increasingly high casualty rate, says Moore, is the increasing sophistication of the tactics the separatists employ. One raid he analyzed, on the town of Yala in July 2005, involved more than 60 attackers in a sophisticated series of five simultaneous or sequential operations, including blowing up power lines; pinning down military units deployed there and covering their retreat with road spikes and fake bombs.
"It was a well-planned and executed military operation led by professionals, so it is likely that they rehearsed for it beforehand," Moore said.
Insurgents typically increase their capacity as they gain experience, but the speed of the Thai transformation -- especially their rapid adoption of infantry tactics -- is remarkable, Moore said.
Moore and Panitan both pointed to the Internet and the proliferation of Jihadi Web sites on it, as a possible source for some of this knowledge, especially about the construction of home-made bombs. Last year, Thai security forces raided a separatist safe house and found CDs and other training materials downloaded from the Web.
Moore said some of the jihadi sites are "virtual libraries" where would-be Jihadis can download everything they need from propaganda materials to bomb-making manuals.
"It's a starter kit," he said, "Almost a 'jihad in a box' if you like," but he added that the skills required for sophisticated ambush tactics cannot be effectively transferred in this fashion. "You cannot learn this stuff from the Internet ... Experienced or trained fighters taught them how to do this."
Moore, employing a college sporting metaphor, says the separatists seem to have "a bunch of ringers," a number of individuals who have clearly received training -- probably at camps in Afghanistan.
Thai intelligence believes that about 120 Islamic militants from Thailand passed through terrorist training camps run by al-Qaida and other extremist groups in Afghanistan prior to the United States toppling the Taliban regime there in late 2001.
"Some intelligence reports also suggest that there are individuals who provide (current) connectivity to foreign groups or training facilities," Panitan said, but added that there was no consensus on the question among the various security agencies operating in the south, where the insurgency has claimed more than a thousand lives.
Abuza and Panitan said that it is almost certain that at least some of the militants now active in the separatist insurgency have received training more recently, probably at camps in Indonesia or the Philippines.
"There are some individuals the authorities believe" have attended training camps in the region, said Panitan, adding that the porous southern border with Malaysia, and the existence of well-established smuggling and illegal migration routes to Indonesia makes it nearly impossible to track the movements of militants with any certainty.
"When they come back (from the camps), they change their names" he said of the militants, which adds to the difficulties that security forces have in assessing the levels of connectivity with overseas networks.
Some believe that militants may also have received training in Pakistan, through the network of madrassas or Islamic religious schools associated with the Kashmir-based jihadi networks, or with the Taliban.
"There are clear links with other regional extremist networks," Al Santoli, president of the Asia America Initiative, and a long-time observer of the region, told UPI.
But others are less certain. "It's too early to say for sure" what external links the various groups active in the insurgency might currently have, said Panitan.
That caution is echoed by a U.S. official at the embassy in Bangkok. The United States sees the insurgency as an "internal" issue, said the official, who asked for anonymity. "There is no clear evidence of direct foreign terrorist involvement."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:45 ||
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The American people strongly urge that the government of Thailand, faced with a tiny minority of militants - or those who have yet to embrace democracy, but will - who attempt to hijack the noble faith of Islam, face the pre-democratic nastyness by taking IED losses without using the perverse disproportionate retaliation practices that one-staters apply in the occupier-oppressor State of Israel. If you do that, we will replicate our two-state policy, and export it to Thailand. As a solution to the Thai nastyness, we propose both immediate release of all misunderstood Muslim peace activists, and creation of a negotiation structure where the rights of adherents of the noble faith, can be advanced. Once democratic case pleader groups are established, the American people will begin funneling massive aid to same. In addition, if Malaysia choses to treat harbored pre-democratic elements as refugees, we will respect that policy and funnel aid to refugee camps. If harbored freedom-seekers use those bases to conduct international terror, we will blame the government of Thailand for any loss of life. In conclusion, we condemn in the strongest possible terms any Thai conduct that causes defenders of the noble faith to diminish American peace and security. The American people always know where to point the finger.
Posted by: State Department ||
02/16/2006 15:35
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Solution for Thailand; Infiltrate all mosques immediately. Begin electric shock treatments on any recent Muslim converts and work your way toward old line muzzies. Arrest and expell all imams preaching violence. Stop the spread of Islam, and replace Islam with any other religion by any means necessary. When that religion of terror is gone from Thailand, peace will be with you.
The Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point has produced an interesting new study entitled, "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities" (browser-friendly view). The study includes documents, captured in the course of operations and stored in DOD's "Harmony" database, and released here for the first time to the academic and policy community. Brief summaries of the released documents and the full texts can be accessed from within the report, both in Arabic and in English. You can also download Acrobat files of the report segments here. Some interesting excerpts:
Harmony document AFGP-2002-600080 recounts al-Qaidas lessons learned from the Syrian jihad. It articulates the organizations failure to balance the need for operational security with financial efficiency and tactical control. The experiences of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Talia al-Muqatila (The Fighting Vanguard) in Syria from 1976-1982 provide a textbook case of an organization that initially possessed little awareness of the agency problem that in retrospect likely doomed the effort from the start...These documents do not provide compelling evidence that U.S. counterterrorism policies to date have been misguided or have overlooked any major developments. To the contrary, the documents reflect ongoing jihadi concerns about operational security and sustainability in the midst of Americas counterterrorism efforts. Encouragingly, some of the documents even reflect al-Qaidas fear that U.S. intelligence collection efforts are in some cases exceeding al-Qaidas ability to enact countermeasures.
Congrats to the CTC and its chairman, General (Retired) Wayne A. Downing, for this and other important contributions to the counterterrorism effort. Late last year, the CTC released a 3-volume set entitled, "The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training and Root Causes," which included essays on the subject by Zachary Abuza and Evan Kohlmann. I look forward to expert analysis of its new study, especially the documents, for new insights.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:44 ||
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IN THE COURSE of the campaign against international terrorism, the United States and its allies have uncovered hundreds of documents authored by both leaders and members of al Qaeda and allied terrorist networks. These documents, which currently reside in a classified database known as HARMONY, contain everything from loose papers to personal letters to bureaucratic documents to official statements and threats issued by al Qaeda and its allies. These documents, which contain important information with regard to the inner workings of al Qaeda, its leading personalities, field commanders, clandestine terrorists, and rank-and-file members, have been completely beyond the public access until now.
In late 2005, the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point was given 28 declassified documents from the HARMONY database in order to help the CTC "provide an analysis of potential network vulnerabilities and conflicts of interests within the organization" in order to support the efforts of U.S. military planners. The CTC's detailed analysis on how best to exploit al Qaeda's operational vulnerabilities is well worth reading on its own right, but what is far more interesting is the information contained in the declassified HARMONY documents that hints that there is far more to come.
For instance, take Document #: AFGP-2002-601693, titled "Status of Jihad" by the HARMONY database. In it, an individual using the kuniyat (assumed name) of Abu Mus'ab writes to one Abu Mohammed, which the translator speculates--based on references to his release from prison--as likely being Abu Muhammad Asem al-Maqdisi, the preferred kuniyat of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi's mentor Isam Mohammad Taher al-Barqawi.
According to the substance of the letter, Abu Mus'ab has apparently fallen out of favor with Abu Qatada, a London-based cleric who, prior to his arrest, was widely considered to be bin Laden's most senior representative in Europe. In the letter, Abu Mus'ab is seeking Abu Mohammed's support. Having met Zarqawi himself, Abu Mus'ab claims that the future Iraqi insurgent leader agrees with him that the al Qaeda-backed Muslim insurgencies fighting in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, and Tajikistan are in fact made up of polytheists and supporters of secular democracy because of their willingness to seek an accommodation with secular powers, a point of view that has apparently.
According to Abu Mus'ab, this has led to Zarqawi being accused of takfir (declaring Muslims to be kafir or infidels) by other al Qaeda members.
This anecdote is interesting because it goes toward establishing a factual basis for the widely-reported rift between Zarqawi and the rest of the al Qaeda leadership--prior to his public pledge of allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004.
Nevertheless, analysts looking in the HARMONY documents for evidence to support their contention that Zarqawi was not part of al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq will be sorely disappointed: According to Abu Mus'ab, Zarqawi refrained from joining the other man "because of his love for leadership and the organization"--with "the organization" here almost certainly referring to al Qaeda.
To support his position, Zarqawi produced a 200 page research paper by senior al Qaeda ideologue and terror theoretician Abu Musab al-Suri (also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, captured by U.S. forces in Pakistan in November 2005). At the letter explains, this lengthy paper "said that it is permissible to fight under the banner of infidelity . . . supporting his opinion with quotes from here and there."
This is an interesting revelation given the traditional image of Zarqawi as an avowed fanatic; it may explain why he has been able to so easily establish alliances with secular Iraqi Baathists and Shiite Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen without compromising his beliefs. According to Abu Mus'ab, Zarqawi believed the Taliban governor of Jalalabad to be an infidel, yet Zarqawi continued to cooperate with the Afghan theocracy until its collapse.
EVEN MORE INTERESTING is the portrait of al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, who Abu Mus'ab respectfully refers to in his letter as "the doctor." In addition to making the claim that al-Zawahiri had ceased involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad by 1995 (but that his departure was not announced in the group for unspecified reasons), Abu Mus'ab also claims that al-Zawahiri went to both Iraq and Iran following the domestic end of the Egyptian Islamist campaign.
Here he echoes an earlier passage in his letter where he notes that some jihadis "went to Saddam, others went to Iran and so on." The terminology used in the translation makes it difficult to assess whether al-Zawahiri's search for state support occurred during the initial suppression of Egyptian Islamist violence in the 1980s or following the renewed campaign in the 1990s. The 9/11 Commission's final report notes, in equally cryptic fashion, that al-Zawahiri "had ties of his own to the Iraqis." Similarly, Dr. Nimrod Raphael's biography of al-Zawahiri contends that in the face of accusations of embezzling in the late 1980s "the need for funds forced
him to seek assistance from Iran."
ABU MUS'AB'S LETTER to Abu Mohammed serves as a useful insight into the inner workings of the al Qaeda network. It highlights the fact that some of our Islamist enemies are even more extreme in their views than Zarqawi or bin Laden.
Access to primary source material, such as HARMONY's database of internal documents, can be of immense value to terrorism experts, analysts, academics, and the general public without harming intelligence operations. The declassification of further internal al Qaeda documents should only be encouraged.
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute Center for Policing Terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:42 ||
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intel:
first a drop or two, then by a trickle now it looks like a brook is bubbling up...thanks Dan.
Let us all note that this camp is inside Pakistan, specifically Rawalpindi. Perv probably drives by it a couple times every day on his way to work.
Tinted glass, Dan, tinted glass.
The government has satellite images of a suspected al-Qaida training camp that federal prosecutors say was attended by a man on trial for terrorism-related charges, according to court documents.
Prosecutors had said previously they would seek to introduce images from Pakistan but had not disclosed the nature of those photographs. The evidence is expected to be a key part of the government's case against Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer Hayat, 48.
A jury was seated Wednesday for the trial of Hamid Hayat, who is charged with supporting terrorists by attending the camp in 2003 and 2004 and then lying about it to the FBI. Opening statements were expected to begin Thursday. The government also claims Hamid Hayat planned to attack hospitals and supermarkets after he returned to the United States.
Umer Hayat is charged with lying to the FBI about his son's attending the camp. His portion of the trial is to begin next week before a separate jury that was seated Tuesday.
Both deny the son attended the camp and have pleaded not guilty. In their brief, prosecutors did not offer any direct evidence that he did, such as photographs or witness accounts that place him there. Rather, their case centers on statements the men made to a government informant in the United States, the men's purported videotaped confessions and the photographs they say show the actual camp. The Pakistani government has denied any of the camps exist.
"Lies! All lies!"
But prosecutors said they have satellite images "of a location consistent in appearance with the militant training camp that Hamid Hayat ultimately confessed that he attended," according to a brief filed late Tuesday.
Umer Hayat is charged with two counts of making false statements to FBI agents and faces eight years in prison if convicted. His son is charged with three counts of making false statements and with providing material support to terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 31 years in prison.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:40 ||
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Prosecutors show satellite photos of al-Qaeda camp inside Pakistan
If you know what it is, and where it, is why does it still exist?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 8:25
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The American people respect the wishes of the people of Pakistan, whose leadership have adopted a policy of selective use of terrorism, as an integral component of their foreign policy. We must also respect the will of the people of Pakistan to support that policy, by harboring terrorists who advance the ends of Pakistan. The choice of the government of Pakistan to continue the "Pakistan in depth" policy framework after we lifted the embargo in September 2001, is an internal concern of that nation's people, to which we will not interfere. Americans should remember that the Musharef dictatorship delivers us a major al-Qaeda leader every 6 - 12 months, or so, from which we can proudly boast the fruits of our relationship with our ally in the war on terror. As for the campaign of Jamaat-i-Islami militants - or democratic party workers, if you prefer - against American franchise operations in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, we have to remember that Islam is a "noble faith," and that our freedom campaign will create conditions where Muslims will reject the handful of terrorists who attempt to hijack Islam - a religion of peace - and form a pro-American government in Pakistan, which will advance international peace and security for all Americans and bring prosperity to Pakistanis. In order to stay the course, we have advised the President and Congress to authorize an additional $2,000,000,000 per year in direct aid to Pakistan, and its Provinces. If that aid filters into the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, and causes the deaths of American soldiers, we must accept those losses in the name of freedom. If George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers quake in their graves in consideration of the above, then our position is: they can go to hell. America has raised anew and our new Founding Father is Victor Davis Hanson, our beloved chief theorist for both subsidized nation building in our Muslim beneficiary states, and use of limited war tactics against the transient enemy, who will be defeated in the long run. Americans: respect the noble faith of Islam and its peace-loving adherents, and keep the tax dollars flowing. It is buying your peace and security.
Posted by: State Department ||
02/16/2006 15:20
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So many words, so much to do...
Posted by: John Bolton ||
02/16/2006 15:34
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Let's face it: the only reason we're making nice with Perv and the Saudis at the moment is that we've got too much to do already. Better to pay off Perv and keep those Islamic atom bombs under wraps. And that is exactly why we can't allow a Persian bomb -- we are paying too much already and the Persians are crazy enough to use it.
#6
31 years in prison ? What good is that ? Kill the bastard. It's cheaper, faster, and it just makes no sense to release a 50 something from jail with no skills and no motivation but vengence.
#8
it just makes no sense to release a 50 something from jail with no skills and no motivation but vengence.
You're assuming he lives through those 31 years. I know a few people in prison - one was my son's roommate for several months before he got caught selling crack. That particular person would gladly do something life-threatening to a scumbag like this - he's already doing life without parole. The only threat the government can make would be to kill him, and I'm not sure that would make any difference to him.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/16/2006 18:06
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I suspect old Perv was told there is a SSBN in the Indian ocean with 24 missiles, each with 16 MIRVs (do I have that correct). They are ALL pointed at WakiPakiland.
Al-Qaida is now reliant on Pakistani militants and groups, a U.S. terror expert said Wednesday.
ABC terrorism analyst Alexis Debat discussed the recent "Pakistanization" of al-Qaida at the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank. He said recent developments required intelligence analysts to reassess the way the terrorist group functioned.
"The (al-Qaida) organization has filtered through those Pakistani groups and is now reliant on them," Debat said. "The militant community has evolved in a very interesting way. It's become a little al-Qaida in itself. If you look at a lot of developments of the past several years you'll see that those militant groups have a very important place in al-Qaida."
This is not the first time al-Qaida has been linked to or even dependent upon Pakistani militants to support their mission, Debat said. "In the '90s most of the volunteers trained in al-Qaida's camps were Pakistani," he said. "Beginning in '97 '98 '99, the trainers were Pakistani. The Pakistanization of al-Qaida was very strong back then."
Debat said al-Qaida also had "roots not only in the militant community but in the mainstream community in Pakistan." He said al-Qaida operatives had been apprehended in safe houses owned or run by local government officials affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party. "This holds a very fundamental challenge. We're not talking about just deep roots, we're talking about the main Pakistani society and political community," he said.
Debat said that evidence suggested al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden spends part of the year hiding in Pakistan. He also said that the Pakistani militant community had acted as a subcontractor of al-Qaida in several of its operations including an assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the July 2005 bombings in London.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:38 ||
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Pakistan: The Myth of an Islamist Peril Frederic Grare argues that the risk of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan is a myth invented by the Pakistani military to consolidate its hold on power. In fact, religious political parties and militant organizations are manipulated by the Pakistani Army to achieve its own objectives, domestically and abroad.
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 5:59
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evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.
9/11 report sidesteps Pakistan On Oct. 9, 2001, the Pakistani daily Dawn reported the ISI director-general, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was fired after FBI investigators established a link between him and a $100,000 wire transfer to 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the summer of 2000. This report was also carried by the Wall Street Journal.
Paul Sperry, Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com, wrote in his Jan. 30, 2002, column that Dennis Lormel, who until the end of 2003 led the FBI's terrorist finance investigations, confirmed this transaction.
There is more evidence of ISI's command role of al-Qaida camps and facilities. In his March 24, 2004, testimony to the 9/11 commission, President Clinton's national security adviser Samuel Berger averred that the August 1998 U.S. cruise missile attacks aimed at killing Osama bin Laden "also killed apparently a number of Pakistani intelligence officials who were at the camps at the same time."
It seems the United States was aware that Pakistani intelligence controlled and operated al-Qaida camps and possibly directly liaised with Osama bin Laden himself. Given this and the tight monitoring by the ISI of Pakistani hub cities like Karachi and the fact that many of the 9/11 plotters and hijackers actually transited through Pakistan, when and what did Pakistan's intelligence operatives know about the 9/11 attacks?
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 6:10
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Al Qaeda Terrorist training camp inside Rawalpindi - the HQ of the Pak army
The Pakistani government denied any of the camps exist. Prosecutors, however, said they have satellite images "of a location consistent in appearance with the militant training camp that Hamid Hayat ultimately confessed that he attended," according to the 60-page trial brief filed Tuesday night.
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 6:20
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Perhaps Pakistan's standing as a loyal ally in the War on Terror is not as firm as heretofore?
#6
Debat said al-Qaida also had "roots not only in the militant community but in the mainstream community in Pakistan." He said al-Qaida operatives had been apprehended in safe houses owned or run by local government officials affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party. "This holds a very fundamental challenge. We're not talking about just deep roots, we're talking about the main Pakistani society and political community," he said.
The Pakistani's sought their nuclear program because they felt it was necessary to be a respectable player in the world, appealing to the mainstream to not be "backwards". Same appeal the MM's make to the Iranian public defend their nuke program. AQ Khan took the mission on behalf of all Muslims upon himself and exported the technology gratis, but it was all origianlly financed by the now defunct BCCI bank. HQ in Dubai, it also had many powerful and moneyed US investors. The Congressional Report, authored in part by Sen John Kerry, concludes far more remained to be investigated, but it never was. Besides embarrassing, I'm afraid some powerful Americans could be indicted for their greedy orgy with the Paks,and by association, with Al Qaeda. The report used to be a PDF file available on the Net, but I haven't checked lately...very interesting, explaining why some in our own government seem to be hindering the release of these new WOT tapes and documents. I suspect Bin Laden knows full well who the pimps are and has a measure of protection, as most will always act out of self-interest and protect their own hinies. Do you think it is a coincidence that the BinLaden Group funded Gore in Saudi, the UAE gets control of our ports, or that Dubai's growth puts Las Vegas to shame?
#7
Yep, the BCCI report is still online, along with a few other interesting articles that are embarassing to our current government. See it here. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/
#8
All else being equal, if AQ has to be somewhere, Pakistan is about as good a place as any. Except for the nuclear bomb bit, that is. That there are a billion or so nuclear-armed infidels right next door is kind of handy. And Mushie fully understands his predicament, even if his more 'religious' countrymen do not. That's why he has given us as much cooperation as he has - it is not as much as we would like, but he would certainly prefer to do nothing at all.
The Indian mulsim population may be 200 million now.
There are quite credible allegations that the Indian goverment is monkeying around with census data.
Publishing the fact that the muslim population has grown to 200 million would cause serious backlash among the majority hindu community.
hint : 15 percent in 1946 and there was partition
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 18:02
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Police forces around the world will soon turn on the heat against underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
With Interpol now set to issue a 'Special Notice' against the global terrorist, his ability to travel on a Pakistani passport will be curtailed.
The special notice is a rare classification. It would have intelligence details of the wanted person's assumed names, passports, travel records and photographs, including latest ones which could have even been the result of plastic surgery.
This information would make it difficult for the wanted person to travel. Interpol has slotted some 208 individuals in this category.
As of now, only four notices have been issued. These are for top Al-Qaida operatives Al-Zarqawi, the terror organisation's pointman in Iraq, Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah, a Yemen national, Lionel DuMont, a French citizen and Tariq Anwar al-Sayeed, an Egyptian.
Dawood is now set to join this select group of highly wanted terror suspects. The mastermind behind the Mumbai blasts is clearly in a bind.
His recent move to get his legal consultant to approach the media objecting to remarks labelling him a terrorist indicates his anticipating the Interpol notice.
CBI sleuths, looking for the don in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, believe the new notice also makes it more difficult for Dawood's mentors in the secretive Pakistani intelligence-military establishment to protect him.
Though he has not been staying at his Karachi house off late, he has been well ensconced in Pakistan. "Since the new notice would be backed by the UNSC, it would be difficult for Pakistan to dodge UN authorities by allowing him to travel on a Pakistani passport and maintain his bank accounts there," said an official of the National Central Bureau (Interpol), New Delhi.
Dawood appears to be perturbed over the impending new notice even as he has been dodging Interpol with relative ease for the last 13 years, despite having a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against him.
The NCB official said the SN would be more comprehensive. Interpol had decided to issue the S N against certain individuals associated with Al-Qaida in September last year.
"New names would be added to the SN list once the Interpol would compile all the data following intelligence inputs," said an official.
The Interpol's move will also result in his accounts being frozen world-wide after the Interpol-United Nations Security Council 'Special Notice' becomes effective.
This is seen to be a much more potent measure than the existing RCN against Dawood. One Meraj Siddique, said to be Dawood's legal consultant in UK, contacted a TV channel in India and allegedly expressed the don's wish to face trial in London.
Besides, Siddique also objected to media reports calling his client a terrorist. The terrorist's move is seen to be ploy to get his name cleared from the British courts, on the lines of the strategy adopted by music director Nadeem while contesting India's extradition plea in connection with the Gulshan Kumar murder case.
CBI officials, however, do not see any parallel between Dawood and Nadeem. They said that Dawood, who was designated a global terrorist by US authorities in 2003, would have to come to India to face trial, on the lines of another bomb blasts accused Abu Salem who had to return from Portugal.
Indian investigators said that there was a clear difference between a terrorist and a criminal. Even the UN had put Dawood's name in the list of individuals associated with Al-Qaida after CBI managed to marshal clear cut evidence against him, explained sleuths.
Once a SN is issued against the don, his details will be circulated to police around the globe and added to the Interpol's database. It will help Interpol member countries to effectively curtail his movements.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:34 ||
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This Special Notice was probably instigated by the Mafia. They objected to a Paki stooge named Dagwood being called a 'don'.
Britains appeal court ruled on Wednesday that a man accused of being part of a group that helped the Sept. 11 attackers should be extradited to Spain.
Tunisian-born Hedi Ben Youseff Boudhiba, 45, is alleged to have helped provide money and false documents for al-Qaida. I would conclude that, even though it may turn out that the appellant is of low intelligence and might be unfit to stand trial, it is not unjust or oppressive to extradite him to Spain, Lady Justice Smith said at the court.
Boudhiba is alleged to have traveled from Hamburg to Istanbul on Sept. 3, 2001 with a man named Ahmed Taleb, a member of the Hamburg cell to which three of the Sept. 11 pilots, including plot leader Mohammed Atta, belonged. Spains top terrorism investigator, Judge Baltasar Garzon, has also linked Boudhiba, known by the alias Fathi, to a network which plotted to use the deadly toxin ricin in London in January 2003.
Boudhiba was arrested in August 2004 as he attempted to board a flight to Barcelona from Liverpool.
In June last year, a judge at Londons Bow Street Magistrates Court ruled that he could be extradited to Spain, where he is wanted on terrorism charges. But he challenged the extradition ruling on mental health grounds.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:33 ||
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Let us know when he is on a plane. When it comes to the UK and "extraditions" trust but verify.
THE US has returned to Uganda a Ugandan-born Briton, Jamal Kiyemba, one of the 500 prisoners held by the US on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on suspicion of participating in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC. The UK has disowned Kiyemba.
"Kiyemba? Never heard of him!"
Controversy shrouds his arrest in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Kiyemba was arrested soon after the fall of the Taliban regime following a US-led military operation that hunted in vain for the elusive Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. Foreign affairs minister Sam Kutesa said on Sunday, We have him. He was flown in and handed over last Tuesday (February 7) to the CMI (Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence) for debriefing. The Americans said that although he was arrested in Afghanistan, he was not so key to the September 11, 2001 bombings of New York and Washington DC. He added, Initially he wanted to return to his adopted country but the UK said no. After debriefing, and if there is no other problems with him, he will be released because this was his original homeland.
"Then he's free to go to the Congo and do terrible things to people there."
On Kiyembas citizenship, Kutesa said, Once Britain disowned him, he automatically assumed his original citizenship of Uganda where he was born. Kiyemba left Uganda when he was 14 years old after his father died in an accident. He joined his mother in London where he finished school and later pursued a degree in pharmacy the University of Leicester. According to the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), Kiyemba was in Pakistan when he was seized and turned over to the Americans for a bounty of $5,000. The IHRC said Kiyemba had never been to Afghanistan until the Americans took him there and there was no evidence that he ever committed a hostile act against the US or anyone else.
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! There ain't no evidence. Da witnesses is all dead!"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:32 ||
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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq is among four main groups leading an insurgency against US-led and Iraqi forces that owes its resilience partly to canny exploitation of the internet, a report said on Wednesday.
The International Crisis Group, a non-profit organisation that monitors conflicts, analysed insurgent publications and internet postings to argue that the rebel groups had steadily developed sophisticated communications and coherent leadership.
Zarqawi's militant group, viewed by the United States as its deadliest foe in Iraq but whose importance others dispute, "appears to be surprisingly well-structured", the ICG report said, citing a study of its communiques.
"It should neither be blown up into a Leviathan nor ignored as a mirage, but rather considered as one among a handful of particularly powerful groups," the report concluded.
The report named Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance as the other main groups broadly sharing a Sunni Islamist and nationalist agenda.
These large armed groups or networks are "well organised, produce regular publications, react rapidly to political developments and appear surprisingly centralised", it said.
They were less divided between Iraqi nationalists and foreign fighters than often assumed and remained relentlessly hostile to the United States and its Iraqi "collaborators", despite efforts to draw them into the political process.
Increasingly confident of victory, the rebels have shown themselves sensitive to Sunni Arab opinion and willing to alter their tactics - such as beheading hostages and attacking voters - to avoid alienating support, the report said.
US counter-insurgency tactics aimed at killing enemy fighters, eliminating their leaders and driving them from their strongholds do not appear to be working, it argued.
Insurgent groups, including Zarqawi's, had replenished their ranks and their leaders, while exploiting Sunni Arab hostility to the US-led occupation and to the Shi'ite Islamist parties that now dominate Iraq's elected government.
The report said the insurgents were arguably more susceptible to political than military pressure, citing last year's elections, televised confessions of captured fighters and accusations of sectarianism and brutality.
Any successful counter-insurgency effort would seek to erode the perceived legitimacy of the rebels and would require US and Iraqi forces to avoid prisoner abuse and the use of sectarian militias against their Sunni Arab opponents, it said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:29 ||
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Understanding America invented the internet..... don't we have some f*cking unbelievable hackers... why doesnt the government do everything it can to hack and ruin the terrorist websites... Danish style.... bitches.
#2
bgrebel:
What makes you think we don't hack their websites? Quietly? Or do you think that if we do monitor the sites we should inform the New York Times so they could let everybody know?
#3
We know from past history that anything the FBI penetrates will only be used to watch further developments, not to actually stop anything. Probably true for NSA as well.
Almost two weeks after 23 prisoners suspected of terrorist ties broke out of a maximum-security prison here, the fugitives are emerging as unlikely folk heroes: the men who thumbed their noses at the Yemeni government and, more significantly, at America.
Many Yemenis see the episode as the ultimate response to years of cooperation between the government of Yemen and the United States that has resulted in the arrest of thousands of people, many of whom have been held for long periods without trial. Residents of Sana are now pointing to the audacious, Hollywood-style escape from a maximum-security prison as an example of the unraveling security situation in Yemen and of the growing estrangement between the government and the average citizen.
"Are they seen as heroes here? Certainly," said Muhammad al-Saderi, a leader in Yemen's opposition Nasserist party. "The 23 came from all over the country, and the way it looks to many is that the government isn't just facing off with a few extremist groups, it's facing off with the whole country."
A nationwide manhunt continued Wednesday as the Yemeni government offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the 13 people suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda among the escapees. Side streets leading to the prison remained blocked off, while security men patrolled in and around the mosque where the men emerged.
Yemeni security agents set up checkpoints within this densely packed city and on roads leading out, while United States warships patrolled the Yemeni shores. Diplomatic and security officials said the men were likely either to sneak across the border with Saudi Arabia into the unforgiving "Empty Quarter" or to take to the sea along human trafficking routes that run across the Gulf of Aden to Somalia.
United States and Yemeni analysts said the circumstances of the escape suggested that the prisoners might have received help from guards or other Yemeni government employees. "It would be hard to imagine pulling something like this off without some inside help," one official in Washington said. "What isn't clear is at what level, and how many people were involved."
The men broke out of the maximum-security prison run by the Political Security Department early on Feb. 3, squeezing through a tunnel leading from the basement prison cell where they were all held to a mosque, on a main street on the edge of the Yemeni capital. They dug the tunnel in the soft soils around the prison in three months using makeshift tools, all the while hiding the operation and the dirt they excavated from the prison authorities.
Among them were Jamal Ahmed al-Badawi, the suspected organizer of the October 2000 bombing of the United States destroyer Cole, who had pulled off a previous prison break, and Fawaz al-Rabeei, who was convicted of leading a cell that bombed the French oil tanker Limburg off the Yemeni coast in 2002.
Also with them was Jaber Elbaneh, an American-Yemeni implicated along with the Lackawanna Six, a reputed sleeper cell in Buffalo, N.Y. Six of the seven pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization and are serving prison terms. Mr. Elbaneh was convicted in absentia, and the United States placed a $5 million bounty on his head.
In Washington, the former commander of the Cole said he was outraged that the government allowed the man convicted of plotting the attack to escape from a local prison for a second time. "Justice with respect to those who attacked the U.S.S. Cole is not being served," said Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, in an unusual public complaint by a naval officer. He was in command of the Cole in October 2000 when the destroyer was attacked by Qaeda suicide bombers, killing 17 American sailors.
Acknowledging that he was speaking in an interview without official Navy approval, Commander Lippold called on American leaders to do more to pressure the Yemeni government, and to offer help catching the fugitives.
The breakout comes at a particularly difficult moment for the government, which has been fighting rebel Shiite forces near the Saudi border. Last week, 15 rebels and 5 Yemeni soldiers were killed in the clashes. It also raises the threat level for Americans in the country, with the United States Embassy urging them to "review their personal security practices," particularly for those times when they are neither at home nor at work.
"This is more than embarrassing, this is a disaster," said a Western diplomat in Sana, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to embarrass the government. "You can be sure that these men aren't going to go back to being farmers or open convenience stores. They are going to try to get back in the fight."
But Yemenis say cases like that of Mr. Elbaneh who has been held here since 2003, and without a reasonable charge, they say is one reason many sympathize with the escapees. Diplomats said Mr. Elbaneh had been arrested for "financial" crimes, in addition to the warrant by the United States. Yemen's Constitution forbids the government from extraditing him to the United States, said Khaled Saleh Alanesi, a human rights lawyer who represents Mr. Elbaneh and at least one other fugitive. "You won't hear anybody criticizing their escape because their arrests were illegal," Mr. Alanesi said. "After all, who do you think most people sympathize with, the government, or the ones who appear to have gotten away from an unjust imprisonment?"
As men gathered Wednesday for the daily ritual of chewing khat, a leaf chewed by many Yemenis as a mild stimulant, the men, who asked that that their names not be used for fear of retribution, debated the implications of the breakout.
While many expressed sympathy, a heavy-set man who led a political party here added a degree of skepticism. "Most of these guys were old friends of the political security service," he said, speaking of the 1980's, when the security services organized groups of Yemenis to fight in Afghanistan. "You can bet these men were sure that they were going to get out of the prison when they got there."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:28 ||
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The solution is simple; if the Yemenis, citizen and government alike, can't get their act together, pull their aid (and we almost certainly give them aid), pull any cooperation and leave them to whatever future awaits them. Certainly a more friendly country/port of call can be found to take their place.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened an internal investigation into the department's role in approving the Bush administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, officials said yesterday.
In addition, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signaled in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday that the administration will sharply limit the testimony of former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, both of whom have been asked to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the program.
"Clearly, there are privilege issues that have to be considered," Gonzales said. "As a general matter, we would not be disclosing internal deliberations, internal recommendations. That's not something we'd do as a general matter, whether or not you're a current member of the administration or a former member of the administration."
"You have to wonder what could Messrs. Comey and Ashcroft add to the discussion," Gonzales added.
In response to the comments last night, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he has asked Gonzales for permission to call Ashcroft and Comey to testify but has not received an answer.
"I'm not asking about internal memoranda or any internal discussions or any of those kind of documents which would have a chilling effect," Specter said.
But he said he would expect Ashcroft and Comey to talk about the legal issues at play in the case, including debates within the administration that included a visit by high-level officials to Ashcroft while he was in a hospital bed in 2004.
The remarks are among the latest developments in the debate over the National Security Agency program, which was first revealed in media reports in December. President Bush and his aides have strongly defended the program as both lawful and necessary to track suspected al Qaeda associates, but many legal scholars and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have raised doubts about the program's legality.
In a letter to Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), Office of Professional Responsibility counsel H. Marshall Jarrett said that his office has "initiated an investigation" into the Justice Department's role in the NSA surveillance program. The letter, dated Feb. 2 but not received by Hinchey until yesterday, indicates that the probe will include "whether such activities are permissible under existing law."
But Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said the inquiry will be more limited: "They will not be making a determination on the lawfulness of the NSA program but rather will determine whether the department lawyers complied with their professional obligations in connection with that program."
Scolinos also said that "OPR routinely looks into issues of this kind."
Hinchey, who requested the investigation along with three other House Democrats, said he welcomes a probe into "how President Bush went about creating this Big Brother program."
Elsewhere in the Capitol yesterday, Democrats and Republicans skirmished on several fronts in the debate regarding proper congressional oversight of the program.
The House Judiciary Committee, voting largely along party lines, rejected a Democratic measure asking the attorney general to provide the legal opinions and other documents related to the surveillance program. Rep. John N. Hostettler (Ind.) was the only Republican who joined the panel's Democrats in supporting the proposal by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).
The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote today on a Democratic proposal to launch a congressional inquiry into the NSA program. One member, Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), opposes an investigation but wants legislation to exempt the surveillance program from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
That idea got a thumbs-down yesterday from some prominent players, including Specter and Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the House intelligence committee's top Democrat. The surveillance law can be modified as needed, and remains the best vehicle for setting guidelines for government efforts to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails, Specter told reporters. But thus far, he said, "the administration will simply not comply with that statute."
Harman agreed that Congress can modify FISA or make other changes, such as appropriating more resources for the judges and aides handling requests for secret warrants, if the administration shows they are needed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:27 ||
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The ethics office of the Justice Department has begun a review of the department's role in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, a move that could shed light on internal dissension over the legal status of the secret program.
The review, being conducted by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, is the first formal government inquiry into the surveillance program since its existence was reported by The New York Times in December.
The head of the office, H. Marshall Jarrett, disclosed the inquiry in a Feb. 2 letter to Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, Democrat of New York, who had joined three other Democrats in calling for an investigation. The letter was received Wednesday because of a delay for routine irradiation of mail sent to Congress, Mr. Hinchey's spokesman said.
The Justice Department review was begun despite public assurances by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush that the program is legal and closely monitored by government lawyers.
Congress has not opened any investigation of the program, despite the urging of Democrats, some Republicans and privacy advocates, who believe that the eavesdropping violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because it is conducted without court warrants.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to hold a closed meeting on Thursday to decide whether to conduct its own examination, but the White House strongly opposes an investigation, and Democrats say they are pessimistic that a full inquiry will be opened.
The Office of Professional Responsibility investigates accusations of unethical or improper conduct by department lawyers. Justice Department officials played down the significance of the investigation, stressing that it will not look at whether the program was legal.
"O.P.R. routinely looks into issues of this kind," said Tasia Scolinos, a department spokeswoman. "They will not be making a determination on the lawfulness of the N.S.A. program, but rather will determine whether the department lawyers complied with their professional obligations."
Senior department officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and his chief deputy, James B. Comey, voiced concerns in 2004 about the program's legal underpinnings. Those concerns led the department to balk at approving the program for a time and led the administration to suspend the program for several months, officials with knowledge of the deliberations have said.
The concerns also prompted the N.S.A. to impose tighter controls on how it determined that someone suspected of having links to Al Qaeda should have their communications monitored.
The Justice officials' concerns were noted in the letter sent Jan. 9 to Mr. Jarrett, of the Office of Professional Responsibility, by Mr. Hinchey and Representatives Henry A. Waxman and Lynn Woolsey of California and John Lewis of Georgia.
The letter asked Mr. Jarrett to open an investigation to answer questions about the department's role, including when and how the department authorized the program, what Mr. Comey's objections were and what led to the department's auditing of the program in 2004.
In his reply, Mr. Jarrett acknowledged the Democrats' questions, including "whether such activities are permissible under existing law."
"For your information, we have initiated an investigation," replied Mr. Jarrett.
Some critics of the N.S.A. program said that they welcomed the review, but that a broader outside inquiry into the program was still needed.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the Justice review should be "independent and free from the strong-arming of those interested in trying to paper over this illegal program." He said the inquiry was "potentially constructive" but would not substitute for "strong Congressional oversight."
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the decision was a "step in the right direction, raising some of the questions that need to be answered, but it doesn't go far enough."
Lawyers for Adham Amin Hassoun, a co-defendant of Jose Padilla in a terrorism case, asked a federal judge on Tuesday to order the government to provide electronic intercepts by the N.S.A. that were not approved by a court. A second motion requests that the judge review intercepts collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and throw out any that appear to have been illegal.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:25 ||
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#1
a move that could shed light on internal dissension over the legal status of the secret program.
This is an intriguing development. Especially in light of Senator Rockefellers rather odd closing statement when AG Gonzales testified in open session before The Senate Intelligence Committee. Rocky opined that he had suspicion that the NSA leak to the press came from the DOJ. (Admittedly without any proof) This prompted FBI Director Mueller to deliver an obligatory terse reply. He delivered his statement with his traditional stoic demeanor but you had to know his sphincter was constricting tight enough to crush a peach-pit. Then again it may be nothing now that Rockefeller has found a new flair for the melo-dramatic. (ala Iraq Phase II closed-door session on the Senate floor)
Two supected Uzbek members of Al Qaeda were arrested by Pakistani security forces in a restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.
North Waziristans political agent, or administrator, Syed Zaheerul Islam, said the suspects were held at a check post by paramilitary troops, after authorities received a tip off. A security official, who did not want to be identified, said the arrested men were suspected of being followers of Uzbek Al Qaeda commander Tahir Yuldashev.
Pakistani troops sustained heavy losses when they besieged a compound occupied Yuldashev and a heavily armed band of fighters in South Waziristan in March 2004. Yuldashev, who led the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, escaped the siege.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:24 ||
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The Pentagon's top intelligence official told Congress yesterday that his investigation turned up no chart or photo depicting hijacker Mohamed Atta before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but a Republican lawmaker accused the Bush administration of ignoring evidence.
Testimony before two House Armed Services subcommittees marked the first time that Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, testified in public about an intelligence collection program from 1999 through 2000 called Able Danger.
But the hearing did not appear to answer the question about whether Able Danger singled out Atta as an al Qaeda-connected operative more than a year before the attacks.
Mr. Cambone said his probe, which took "6,500 man-hours" and 50 interviews, found no documents to support the statements of five former or current officials who say they remember seeing Atta's name or photo among the thousands that turned up in Able Danger's computer-generated data mining that started in 1999.
"The review did not uncover a chart or charts with information on 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta that predated the 9/11 attack," Mr. Cambone testified. "Nor did the review discover any data -- hard copy or soft -- that provided information on Atta prior to the 9/11 attacks."
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, has been on a campaign to prove that such an identification was made.
"There has been no investigation," Mr. Weldon said during a hearing in which several members deferred their 10-minute allotment to him. "There has been no analysis by the 9/11 commission or anyone else."
Mr. Weldon has said the Clinton administration destroyed Able Danger documents, shut down the program and prevented intelligence officers from sharing the information with the FBI.
He has said the September 11 commission ignored evidence from Defense Intelligence Agency officer Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and failed to include anything about Able Danger in the commission's report. He also has charged that the Bush administration refuses to follow leads he finds.
"Is this a massive effort to deny reality?" he asked.
Mr. Weldon leveled new charges yesterday:
A retired official told him that an aide to Mr. Cambone said the Pentagon wanted to kill the Able Danger story.
Another retired intelligence officer is ready to sign an affidavit saying that he, too, remembers hearing the name Mohamed Atta before September 11, 2001.
Reporters for Time magazine and CNN told Mr. Weldon that Pentagon officials told them that the reason he was investigating Able Danger was because one of the whistleblowers was having an affair with one of the lawmaker's staffers. Mr. Weldon said he knew of no affair.
Mr. Cambone testified that the reason the documents were destroyed during the Clinton administration was to comply with laws prohibiting keeping data for more than 90 days. He also said the FBI maintains that no one blocked meetings between Mr. Shaffer and federal agents.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:21 ||
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He also said the FBI maintains that no one blocked meetings between Mr. Shaffer and federal agents.
A statement which indicates no one phueching encouraged collaboration, or indications and warnings sharing either. There they are once again, the FBI counterintelligence division snoring at the switch. No one is "blocking" you from winning the Virginia lottery, but your chances are pretty slim.
Here is an interesting link of after-the-fact actions taken by the bureau:
http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/31430.htm
With all of the resources and dollars that have been pumped into the bureau following 9/11, there should be absolutely no question where future responsibility lies. I hope they have finally recovered from their categoric disdain for DoD, but I doubt it. Hoover made them "special" agents so they could avoid the draft in WWII. They've become their own "special" culture. A dangerous identifier for any organization.
As the 10th Mountain Division prepared to go to Afghanistan this month, its Third Brigade ordered boxes of the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid's seminal book "Taliban" to be issued to officers along with body armor, high-tech seven-layer cold weather uniforms and ballistic-grade Oakley Blade wraparound sunglasses.
When the 10th Mountain went to Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, their task was purely military: to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. That mission remains, but now the goal is as much a political one: to bolster the American-supported government of President Hamid Karzai.
The 10th Mountain, one of the Army's best units, is developing a military ethos that goes beyond the tactics of past conventional warfare to a new age of ideological war.
In a series of interviews as the soldiers about half of them combat veterans prepared for their deployment this month, the division's commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, and other officers spoke of the heightened language and cultural training they had instituted to meet the new challenges in a conflict against militant Islam that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently referred to as "the long war."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:17 ||
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Impressive. The most dangerous thing the enemy faces is not the kewl toys, but the educated American citizen-soldier.
The beheaded bodies of two Afghan intelligence agents were found dumped in western Afghanistan yesterday. The intelligence agents had been captured in Farah province two days ago by suspected remnants of the Taliban regime ousted in 2001, provincial governor Hazatullah Wasefi said. Their bodies were found in a desert near the Iranian border, Wasefi said. We dont know exactly who might have done it. But it seems that it was the brutalities of the Taliban, provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb added.
The violence is focused on Afghanistans southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership and its Al Qaeda allies are believed to have fled after the hardliners were toppled.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:16 ||
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Thats because we're capturing prisoners and they're killing our interests and troops! It's time to unleash US Head Hunters, Off The Book mercenaries, and Phoenix style Erasers to instill alittle fear in the Taliban!
A security expert has described the Iraq war as a gift for al-Qaeda, providing them with the perfect urban terrorist training ground.
Professor Paul Rogers told delegates at the Royal United Services Institute that the consequences of creating such a theatre for terrorists to hone their skills would "haunt us over the next 20 to 30 years".
He told the conference on politics and terrorism: "Iraq is very slowly becoming something of a Jihadist training zone for a new generation of Jihadists, rather like Afghanistan was in the 1980s against the Soviets.
"You get young Jihadists from Afghanistan travelling to Iraq, getting combats training against the American troops in urban environments and then taking their skills elsewhere."
Prof Rogers, from the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, added: "The real gift to al-Qaeda is a long-term urban combat training zone, not a rural one as previously.
"That is going to come back and haunt us over the next 20 to 30 years."
The two-day conference in Whitehall is due to hear from other experts on Islam and counter-terrorism, as well as Home Office minister Hazel Blears.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:15 ||
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If they are actually "getting combats training against the American troops", then it seems like most of them flunk the final exam. What kind of on-the-job training do they get? Suicide bombing? Roadside bomb placing? Neither of those tactics would seem to gain some unique benefit from the existence of the Iraq conflict. Israel, Turkey, Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan - all have been subject to such 'training'. Sniping? Perhaps, but not real common and not at all clear the skilled ones are anything but Baathists. True military unit engagements? Even small, irregular units? The survivors learn what doesn't work very well.
#3
What a total cock-up of reality. An "expert", huh?
Gee, according to Prof Rogers, from the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University we have roll over and bare belly vs. kill jihadis. Okay.
I wonder, back in WW-II... Would it have been roll over and bare belly vs. kill Nazis?
Yeah, he's right - we chose wrong then, too. Now, with his freedom to be a moron and "security expert" secured for the last 60 yrs, we have totally clueless fuckwits like him giving lectures. Since I'm certain the good Professor's views were well-known before he was invited to speak, he doesn't exactly seem the shy and retiring type - regardless of his negative IQ - I eagerly await more jewels of wisdom emanating from this wank fest conference.
#4
Department of Peace Studies
i.e. the Department of Surrender Your Daughters and Take What's Comming to You. Piss on Rogers and Bradford University for being so naively stupid.
Posted by: ed ||
02/16/2006 12:13
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"added: "The real gift to al-Qaeda is a long-term urban combat training zone, not a rural one as previously."
You will find "Allah's Waiting Room" to left, Please....
#6
Isn't this the same guy Rantburg outed a couple of days ago because of his book urging dhimmitude? I think the book was published by Oxford Free Press. This guy is a self-appointed "expert" and a cheese-eating surrender monkey, regardless of his nationality.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/16/2006 18:27
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#7
Riiiiiight. What he doesn't say that this was true in 04, but they are now dead or fled because of some kick ass operations. It was a test, and they flunked.
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/16/2006 20:57
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The fact is these newly trained terrorists usually become newly dead terrorists. This type of hand wringing is prevalent among the intellectual elite who usually have no "hands on" experience.
Posted by: Ray Robison ||
02/16/2006 22:19
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I read (probably on StrategyPage) that US (or Coalition) forces killed and captured 24,000 in 2004 and 26,000 in 2005 Iraqi and foreign terrorists. That's comparable to Iraqi losses in the Iran-Iraq war but with the losses coming from a small portion of the population. That's not a loss rate the Baathists, Sadrites or foreigh terrorists can sustain.
Posted by: ed ||
02/16/2006 22:31
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#11
chlorine in the gene pool
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 23:28
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A court on Wednesday sentenced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgent group in Iraq that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and eight other men to death for plotting chemical attacks against sites in Jordan, including the United States Embassy.
Mr. Zarqawi, who is not in custody, and three others were sentenced to death in absentia.
But the plot's suspected mastermind, Azmi al-Jayousi, and four co-defendants were in the courtroom when the judge handed down the sentence for the plot in 2004, which security officials reported they had foiled before it could be carried out.
It was the third death penalty that Jordanian courts have issued for Mr. Zarqawi, a Jordanian who runs the most notorious insurgent group in Iraq. His previous death sentences were for the assassination of an American diplomat, Lawrence Foley, in Amman in 2002, and for a failed suicide attack on the Jordanian-Iraqi border in 2004.
On hearing the verdict, the five condemned men who were in the court shouted their support for Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, and denounced the judges as pro-Israeli tyrants.
"The Jews are your masters!" yelled the men.
The three judges picked up their papers and walked out, leaving the defendants shouting.
"Bin Laden's organization is rising and we will be back!" they yelled.
They also turned on a Syrian defendant who was acquitted in the case, Muhammad Salmeh Shaaban, and accused him of being an informer.
"Your blood will be shed!" the convicted men shouted at him.
The court also sentenced two other defendants to prison terms of one to three years, and acquitted another two defendants.
The men Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians were charged with conspiring to attack sites in Jordan by setting off a cloud of toxic chemicals that would have killed thousands of people, according to prosecution estimates.
The defendants were also charged with conspiring to commit acts of terrorism and with possession and manufacture of explosives.
The prosecution told the court that Mr. Zarqawi had sent more than $118,000 to buy two vehicles that the plotters were to use in the attack. It said suicide bombers were to drive the vehicles, loaded with explosives and chemicals, onto the grounds of the General Intelligence Department in Amman and detonate them.
Other targets of the plot were the United States Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and various intelligence and military court officials.
The indictment said that when investigators conducted an experiment with small amounts of the chemicals found with the defendants, they found it produced "a strong explosion and a poison cloud that spread over an area of 500 square yards."
From the geographical data that the accused mastermind, Mr. Jayousi, a Jordanian, had collected, it appeared he aimed to kill thousands of people in the chemical attack, the indictment said.
Eight of the defendants were accused of belonging to a previously unknown group, Kataeb al Tawhid, or Battalions of Monotheism, which security officials say is headed by Mr. Zarqawi and linked to Al Qaeda.
Monotheism, or tawhid in Arabic, is a central doctrine of Islam. But some militant groups like Mr. Zarqawi's have interpreted it to mean that anyone who does not rule by Islamic law is an apostate.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:14 ||
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The United States has formally requested the extradition of a Canadian man accused of supplying weapons to al Qaeda, but the process could take years, officials said on Wednesday. U.S. authorities say Abdullah Khadr, 24, also conspired to kill Americans abroad. Khadr was arrested in Toronto in December two weeks after returning to Canada from Pakistan.
Khadr is the eldest son of Ahmed Said Khadr, who was an alleged al Qaeda financier and close friend of Osama bin Laden. He was killed in a 2003 gun battle in Pakistan. Brother Omar Ahmed Khadr is the only Canadian held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Canada's Justice Department now has 30 days to approve the U.S. request and if it says yes, a court hearing will be held to consider the extradition. Khadr can appeal that decision all the way to the Supreme Court, and it could be a long time before a final ruling is made. "We have (extradition) cases that have been around for five years," said a Justice Department spokesman.
Khadr said he was tortured in a Pakistani prison where he was detained without charges in October 2004.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:13 ||
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A court has heard allegations that a Victorian man was asked to return to Australia as a sleeper for the terrorist group, Al Qaeda. A trial has begun for 32-year-old Joseph Terrence Thomas of Werribee who is charged with providing resources to and receiving funds from the Al Qaeda terrorist network between July 2002 and January 2003.
The Supreme Court has been told he trained with Al Qaeda in at the Al Farooq camp in Afghanistan in mid-2001 and was in close quarters with Osama Bin Laden on three occasions. It is alleged he was present during conversations about terrorist acts, including a possible attack in Australia, and that he accepted a Qantas ticket and money from Al Qaeda after being told that Bin Laden wanted an Australian to carry out operations here.
The prosecutor has told the jury Mr Thomas later told police he did not agree to become an Al Qaeda sleeper.
Thomas's lawyer has told the Victorian Supreme Court his client may be naive and stupid, but he definitely was not a terrorist. He told the jury Thomas did accept a plane ticket and money to get home but all the other aspects of the charges would be heavily disputed.
"My client is just a thief, really!"
The court heard Thomas told police one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter but that he did not agree with Al Qaeda's methods.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:12 ||
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The U.S. embassy in Yemen has urged Americans in the Arab country to be more security-conscious after 23 militants, including 13 al Qaeda convicts, broke out of jail earlier this month.
"(The) escape of 23 convicted and suspected al Qaeda operatives from a Sanaa prison has highlighted the need for Americans to review their personal security practices," said a statement dated February 14 posted on the embassy Web site.
"While the U.S. embassy has no information of an imminent threat, the embassy has advised that official Americans are most vulnerable when they are not at their residences or working at the embassy."
The embassy said it had urged Americans to avoid crowded areas, limit visits outside their homes, cut back on travel and avoid trips after dark.
There are only a small number of Americans in impoverished Yemen, which has seen repeated kidnappings of Westerners by tribesmen in recent years.
Besides Americans working at the embassy and a language center, there are believed to be a few U.S. military experts and some Americans working in the oil industry.
Yemen on Tuesday offered a reward of $25,500 for information leading to the arrest of the 13 al Qaeda inmates, who were among 23 who tunneled their way out of prison.
The jailbreak has embarrassed the government, which is battling Islamic militants, and raised questions among its Western allies.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/16/2006
02:10 ||
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A 20-year-old North Dakota State University student has been arrested for "criminal attempt and possession of drug paraphernalia" after trying to score some marijuana at a West Fargo police station, In-Forum News reports. Grace Sium rang the cop shop at 3.15am last Saturday enquiring as to where she might acquire some blow. Despite the dispatcher's repeated protestations that "selling and possessing marijuana was illegal", Sium persisted. Accordingly, the dispatcher admitted the cops had puff in the witness locker, and said if Sium swung by they would "hook her up".
Grace is not a physics major.
Officer Ken Zeeb - who arrived for work at 3.45am - recalled: "The dispatcher got on the intercom and said, 'You know what? She's here. She just handed me $3 for marijuana'." Zeeb quickly moved to cuff the master criminal, and later explained: "She didn't seem like she was really under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She understood what was going on and articulated herself well."
"This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"
Zeeb, who has worked narcotics for over seven years and "and has arrested people for trying to buy drugs at a house as it was being searched by police", admitted the bust was "about the craziest thing I've ever come across". He rightly concluded: "This is something that you couldn't even make up." Sium is now languishing in Cass County Jail. She declined to respond to a phone message left for her on Saturday.
#3
Some years back we had a woman show up at the Montgomery Alabama Police Department to swear out a warrant against her boyfriend who stole her crack cocaine.
Busted them both. (When the cops stopped laughing)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 8:38
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#5
I remember one police officer with an amazing record of drug busts. He would show up at the door of an apartment after a party noise complaint, knock on the door, and when they answered asked if he could buy some drugs.
Invariably, they would ask him if he was a cop.
He would reply "Yes".
They would laugh and go get him drugs.
The punchline: He did it in uniform!
As a second punchline, I suppose, his department eventually made him stop using his technique. I guess their rationale was that it was like hunting in a baited field.
#7
.com, gotta ask....What's RFSP? Is there a rantburg Acronym dictionary you can link to? I know most of them, and are learning others, but having been out of the loop for a lil' time, I'm gettin' rusty, I guess.
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 9:09
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Alrighty then, more information that sheds light on our intrepid heroines antics.
Her name is "Grace (Tzega Ogbazhi) Sium"! And it seems she ain't from these parts. It might be perfectly acceptable in her homeland to attempt to buy pot from the cops, for $3!
Viktoria Zakurko, a Lithuanian citizen, was arrested in the UK last weekend suspected of links with al-Qaeda. British and Lithuanian law enforcement agencies are particularly apprehended since the detainees father works in the security of the Ignalinsk nuclear power station.
The Lithuanian, who now resides in Liverpool, has been arrested on the grounds of her relations with Lebanese citizen Mohammed Benhammedi who is believed to be a financier of al-Qaeda.
Just wait til you get home, young lady.
The 19-year-old met the Lebanese businessman through mutual friends and left for Liverpool where she met him every second night, she says.
Got into a 'relationship' with an exotic foreigner, and now it's come home to bite her.
Benhammedi was detained last Wednesday and charged with violations of migration regulations. His accounts were frozen as suspected to be financing al-Qaeda. Viktoria Zakurko told the British press that she does not believe the accusations and ready to wait for her lover all her life.
"Or until my friends call me to go clubbing."
The British police got apprehended as they learnt that the girls father, Sergey Zakurko, works in Lithuania as a security man at the Ignalinsk nuclear power station.
#1
Just from the names, I would think that Vikki baby might be ethnically Russian or Ukrainian. Anyway, I would be begging the Brits to keep me as long as possible. Once daddy gets his hands on her, she may not have long to live.
BTW....Ignalinsk (or at us Litvaks refer to it more often, Ignalina) was built with the same plans used for Chernobyl. Maybe ol' Mo was planning on taking one of the public tours and causing some trouble then. There's been a movement to shut it down for some time, but Lithuania's been reluctant to do so.
I used to like Ann Coulter. I now view her the same way I view Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell: while she's not a leftist moonbat, she's most certainly an idiotarian. My comments added at 11 am CST.
The amazing part of the great Danish cartoon caper isn't that Muslims immediately engage in acts of mob violence when things don't go their way. That is de rigueur for the Religion of Peace. Their immediate response to all bad news is mass violence. That's a "dog bites man" story and belongs on page B-34, next to the grade school hot lunch menu and the birth notices.
After an Egyptian ferry capsized recently, killing hundreds of passengers, a whole braying mob of passengers' relatives staged an organized attack on the company, throwing furniture out the window and burning the building to the ground. Witnesses say it was the most violent ocean liner-related incident since Carnival Cruise Lines fired Kathie Lee Gifford.
Was that a result of their religion, or a recognition that in their country and present culture, there was no other way to get justice? In the U.S., we get a grand jury empaneled and hire some junk-yard lawyers to get justice after a tragedy like this. Remind us how that works in Egypt, Ms. Coulter. Right -- it doesn't. Tell you what, as a mild-mannered Catholic, I also might have rioted against the shipping company if there was no other way to get justice. Then again, I might pick up a rifle.
The "offense to Islam" ruse is merely an excuse for Muslims to revert to their default mode: rioting and setting things on fire. These people have a serious anger management problem.
So it's not exactly a scoop that Muslims are engaging in violence. A front-page story would be "Offended Muslims Remain Calm."
Most Muslims did, Ann. Didya notice that? Muslims across America handled the cartoons the same way I handled 'Piss Christ' when the that first came out. I was mighty unhappy that a dumb-assed 'artist' took an object I consider holy and dunked it into a jug o' urine, and I said so at the time. I didn't riot over it. Likewise, my Muslim friends here at the University have been unhappy about their holy man being portrayed in unflattering ways, and they said so -- calmly. We didn't have any riots in Chicago.
What is stunning about this spectacle is that their violence is working. With a few exceptions, the media won't show the cartoons that incited mass violence around the globe (cartoons available at www.anncoulter.com). And yet, week after week, American patriots endure "The Boondocks" without complaint. Where's the justice here?
Perhaps we could put aside our national, ongoing, post-9/11 Muslim butt-kissing contest and get on with the business at hand: Bombing Syria back to the stone age and then permanently disarming Iran.
No, we don't want to bomb Syria back to the stone age, any more than we bombed Iraq back to the stone age (Iraq was practically in the stone age due to Saddam, Uday and Qusay looting the country blind; that's different). We want Pencilneck gone and his thugocracy dismantled, but we have nothing against the Syrian people. Mostly.
Furthermore, there's no 'butt-kissing' of Muslims by the more critical parts of our power structure -- I say that recognizing that some Rantburg citizens will disagree with me. GWB, Condi, Rummy et al have had this right all along: we're not going after Muslims or Islam, we're going after those who use and pervert that religion for their own nasty political ends. I don't have any problems with peaceful Muslims, though I wish more of them would get on the same side as us. I have big problems with the ones who want to build a caliphate, kill all the Jooos, and make me and my family dhimmis. The solution isn't mindless violence, it's targeted violence against evil people.
When stupid people riot, you bring out the water cannons and the baton-swinging police to restore order. But you don't indict an entire religion for the rubes amongst them. The key is to get at what's going on behind the scenes. What we have in the Middle East today is a long-term, careful-conceived plan by several different groups, including al-Q and the Mad Mullahs, to remove the West from world power and replace us with a caliphate. Each group plans to be the one wearing the bejeweled turban, and each is antagonistic towards the others plotters as well as towards us. That's the story. Ann surely knows that, but she doesn't write about it, because that would require calm logic and reasoning, and she doesn't do calm.
The mass violence by Muslims over some cartoons reminds us why we have to worry when countries like Iran start talking about having nukes. Iran is led by a lunatic who makes a big point of denying the Holocaust. Indeed, in response to the Muhammad cartoons, one Iranian newspaper is soliciting cartoons about the Holocaust. (So far the only submissions have come from Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau and The New York Times.)
That's called 'slander' Ms. Coulter. As far as I know, none of the three have done that. I think Ted Rall is slime (that's not slander, that's an opinion), and I have a similar low regard for Mr. Trudeau and for the NYT. But none of the three have entered this idiot contest, so Ms. Coulter is just playing to the cheap seats. It's not necessary and it brings her down to the level of Mr. Rall -- not that she has far to go these days.
Iran is certainly implying that it has nukes. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but you can't take chances with berserk psychotics. What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with a nuclear bomb?
If you don't want to get shot by the police, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then don't point a toy gun at them. Or, as I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?
Oh, har-har. Like I said, she doesn't have far at all to go to be indistinguishable from Ted Rall.
In addition, I believe we are legally required to be bombing Syria right now. And unlike the Quran's alleged prohibition on depictions of Muhammad, I've got documentation to back that up!
Muslims in Syria torched the Danish Embassy a few weeks ago, burning it to the ground. According to everyone, the Syrian government was behind the attack -- the prime minister of Denmark, Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Scott McClellan. I think even the gals on "The View" have acknowledged that Damascus was behind this one.
McClellan said: "We will hold Syria responsible for such violent demonstrations since they do not take place in that country without government knowledge and support."
We are signatories to a treaty that requires us to do more than "hold Syria responsible" for this attack. Syria has staged a state-sponsored attack on our NATO partner on Danish soil, the Danish embassy. According to the terms of the NATO treaty, the United States and most of Europe have an obligation to go to war with Syria.
If the Danes ask us to do so -- that's a quirk of 'Article V' of the NATO constitution that somehow has eluded Ms. Coulter. And, something else Ms. Coulter misses, if it's smartest, best way to respond. Burning an embassy is an act of war, but you don't necessarily respond to it by bombing a country 'back to the stone age'. If Saddam had burned a Western embassy, we would have bombed him -- in fact, we did anyway. But what we want is for Pencilneck to go, and we have a plan in place to get that done without losing other things that we also consider valuable to us. That's called 'strategy', a concept on which Ms. Coulter is clueless.
Or is NATO -- like the conventions of civilized behavior, personal hygiene and grooming -- inapplicable when Muslims are involved? Liberals complain about "unilateral action," but under the terms of a treaty created by Dean Acheson and the Democrats, France, Germany, Spain and Greece are all obliged to go to war with us against Syria. Why, it's almost like a coalition! OK, Mr. Commie: Saddle up!
It's easy to toss rhetorical bombs around when you don't have to put your own ass on the line. It happens at most blogs (us included) from time to time. We're smart enough to understand that, as do most other commentators at most reasonable blogs, newspapers, etc. It isn't clear to me that Ms. Coulter is that smart. If she is, she hides it well.
War is a serious business, Ann: people die. Good people die, including your own soldiers, people you truly care about. You don't go to war to prove how macho you are, and you don't do it on a whim. You go to war when you're faced with certain choices in which war is the least unappealing. We went to war with the Taliban because the other choice, leaving them in place and leaving their country as a giant training camp for al-Q, was utterly unacceptable. Ditto Iraq: no way could we let Saddam slip past sanctions, develop new weapons, threaten all our friends in the region and arm terrorists. So we went to war. In the process we've lost a couple thousand smart, wonderful men and women in uniform. Is it worth it? Yes. Hell yes.
But that doesn't mean we go to war to prove to anyone that we have big brass ones.
Ann Coulter has become trapped by her persona: she thinks she has to say outrageous stuff to make her point, and over time she has to become more outrageous to continue to be noticed. She's been over the line frequently in her attention-seeking behavior, and this piece of tripe is one more example of that. Feh.
#1
Or, as I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?
You gotta love Ann! An extremely witty attorney (very rare) who's not hard on the eyes, to boot! She has more cojones than many "metrosexual" American men, these days!
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 8:43
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#5
Ann Coulter is the Maureen Dowd of the conservative movement. Clever, great at wordplay, highly emotional, ultimately incapable of persuading anyone who doesn't already agree with her.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/16/2006 12:38
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#6
Nice fisking, BTW.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/16/2006 13:31
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#7
She shoulda called them Targets, for in the acutal analysis of the substance of what she said, that was her point.
Leave it to the left to appease an armed enemy of America, and to mischaracterize the point she was making.
#8
But you don't indict an entire religion for the rubes amongst them.
Unless it turns out that they're all rubes.
Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?
I remain amazed at how often infantile invective is deemed a suitable replacement for wit or erudition. Grow up, indeed.
My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything. What's worse, everyone knows he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job four years ago, he hasn't even looked for a new one. All he does is buy cigars and cruise around and bullshit with his pals, while I have to work to pay the bills.
Since our daughter went away to college, he doesn't even pretend to like me and hints that I am a lesbian. What should I do?
Signed, Clueless
Dear Clueless:
Grow up and dump him for Pete's sake, you don't need him anymore. You're a United States senator from New York. Act like it!
#12
I know about 100 bloggers and a few Rantburgers as well who are funnier and smarter than Ann Coulter. Why does she get all this attention? She doesn't speak for me, she embarasses me and I'd bet that the number of voters who are repelled from ever giving conservative view points even a perfunctory listen is greater than the number of conservatives she entertains. I am frequently disgusted by the actions of the NYTimes but I don't see any humor in joking that McVeigh out to have blown up 43rd St. That's not squishy political correctness on my part either, that's common sense.
Another bit of common sense: You don't wage war on a billion people. Even if we hawks had a strong consensus to do so at home (which we obviously don't).
You oppose the Nazis, not all Germans. You oppose the Militarists, not all Japanese. You oppose the Soviets, not all Russians. One day, as I hope, we will be rid of the Mullahs and the radical Imams and the tin-pot Assad/Ghaddafi/Saddam/Saud/Mumbarak crime families that mis-rule the Middle East. But there will always be an Ummah where 1 billion people live. Do you want them to be our eternal enemies or can they become our strategic allies, the way that 100 million Japanese are today?
To focus our attack on their race, religion and culture is stupidity of the highest order. War is political and ideological. We need to focus our firepower (political and militarily) the Wahhabist clerical class and corrupt elites who have cynically exploited this cartoon conflict and are the same ones who have fanned the flames of hatred, incitement to violence and indoctrination for the past 3 decades.
I have changed my mind about the reprinting of the cartoons. I orginally felt that all media outlets needed to reprint them. I now feel like this whole "to reprint or not to reprint" debate is taking away the focus from where it should be on the methods and the timeline used by Danish Mullah Laban and his cohorts and allies to spark this outburst and charting the way it spreads. If we're going to use drawings as weapons, we ought to be caricaturing Laban, Qawradawri, HuT, MB, Amhaddenejad, and all the other superstitious old goats who are trying to bend the Islamic world's opinions to their will with their incitement apparatus.
#13
Sorry, 'Moose, we've got to disagree. I think Ann Coulter's insults to the lefties and the Muzzy nutballs are all well-deserved and exactly what they need to send them into frothing rage. The more she goads them, the more ridiculous they sound when they try to hit back or restrict her freedom of speech. Inspiring lefties and Muzzies to make public asses of themselves is always a good thing and I thoroughly approve of it. On top of being extremely bright, quick-witted, and discerning about her enemies, she's also damned good-looking. Brains and beauty; that's a tough combination to beat. Moose, if you took Ann on in person I suspect you'd get your hindquarters handed to you and she'd just laugh all the way to the bank. You've got a losing dog of an argument on this one. Better luck next time.
Posted by: mac ||
02/16/2006 23:38
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#1
Very good article, a5089. You're on a roll! Oh, and I didn't comment on your Europeann nihilism/suicide post yesterday, but I think you nailed it there. Please consider yourself and your family invited here should you find yourself seriously threatened by events -- we need analysts of your calibre on this side of the Pond. No reason for you to swallow the poisoned Kool-aid with the rest.
Intersting bits from the article:
Now that Israel has pulled out of Gaza, there is a clear, firm Jewish majority in the territory west of the Jordan River. 67 percent, in fact.
...this majority is assured to continue well into the future, in light of a shrinking Arab population in Judea and Samaria (1. 8 percent), a rising Jewish population in Israel (2.1 percent), large scale Arab emigration since 1950 and Jewish aliya (immigration to Israel) that began in 1882.
Hamas' victory will spur on Arab emigration (especially amongst PA employees and their families), and growing anti-Semitism in France and the former Soviet Union will spur aliya (Jewish immigration).
...the demographic establishment ignores the quick drop in natural growth in the third world, the Muslim world (1.9 children per woman in Iran), and the Arab world (2.9 children per woman in Egypt).
...developments that have led to a drop in natural replacement rates amongst Palestinians: The introduction of family planning (52 percent of married women use birth control), a rising median age of marrying couples and divorce rates, better education, higher awareness of women's careers and the drastic move from villages to cities.
...The demographic establishment ... minimize[s] Jewish natural growth and exaggerate[s] that of the Arabs, to dismiss the potential of Jewish immigration to Israel and to ignore Arab emigration from Israel.
...Jewish productivity over the last five years (2.7 children per woman) is higher than the highest scenario considered by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, whereas the Arab numbers (4 children) approaches the lowest scenario.
According to UNRWA, Arab productivity in the West Bank has plummeted, from 5.4 children per woman to 3.24.
...In 1900 Jews constituted just eight percent of the population west of the Jordan, in 1948 it was 48 percent, and today we are 60 percent. Without Gaza, the Jewish majority is stable at 67 percent within the "green line", Judea and Samaria....
#2
According to UNRWA, Arab productivity in the West Bank has plummeted, from 5.4 children per woman to 3.24.
Couldn't be b/c of conversations like this?
Mahmoud (Abdul's father): Oh, Janeen, Abdul's grown blown up so fast!
Janeen (Abdul's mother): Yes, he was a DYNAMITE kid!
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 8:51
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#3
These kinds of stats need to be shouted from the rooftops. This gives me (some) hope for Europe too. In fact, of the Muslims I know here in the States, they're only having 1-2 kids, because they can't afford any more in the U.S. Not quite the idealistic "melting pot" (they still tend to keep to themselves, hang out around the mosque, etc.), but in this arena, they are becoming "Americanized."
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 8:54
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#4
Welfare reform is the big hurdle in the EU. They pay to keep 25-50% of males between 20 and 30 enemployed as part of their social contract. That's why the muzzies can multiply there without the penalties that accumulate here. Also, we assimilate immigrants the Euros isolate them, at least if they're muzzie.
#5
1. Counting the area west of the river as including Israel and the WB but excluding Gaza is a tad artificial. Do you really think Israel can successfully wall off Gaza while retaining the West Bank?
2. Demographic data on the number of Pals, rates of growth, etc are matters of considerable controversy in Israel. Theres been revisionist attacking the demographic threat idea for several years. Theres also counters to them. From what I understand, the majority of professional demographers in Israel dont agree with the revisionists.
3. when I saw the headline, I thought it was about europe, and was surprised to see it here. In fact IIUC second generation birthrates there are much lower than immigrant birthrates.
heres an article that discusses BOTH sides of the controversy. You need to really read it in detail to get the disagreements. Note that Ettinger is a strategist, not a demographer.
#8
I think Paleo emigration will continue to be the #1 reason for decline in their numbers. This is because they prefer living under Lebanese, Jordanian or even Egyptian rule than self-rule.
#10
Israel needs to think like the Boer Repulics (Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State). By that I mean they should create two Jewish states. Israel in the current borders and Judea in the west bank. Borders could be arranged nicely and Israel could not be held responsible for any misdeads of her sister state since it is an independent republic.
Eventually, if Judea pushed things too far Israel could step in with a coup or bloodless coup and absorb the region.
Such an arrangement wouldn't fool most people but neither has the current one.
#11
It needs to be remembered that dictators lie. It's what they do best. Even when they would like to tell the truth, their underlings lie to them. The Soviets never published realistic demographic data. They even lied about things as verifiable as the population of Moscow. The paleos are no different. It's all about what numbers would best help their arguement.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
02/16/2006 16:28
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#12
How did a million Palestinians "disappear"?
Why, the Zionists butcherd them, drank their blood, and gave their Korans to their children to flush down the toilets and draw cartoons all over the words of the Prophet, of course!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2006 19:18
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Bummer. Another one of my last hopes that fades away.
Thanks to the incessant spam, it's become the most hyped of all operations but researchers said Tuesday that most men who have had penis enlargement surgery are not satisfied with the results.
"Tripped over it again, man? Bummer."
"The majority of these patients are dissatisfied after these procedures. Research should be directed toward non-surgical options," said Yoram Vardi, of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in an editorial in the Journal of European Urology. Vardi was part of a team of urologists who questioned 42 men who had undergone penis-enlargement surgery and found the dissatisfaction rate was very high. Often the men requested additional surgical procedures.
Once you've had one ...
"Can ya add another foot or two, doc?"
One of Vardi's colleagues, Nim Christopher, a urologist at St Peter's Andrology Center in London concurred. "For patients with psychological concern about the size of the penis -- particularly if it is normal size -- there is little point in offering them surgery because it makes no difference. The average increase in length is 1.3 cm (0.5 inches) which isn't very much, and the dissatisfaction rate was in excess of 70 percent," said Christopher.
"A half inch? I paid $18,000 for a half inch?"
"I want a refund!"
Christopher added that spam e-mails advertising penis enlargement surgery were inaccurate and gave men unrealistic expectations.
No, really?
The ones that offer to enhance your bosom are true, though. Now my wife has a bad back...
Rather than having surgery, both Vardi and Christopher said the men should be referred for psychological counseling. Woe is me! Woe is me!
"Look, Mr. Schlub, you're just gonnna have to go through life with a tiny doinker. Yes, I know you're frustrated, but trust me, you deserve it. Okay?"
#2
While out fishing with my Grampaw once when I was about 10, he said" Marry a woman with small hands". I asked why and he said, "Because it will make your oecker look bigger". I miss Grampaw.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/16/2006 7:48
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#5
Some male friends and I had great sport with one young woman who asked us what penis "enarglement" was. She had received several spams, all with the same misspelling, so assumed that it was something else.
So, without being *too* specific, we wove a great tale about how "enarglement" roughened the penis to radically improve the pleasure of females. By our vague description, after "enarglement", the penis would look something like a crocodile, only bumpier.
Needless to say, she was fascinated by the whole concept.
Confused by the wave of protests, threats, boycotts, and attacks against diplomatic facilities that have shaken their idyllic tranquility after the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed on Jyllands-Posten, the Danes are asking themselves questions. They wonder if an attack will take place in their country, as threatened by various jihadi groups, and if freedom of speech is in jeopardy. But a more immediate question is puzzling some: Why has the outrage of the Muslim world exploded only now, in February, when the cartoons were published last September? At the time of the initial publication, international media had reported news of the blasphemous caricatures, not only in Danish, but also in English. Yet nothing happened, aside from timid protests from the Muslim community of the tiny Scandinavian kingdom. So what is different about the situation now? More than the question, it is the answer that is keeping a good chunk of Denmark's political and cultural elite awake at night. The recent anti-Danish emotional wave coming from the Muslim world, in fact, is far from a spontaneous reaction, but it has been cunningly orchestrated by a knowledgeable insider, a real snake in the grass who has been creeping in Denmark for the last 15 years.
Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian imam who has been residing in Copenhagen since 1993, has become over the last few years the face of Islam in Denmark, creating his own persona of a moderate cleric who seeks dialogue but who is victimized by the widespread "racism" of the Danes. Despite his poor command of the Danish language, Abu Laban is a frequent guest on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, where he claims to represent the voice of the local Muslim community. Even though part of the establishment has always looked at him with suspicion (Prime Minister Rasmussen has always refused to meet with him), Danish intelligentsia has made him a celebrity so much of one that even the Washington Post recently profiled him as "one of Denmark's most prominent imams."
But Abu Laban's real face has now been revealed. In September, the imam immediately condemned Jyllands-Posten's cartoons and led protests at the local level. Danish politicians and media, busy with local elections, ignored him. But Abu Laban is not the kind of person who gives up easily. After having contacted ambassadors from Muslim countries in Copenhagen, he put together a delegation with the goal of touring the Middle East to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide," as he explained in an interview with "Islam Online". The delegation met with, among others, Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam's most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten, along with others that had never been published by any Danish publication. The new cartoons were every more offensive, as showing the Prophet Mohammed with a pig face or having sexual intercourse with a dog. While the delegation claimed that the differentiation was pointed out to their interlocutors, there is no other evidence, and rumors about the more blasphemous images began to circulate in the Middle East. Moreover, the booklet that was presented by the delegation contained several other lies about the "oppression" of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.
With emotions about the cartoons mounting, Qaradawi, the real brains of the Muslim Brotherhood's international network and a key opinion maker in the Middle East thanks to his weekly show on al Jazeera, attacked Denmark directly, warning that an apology would not be sufficient, and that "a firm stance" should have be taken by the Danish government. As Prime Minister Rasmussen refused to intervene, referring to the cherished tradition of freedom of the press in his country, Qaradawi and his ilk unleashed their propagandistic war against Denmark. Abu Laban, from his mosque in the Copenhagen suburb of Nørrebro, is now happily reaping the fruits of his hard work. But, in a quintessential exercise in taqiya (double-speak), Abu Laban has tried to hide his satisfaction to the Danes. Speaking on Danish television, Abu Laban has wept crocodile tears, condemning the boycott of Danish goods and the other consequences of his actions. Yet, interviewed by al Jazeera, the imam has said just the opposite, praising the outrage of the Muslim world at his adoptive country.
So just who is Abu Laban? The Danes are slowly getting a fuller portrait. Friday night, Danish state television DR broadcasted a long report on him and Danes have begun to understand more about the self-proclaimed voice of Islam in Denmark. According to DR, Intelligence documents reveal that Abu Laban has been in close contact for years with members of various terrorist organizations, and in particular with leaders of the Egyptian Gamaa Islamiya. In the beginning of the 1990s, in fact, several leaders of the Gamaa escaped the long arm of the Egyptian mukhabarat and relocated to Europe. Copenhagen became the new hometown of two of the group's leaders, Ayman al Zawahiri, currently serving as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, and Talaat Fouad Qassimy. From the quiet of the Scandinavian capital, the men published Al Murabitoun, the Gamaa's official publication. Abu Laban worked as a translator and distributor of the publication, which glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Palestine. Then Abu Laban worked closely with Said Mansour, a Moroccan man currently charged in Denmark for running a publishing house that distributed jihadi material.
All of this is not news to Danish security officials, but now Danes are slowly becoming aware of the facts. And Abu Laban's celebrated celeb status is about history in Denmark. Danes have no more patience for those who preach love in one language and war in another, those who publicly play the role of the victim, demand tolerance and then secretly incite hatred. While much of Europe has been asleep at the wheel, oblivious to the monumental threat radical Islam poses to its future, at least one country is increasing awake. Denmark's first battle is domestic, unmasking the enemy's fifth column inside its borders. As embassies burn, the rest might want to catch on, too.
Lorenzo Vidino is a senior terrorism analyst at the Investigative Project and author of the book Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad.
#6
You want a definitave name?
Try "Infiltrators", "Subversives", or "Hostile Invaders"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 15:00
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#7
We have to stop calling these guys imams and clerics and giving them some kind of legitimacy. They are agents of subversion.
Things will become a lot easier once this world recovers its proper sense of self-preservation and declares Islam to be a political ideology instead of a religion.
... killed Jon Benet, engineered the Johnstown Flood, poisoned wells, invented shorthand, and stole a '56 Buick right off the showroom floor.
MEMRI.
On January 31, 2006, the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra published an article by columnist Abd Al-Rahman Ghunaym suggesting that Israel created the avian flu virus in order to damage "genes carried only by Arabs." The article further speculates that Israel may have planted the virus in East Asia in order to mislead the world, and that this is why the disease first appeared in that remote region. Another possibility given is that the virus was created to attack "the yellow race - especially in China and Vietnam" which are "rising powers" threatening "American hegemony over the world."
The following are excerpts from the article:
Avian Flu May Have Been Developed by Israel, to Damage Arabs' Genes
"On November 16, 1998, the British newspaper Sunday Times published details about what was later dubbed 'the Israeli race bomb.' It reported that Zionist experts were trying to identify genes unique to Arabs, in order to create, through genetic engineering, dangerous viruses and bacteria that would exclusively attack these genes. The paper stated that the race bomb program was being carried out in the secret Nes Ziona Institute, near Tel Aviv, which specializes in production of chemical and biological weapons. In October 1999, the newspaper again emphasized that the Zionist entity was increasing its scientific efforts [to develop] the race bomb.
"At the time, no explanation was given regarding the nature of this virus that was being genetically engineered to realize the Zionist goal of harming the Arabs. It was also not specified what agent would be used to transmit the virus [to the Arab population]. The word 'bomb,' in this context, is merely a label... since the [attack] might involve mice, rats, birds or any other agent that can be used to spread the disease. The weapon, when ready, would therefore be used without declaring war or moving troops. It would look as though the [disease] broke out naturally, and not through [human intervention] - as though it were being spread by natural elements and not through a despicable and cunning plot."
Israel May Have Released the Disease in a Remote Region to Avoid Suspicion
"The question that arises today is whether the virus chosen by the Zionists for their 'Israeli race bomb' is the avian flu virus. Some might hasten to object by saying: 'But this virus first appeared, in 2003, only in east and southeast Asia, and spread to Asia Minor [i.e., Turkey] only in 2006!' This is a correct observation, but it does not rule out [the possibility that Israel first spread the virus] in that remote region out of several motivations, including [the following]:"
"The AIDS Virus was Developed to Serve as a 'Race Bomb' Against the Blacks"
"1. [Israel wished to] test the effects of the virus on the special genes of the yellow Asian race, which is highly specialized. In addition, the yellow race - especially in China and Vietnam - is a rising power [which threatens] the exclusive American hegemony over the world. We cannot refrain from mentioning that the AIDS virus was developed to serve as a 'race bomb' against the blacks, though after its release, it also [infected] white people, albeit in smaller numbers.
"2. Indonesian society constitutes a particularly suitable environment for testing the [avian flu] virus on [various] races, including [people] of Arab descent. This is because most Indonesians are of Arab or Yemenite descent, or have mixed blood through intermarriage with Arabs.
"3. The virus may have been released in this remote part of Asia in order to obscure the truth by shifting the world's attention to that distant region... and in order to make its transmission through birds seem like a natural phenomenon.
"But the [manner in which] the virus spread directly from east to west Asia (i.e., to Asia Minor) raises many questions. Firstly, birds do not migrate from east to west Asia, but from the northern [regions] of the world to the southern [regions]. If we assume that the disease spread horizontally because birds in each region came into contact with one another, we would expect to see the disease appear in China, Tibet, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and the Caucasus before it appears in Turkey. These are wide and extensive regions, so how could the disease skip [over them] like that?
"Therefore, we are led to the inescapable [conclusion] that there must have been a northern point of origin from which the virus spread, or in which it was planted, at a time which corresponded with the southbound migration of the birds. This point of origin may have been on the northern [shore] of the Black Sea or in east Turkey...
"The suspicion regarding a link between the avian flu and Israel's 'race bomb' is compounded by a report from the Palestinian Authority, regarding 85,000 good chickens that were buried [by Israel] in fields in the West Bank, and by the fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed to take samples from these chickens for testing. [Another telling fact] is what happened later - the case of a young Arab from one of the villages around Jerusalem [who caught the disease]. This means that the disease appeared in a new location, this time in the West Bank, simultaneously with the discovery of a new case in northern Iraq."
Arafat, Too, was Assassinated by Israel With a Biological Weapon
"The American newspaper Herald Tribune published a report which truly reveals the terrifying [nature] of 'Israel's race bomb'... The newspaper reported that after years of serious and intensive research, experts from universities have attained the capability of manufacturing the flu virus.
"The newspaper accused the [U.S.] Department of Health and Human Services of 'committing a very stupid and foolish act' when it published details on the Internet regarding the method of manufacturing this virus, which is more dangerous than an atomic bomb. The newspaper expressed concern that the information might fall into the hands of some 'terrorists' - as though an unskilled terrorist, with no laboratory, can make any use of this information, which is now in the hands of the Nes Ziona Institute, and as though the Institute was not [in fact] the one who attained the capability of making the virus, and who [persuaded] the American [Health] Department to... publish the accurate details. [Israel's intention was] to place the blame for planting this epidemic on the terrorists rather than on the Zionist terrorists...
"[Even] if this virus is meant to affect specific genes [carried only] by Arabs, the damage it causes will not be restricted to the Arab regions. It will also reach countries that we think of as 'remote,' and they will find themselves in the midst of the disaster when the disease [is no longer limited to] small, isolated danger spots, but becomes a raging epidemic.
"Tampering with Arab genes [without affecting] the white race is very difficult. But the Zionists are capable of attempting this [risky] adventure if [they have] a preventive treatment or a [cure for the disease]. Recall that the assassination of Yasser Arafat was carried out by means of biological weapons. The attempt on the life of the fighter [Hamas leader] Khaled Mash'al [likewise] involved a biological [agent] which [is countered by] a secret antidote that only the Zionists possess."
#5
I thought the same thing, grom. Of course, we could accuse the Arabs of releasing West Nile Virus in the U.S. across the river from the U.N. building too, but I won't go there! I don't have my winter tin-foil hat yet (it is on order, though). Good grief...the logic astounds! The Jooooos made up a virus and planted it in China to eventually kill Arabs, who have special genes which are only attacked by this virus? And, to boot, his question of how it jumped from China to Turkey seems obvious in both tin-foil land (the Joooos decided to just go ahead and infect the Turks) or in reality (someone in China hopped a plane to Turkey). This flu is popping up in areas where people are in VERY close contact with birds (e.g. chickens sleeping in your hut in remote villages of China) or where folks just aren't very smart in the hygeine arena (e.g. the voodoo story yesterday in Africa).
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 9:31
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#6
There is the closest of deliniations between smart chimps and stupid humans...
#7
There is the closest of deliniations between smart chimps and stupid humans...
Or, as Nigel Tufnell so brilliantly observed;
There's a fine line between clever and stupid.
Personally, it sounds to me like Syria has latched onto some relative or littermate of Baghdad Bob. Whoever it is, they really need to lay off putting yellowcake in the hookah.
Lafayette resident Josh Kayser chuckled Monday afternoon when he read about Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting a friend during a quail hunt over the weekend. A few hours later, paramedics rushed Kayser, 21, to the hospital after his girlfriend accidentally shot him while they were trailing a raccoon. I read that thing about the vice president and said to myself How can you shoot your friend with your gun? And look what happened, he said Tuesday.
Kayser and his 17-year-old girlfriend spent Monday night hunting raccoons that had been preying on chickens on his familys property on the 2300 block of 95th Street north of Lafayette. At about 9:30 p.m., Kayser crouched down to look under a shed where he thought a wounded raccoon was hiding. His girlfriend, whom police did not identify, crouched down behind Kayser and accidentally shot him with a .22-caliber rifle.
Hukka hukka hukka... Hee-hee-larious, ain't it, Bub?
#3
Yeah, night, that's when the racoons go after your chickens.
I had one once that killed one chicken a night until he got them all, despite my best efforts with a have-a-heart trap. I was so ticked that I went to the store and bought dressed chickens and hung them up over a leg trap. Took three more nights and three more chickens, he was pretty clever. I nailed his tail to the henhouse door and my wife took a marker and drew a picture of a racoon around it.
#13
Most of my kind swear by the number 4 boulder for use with racoons, although it's been regulated out of existance in the lowland areas because of environmental concerns; they tend to want you to use a steel alloy substitute instead these days.
I bypass both of those and generally stick with a pile driver instead.
#14
Raccoons? I hit one in its ample backside with a pellet gun (It was all I had at the time). It turned and gave me the dirtiest look I've even seen. But it did run off.
#15
You hunt raccoons with dogs and shotguns, not rifles.
The last time I killed one we were both inside an 5x8 hen house at midnight with the hens flapping around. Not the best place for a shotgun, used a 22 rifle. Pistol would have been better, but you use what you have. (Yes, that was a different racoon from the one previously mentioned.)
#17
Phil... It's in Colorodo, but you can see my confusion....
Breed ban draws protest
More than 100 dog owners asked city leaders Wednesday to reject a ban on pit bull dogs and other specific breeds, showing pictures of their pets and saying they support better enforcement of existing vicious dog laws.
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Cold showers
Its time to shove those short-sleeved shirts and lightweight jackets to the back of the closet and replace them with thermal long underwear and goose-down parkas.
Were finally going to have a week of winter, said Chad Gimmestad, a National Weather Service-Boulder forecaster.
Full Text
Property owner busted for illegal trash fire
A property owner who said he previously set two other trash fires on his property may face fines for burning trash again Wednesday, a high-pollution day.
Full Text
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmad on Wednesday denounced violent demonstrations and condemned the government for banning protests and rallies on the blasphemy issue saying that the public would not accept the ban. Addressing a press conference at JI headquarters in Mansoorah, Qazi Hussain accused the government of maligning religious activists without trying to get information about the miscreants. He said that if the government was sincere in punishing the vandals it could identify them with the help of video footage of the incidents telecasted by different television channels. Qazi Hussain said the government had deployed insufficient police personnel who resorted to unnecessary shelling and firing, provoking the young demonstrators.
Congratulating the Lahoris for a strong protest demonstration on Tuesday, Qazi Hussain said the love for Holy Prophet (PBUH) was a precious asset for Muslims. He said that the JI had always maintained peace in its rallies and marches, adding that the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal would continue its protest programmes as announced earlier and would defy all bans imposed by the government. The JI leader said that Shan-e-Mustafa rallies would be held in Islamabad on February 19, in Lahore on February 26 and throughout the country on March 3, while rallies in Karachi and Quetta would be held on March 5 and 7.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who approached them, shouting they should leave and carrying a toy gun, during a West Bank raid on Wednesday, local residents said, describing the man as mentally disabled.
Now they can describe him as dead.
Israeli military sources said the troops had spotted a gunman and shot him after a Palestinian crowd gathered around a building they had entered in the village of Qabatiya, near the city of Jenin, and began throwing rocks. "Leave the village," residents quoted Mujahid Smadi, 20, as yelling at the soldiers, who the military sources said were searching for militants. "This man is mentally disabled," said Qabatiya Mayor Issam Nazzal, a description also given by other local residents. "He had a plastic toy gun and went towards the soldiers, asking them to go away and they shot him dead."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
the Paleo witnesses didn't try and stop him, did they? Sick f*cks
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 0:04
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#2
...Re the graphic: You can be Oz Dead ("Not only simply merely dead but truly most sincerely dead") or you can also be Blackadder Dead ("As dead as a...great big dead thing.")
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/16/2006 6:48
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#3
Mentally disabled Palestinian Mayor
...hmmm...sounds about right.
#5
What are the chances that some provacateurs gave the retarded guy the gun and told him to approach the Israelis, hoping that they could use the obvious outcome as propaganda?
Armed men on a motorcycle have killed three Chinese engineers and their local driver in a remote tribal region of southwestern Pakistan, according to police. The engineers, who were among 14 working at a concrete factory, were shot with their driver on Wednesday on a road in the town of Hub, about 700km southeast of Quetta, the capital of the restive province Baluchistan, Pervez Zahoor, the region's police chief, said.
Shortly after the attack, a Baluch nationalist group, the Baluchistan Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for the shooting. The group said it's fighting for the rights of Baluchistan residents, who claim the government is exploiting their land.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The group said it's fighting for the rights of Baluchistan residents, who claim the government is exploiting their land,
...by killing Chinese engineers. Yea, that makes a perfect sense.
...
Oakly doakly, how about this... If they kill all the Chinese engineers, the factory would be brought to a halt and the limestone would not be fired into cement. There would be no jobs, but the valuable resource, limestone, would be left where it is, to posterity. It would not matter that no cement would be produced. It's the exploitation part that would be prevented!
A blast killed an Afghan policeman and wounded two of his colleagues on Wednesday, while two kidnapped intelligence officers were found dead, officials said. The violence comes as the first 150 British combat troops of a deployment of about 3,300 troops arrived in Afghanistan.
Taliban, or members of an allied faction, were responsible for the blast that hit the second of two police vehicles travelling on a road in Ghazni, district government official Habibullah Jan said. "Militants who don't want peace and stability were behind this," he said. One of the wounded policemen was in serious condition, he said. The bodies of two intelligence officers abducted in the Farah province were found in a desert on Tuesday, said provincial governor Izatullah Wasifi. Earlier, police said security forces arrested a Taliban district commander, Mullah Nazer Shah, along with two of his men who were suspected of burning down a school in Ghazni.
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Saddam Hussein told aides in the mid-1990s that he warned the United States it could be hit by a terrorist attack, ABC News reported Wednesday, citing 12 hours of tapes the network obtained of the former Iraqi dictator's talks with his Cabinet. One of Saddam's son-in-laws also explained how Iraq hid its biological weapons programs from U.N. inspectors, according to the tapes from August 1995.
The coming terrorist attack Saddam predicted could involve weapons of mass destruction. "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans," Saddam is heard saying, adding he "told the British as well. In the future, what would prevent a booby trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" But he insisted Iraq would never launch such an attack. "This story is coming, but not from Iraq," he said.
The State Department had no comment on the report, which aired on "World News Tonight." ABC News said U.S. officials confirmed the tapes were authentic. ABC News said the CIA found the tapes in Iraq and that the 12 hours were provided to it by Bill Tierney, a former member of a U.N. inspection team who was translating them for the FBI. ABC News quoted Tierney as saying the U.S. government was wrong to keep the tapes secret. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told Saddam on the tape that "the biological (attack) is very easy to make. It's so simple that any biologist can make a bottle of germs and drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000. This is not done by a state. No need to accuse a state. An individual can do it."
Hussein Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam's, who was then in charge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction efforts, explained how Iraq held back information from the U.N. inspectors. "We did not reveal all that we have," he said. "We did not reveal the volume of chemical weapons we had produced." Kamel said Iraq had not revealed "the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported." Hussein Kamel defected to Jordan shortly after the tapes were recorded, and Iraq was forced to admit it had concealed its biological weapons program. Kamel returned to Iraq in February 1996 and was killed by security forces.
Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the first Gulf War, told ABC News the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted," he said.
#1
I seem to recall that the kind of chemical weapons Saddam Hussein was working with break down pretty rapidly... can anyone here talk authoritatively about that? I only just barely passed high school chemistry (ok, it was the honours course, but I had to resort to rote memorization just to get that C -- my biochem. prof. father was dumbfounded by my inability to understand the to-him obvious).
#5
Chemical weapons are usually referred to as Persistent or NonPersistent. Danger from Persistent agents last longer than 24 hours. Most nonpersistent agents break down when exposed to sunlight, or water, or even when dispersed by wind. Persistent agents may remain harmful for days, some even for weeks. What you use is based upon what you want to accomplish. If you just want to disrupt the enemy during an attack, you want to use a nonpersistent agent - you want it out of the way so it doesn't endanger your troops. If you want to deny the enemy access to a particular area for longer than just a day or so, you use a persistent agent, probably in crystaline or powder form. Chemicals are also broken down in to a half-dozen other groups - nerve agents, blister agents, blood agents, etc. Those types of descriptions are more appropriate for how the agent attacks the body, rather than how it's used.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/16/2006 21:59
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From East Asia Intel, subscription SEOUL Four simultaneous firefights broke out between North Korean border guards and unidentified groups of young men in isolated locations along the Tumen River on the China-North Korea border in late January. The incidents suggest the existence of armed North Korean dissident groups in China.
Y'think?
The first incident occurred in Namyang, across from the Chinese town of Tumen, where a North Korean border guard discovered several men crossing the river from the Chinese side, according to a newspaper report here. The guard tried to arrest the men. Fighting followed and the border guard was stabbed more than 30 times and bled to death. Ruined his day...
Choo Sung-Ha, a Kim Il-Sung University graduate and a defector-turned-reporter at Donga Daily, confirmed the Jan. 28 incidents from a number of sources inside North Korea. Choo said that North Korean border guards are never supposed to be on sentry alone, but that the soldiers partner was away at a nearby village to have a drink. Alarmed by the commotion, soldiers from other nearby guard posts ran to check and the intruders escaped leaving their bags behind. Three homemade rifles, some ammunition, a camcorder and a Chinese mobile phone were found in the bags.
So they wren't just wandering across the river, they were infiltrating.
At around the same time in the town of Hoeryong, about 40 kilometers to the south, a group of unidentified men crossed the river and fired rifles at a guardhouse and ran away. No casualties were reported, according to the paper. Two similar incidents occurred in the city of Musan and at another nearby town, according to the newspaper.
Sounds like it's just starting up — a pretty ginger attempt at guerrilla warfare...
In the past, armed conflicts along the river were caused mostly by hungry North Korean border guards seeking food in Chinese villages or to rob a shop. As recently as Jan. 17, eight armed North Korean soldiers attacked a coalmine in Tumen in a robbery attempt. One North Korean soldier was killed, three were captured and four others escaped.
Who the hell robs a coalmine, fergawdsake?
The Jan. 28 incidents were the first in which heavily armed North Korean border guards were attacked by armed intruders from the Chinese side of the border. However, East-Asia-Intel sources in the border area were unable to confirm the reports. People may have thought the sound of fireworks by Chinese people celebrating the eve of the New Year was a gunfight, said a Chinese-Korean man in Tumen. Some defectors in Seoul, however, said it was high time for armed resistance groups to emerge in the border area. Lim Chon-Yong, who organized the North Korean Soldiers for Freedom in Seoul last December, said there were several groups of North Korean dissidents in China serious about fighting for freedom for the North. Tall order, but hope for the best.
I cant name them, but there are four or five groups in China who were beginning to arm themselves and planning to stage guerrilla warfare against the Pyongyang regime, said Lim. He said that with his organizations help some weapons had been smuggled into North Korea to underground elements. Many people are fed up with the Kim Jong-Il regime. There are plenty of people in North Korea who say if they have weapons they would fight, he said.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/16/2006
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#1
You only rob a coal mine when you are looking for food. The crap must be really be bad when teh border keepers have to resort to robbery.
#3
Great news! But any progress would require some tolerance from China, a tacit agreement to look the other way. I'm not sanguine about such a development. Even if China were so inclined, Kimmie might threaten to make things uncomfortable for them if they refuse to crack down.
#6
like mm implies, big question is are the PRC authorities supporting this and to what extent.
Id be skeptical BUT: If the PRC thinks the regime is going down anyway, they might want to set there own people up first, so they can control what comes after.
Erm ... people who are freezing to death? I know. Hard to understand for those of us with utilities, indoor plumbing and all the other marvels of ultramodern civilization.
#9
It sounds like China has had its fill of Kim, and are setting him up to be deposed. That would be one way to end the constant saber-rattling that China feels interferes with business. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that China would prefer to have an industrialized, peaceful neighbor on its border than the constant drain on resources that Kim is. The Chinese would probably benifit greatly from trade relations with South Korea, and even moreso from a united Korea. I wonder how many billions (if not trillions) of dollars China has sunk into Korea, with virtually no gain. They may cut Kimmie off just to cut their losses.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/16/2006 18:00
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#10
Old Patriot, historically, it has been unthinkable that China would countenance a non-communist united Korean peninsula. Do you honestly think that China would reverse that stance for the sake of a few lousy billion dollars worth of trade?
Yes, I'm joking, but only half way. It is difficult to believe that the communists would gladly suffer having a US ally extend its Chinese border (or proximity) any further than it already is. While there would be no problem with a united communist Korea, I think the Chinese Mandarins are a bit less than enthusiastic about a capitalist powerhouse under American protection cozying up that close.
Lebanon's staunchly pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud pledged Wednesday to fight attempts by anti-Syrian groups to force his resignation, saying he would stay in office until the last minute of his mandate. Lahoud was reacting to fiery speeches made by the March 14 Forces during a massive demonstration in Beirut to commemorate the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The leaders of Lebanon's anti-Syrian political parties called for Lahoud's resignation and denounced Syrian President Bashar Assad. In response, the president's press office issued a statement accusing Druze leader Walid Jumblatt of launching a "direct threat to kill the president by making a series of allegations aimed at misleading the public."
Go, Wally!
"By saying in a televised interview that the president ought to be punished by 'having to stand next to the wall and be imprisoned' ... Jumblatt breached all laws and his statement constituted a direct threat against the person of the president," the statement read.
Emile's scared of getting tossed into the clink and left there...
"These threats and all other threats launched by others are already being studied by the concerned judicial body," it added.
They're laughing at him, but they have to be polite...
The president also reasserted his commitment to complete his "constitutional mandate."
"Give up my office? Over my dead body!... No. Wait. I meant..."
"The president is determined to live up to his oath until the very last moment of his constitutional mandate," the statement read. Lahoud's term was controversially extended by three years (until the end of November 2007) through a Syrian orchestrated constitutional amendment adopted in September 2004.
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#1
More lipstick won't make that pig any prettier.
A Muslim cultural institute in Germany on Monday criticised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for disparaging the Holocaust, daring him to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp. "In this place of horror he can again deny the Holocaust, if he has the courage," a spokesman for the Islam-Archiv-Deutschland Central Institute told the German Catholic press agency KNA.
In recent statements, the hardline Iranian president has dismissed the Nazis systematic slaughter of mainland Europes Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel and called for the state to be "wiped off the map". By denying the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad not only denigrated the Jewish victims of the genocide but also the 200,000 Roms and Arabs murdered in the "gypsy camp" of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps, the institute spokesman said. The fact that the president of an Islamic state repeated Nazi anti-Semitism was harmful to the image of Islam and "a disgrace for all the worlds Muslims", he added.
The Berlin-based institute, founded in 1927, is the oldest Muslim body in Germany. It has been dedicated to preserving the communitys archives since the 18th century and fostering relations between Muslims and other religions.
A controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust was launched in Iran on Monday in a tit-for-tat move over European newspaper publications of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have angered Muslims worldwide. The first entry was said to be from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, according to the website organising the competition with Irans biggest-selling newspaper Hamshahri.
#1
Apart from seething, asserting or denying, what do mossies do? This glassy eyed chief thug-in-command is no different. Persia never existed before before the advent of i-slam too, I guess.
Hamas officials denied reports that a Hamas Web site published a statement on Wednesday declaring that their Palestinian fighters had received funding and training from Hizbullah, a link long denied by Hamas leaders. "There is no such declaration on the Web site," said Hamas representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka.
An article published by Reuters Wednesday said a site (www.alqassam.com) run by Hamas' armed wing Ezzedeen Al-Qassam published a statement that Hamas received funds from Hizbullah to set up its first Hamas cell in the occupied West Bank after an uprising began in 2000. Over the course of three years, members of the cell - 10 of whom were eventually killed or jailed by Israeli security forces - carried out attacks that killed 18 Israelis. "We are still investigating the source of this news. This is the second day in a row where Hamas' arms have been targeted by the media," said Baraka, referring to a separate statement published on Qassam's site that denied allegations by media outlets that the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades (EQB) are collecting weapons from resistance fighters in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters quoted from the Web site Hamas member Jaser al-Barghouthi, who formed the cell and recruited its gunmen, as saying he had sent emissaries to Lebanon "to be trained by Hizbullah and return with needed funds."
"There is no special link between Hizbullah and Hamas, especially given how difficult it is to transfer and move anyone or anything from the South of Lebanon to Gaza," said Baraka.
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Pakistan released on Wednesday 562 Afghan nationals, including children, who had been kept in jail for up to a year after violating immigration laws, officials said. AFP reported that the freed Afghan nationals were handed over to officials at the Afghan Consulate, which will make arrangements for their deportation, said Rauf Siddiqui, the Sindh interior minister. "We have freed 562 Afghan prisoners, who were arrested as illegal immigrants in the last one year, on humanitarian grounds," the sindh minister said. "It's a good omen that their release has come at a time when Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting Pakistan."
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Jordan's King Abdullah II said Wednesday he supported efforts to secure a UN resolution against attacks on Islam, its prophets and other religions amid global Muslim anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
If such a thing were to pass we should immediately withdraw from the UN, never to return.
The king "stressed that Jordan strongly backs suggestions aimed at securing a decision in the UN General Assembly concerning the fight against offenses on Islam, the prophets and other religions," a court statement said. "The cartoons published in some European newspapers undermining the Prophet Mohammad cannot be justified under any pretext of freedom of expression," the king told visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Sure they can. That's precisely what's meant by freedom of expression, nothing less...
He also urged the European Union and all European governments to "strive to put an end to such harmful activities that provoked the feelings of all Muslims," the statement added.
Guess we'll find out how much of an authoritarian streak the Euros retain, huh?
King Abdullah also warned against any attempts to "exploit the issue to sow hatred between religions," particularly after the wave of violence that swept Muslim countries after the cartoons were published. "It is important that the expression of anger and condemnation for what happened occur in such a way to reflect he truth about Islam which is a religion based on moderation," the king said.
Your religion that's based on moderation seems to be awfully fond of unrestrained violence, doesn't it? And that was the original intent behind the cartoons.
Javier Solana is in Jordan as part of a regional tour aimed at repairing ties strained by the Prophet Mohammad cartoons initially published in Denmark in September and later printed elsewhere in Europe. "I would like to express very clearly that the European Union people do respect the countries of this part of the world ... and don't want to offend anybody," Solana told a news conference.
There's the whole problem in a nutshell. They don't want to offend anybody, and the Muslim world's determined to be offended.
"It is our wish to (narrow) the bridges that should have never been damaged," he said. "I would like to repeat it: the respect for the people that belong to this land is total. The respect to any religion is total," Solana said.
I don't see how he can talk with that much meal in his mouth.
But he admitted that he could not "guarantee that everybody in the world is going to be full of common sense." UN officials in Geneva said on Tuesday that Muslim countries are pressing for a ban on religious intolerance to be part of the bedrock of a planned new United Nations human rights body.
That wouldn't include anti-Semitism, of course. That's... ummm... something else. Kinda like the difference between terrorists and freedumb fighters.
There have also been calls across the Muslim world for a separate UN resolution on respect for religions.
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#1
Gosh. Good comments, Fred...
I fully expect some defensive spin to be posted here from our pragmatics-over-principles folks... such as "Our wonderful ally Kingy Thingy Abdullah is trying to get ahead of the issue and placate his internal assholes. He's really an ace ally and these are just, y'know, like words. A peachy guy, honest. Didya know he rides a Harley? Wotta bud!"
#2
How about no way Kingy person. The "Prophet" is a fraud, The Koran is a fraud, just like Islam is a fraud. I can see the EU and UN being all behind some crap like this though.
Oh yea The "Prophet" is a child molesting rapist and murder. I spit on him.
#5
The Hashemite Kings have dreamed of acquiring Israel since before 1948. This king's grandfather tried to get Golda Meir to surrender to his protection, to prevent the predicted massacre once statehood was declared.
#8
Abdullah is walking a dangerous line. He is pro-western, but needs to keep his people from following the retarded radical Islam. I see this just as a headline play for the arab press so he can continue to bring in western help and buisness without the ArabStreet going apeshit.
Arabs first. They stop publishing their vile anti-Jooooooo "cartoons" and other crap FOREVER, and apologize for doing it in the first place - then we'll talk.
You'll notice I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/16/2006 19:44
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#10
Looks like a grown Beaver Clever
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/16/2006 22:14
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Hamas prepared Wednesday to unveil its nominations for prime minister and Parliament speaker as Israel prepared to decide on its strategy toward the Palestinians after the group takes up the reins of power. In another move, a senior Fatah official laid down a series of conditions which would allow the movement to join a coalition Cabinet. Hamas named Mahmoud al-Zahhar from Gaza, one of its most hard-line leaders, as head of its majority faction in the legislature, which convenes Saturday for its first session since the group won the January 25 parliamentary elections. Aziz Dweik, from the West Bank, was chosen by Hamas as parliamentary speaker.
As the leader of Parliament, Dweik would become interim president, pending an election within 60 days, in the event of the death, resignation or incapacitation of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction. The appointments raised speculation Hamas would choose another of its leaders, Ismail Haniyya, as prime minister. A Gazan, he is viewed by Palestinians as a pragmatist who has forged good relations with rival factions.
Hamas officials have said they expect the group to announce it choice for the post as early as Saturday or Sunday, after Parliament convenes and before Israel holds its own election on March 28. With the clock ticking towards formation of a Palestinian government, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni summoned advisers for consultations that one official said would focus on "funding for the Palestinian Authority in the Hamas era."
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#1
Prime Minister George Galloway and Speaker Ken Livingstone...
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"If Iran returns to suspension of its enrichment activities and accepts the Russian proposal, the Security Council track may not prove necessary," Frattini said.
"The prospects depend very much on the will of Iran to compromise."
In a resolution, the European Parliament condemned Iran's uranium enrichment program and urged Tehran to improve its human rights record. It also demanded that Iran stop its support for terrorist groups.
LOL. Some people just can't take a hint. The EU. What would we do without it?
Syrian authorities briefly detained two former opposition MPs who were freed only a month ago after nearly five years in jail following the so-called "Damascus Spring" of liberalization. Riad Seif, 54, and Maamoun al-Homsi, 45, had only been released on January 18, along with three opposition figures.
Prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said that the authorities had picked up Seif from his home before dawn on Wednesday, while Homsi was also held for several hours on Tuesday. Seif "was arrested at his home at 4:30 a.m., and we do not know why," Bunni said. He later said Seif had been freed after five hours.
Homsi had been picked up Tuesday night and then released, before police went back to his home but did not find him. "The security services had released Mr. Homsi on Tuesday evening then returned to arrest him. When they did not find him at home they took his son Yassin Homsi as a hostage," Bunni said.
Seif and Homsi were jailed on charges of working "to change the Constitution through illegal means," an offence punishable by between five years and life in jail. They were sentenced to five years and were released under a provision of the law for having served more than three-quarters of their jail terms.
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Report by independent Oxford Research Group says bombing of Iran by U.S. forces, or Israel, would have to be part of a surprise attack on a range of facilities including urban areas that would catch many Iranians unprotected According to the newspaper, both Israel and the United States do not discount he possibility of a military operation that would sabotage the Iranian nuclear effort should diplomacy fail, but experts warn the Iranian regime could respond in kind by launching strikes in the Middle East or even in America.
American intelligence chief John Negroponte recently presented before Congress an assessment warning Iran could initiate a large-scale confrontation if attacked. The CIA reached the conclusion Iran is gradually boosting its military capabilities, including threats on shipping lanes. However, the most severe threat possessed by Iran comes in the form of non-conventional weapons, including long-range Shahab 3 missiles, which are capable of carrying chemical warheads. Currently, Iran is also developing new missiles with an even longer range. In 2001, Iran also purchased at least twelve X-55 cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching as far as Italy. The Boston Globe says Iran has at least 20 missile launchers that are constantly being moved around the country in order to prevent detection.
Meanwhile, Negroponte warned Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces are present in Iraq and could initiate a revolution there through guerilla warfare, with the assistance of the country's Shiite majority. According to intelligence reports, Iran may also make use of Hizbullah in order to carry out attacks against American interests worldwide, including in the U.S.
#1
No sweat, the mad mullahs will simply have to realize like the japanese general before wwII, that this time the sleeping giant will not only be awake but double daring with a little toothpick on his shoulder! No mercy, no pity, no remorse.
#3
Shahab 3B: an Advanced IRBM with Range of 2000 km
During the recent testing the Shahab-3B proved several significant differences over the basic production variant, with the most important changes being done on its guidance system and the warhead, but few small also on the missile body.
The most significant change is a new re-entry vehicle, with terminal guidance system and a new steering method, completely different from the normal re-entry vehicle with spin stabilization of the Shahab-3A.
The new re-entry vehicle has now place for a rocket-nozzle control system so that no spin stabilization is needed anymore - at least not during all of the flight after the boost phase. Nevertheless, this new nozzle-control system enables the Shahab-3B guidance and steering in all phases of the flight, so that course corrections can be done at any time. The missile could change its trajectory several times during re-entry and even terminal phase, effectively preventing pre-calculated intercept points of radar systems - which is a method nearly all ABM systems using these days. As a high-speed ballistic missile and pre-mission fuelling capability, the Shahab-3 has an extremely short launch/impact time ratio. This means that the INS/gyroscope guidance would also remain relatively accurate until impact (important, given the fact that the gyrosopes tend to become inaccurate the longer the flight lasts). With that guidance system, the Shahab-3B could archive an accuracy of around 30-50m CEP or even less. The Iranians have already proved of developing even more precise systems, then their Fateh-110 missiles have an electro-optical terminal guidance system: Shahab-3B is not known of having anything similar, but should be fully dependent on INS and likely GPS.
This new improved accuracy was apparently the reason why the warhead weight has been significantly decreased - to suggested 500kg. This, namely, is sufficient for pin-point target attack capability. Another reason for the 500kg warhead would be the improved range, which is reported to be meanwhile between 1.700 and 2.500km.
While excellent for delivering nuclear warheads, using it for anything less would only open them for attack without much gain. 500kg is small for conventional explosives (V-2 had 1000kg)and would not be effective delivery system for enough gas to be more than a terror weapon. You need a large volume of agent dispersed over a wide area to be effective. I don't know how much you could get into a Shahab-3 re-entry vehicle, but looking at the size photos, I'd be surprised if it was more than 40 gallons. Then you need to disperse it at the right altitude, etc. All one would do would be to sign their death warrant.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/16/2006 8:32
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#5
The MM's may be ready to sign their death warrant, but they'll never sleep peacefully.
Isaiah 28
You boast, We have entered into a covenant with death,with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by,it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place. So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
See, I lay a stone in Zion,a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;the one who trusts will never be dismayed...hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie,and water will overflow your hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by,you will be beaten down by it. As often as it comes it will carry you away;morning after morning, by day and by night,it will sweep through. The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror. The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.
Coalition forces destroyed a terrorist facility today, and in an operation yesterday, U.S. soldiers detained a suspected terrorist, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported today.
In a joint effort, coalition forces conducted a precision air strike against a known terrorist facility in southern Baghdad today, using four U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles, officials said.
Terrorists were using a former Iraqi regime munitions storage bunker in a large, uninhabited weapons-storage complex in the Babil province to acquire and transport bomb-making munitions to be used in attacks.
The aircraft conducted a clearing pass while Multinational Division Baghdad helicopters scanned for any civilians in the area in a deliberate effort to ensure no collateral damage. The sorties made multiple passes to ensure the complete destruction of the bunker.
In Tikrit yesterday, soldiers from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, captured a man after watching him plant a roadside bomb. The man was crouching over an existing bomb crater, and upon seeing the soldiers he fled the scene.
The soldiers pursued the man after firing on him. As the troops were beginning their pursuit, the bomb detonated, with no effect to the soldiers.
Though the soldiers were unable to locate the man, battalion headquarters contacted the joint coordination center and learned a man walked into a local hospital with a gunshot wound. The man was questioned at the hospital and was given an explosive residue test. After a positive residue test, the man was treated for his injuries and detained for further questioning.
Iran must re-suspend all atomic fuel enrichment work for a Russian proposal to defuse its nuclear stand-off with the West to have a chance of succeeding, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. He also reasserted Moscow's opposition to imposing sanctions on Iran despite backing a UN nuclear watchdog agency vote to report Iran to the UN Security Council over fears the Islamic Republic may have a covert atomic bomb programme.
"Yes, thank you. We'd like to have it both ways."
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More likely "Since we can't get your reprocessing business, the hell with you"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 8:32
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The reputation that elephants have for never forgetting has been given a chilling new twist by experts who believe that a generation of pachiderms may taking revenge on humans for the breakdown of elephant society. The New Scientist reports today that elephants appear to be attacking human settlements as vengeance for years of abuse by people. In Uganda, for example, elephant numbers have never been lower or food more plentiful, yet there are reports of the creatures blocking roads and trampling through villages, apparently without cause or motivation.
Scientists suspect that poaching during the 1970s and 1980s marked many of the animals with the effects of stress, perhaps caused by being orphaned or witnessing the death of family members - and producing the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder. Many herds lost their matriarch and had to make do with inexperienced "teenage mothers". Combined with a lack of older bulls, this appears to have created a generation of "teenage delinquent" elephants.
Joyce Poole, the research director at the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya, who has co-authored a paper on elephant behaviour, said: "They are certainly intelligent enough and have good enough memories to take revenge. Wildlife managers may feel that it is easier to just shoot so-called 'problem' elephants than face people's wrath. So an elephant is shot without [people] realising the possible consequences on the remaining family members and the very real possibility of stimulating a cycle of violence."
Her study showed that a lack of older bulls to lead by example had created gangs of hyper-aggressive young males with a penchant for violence towards each other and other species. For instance, in Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa, young bulls have been attacking rhinos since 1992. And in Addo Elephant National Park, also in South Africa, 90 per cent of male elephants are killed by another male - which is 15 times the "normal" figure.
Richard Lair, a researcher specialising in Asian elephants at the National Elephant Institute based in Thailand, said there were similar problems in India, where villagers lived in fear of male elephants, which the villagers claim attack the village for only one reason - to kill humans. "In wilderness areas where wild elephants have no contact with human beings they are, by and large, fairly tolerant," he said. "The more human beings they see, the less tolerant they become." "Remember me, Mr. Schneider? Kenya, 1947. If you're going to shoot at an elephant, Mr. Schneider, you'd better be prepared to finish the job." - From a 'Far Side' cartoon.
The United Arab Emirates is trying to shield itself against terror by cracking down on extremists and promoting a culture of moderation, Interior Minister Sheikh Seif bin Zayed al-Nahyan said Wednesday. "Over the past years, we have handed over a number of people wanted on security charges to their countries" in keeping with international agreements, Sheikh Seif said. "The authorities also started dealing with extremist elements among expatriates more than 20 years ago by considering them persona non grata, and consequently forcing them to leave the country," he said.
Expatriates, mostly South Asians, make up some 80 percent of the four-million population of the U.A.E., which has so far managed to escape attacks by suspected Al-Qaeda militants who have struck in neighboring countries, notably Saudi Arabia. The minister said one factor which "has protected our country from acts of violence so far" is that "all residents ... (are) here in order to make a living, not in order to achieve political or suspicious partisan goals."
Sheikh Seif, a member of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi, did not give details about the expelled suspects. But one of the most prominent militants known to have been extradited to the U.S. after Emirati authorities arrested him in October 2002 is Abdel-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was described at the time as Al-Qaeda's chief for naval operations and its operations chief in the Gulf. Nashiri, born in Saudi Arabia but of Yemeni descent, was sentenced to death in absentia by a Yemeni court in 2004 for playing a major role in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Aden port, killing 17 U.S. sailors. He is also suspected of involvement in other attacks against U.S. and French targets.
The U.A.E. is also known to have handed over to Pakistan in 2004 the leader of a Pakistani Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The minister said U.A.E. authorities had not uncovered "organized terrorist cells in the accepted sense of the word, but a group of individuals, mostly expatriates, who espouse views that conflict with the line of centrism and moderation upheld by the U.A.E." None of those detained had carried out attacks inside the country, he said. Efforts to stop illegal infiltrations into the U.A.E. had also led to "the arrest of many extremist elements," he added.
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I know I'm an object of criticism in the world, but if I am being talked about, I must be doing the right things
Kim Jong-il
Either that, or you're a spectacular lunatic. When they make those twirly motions next to the ear, they're saying you're a nutbug.
The little that is known about Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, conjures up a caricature of a diminutive playboy, a comic picture at odds with his brutal regime. Diplomats and escaped dissidents talk of a vain, paranoid, cognac-guzzling hypochondriac. He is said to wear platform shoes and favour a bouffant hairstyle in order to appear taller than his 5 feet 3 inches.
But analysts are undecided whether his eccentricities mask the cunning mind of a master manipulator or betray an irrational madman. Mr Kim may well encourage the myth-making surrounding him precisely in order to keep the Western world guessing. North Korea has little to bargain with, and ignorance breeds fear.
#1
Why concern yourself with whether or not he's a madman or a genius?
He poses a threat, kill him and be done with it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/16/2006 8:07
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#2
Kim Jong-il is not a crazy man. He may be completely vain, a bit irrational, but he is not stupid. North Korea is the only communist country in the world to ever pull off a father -> son succession to power. So even though his people are starving and miserable, and his stalinist nation is definitely NOT the envy of the world, like it or not he has obviously been intelligent enough to stay in power and attain nuclear weapons. Just the thought of "negotiations with the North Koreans" makes my head hurt.
Hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and bags apparently used to carry vote count sheets were scattered across a garbage dump, more than a week after Haiti's disputed presidential elections. UN officials sent troops to the garbage dump a few kilometres north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to recover the election material, according to David Wimhurst, a UN spokesman, who called the discovery "extraordinary".
On Wednesday, Associated Press journalists saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly-infested dump. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that election officials have undercounted his support in an effort to prevent him from winning a first-round victory. He said that "massive fraud or gross errors" tainted the results of the 7 February vote.
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Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday that Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has apologised to Pakistan over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which have sparked violent protests across the country. Stoltenberg apologised to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz by telephone on Tuesday, Rashid said. "They (the Norwegians) have apologised," he said. "They have said that they have openly apologised and all Muslim countries have accepted the apology." The cartoons were first printed in Denmark, but media in other European nations, including Norway, published the caricatures in the name of free expression.
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#1
Nice start, but it would simply be better for Stoltenberg to get on his knees and finish licking their boots!
#6
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday that Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has apologised to Pakistan over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad..
..thereby assuring that any sort of perceived slight in the same vein at some point in the future will be met with even more violent "protests".
This whole episode is just like dealing with children - if bad behavior is appeased and not dealt with firmly, more of it can be expected to come.
Iranian police have arrested about 1000 people in the central seminary city of Qom after clashes over the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufi Muslims, city officials say. Officials and a Qom resident said the police had fired teargas to disperse a crowd of dervishes, or mystics, and those who had gathered to support them. They said the dervishes were armed with knives and stones. About 200 people were hurt in the clash, one official said on Wednesday.
The fighting erupted on Monday after the Sufis refused to evacuate a suburban house where they had been congregating for dervish rites, said an official at Qom municipality who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The violence ended and their place was knocked down on Tuesday," he said, adding the municipality had demolished the building because the Sufis had illegally turned their residential building into a centre of worship.
Sufi Muslim spirituality is tolerated under mainly Shia Iran's strict Islamic laws, although some senior religious figures occasionally call for a clampdown on its rites. Abbas Mohtaj, the governor-general of Qom, accused the dervishes of being part of a foreign plot, but he did not explain this. Mohtaj was quoted as saying by the Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper: "We did not aim to confront them at first, but when we felt that ... a plot was under way, we took steps. The arrogant powers are exploiting every opportunity to create insecurity in our country and (the Sufis') links to foreign countries are evident." Mohtaj said about 200 people had been hurt and around 1000 arrested.
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#1
This is going to get noticed in Iran. It will correctly be interpreted as the start of a crackdown on religious minorities. These minorities, however, cannot be expected to go down without some serious Shiite blood being spread. Especially the Zoroastrians, who see Shiites as being about on the same cultural level as oysters.
#3
Sufis do get around, though, being one of the more accessible sects. The don't insist you become a Sufi, for instance, before they'll talk to you, prefering to convert by example.
#4
"Abbas Mohtaj, the governor-general of Qom, accused the dervishes of being part of a foreign plot,"
A-ha! I knew it! Had to be Zionists! You can't fool these Mullahs, I tell ya. The Zionists are tricky and clever but they'll never get one past the wise leaders of the Islamic Republic.
#5
I agree strongly with Mojo. I have seen the whirling dervishes of Turkey preform twice at the Marin Civic Center. Both times I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, fellowship, and tolerance that radiates from the members of this sect. Heck, as I type this Im listening to their album Embracing Both Worlds: The Whirling Dervishes in America. They are, overall, a fairly peaceful and mellow bunch, especially when compared with their fundamentalist coreligionists.
MUMBAI: An Indian woman died after being pushed into a flaming pit as a human sacrifice during a religious ritual aimed at placating 'angry gods' blamed for a chicken pox outbreak, media reports said on Wednesday.
Jyotsna Tanel, 22, had been suffering from chicken pox when she travelled to Tembi village, near Mumbai, where the ceremony was being held on February 10, indian newspaper the Times of India said. Tanel suffered burns to more than 60 percent of her body after being pushed into a six-foot-deep pit by others at the ceremony, it said. Hearing her cries, some people barged into the homestead and rescued her from the flames, police told the Press Trust of India. She died last Tuesday after being denied medical treatment for five hours by the ceremony's organisers. Police have arrested 15 people.
The sacred fire ceremony has long been an important part of Hindu rituals but cases of attempted human sacrifice are rare.
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#2
Actually, cases of human sacrifice in India are pretty damn common. Female infanticide because of ultrasound is #1. Bride burnings are frequent, cause by the family of the groom getting greedy. Then there is the ever popular Suttee, or widow burning. It used to be voluntary, but more and more it's like this woman in the story.
#5
Sati is not common.
There have been TWO clearly documented cases of sati since 1947.
There are allegations of about 40 cases in rural areas (of Rajastan state) since 1947.
Dowry burning (new bride who "mysteriously" suffers accident in kitchen) is however quite common (estimated about 5000 cases per year).
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 19:18
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#6
Bear in mind that the Indian population is greater than one billion.
So assume one case of sati in ten years among a billion people. Hardly worth the publicity given to it.
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 19:29
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#7
That's becasue it's not called Sati anymore. It's a kitchen fire.
#9
The kitchen fires are typically new brides and the issue is one of dowry.
The in laws are gnerally to blame so now when Indian police (in cities) investigate these "accident" cases they routinely ock up all the husband's relatives - aunts uncles, parents. Bail is typically not granted.
Sati was the custom of a widow mounting the funeral pyre of her husband.
Nothing to do with kitchen fires.
Posted by: john ||
02/16/2006 20:36
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The Palestinian group Hamas must be involved if there is to be movement towards peace in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Vienna on Wednesday. "Unless we engage Hamas, which came to power as a result of free and fair elections, nothing will change," Lavrov told a press conference after meeting Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. Austria currently holds the presidency of the 25-nation European Union.
Lavrov said Russia welcomed "steps taken by our Egyptian colleagues, who already started contacting Hamas. "We will be working in the same direction," Lavrov said. "My point is that responsible people should approach the situation from the point of view of whether we want something to be done."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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#1
And there can be no peace in Chechnya without appeasing Baseyev.
Posted by: ed ||
02/16/2006 7:53
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#2
great comment ed. Its amazing the Palestinians and Iran are so willing to be friends with Russia, they just seem to forget all about Chechnya. If you ever want to know what Russia has really done in Chechnya- read Robert Young Pelton "Three Worlds Gone Mad". Granted there are a lot of terrorists in Chechnya, but their also used to be innocent civilians until Russia killed them all or drove them to become terrorists.
The United Nations on Tuesday asked Lebanon to explain reports of arms shipments crossing the Syrian border destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a foe of Syria, said over the weekend that truckloads of arms and missiles had crossed the border intended for "armed groups" inside Lebanon. He alleged that the Lebanese army intercepted the shipment but allowed delivery to Hezbollah and possibly Palestinian groups.
That's the setup. And now for the punchline...
The army said on Monday Jumblatt was incorrect and the weapons had been stocked inside Lebanon and shipped south to the "Lebanese resistance."
And the "Lebanese resistance" consists of... ummm... Hezbollah and possibly Paleostinian groups. Now my head hurts...
"We have followed the statements about the recent armed shipments including the statements of the Lebanese army," said a spokesman for U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. "If this information were to be confirmed it would be an alarming development in clear violation of resolution 1559," the spokesman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to enhance security cooperation to combat terrorism and deal with the growing problem of cross-border incursions. This understanding was reached at a meeting between President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at Presidents House on Wednesday.
The Afghan president arrived on a three-day visit to Pakistan on Wednesday. The meeting reviewed the regional security situation along with the latest developments in the war on terror. The two leaders agreed to use the Pakistan-Afghanistan-US Tripartite Commission to increase security coordination and intelligence sharing. President Musharraf said that greater bilateral intelligence cooperation and coordination at the tripartite forum will help combat the menace of terrorism, which retards regional progress.
So Perv agreed to snuff out the Taleban in Waziristan, did he? What's that? He didn't? Oh. Never mind.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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More than 70,000 protesters in Peshawar have burnt a fast-food restaurant, offices of two mobile phone companies and three cinemas as violence continues in Pakistan for a third day over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed and dozens injured in the violence in two cities, police and witnesses said on Wednesday. A 25-year-old man was killed when he was hit by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire from protesters in an eastern district of Peshawar. The other fatality was an eight-year-old boy shot in the face by a bullet fired by a demonstrator, said Shahid Khan, a police officer. A 30-year-old man was shot dead in a clash with police in Lahore. At least 45 people were being treated for injuries in two state-run hospitals in Peshawar.
Gunfire was heard near a burning KFC restaurant as police used tear gas and batons to fight back thousands of protesters blocking one of the city's main streets. The rioters ransacked the offices of Telenor, the Norwegian mobile phone company, witnesses said. They also burnt a KFC restaurant, three cinemas and offices of Mobilink - the main mobile phone operator in the country. A bus terminal operated by Daewoo, the Korean conglomerate, was torched, police said. Hundreds of Afghan refugees joined the protest in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province. Many were chanting "Death to Denmark!" and "Hang those who drew the insulting cartoons". Others burnt Danish flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.
Most shops, public transport and other businesses were closed in the city. As police battled protesters in Peshawar, another violent demonstration erupted about 230km away in the town of Tank, where 2000 people rallied. Attiq Wazir, a police official, said protesters set fire to 30 shops in Tank selling music CDs and DVDs. Suspected Muslim hardliners had issued warnings to music shops to close in Tank, on the edge of South Waziristan, a tribal region where security officials have said al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters are hiding.
One policeman was injured when a protester opened fire to resist arrest, another police official said. As the violence raged in Peshawar, fighting flared up in the eastern city of Lahore for the second straight day. Some 1500 students surprised police by staging an unannounced rally outside Punjab University, said Chaudhry Shafqat, a senior police official. Shafqat said the students beat up a police officer and disrupted traffic on a main road. He said: "It all happened suddenly, and we are trying to control the situation." On Tuesday, thousands of protesters went on a rampage in Lahore, burning Western businesses like McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants. Two people died and police detained 125 people.
Violent protests also erupted in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. More than 1000 students forced their way into a heavily guarded enclave housing foreign embassies. They damaged cars and a bank building, but were quickly expelled from the area with tear gas and water cannons. Naeem Iqbal, the Islamabad police spokesman, said 142 students were arrested for disrupting the peace, damaging property and disregarding orders to disperse.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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I'm getting to the point that I almost root for that Pak-Indian nuke war. That's freaking sad
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 0:13
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#2
Wait till the poor saps get a load of the inevitable Mohammad toilet paper. Their heads will explode.
#4
I don't have a dog in this fight, but as I think about it, there isn't a KFC in my neighborhood either! Maybe management will rebuild that burned down restaurant in my area in the US or New Orleans! I hate Boot Lickers!!
#5
The Pakistani franchisers should really consider renaming themselves to Koran Fried Chicken, with shura verses napkins and Mohammed Comes the the Mountain of Mashed Potatoes. The muslims wouldn't dare burn that down, would they?
Posted by: ed ||
02/16/2006 6:36
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#6
Nah, ed. Won't work. I'm sure there is some sura against cole slaw being wiped across a Koranic verse. When one of the hot wings comes out of the fryer with bumps that spell out the prophet's name, they'll use that as an excuse to burn the joint down.
They are just hopeless. Stupid that doesn't want to be fixed, plus weapons and an easily offended sense of "honor" is a bad combination.
#7
A 25-year-old man was killed when he was hit by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire from protesters in an eastern district of Peshawar. The other fatality was an eight-year-old boy shot in the face by a bullet fired by a demonstrator, said Shahid Khan, a police officer. A 30-year-old man was shot dead in a clash with police in Lahore.
Gun sex gone awry. Wonder when the DVD will be released? And, with this reporting, how in the world are they gonna blame it on the Jooooos?
Others burnt Danish flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.
Well, it just wouldn't be a protest without burning flags and effigies. Mewonders how the Pakis (street-level Pakis, that is) even know what the Danish PM looks like? Maybe ordered online from moveon.org?
On Tuesday, thousands of protesters went on a rampage in Lahore, burning Western businesses like McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants. Two people died and police detained 125 people.
The Logic astounds. Of course, if my franchise had been burnt to the ground, I'd hit the RB Paypal asking for $ to re-open a BBQ pork joint, or only offer Canadian bacon/pepperoni pizzas (at Pizza Hut).
Posted by: BA ||
02/16/2006 9:50
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#8
How did they figure the Colonel was a Dane ?
Maybe they just want a lamb kabob drive thru. Also, they didn't burn down any beer joints, did they ? Just wondering.
#10
Sidebar: How did they figure the Colonel was a Dane ?
A chef I know used to hang out with Harlan Sanders back in college days. Evidently, even back then he was already wearing the (well begrimed) white suit he is so often pictured in. Supposedly, his habit was ordering the barman to line up several knickerbocker cans of beer on the bar at once and, when nearly done working his way through them, whip the last of them over his shoulder into the crowded saloon. My friend recounted several times where they had to crawl out of bars beneath the tables while dodging various brawling participants. The colonel sounds like a real swell guy.
#13
Wait till the poor saps get a load of the inevitable Mohammad toilet paper. Their heads will explode.
No good, it was only a fartwa.
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/16/2006 20:52
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#14
I'm a serious.
Several C-5 loads of Koran Toliet paper dropped over Pakiwakiland from a height will keep them busy for decades rescuing all those verses from the elements.
#15
Good to see that they're bring 8 year olds to demonstrations. Like the Palestinians, they know that you have to start indoctrinating them early to turn them into a real well-coordinated unruly mob that truly hates the foreign infidel devils and that can exhort, terrorize and cow your fellow Muslims into supporting or, at least, not opposing the will to power of the radical clerics.
Pakistan Rangers have been deployed in four Punjab districts to help the civil administration control law and order. A Home Department official told Daily Times on Tuesday that 11 Rangers companies had been deployed in Lahore, eight in Multan, seven in Faisalabad and four in Gujranwala district. He said that Rangers were called in on a request by the four city district governments, keeping in view violent protests in Lahore and Peshawar. The official said that heavy deployment of Rangers in Multan was because of a one-day match between the Pakistan and India cricket teams today amidst a call by local clerics to protest the cartoons.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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(2006-02-15) V. Gene Robinson, the first openly-homosexual Episcopalian bishop, came under attack today for a recent statement in which he called his alcoholism a disease for which hes getting treatment.
Bishop Robinson has reinforced the stereotype that being a drunk is some kind of medical condition that needs a cure, according to an unnamed spokesman for the American Drunkards Association (ADA), a non-profit group that helps people recover from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Alcoholism isnt a disease, its who we are. We want to be accepted for who we are. The bishop has done irreparable harm to drunken clerics everywhere, not to mention the damage done to millions of lay-drunkards.
The American Drunkards Association also lobbies lawmakers to gain equal rights for alcoholics a large and growing group of Americans who face discrimination daily, especially from the department of motor vehicles.
Imagine not being allowed to drive just because of who you are, said the unnamed ADA spokesman. Police across the country engage in discriminatory profiling against drunkards, and theres no public outcry about this civil rights abuse.
Bishop Robinson, who left his wife to live with his homosexual partner, said hes humbled by the opportunity to be the denominations first openly-gay, openly-drunk and openly-irresponsible bishop.
My life sends a refreshing message to our parishioners of redemption without repentance, he said. Its a real improvement on old-fashioned Biblical principles.
A home-made bomb has killed four children on their way to school in Baghdad, according to police. Relatives say three girls and a boy were walking to school when they were killed on Wednesday. At least 19 other people, including six police officers, died in car bombings and shootings across the Iraqi capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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The cowards dropped a bag on the sidewalk and beat feet. The kiddies were trying to pick the bag up when it exploded.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a satellite interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation late Wednesday that the removal from office of President Emile Lahoud "is a decision that has to be made in the Lebanese context."
"We can't do it for you..."
"However, the presidency should look toward the establishment of a truly independent Lebanon," she added. Rice said the presidency "should represent the future of Lebanon," adding that the process of change should be achieved through "cleaning the political institutions from foreign interference."
Thereby equating Emile with the Syrian past...
As for U.S. opinion regarding Hizbullah, she said: "Hizbullah committed terrorist acts in the world and against Americans." According to Rice, in order not to be considered a militia "Hizbullah has to give up its terrorist acts and disarm."
We're being really, really nice and giving them the chance to go straight. My guess is that they won't take it until Iran's been flattened.
Also speaking to the LBC, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said Security Council Resolution 1559 stipulated that no arms should be present on Lebanese territory unless under the government's control.
Hezbollah's the only militia I know of that retains its hardware. They're not the government, though they'd like to be.
Meanwhile, Syria's press and legislators lashed out Wednesday at the Lebanese who denounced President Bashar Assad during a massive rally in Beirut to commemorate the passing of one year since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The state-controlled media did not publish reports or pictures of Tuesday's demonstration in the Lebanese capital, where some one million people applauded Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt for labeling Assad a "terrorist" who had imposed a pro-Syrian president on Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2006
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You're right Fred, the second leg of the Axis Of Evil will have to topple before Hizbullah cries uncle; I just hope Lebanon can care and keep Rafik Hariri's son...heir apparent until peace is initiated in the area after Iran and Syria are subdued!
Two Israeli Arab parties have merged ahead of Knesset elections, launching their campaign by calling for Islamic rule in Israel and praising the Hamas terror group.
"Rule on earth, at least in Arab and Muslim land, should be by the Caliph [Islamic ruler and heir to Muhammad's authority ed.]," chairman of the new merger between the United Arab List and the Ta'al Party Ibrahim Sarsour said Wednesday. "We believe in Islam and in the Caliphate and not in separation between state and religion."
Sarsour made the statement during a joint press conference with Arab MK Ahmed Tibi to announce the joint list's platform and party list.
The chairman took the opportunity to blame Zionists and the US government for a clash of civilizations being forced upon the Muslim world. "There is a hidden hand that acts in a bid to bring the world to a clash of civilizations," Sarsour said, referring to the cartoons of Islam's founder published recently in European newspapers. "I speak of that gang in the White House that tries to force one society's culture on another's. This is a part of a campaign against Islam, a campaign aimed at enlisting support in the West for military action against Iran."
Sarsour praised the Hamas terror group, which he said would lead the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority to "progress and achievements, not catastrophes [the Arabic word for catastrophe Nakba is how the Muslim world refers to the Arab defeat in the 1948 War of Independence ed]."
The Arab politician said the overarching goal of the new merger of Arab parties is to prevent the "Israelization" and "Zionization" Arabs of Israel have had to combat. Specifically, Sarsour said the party would work to increase Arab immigration to the Jewish state and increase relations between Arabs with Israeli citizenship and the PA.
MK Ahmed Tibi said that the sentiments outlined by Sarsour represent the wishes of Israeli Arabs and said he did not think he was running against other Arab parties, but against "Zionist parties attempting to win Arab votes."
Fellow MK Taleb A-Sana promised that the party would support bills such as those that brought about the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria and budgets that benefit the Arab public. He did not rule out sitting in a coalition government.
A-Sana, together with Balad Party MK Azmi Bishara were questioned earlier this week by Israels Police International Serious Crimes Unit in Petah Tikva regarding their recent trips to enemy states such as Syria and Lebanon, which were taken without receiving permission from the Interior Ministry. While in Syria, A-Sana met with Baath Party officials and members of the Syrian parliament. MK Tibi was investigated for similar infractions last June.
#1
say hello to Gaza, your new wasteland homeland, assholes
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2006 0:08
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#2
biting the hand that feeds them. they don't even get the irony -- that they can even say such things in Israel, while no arab country would ever tolerate such insolence. ingrates.
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.
Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."
The Conservative government has created a committee of two cabinet ministers and a backbencher to figure out how best to kill the long-gun registry as soon as possible.
When the new Palestinian legislature is sworn in Saturday, Hamas's installation as the new majority will be hailed 
Venezuela will need to buy more weapons to equip its reservists. Venezuela has increased the number of reservists in its military to a total of two million men and women. Army high command spokesman Col Herrera Jimenez said that around one-and-a-half million Venezuelans had recently signed up to become reservists. 
To hear the US government tell it, Gary McKinnon is a dangerous man, and should be extradited back to America to stand trial in a Virginia courtroom. One US prosecutor has accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time". If extradited, Mr McKinnon could face decades in US jail, and fines of close to $2m. The charges against Mr McKinnon are extensive. 
THE United States must shut down its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay "without further delay", a UN human rights report published today said, urging Washington to try or release more than 500 terrorism suspects held at its naval base on Cuba. In their report, five 
Japan is yet to decide when to withdraw its non-combat ground troops from Iraq despite a report that it was discussing with Washington and London its plans to start pulling them out next month. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he would decide the timing of the troop withdrawal "carefully". 
Britains appeal court ruled on Wednesday that a man accused of being part of a group that helped the Sept. 11 attackers should be extradited to Spain.
THE US has returned to Uganda a Ugandan-born Briton, 
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened an internal investigation into the department's role in approving the Bush administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, officials said yesterday.
The beheaded bodies of two Afghan intelligence agents were found dumped in western Afghanistan yesterday. The intelligence agents had been captured in Farah province two days ago by suspected remnants of the Taliban regime ousted in 2001, provincial governor Hazatullah Wasefi said. Their bodies were found in a desert near the Iranian border, Wasefi said. We dont know exactly who might have done it. But it seems that it was the brutalities of the Taliban, provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb added.
A court has heard allegations that a Victorian man was asked to return to Australia as a sleeper for the terrorist group, Al Qaeda. A trial has begun for 32-year-old 
A 20-year-old North Dakota State University student has been arrested for "criminal attempt and possession of drug paraphernalia" after trying to score some marijuana at a West Fargo police station, In-Forum News reports. 
Lafayette resident Josh Kayser chuckled Monday afternoon when he read about Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting a friend during a quail hunt over the weekend. A few hours later, paramedics rushed Kayser, 21, to the hospital after his girlfriend accidentally shot him while they were trailing a raccoon. I read that thing about the vice president and said to myself How can you shoot your friend with your gun? And look what happened, he said Tuesday.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmad on Wednesday denounced violent demonstrations and condemned the government for banning protests and rallies on the blasphemy issue saying that the public would not accept the ban. Addressing a press conference at JI headquarters in Mansoorah, Qazi Hussain accused the government of maligning religious activists without trying to get information about the miscreants. He said that if the government was sincere in punishing the vandals it could identify them with the help of video footage of the incidents telecasted by different television channels. Qazi Hussain said the government had deployed insufficient police personnel who resorted to unnecessary shelling and firing, provoking the young demonstrators. 
Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who approached them, shouting they should leave and carrying a toy gun, during a West Bank raid on Wednesday, local residents said, describing the man as mentally disabled.
Armed men on a motorcycle have killed three Chinese engineers and their local driver in a remote tribal region of southwestern Pakistan, according to police. The engineers, who were among 14 working at a concrete factory, were shot with their driver on Wednesday on a road in the town of Hub, about 700km southeast of Quetta, the capital of the restive province Baluchistan, Pervez Zahoor, the region's police chief, said.
A blast killed an Afghan policeman and wounded two of his colleagues on Wednesday, while two kidnapped intelligence officers were found dead, officials said. The violence comes as the first 150 British combat troops of a deployment of about 3,300 troops arrived in Afghanistan. 
SEOUL Four simultaneous firefights broke out between North Korean border guards and unidentified groups of young men in isolated locations along the Tumen River on the China-North Korea border in late January. The incidents suggest the existence of armed North Korean dissident groups in China.
Lebanon's staunchly pro-Syrian President 
Hamas officials denied reports that a Hamas Web site published a statement on Wednesday declaring that their Palestinian fighters had received funding and training from 
Jordan's King Abdullah II said Wednesday he supported efforts to secure a UN resolution against attacks on Islam, its prophets and other religions amid global Muslim anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
Hamas prepared Wednesday to unveil its nominations for prime minister and Parliament speaker as Israel prepared to decide on its strategy toward the Palestinians after the group takes up the reins of power. In another move, a senior Fatah official laid down a series of conditions which would allow the movement to join a coalition Cabinet. Hamas named 
Syrian authorities briefly detained two former opposition MPs who were freed only a month ago after nearly five years in jail following the so-called "Damascus Spring" of liberalization. 
Report by independent 
Coalition forces destroyed a terrorist facility today, and in an operation yesterday, U.S. soldiers detained a suspected terrorist, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported today.
Iran must re-suspend all atomic fuel enrichment work for a Russian proposal to defuse its nuclear stand-off with the West to have a chance of succeeding, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. He also reasserted Moscow's opposition to imposing sanctions on Iran despite backing a UN nuclear watchdog agency vote to report Iran to the UN Security Council over fears the Islamic Republic may have a covert atomic bomb programme. 
Her study showed that a lack of older bulls to lead by example had created gangs of hyper-aggressive young males with a penchant for violence towards each other and other species. For instance, in Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa, young bulls have been attacking rhinos since 1992. And in Addo Elephant National Park, also in South Africa, 90 per cent of male elephants are killed by another male - which is 15 times the "normal" figure.
The United Arab Emirates is trying to shield itself against terror by cracking down on extremists and promoting a culture of moderation, Interior Minister Sheikh 
Hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and bags apparently used to carry vote count sheets were scattered across a garbage dump, more than a week after Haiti's disputed presidential elections. UN officials sent troops to the garbage dump a few kilometres north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to recover the election material, according to David Wimhurst, a UN spokesman, who called the discovery "extraordinary".
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday that Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has apologised to Pakistan over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which have sparked violent protests across the country. Stoltenberg apologised to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz by telephone on Tuesday, Rashid said. "They (the Norwegians) have apologised," he said. "They have said that they have openly apologised and all Muslim countries have accepted the apology." The cartoons were first printed in Denmark, but media in other European nations, including Norway, published the caricatures in the name of free expression.
Iranian police have arrested about 1000 people in the central seminary city of Qom after clashes over the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufi Muslims, city officials say. Officials and a Qom resident said the police had fired teargas to disperse a crowd of dervishes, or mystics, and those who had gathered to support them. They said the dervishes were armed with knives and stones. About 200 people were hurt in the clash, one official said on Wednesday.
The Palestinian group Hamas must be involved if there is to be movement towards peace in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Vienna on Wednesday. "Unless we engage Hamas, which came to power as a result of free and fair elections, nothing will change," Lavrov told a press conference after meeting Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. Austria currently holds the presidency of the 25-nation European Union.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to enhance security cooperation to combat terrorism and deal with the growing problem of cross-border incursions. This understanding was reached at a meeting between President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at Presidents House on Wednesday.
More than 70,000 protesters in Peshawar have burnt a fast-food restaurant, offices of two mobile phone companies and three cinemas as violence continues in Pakistan for a third day over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed and dozens injured in the violence in two cities, police and witnesses said on Wednesday. A 25-year-old man was killed when he was hit by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire from protesters in an eastern district of Peshawar. The other fatality was an eight-year-old boy shot in the face by a bullet fired by a demonstrator, said Shahid Khan, a police officer. A 30-year-old man was shot dead in a clash with police in Lahore. At least 45 people were being treated for injuries in two state-run hospitals in Peshawar.
Most shops, public transport and other businesses were closed in the city. As police battled protesters in Peshawar, another violent demonstration erupted about 230km away in the town of Tank, where 2000 people rallied. Attiq Wazir, a police official, said protesters set fire to 30 shops in Tank selling music CDs and DVDs. Suspected Muslim hardliners had issued warnings to music shops to close in Tank, on the edge of 
Pakistan Rangers have been deployed in four Punjab districts to help the civil administration control law and order. A Home Department official told Daily Times on Tuesday that 11 Rangers companies had been deployed in Lahore, eight in Multan, seven in Faisalabad and four in Gujranwala district. He said that Rangers were called in on a request by the four city district governments, keeping in view violent protests in Lahore and Peshawar. The official said that heavy deployment of Rangers in Multan was because of a one-day match between the Pakistan and India cricket teams today amidst a call by local clerics to protest the cartoons.
(2006-02-15) V. Gene Robinson, the first openly-homosexual Episcopalian bishop, came under attack today for a recent statement in which he called his alcoholism a disease for which hes getting treatment.
U.S. Secretary of State 
