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Pakistani Taliban now in control of North, South Waziristan
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Gallup Drops CNN Because Of Low Ratings
(via Drudge)

The GALLUP polling company has dropped CNN as its outlet for electronic distribution.

GALLUP, CNN and USA TODAY have been polling partners since 1992.

"CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past, and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted," GALLUP claimed in an internal memo, obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

CNN tells TVNEWSER.COM, which first reported the split: "We want to make it clear that the decision to not renew our polling arrangement had to do with GALLUP's desire to produce their own broadcasts and not about CNN viewership figures. In fact, GALLUP had negotiated with us for four months in an effort to extend the partnership."

**EXCLUSIVE**The full memo, by Jim Clifton, Chairman & CEO of GALLUP:

We have chosen "not" to renew our contract with CNN.

We have had a great partnership with CNN but it is not the right alignment for our future. The longtime partnership has been very helpful to The Gallup Poll as it put us "back big" fifteen years ago when our famous Gallup Poll had lost most of its national coverage. Our CNN partnership helped us make a great comeback. We had a great run as we just cut our 4000th segment this week.

The Gallup Poll will go on with more polling than ever, but with new distribution channels.

WHY. 1) CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted combined with the CNN brand. We have only about 200 thousand viewers during our CNN segments.

2) We are creating our own e-broadcasting programs and we don't want to be married to one broadcast network. We don't want to move to another network like CBS or Fox but rather become our own network. We cannot do this while married to CNN.

3) By dissolving our partnership with CNN we believe that Frank and other Gallup analysts will be seen as more independent so they will be more likely to be invited on a wide variety of television shows rather than primarily linked to CNN. We believe with this new found independence, we will get covered by more broadcast media because we are not the poll of their competitor.

4) We have enthusiastically renewed our print partner, USA Today. They have arguably the best readership of any newspaper in the world. It has approximately 2.4 mil subscriptions and 7.5 mil readers per day. Far more than the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. And it has substantial international coverage for being a US paper. We also believe that print is a much needed way to present our polls for those interested in studying a chart or reading analysis.

In the big picture, USA Today supplies more than 10x the users per day than CNN. USA Today is our 800lb paperboy. Or the primary distributor of The Gallup Poll. We want to have two primary distribution channels. 1) USA Today and 2) e-Gallup News. We will go on any regular TV show for guest appearances because it will help build our e-viewership. We also will be featured on AOL's front page for news. The AOL e-distribution will likely add more eyeballs per day than all of CNN.

This is a big move for us. We have to boldly change and invent new futures for Gallup or we will not survive the hurricane of competition coming from all directions in everything we do. I personally proposed the deal to Ted Turner about fifteen years ago while backstage at a "People's Choice" event and then again at their headquarters in Atlanta. It has been a great partnership and one that has meant a lot to this CEO. One in which we have all been very proud and one where we delivered our very best work every week. We have offered to help CNN find a new polling partner and to be as helpful as we can during this transition.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 20:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  LOL. CNN and "pmsNBC" approach the event horizon.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 21:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Can you say: schadenfreude? ... I knew you could.
Posted by: xbalanke || 03/21/2006 22:37 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan closes its border to Iraq to prevent Palestinians crossing
A group of Palestinians fleeing persecution who arrived Sunday were put in a no-man’s-land between Jordan and Iraq when the Iraqis denied them reentry. The Jordanian authorities want to avoid a wave of immigration from the estimated 34,000 Palestinians living in Iraq.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 20:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
There are no Palestinian Christians in Iraq, are there?

Whose persecutin' 'em?
Posted by: Penguin || 03/21/2006 21:23 Comments || Top||

#2  I suspect that the Iraqis persecute Paleos when they catch them trying to harm Iraqis.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 21:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Since the Palestinians were enthusiastic supporters of Saddam and received a share of his largesse, most Shia and Kurds despise them as little better than vermin. Furthermore, they no longer receive Iraqi governement support or preferences. Palestinians are not self sufficient. Without a sponsor in Iraq, they will migrate back to the nearest available welfare source.
Posted by: RWV || 03/21/2006 22:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Khamenei calls on US to quit Iraq
IRAN'S supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on the United States today to leave Iraq, saying any eventual talks with Washington would not touch on other issues.

"Our clear viewpoint about Iraq is that the US government should leave this country and stop provoking the tribes and creating insecurity in Iraq so that the Iraqi people govern their own country," he was quoted on television as saying.
"We will not talk with the Americans about any other of the disputed issues between Iran and the US," he said, addressing pilgrims at a shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

Last Thursday, the head of the Supreme National Security Council said Iran was ready to negotiate with the "Great Satan" to help stabilise neighbouring Iraq.

"We agree to negotiate with the Americans," Ali Larijani said, who is also Iran's nuclear chief. "Iran accepts the demand of (Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz) Hakim to resolve the Iraqi problems and issues with the goal of creating an independent (Iraqi) government."

Mr Hakim, leader of one of Iraq's main Shiite parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, had called a day earlier for a dialogue between longtime foes Iran and America.


Advertisement:
In reaction, Ayatollah Khamenei, who is considered close to Mr Larijani, said today that "if the involved Iranian official can make the Americans understand Iran's point of view about Iraq, these talks were okay".
"But if it means opening a scene for the cunning Americans to continue their bullying, the negotiations with the Americans on Iraq will be forbidden."

Ayatollah Khamenei also vowed to resist American efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear program at the UN Security Council.

If things go against Iran's interests, "we will resist", Ayatollah Khamenei said.

"Haven't you (America) already sanctioned us. Haven't the Iranian people suffered under your sanctions, your bullying power. All the progress we have achieved so far was exactly under the same sanctions situation."

The White House said on Saturday that the Islamic republic's offer to hold talks on Iraq was probably just a ploy to "divert pressure" Tehran has drawn over its nuclear program.

Iran waited months to agree to a US proposal to take up the issue, and did so only after Tehran's atomic program was referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, said US national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, mainly to fuel its power plants.

Washington announced in November 2005, to little publicity, that it was ready to have direct talks with Tehran about Iraq, seeking to discuss charges that Iranian weapons have been finding their way to Shiite fighters in Iraq.

Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 17:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That settles it. Khamenei is a donk. I had my suspicions.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 17:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Same thing we should say to Chavez:

"Chamo tu eres tremendo marico. Tu mama."

It just sounds better in Spanish.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 19:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Sure, KaKa-baby - we'll be glad to leave Iraq.

Across its Eastern border. >:-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 19:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Dear Khamenei, f&ck off. Twice. In your best turban.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 20:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Holy man? PTUI!

Supreme Leader of a minor-league power, held together by Basij thugs, intolerance, kleptocracy, and ignorance. Hope he makes it through the first barrage so his minions can watch him soil himself in fear
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 20:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Shows we have lasted longer than he thought. A little longer will really mess with him.
Posted by: plainslow || 03/21/2006 20:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Folks, you will note that the only aspect of this statement by Khamenei that the MSM is covering, is the one where he agrees to talks on Iraq.

No mention of calling on the US to quit Iraq in the MSM.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 22:11 Comments || Top||


Europe
Passport fiasco forces French to stay at home
World rejoices
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 15:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Only governments could screw up a digital picture.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 17:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Tells a lot about socialist France, doesn't it?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 17:11 Comments || Top||

#3  LOL. [Bug | Feature] Choose one.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 17:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Blaming Bush in 5....4....3...2....
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 17:48 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Sen. Reid Says Bush Suffers ‘Doubt Deficit’
by Scott Ott

(2006-03-21) — After a White House news conference today during which President George Bush professed continuing confidence in the U.S. strategy toward Iraq, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid expressed concern that the president suffers a ‘doubt deficit’ that could make him unfit for command.

The Democrat senator said his remarks flow not from partisan politics, but from genuine compassion for Mr. Bush’s mental health.

“After watching all that bad news on TV, and reading the devastating opinion polls, a normal man would not stay the course,” said Sen. Reid. “A great leader knows how to identify psychologically with his followers through second-guessing and equal measures of doubt and self-loathing. I’m afraid the president is pathologically incapable of acting like a real man.”

Sen. Reid said he learned leadership principles while growing up in Searchlight, Nevada, where neighbors still remember him as the boy they called ‘Pinky‘.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 15:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gotta remember to check the byline and the link. It's getting WAY too hard to tell the reality from the satire.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 15:35 Comments || Top||

#2  I bit. Darn you, Steve, now I've got this hook line and sinker stuck in my jaw!
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 15:45 Comments || Top||

#3  You ain't the only one, Sea! Gimmie them pliers when you're done.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/21/2006 15:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I bought it because of the piece -- today or yesterday -- whining about Harvey Mansfield's book and Bush at the same time.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 16:00 Comments || Top||

#5  I think one of the news magazines I saw at the doctor's office either today or sometime last week showed Bush in a bubble with a headline about his isolation.

This is presumably because he doesn't do what the editors of Time or Newspeak tell him to do.

It's hard to find scrappleface that funny when it's a watered down version of what the lamestream media is putting out.
Posted by: Phil || 03/21/2006 16:37 Comments || Top||

#6  I can't tell the differance between scrappleface and reality anymore.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 17:05 Comments || Top||

#7  There is a difference?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 17:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Pinky?

I knew he wasn't the Brain!! I just knew it!!
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 17:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Pinky?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 18:34 Comments || Top||

#10  We love Pinky!!!

thank U DB! »:-)
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 19:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Dubya the Manly Male brute GOP-Conservative, versus holocaust-happy, BROTHEL FROM HELL/BLOOD?, Motherly Commie Le Femme Nikitas!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 19:34 Comments || Top||

#12  Good Lord! Joseph, are you real? Hope so. Fantastic insight, man.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 03/21/2006 21:49 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
WHY YOU SHOULD CHOOSE MATH IN HIGH SCHOOL
by Espen Andersen, Associate Professor, Norwegian School of Management and Associate Editor, Ubiquity

[The following article was written for Aftenposten, a large Norwegian newspaper. The article encourages students to choose math as a major subject in high school - not just in preparation for higher education but because having math up to maximum high school level is important in all walks of life. Note: This translation is slightly changed to have meaning outside a Norwegian context.]

Why you should choose math in high school

A recurring problem in most rich societies is that students in general do not take enough math - despite high availability of relatively well-paid jobs in fields that demand math, such as engineering, statistics, teaching and technology. Students see math as hard, boring and irrelevant, and do not respond (at least not sufficiently) to motivational factors such as easier admission to higher education or interesting and important work.

It seems to me we need to be much more direct in our attempts to get students to learn hard sciences in general and math in particular. Hence, addressed to current and future high school students, here are 12 reasons to choose lots of math in high school:

Choose math because it makes you smarter. Math is to learning what endurance and strength training is to sports: the basis that enables you to excel in the specialty of your choice. You cannot become a major sports star without being strong and having good cardiovascular ability. You cannot become a star within your job or excel in your profession unless you can think smart and critically -- and math will help you do that.

Choose math because you will make more money. Winners of American Idol and other "celebrities" may make money, but only a tiny number of people have enough celebrity to make money, and most of them get stale after a few years. Then it is back to school, or to less rewarding careers ("Would you like fries with that?"). If you skip auditions and the sports channels and instead do your homework -- especially math -- you can go on to get an education that will get you a well-paid job. Much more than what pop singers and sports stars make -- perhaps not right away, but certainly if you look at averages and calculate it over a lifetime.

Choose math because you will lose less money. When hordes of idiots throw their money at pyramid schemes, it is partially because they don't know enough math. Specifically, if you know a little bit about statistics and interest calculations, you can look through economic lies and wishful thinking. With some knowledge of hard sciences you will probably feel better, too, because you will avoid spending your money and your hopes on alternative medicine, crystals, magnets and other swindles -- simply because you know they don't work.

Choose math to get an easier time at college and university. Yes, it is hard work to learn math properly while in high school. But when it is time for college or university, you can skip reading pages and pages of boring, over-explaining college texts. Instead, you can look at a chart or a formula, and understand how things relate to each other. Math is a language, shorter and more effective than other languages. If you know math, you can work smarter, not harder.

Choose math because you will live in a global world. In a global world, you will compete for the interesting jobs against people from the whole world -- and the smart kids in Eastern Europe, India and China regard math and other "hard" sciences as a ticket out of poverty and social degradation. Why not do as they do -- get knowledge that makes you viable all over the world, not just in your home country?

Choose math because you will live in a world of constant change. New technology and new ways of doing things change daily life and work more and more. If you have learned math, you can learn how and why things work, and avoid scraping by through your career, supported by Post-It Notes and Help files -- scared to death of accidentally pressing the wrong key and running into something unfamiliar.

Choose math because it doesn't close any doors. If you don't choose math in high school, you close the door to interesting studies and careers. You might not think those options interesting now, but what if you change your mind? Besides, math is most easily learned as a young person, whereas social sciences, history, art and philosophy benefit from a little maturing -- and some math.

Choose math because it is interesting in itself. Too many people - including teachers - will tell you that math is hard and boring. But what do they know? You don't ask your grandmother what kind of game-playing machine you should get, and you don't ask your parents for help in sending a text message. Why ask a teacher -- who perhaps got a C in basic math and still made it through to his or her teaching certificate -- whether math is hard? If you do the work and stick it out, you will find that math is fun, exciting, and intellectually elegant.

Choose math because you will meet it more and more in the future. Math becomes more and more important in all areas of work and scholarship. Future journalists and politicians will talk less and analyze more. Future police officers and military personnel will use more and more complicated technology. Future nurses and teachers will have to relate to numbers and technology every day. Future car mechanics and carpenters will use chip-optimization and stress analysis as much as monkey wrenches and hammers. There will be more math at work, so you will need more math at school.

Choose math so you can get through, not just into college. If you cherry-pick the easy stuff in high school, you might come through with a certificate that makes you eligible for a college education. Having a piece of paper is nice, but don't for a second think this makes you ready for college. You will notice this as soon as you enter college and have to take remedial math programs, with ensuing stress and difficulty, just to have any kind of idea what the professor is talking about.

Choose math because it is creative.* Many think math only has to do with logical deduction and somehow is in opposition to creativity. The truth is that math can be a supremely creative force if only the knowledge is used right, not least as a tool for problem solving during your career. A good knowledge of math in combination with other knowledge makes you more creative than others.

Choose math because it is cool. You have permission to be smart, you have permission to do what your peers do not. Choose math so you don't have to, for the rest of your life, talk about how math is "hard" or "cold". Choose math so you don't have to joke away your inability to do simple calculations or lack of understanding of what you are doing. Besides, math will get you a job in the cool companies, those that need brains.

You don't have to become a mathematician (or an engineer) because you choose math in high school. But it helps to chose math if you want to be smart, think critically, understand how and why things relate to each other, and to argue effectively and convincingly.

Math is a sharp knife for cutting through thorny problems. If you want a sharp knife in you mental tool chest - choose math!

*This point was added by Jon Holtan, a mathematician who works with the insurance company If.

Source: Ubiquity Volume 7, Issue 11 (March 21, - March 27, 2006)
Posted by: Angereting Cromomp4414 || 03/21/2006 15:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can't argue with any of this -- though I didn't get far, paying attention has done wonders (albeit a mixed bag thereof) for me, though I only reoriented now.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 03/21/2006 16:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Couldn't work in American schools ruled by the NEA. Their program of 'Social Justice' means equal outcome. Can't pass the old math. Just lower standards for everyone till we have equal outcome.
Posted by: Speath Uloluns3561 || 03/21/2006 17:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Does that include Anti-Racist Math?
Posted by: DMFD || 03/21/2006 19:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Good grief! Thank you for the link, DMFD. Foolish me, it's not math skills that matter, it's how we feel about math.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 19:16 Comments || Top||

#5  Good lord, DMFD.

Anyone who would even think up something like "racist" math must also think that 2 + 2 = cat. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 19:46 Comments || Top||

#6  I had the 'math is hard, why should I do it?' discussion with my daughter quite recently.

I said, "Knowing math helps you in all kinds of ways."

D responded, "I'm going to be a lawyer. Lawyers don't need math."

Me; Along the lines of, "You will find that a lot of legal cases and legal issues involve math, precisely becuase so many people don't understand math, and they are cheated or agree to contracts they don't understand and then want to get out of."
Posted by: phil_b || 03/21/2006 19:55 Comments || Top||

#7  The Moebius Stripper, a math teacher in Canada, found another example of textbook idiocy on a par with non-racist math. See Social Justice Mathematics. Then, cry like a baby.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 03/21/2006 22:09 Comments || Top||

#8  You know, it is truly our fault that we let the pompous idiots who try to palm off things like anti-racist math anywhere near our children. These people, if not in the school system, would be on welfare because they are not capable of producing anything.
Posted by: RWV || 03/21/2006 22:38 Comments || Top||


Europe
Neo-Nazis threaten Muslims for World Cup
THE World Cup in Germany is set to become a battleground between fascists and Muslims, an Italian member of a new European neo-Nazi movement warned.
In a statement published by Italian daily Repubblica, the member of AS Roma's notorious ultras hooligan group claims neo-Nazis across Europe met in Braunau in Austria to plan attacks against supporters from Islamic countries during the World Cup in Germany from June 9 to July 9.

"We are united. For the first time we are talking and planning together, with the English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, everyone with the same objective. At the World Cup there will be a massacre," said the Italian ultra.

"We will all be in Germany and there will be Turks, Algerians and Tunisians. The Turks, we can't stand them. In our country (Italy) there are not many, but in Germany, there are many of those guys there. They are Islamic terrorists.

"We will attack them. They are all enemies that need to be eliminated, just like the police. If we make the Roman greeting (the fascist salute) they put us in prison. We will be tens of thousands. Nothing but the English are feared."
More here
Posted by: tipper || 03/21/2006 14:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  THE World Cup in Germany is set to become a battleground between fascists and Muslims...

INFIGHTING!!!
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 14:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Soccerbrawl anyone?
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/21/2006 14:31 Comments || Top||

#3  I don't know if "neo-nazis" is the exact term here, as european neonazis and our islamopals gets along quite well from what I understand, with many figures of the formers having converted to the Master Religion(tm).
The only (more or less) neonazis I "know" (from their forum on www) are usually more inclined toward msulims and paleos than toward "zionists" or americans...

Perhaps it should be more like good old fascists and/or white supremacists (that what the Kop des ultras de Boulogne, a very famous parisian PSG supporters group, is, a mix between skinheads and rightwingers/identitary "casuals", while the other supporter group of the PSG is made from "youths", as most of the Marseilles 's arch-rivals; needless to say, coahbitation is not good)?
Though, I'm not very savvy on theses soccer hooligan groups, so, who knows?

As for the link between neonazis and islamists (and commies/leftists), check this Alexandre Del Valle (french analyst) article :
http://www.alexandredelvalle.com/publications.php?id_art=131
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 15:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Islamofascists vs. eurofascists. Popcorn anyone?
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 15:09 Comments || Top||

#5  "Nothing but the English are feared."

Interesting.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Hmmmm ... European fascists meet Islamofascists. This ought to be rather entertaining. One can only hope the Islamofascists carry home a rather more dispirited view of what pushovers the Europeans are. Some broken bones would be nice, too.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 15:32 Comments || Top||

#7  i always heard the Argies were the worst hooligans - brits are no way clever enough in running battles. Argies get more vicious then brits i heard and use blades as a standard operating procedure as oppossed to fist and bottles and the normal tools of the trade. I may be wrong its what a guy in the pub was saying but he drew a crowd and was entertaining for a simple villiger.
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/21/2006 16:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Argies = argentinians?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 16:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Btw, when one of my sisters lived in UK (Scotland actually), she saw many fights (mass fight in front of a restaurant she was eating in, from her window,... I think she lived in a sh*t neighbourhood) between what appeared to be drunken soccer hooligans (pleonasm), including people being smashed and cut by bottles.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 16:23 Comments || Top||

#10  Quick, somebody organize an IRA soccer team.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 16:25 Comments || Top||

#11  I can't decide whom to cheer for? I hate both SOOOO much!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 18:37 Comments || Top||

#12  Cheer for a heavy injured list.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 20:07 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Abass Khalil Ibrahim sentenced to life
In the fourth case, on Dec. 14, 2005 (speedy prosecution, we need more of that), CSF apprehended Abass Khalil Ibrahim during a raid on the senior leadership of the Revolutionary Ghadab Brigade associated with Al Tawhid Al Jihad. During interrogation, the defendant acknowledged “repairing” (CentCom's scare/sneer quotes, not mine) cars for Abu Anas and the Revolutionary Ghadab Brigade knowing that they are terrorist organizations. The defendant also detailed his involvement in the Mujahideen, recruiting six individuals for Abu Anas and Al Tawhid, possessing and using a forged citizenship identification card and identifying a number of individuals who were associated with Abu Anas and the Revolutionary Ghadab Brigade. The defendant was charged with violating Article 194 of the Iraqi Penal Code for organizing, heading, leading or joining armed groups. The trial court found the defendant guilty of the charge and sentenced the defendant to a life sentence. (One of the few hard sentences I've seen given. Nine other case results listed at link.)
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 13:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Mayor Ray says NO to da masher! Them cars is special.
Posted by: Sperelet Sponter4478 || 03/21/2006 13:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's easier for Nagin to get a kickback if the city is shelling out tens of millions to get crony capitalists to haul the cars away. If actual businessmen pay the city a few million bucks, there's not enough margin to cover Nagin's kickback - they have to at least recover transportation costs.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 03/21/2006 13:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Actually, he's afraid of lawsuits. A private contractor might remove cars without all the due process (a concern that seems NOT to apply to grabbing guns during Katrina, by the way) and then the owners might sue the city for letting someone take and squash their precious 1984 Oldsmobile with the three-tone paint job. Lawsuit fear is the same thing that kept him from ordering the mandatory evacuation earlier. Curiously, Naguin comes from a business background, not political. And though he's a black Democrat, he's the closest we've had to a white Republican in my memory.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 13:56 Comments || Top||

#3  ...he's the closest we've had to a white Republican...

I suddenly just realized HOW screwed you guys are....
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 15:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Curiously, Naguin comes from a business background

He ran a cable tv company, which explains a lot.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 15:54 Comments || Top||

#5  he ran a Cox franchise IIUC
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 17:25 Comments || Top||


Europe
Cartoon Hysteria Hits Wales
The Church in Wales has recalled 500 copies of its magazine featuring a cartoon caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad.

The editor has resigned after the image was published in the Church's Welsh-language magazine Y Llan.

A series of cartoons sparked violent demos after appearing in European papers earlier in the year.

The Archbishop of Wales has apologised to the Muslim Council of Wales, which accepted the "unfortunate mistake".

International protests over cartoons, first published in a Danish paper last autumn, escalated after the images were republished in Norway, France, Germany, Italy and Spain earlier this year, despite complaints by ambassadors from Islamic countries.

There were protests at Danish embassies in Europe and the Middle East, while those in Syria and Lebanon were attacked and at least five people died in Afghanistan.

The Church in Wales printed the cartoon to illustrate an article in the February edition of Y Llan - or Church in English - about the shared ancestry of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The drawing - which was from the French magazine France Soir - shows the Prophet Muhammad sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, and Christian and Jewish deities.

He is being told "don't complain... we've all been caricatured here".

The Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan told the BBC: "The article was perfectly OK, but for some reason, the editor decided to print one of these cartoons which was a gross error of judgement.

"It no way reflects the policy of the church in Wales and when I saw it I was totally horrified.

"We recalled all the papers, I personally picked up some from some churches and they have all been pulped.

"I've unreservedly apologised to my Muslim colleagues and they've been very gracious and I've said to them this in no way reflects the policy or attitude in the Church in Wales."

Dr Morgan also personally contacted Saleem Kidwai, the Muslim Council of Wales' general secretary, to apologise and to assure him that no offence had been intended.

'Unfortunate mistake'

Mr Kidwai said he regarded the latest publication as simply an "unfortunate mistake" and said inter-faith relations were very good in Wales and need not be jeopardised by the incident.

In a statement, the Church said it was "thoroughly investigating" how the cartoon came to be reproduced.

The Bishops of the Church in Wales have already made it clear that "they regret the publication of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in various European publications, and the offence that these have caused the Muslim community", the statement added.

Last month, a Cardiff University student union newspaper was withdrawn after it printed a different cartoon.

Gair Rhydd - Welsh for Free Word - recalled 8,000 copies, suspended its editor and issued a public apology.

It was thought the paper was the first UK publication to use any of the controversial cartoons.


Posted by: ryuge || 03/21/2006 12:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He who feeds the crocodile is merely eaten last.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 14:55 Comments || Top||

#2  The drawing - which was from the French magazine France Soir - shows the Prophet Muhammad sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, and Christian and Jewish deities.

He is being told "don't complain... we've all been caricatured here".


What, no apologies to the other insultees?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:03 Comments || Top||

#3  That particular cartoon was very mild, exactly like the danish ones; the ones from leftist Charlie Hebdo, though IMHO less offrensive than many of their usual antics on christianity or judaism, were much more aggressive.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 15:06 Comments || Top||

#4  "I've unreservedly apologised to my Muslim colleagues..."
Colleagues? What a poor choice of words! I wouldn't consider being part of church lead by a Muslim's colleague.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/21/2006 20:36 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Tales from the Crossfire Gazette
Terrorist killed in encounter in Faridpur
FARIDPUR, Mar 20:–Top terrorist 'Killer Zulhas' was killed in an 'encounter' between the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and a gang of terrorists early Monday on Habibur Rahman Road at Kamlapur area in Faridpur town, reports BD News. The deceased was identified as Killer Zulhas alias Zilhas alias Siam (22), son of Jalaluddin Sheikh of Kamlapur area.
Now just known as roadkill
RAB constable Qayum was also injured during the encounter.

RAB sources said acting on a tip off, a RAB team arrested Zulhas from Bill Mahmud area in Faridpur town during a raid on Saturday evening.
"Hey, Killer, let's have a talk"

According to his confessions, the RAB members conducted several raids Sunday night at different areas of the town along with 'Killer Zulhas' to nab his accomplices and recover arms.
Uh huh. "Road Trip", Banglastyle. Killer gets to ride "shuttergun"

When the RAB team reached on Habibur Rahman Road, a gang of terrorists opened fire on them from their hideouts and RAB also retaliated.
"Curses! It's RAB! Open fire recklessly!"
Zulhas was killed on the spot during the encounter while trying to escape.
Spot being the back of the RAB paddywagon
RAB recovered an Indian revolver, a pipe gun and two bullets from the spot.

Zulhas, an alleged professional killer, was accused of several cases including Palash, Shakil and ACI representative Tareq Chowdhury murder charges

Suspected terrorist killed in ‘crossfire’ in city
A suspected terrorist was killed in ‘crossfire’ between a gang of terrorists and members of RAB at Mirpur in the city yesterday.
Nope, 'crossfire' is when you question them before the shootout. 'Encounter' is when you don't bother with the arrest. They mixed memes

The deceased was identified as Abdul Khalek alias Sekander alias Hazi Sika (40), son of Shamsuddin of Banagram under South Keraniganj in Dhaka. He was accused in seven criminal cases including murder with Keraniganj, Savar and Jajira police stations, RAB sources said.
Wanted on twelve systems

RAB sources said, acting on secret information that a gang of criminal assembled at Deepnagar Balurmath at Gabtali under Mirpur police station, a team of RAB-4 went to the spot at around 2.20am. Sensing their presence
"Sniff, I smell doughnuts. It's da law!"
the criminals fired upon them,
"Quick, open fire before they question us!"
The RAB men also retaliated. During the gunfight Hazi Sika received several bullets and died on the spot.
"Ack.ouch...rosebu.. urp...d.."

RAB personnel recovered a pistol, one magazine and five rounds of bullet from the spot. The body was sent to the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) for autopsy.
"Paging Doctor Quincy"
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 12:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "alias Sekander"

The Afghani version of Alexander. A little vain, I'd say.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 13:20 Comments || Top||

#2  An Indian revolver? I'm impressed.
Posted by: Inspector Clueso || 03/21/2006 20:16 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin fails to satisfy China's hunger for energy
China and Russia signed a broad deal to strengthen energy relations today, agreeing to build two giant gas pipelines, but stopped short of confirming the construction of a crude oil pipeline desperately wanted by Beijing to answer the country's energy needs.

On his fourth visit to Beijing in five years, President Vladimir Putin met President Hu Jintao and agreed a long-term strategy of energy co-operation intended to bind ever more tightly the world's second largest energy producer to the second largest consumer.

In tune with the intense cordiality of the meeting - this is the "Year of Russia" in China and 2007 is the "Year of China" in Russia - the two sides agreed to build two long-anticipated pipelines to bring between 60 and 80 billion cubic metres of natural gas every year from Russia's gasfields to China's factories.

Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, said that the first deliveries were expected in five years. The Interfax news agency quoted a member of the Russian negotiating team saying the pipelines would cost around $10 billion (£5.7 billion).

"This about diversifying supplies. Today we’ve defined the timeframe and volumes for Gazprom’s entry on to the Chinese market. These are major volumes," said Mr Miller.

Among 15 financial deals signed by the governments, a separate commitment was also made to increase co-operation and the refining capacities of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Chinese oil and gas monopoly, and Rosneft, the Russian oil company.

But progress on an $11.5 billion (£6.6 billion) crude oil pipeline that aims to connect Siberia and the great Asian energy consumers of China, South Korea and Japan, remains held up by environmental and planning concerns in Russia.

Viktor Khristenko, the Russian Energy Minister and one of an entourage of 90 politicians and Russian industrialists accompanying Mr Putin to China, said that it was still to early to set a date for the completion of the project, which will carry 600,000 barrels of oil a day.

"We will only be able to answer that once we’ve done the feasibility study," he said. "We intend to build it. There is nothing forbidding it, but first there should be a feasibility study according to the rules."

The slow planning process and the lack of movement in international negotiations over the pipeline -- which are believed to hinge on the financial contributions each country is willing to make -- prompted China's top energy planner, Zhang Guobao, to make unusually blunt remarks ahead of Mr Putin's visit earlier this week.

"One moment Russia is saying they have made a decision, the next saying that no decision has been made. To date, there has been no correct information. This is regrettable," he said.

Some oil analysts have also questioned whether Russia has the resources in Siberia to justify the pipeline and whether Mr Putin is using the project as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with Russia's European energy customers.

"I don’t see where Russia in the foreseeable future can pile up these resources," Valery Nesterov, oil and gas analyst at the Troika Dialog investment bank in Moscow told the Associated Press. "Russia is saying it has markets. In a way, it’s a form of pressure on Europe."

In comments on international relations, Mr Putin and Mr Hu affirmed their commitment to seeking a diplomatic resolution to the Iran's nuclear confrontation with the UN. Both countries have acted to soften the stance taken by the EU and the America towards Tehran.


Posted by: ryuge || 03/21/2006 11:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Siberia is rich in natural gas and the russians can only spare two old women with brooms to guard it. Say goodbye to Russia, sibera, and hello to China!
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 15:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Iff memory serves, methinks that several years ago the Russian government itself publicly announced their country only had enough available [read - cheap] oil reserves for maxima 20-25 years.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 20:35 Comments || Top||

#3  This ties in directly with the Chinese telling Kimmie boy to grow his own infrastructure.
If the Chinese are short of fuel, they surely don't want to give any away to the crackpot head of NORK
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/21/2006 21:21 Comments || Top||

#4  SPACEWAR.com has an article entitled THE SINO-RUSSIAN SUPERPOWER, whilst Asia Times [ATIMES
.com] has several articles of note, espec THE RISE AND RISE OF THE UN-WEST, and THE SINO-RUSSIAN ROMANCE. RIAN.RU and THEMOSCOWTIMES report that Russian subs will be remapping the Artic shelves for the first time since the end of the Cold War, ostens to define Russia's borders espec Russia's alleged proximity to millions of metric tons of embedded oil-like hydro-carbon reserves. These articles subtledly infer or hint that America may yet end up being a victim of "regime change" itself as the post-Cold War unipolar society of nations seeemingly evolves to a multipolar one of mostly/heavily Muslim, nuclearized states. SPACEWAR's article makes it clear that despite any Russ0-Chinese rapprochement, China intends to [de facto]challenge America for global preeminence, and that while Lenin may had said that Capitalists will sell the every rope Marxists-Communists hang the Capitalists from, Russia needs to look after itself carefully becuz, "after Mongolia, Russian territory is the final frontier" FOR CHINA. IOW, while Russia-China may proclaim post-WOT to have saved the world from alleged Bush/GOP-led Male Brute Fascist America, it remains to be seen iff they can save the world from each other.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 21:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Look, none of this would be at issue, if not for, uhmmm, so-called "American" businessmen selling, no, giving the rope, in trade for vague future promises, to the mercantile beast still known as red China.

red China gets its military steroids by way of transfusions provided, happily, by I-Got-Mine-Jack capitalists who happen to reside in Boston, and New York, and San Fransicko, and North Carolina, and Washington.

A long time friend I know who works for a major "American" financial services firm has revealed to me that his company is about to transfer all of its trading system development, and systems administrative authority, to a franchise "technology center" in red China. The impetus behind this is to slash domestic technology costs, and provide wider bonuses to the short-timer "helmsmen" who stand to benefit.

That this kind of move puts America's financial services short and curlies in the hands of a hostile power is of no apparent concern to the "helmsmen." They have already crafted 8 figure parachutes designed to deliver them from the danger zone, long before Sarbanes-Oxley figures out the major malfunction.

So, who can speak ill of the chi-coms and their desire to simply keep their newly acquired systems powered on?
Posted by: IT Insider || 03/21/2006 22:50 Comments || Top||


Britain
Gang 'planned UK terror campaign'
Seven men have gone on trial accused of planning a campaign of terror in Britain. Three had more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which can be used to make bombs, the Old Bailey was told. The seven, all British citizens, deny the allegations.

They are accused of conspiring between January 1, 2003, and March 31, 2004, with Canadian Mohammed Momin Khawaja and with others unknown, to "cause by explosive substances, an explosion or explosions of a nature likely to endanger life". The accused are: Omar Khyam, 24, Waheed Mahmood, 34, Shujah Mahmood, 19, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Anthony Garcia (also known as Rahman Adam), 23, of Ilford, east London; Nabeel Hussain, 20, of Horley, Surrey, and Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire.

Khyam, Garcia and Hussain also deny a charge under the Terrorism Act 2000 of possession of an article for terrorism - 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - between November 5, 2003, and March 31, 2004. The fertiliser was found at a west London storage depot in 2004. Brothers Khyam and Shuja Mahmood also deny having aluminium powder for terrorism between October 1, 2003, and March 31, 2004. Aluminium powder can also be used to make bombs.

The judge, Sir Michael Astill, warned the jury not to be influenced by anything outside the trial process, saying: "Terrorism has been at the forefront of matters and debate worldwide for a long time. "It became the subject of much discussion of late in the United Kingdom after the bombings in London on July 7, 2005. Much of the factual reporting has been fair and accurate. Some of it has not. "Many different theories and views have been offered and inevitably most members of the public will have an opinion about terrorism and its causes. It is therefore reasonable to expect that you bring to this court a point of view. It would not be reasonable to expect you to approach your task now as if you had never had an opinion."

But, he added, it was essential that the jurors tried to put aside any opinion they did have. He warned the jury not to carry out their own research on the internet and told them that the trial was likely to last "many months".
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 11:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They're just harmless farmers wanting to increase their crop yield.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 12:31 Comments || Top||

#2  "Many different theories and views have been offered and inevitably most members of the public will have an opinion about terrorism and its causes. It is therefore reasonable to expect that you bring to this court a point of view. It would not be reasonable to expect you to approach your task now as if you had never had an opinion."

Bravo! Indeed refreshing, but unfortunately, this brave statement alone would preclude Sir Michael from a US Supreme Court appointment.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/21/2006 12:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Actually, there is a specific opinion that an individual should have when being empaneled as a juror. Namely that;

A PERSON IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 13:05 Comments || Top||

#4  What I've been reading about Blair lately, this is competition.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/21/2006 13:10 Comments || Top||

#5  They're just harmless farmers wanting to increase their crop yield.

Surely in this situation, that should read, "harmless but well-bombed farmers..." ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:09 Comments || Top||

#6  The seven, all British citizens, deny the allegations.

all of Pakistani descent

Posted by: Angeck Glailet3860 || 03/21/2006 17:25 Comments || Top||

#7  "harmless but well-bombed farmers..."

Explains why the furrows weave back-and-forth.
Posted by: Fordesque || 03/21/2006 19:04 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
"You ain't got mail"
The FBI's office in New York is supposed to be on the front line of America's defences against terrorism, but it is so strapped for cash it cannot afford email accounts for its agents, according to a news report yesterday.
"As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dotgov accounts," Mark Mershon, the assistant director of the New York city office told the Daily News.

Chuck Schumer, a Democratic New York senator, said: "FBI agents not having email or internet access is much too much a pre-9/11 mentality." The FBI's headquarters said the issue was not one of money but bureaucracy. A spokeswoman said email addresses were still being assigned and all New York agents should be online by the end of the year.
Not a big surprise, I'll bet the majority of their IT budget continues to be sucked up by this monster:
WASHINGTON — Two companies that will share in a new FBI computer contract were singled out in a government audit Monday that questioned $17 million in the agency's computer overhaul. The FBI and its contractors share the blame for $10 million in questionable costs and for 1,205 pieces of missing computer equipment valued at $7.6 million, the Government Accountability Office said in its review of the FBI's Trilogy program.

Two of those companies, CACI and Computer Sciences Corp., are part of the Lockheed Martin Corp. team that last week won a six-year, $305 million contract to build and run the FBI's Sentinel computerized case management system. The total value of the Sentinel project is $425 million. FBI officials said they were applying the lessons learned in the Trilogy computer upgrade, including keeping tighter reins on their contractors. Sentinel is the replacement for the failed project that was to have been the final piece of Trilogy.
What's the over/under for Sentinal failing as well?
The questionable costs included first-class air travel for government contractors, excessive overtime and $5.5 million in charges that lacked substantiation, the report by Congress' investigative and audit agency said.
Fred, you really need to get a piece of this
The FBI was "highly vulnerable to payments of unallowable costs" because of lax oversight, auditors said.

El Segundo, Calif.-based Computer Sciences, or CSC, was the principal contractor in the effort to put in place a high-speed, secure computer network and 30,000 new desktop computers for the FBI. CACI of Arlington, Va., essentially reported to CSC. Auditors identified a $456,211 invoice from CACI for which CSC never received sufficient evidence, but paid anyway. "It's not what we asked for but at this point it doesn't really matter. Approve it," one CSC employee wrote another in an e-mail exchange that was included in the GAO report.

In another bill from CSC to the FBI, all but $44,000 of a $1.95 million invoice was listed as "other direct costs" with no additional explanation provided.
Auditors also identified as excessive the $52,000 CACI spent on 60,000 pens that were custom-made for FBI computer training sessions.
That's only 86 cents a pen.

CSC spokesman Chuck Taylor said his company complied with its contract, using first-class travel only to accommodate last-minute schedule changes when lower fares were not available. CSC's billings were within approved limits, Taylor said. CACI did not immediately comment Monday.

A separate report last week from Justice Department inspector general Glenn A. Fine warned that costs could again get out of hand unless the FBI puts strong controls in place. Bureau officials have said they are doing just that. "The lessons learned from the Trilogy program are guiding us, and the FBI continues to strengthen our internal controls," said FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan.

The CSC unit that worked on Trilogy will not be part of the Sentinel project, Milhoan said. CACI will provide training for new system, as it did for Trilogy, she said.

The FBI has since accounted for more than 1,000 of the missing desktop and laptop computers, printers and servers, she said. The bureau also will seek repayment of inappropriate charges identified by a final audit of Trilogy that has yet to be finished, Milhoan said.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 11:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yep, smellz like BS.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Might be BS but it might be a political stunt.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 12:51 Comments || Top||

#3  I dunno, how does this differ from any IT SAP style project in the private sector I have been subjected to? It's only by a matter of degree.
Posted by: capsu78 || 03/21/2006 13:42 Comments || Top||

#4  C78

Would you mind translating your
...differ from any IT SAP style project ...
for me. I've been in IT so long that there's no such thing as a single translation for any acronym and SAP has special meaning to me.
Thanks
Posted by: AlanC || 03/21/2006 14:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn it, man, if the FBI can't get spam like the rest of us, where is this post-9/11 world going?

Chucky Schumer = puke
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:44 Comments || Top||

#6  how does this differ from any IT SAP style project in the private sector

Trust me, nobody can spend more money, burn more manyears and show less for it than the Federal government. I lost count of how many IT programs were going to be ready "any day now" during my AF career that crashed and burned. Most common cause is trying to code it in-house instead of buying something off the shelf. Next is they keep changing requirements and adding stuff. For example: Troubled AF systems are kept alive by 'generous' lawmakers
(From 1995) Congressional meddling and slow Air Force progress on a new aircraft maintenance system have left the service's wing units with a trio of old, unreliable systems that will not be replaced before 1997. Evidence of the ongoing support for the problem-plagued systems is buried in the House and Senate fiscal 1996 Defense appropriations bills. Both the House and Senate added roughly $28 million in unrequested funds to the bills for the three old systems and a new one, the Integrated Maintenance Data System (IMDS), that is intended to replace them.
Both houses have passed their versions of the bill and are scheduled to meet for conference negotiations any day.

The old systems are the Core Automated Maintenance System (CAMS), the Reliability and Maintainability Information System (REMIS) and Tactical Interim CAMS/REMIS Reporting System (TICARRS). Eventually, the service plans to replace all three with IMDS. In 1982, the Standard Systems Group at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., began developing CAMS, which gathers maintenance data on aircraft, electronic equipment and other assets at 109 Air Force bases. REMIS, which is designed to process, store and retrieve performance and readiness information based on data generated by CAMS, was built under a contract awarded to Litton Computer Systems in Dayton, Ohio, in 1986. The management of both programs was consolidated by the Air Force in December 1991.
TICARRS, a standalone system that predates CAMS and REMIS, was designed by Dynamics Research Corp. in Andover, Mass., and is limited to tracking maintenance and parts data for F-16, F-15 and F-117 combat aircraft.


This one crashed so bad the AF deleted all mention of it. Next:
Bowthorpe wins significant aerospace software contract from US Air Force - 10 February 2000

Bowthorpe plc, the international electronics company, today announces that its aerospace business has won a significant contract for its GOLD™ software system in support of the United States Air Force ('USAF'). The USAF has selected GOLD for the next development stage of its new Integrated Maintenance Data System ('IMDS'), which, when fully developed and deployed, will centralise the management of maintenance and parts inventory for the entire USAF global fleet of 6,800 aircraft. The new licence agreement expands the role of GOLD within IMDS and builds upon its utilisation at the initial design stage of the programme. Further significant GOLD licences have been agreed and are expected upon successful completion of operational tests and evaluation


Flash forward to Dec 2002:

NEEDHAM, Mass. – The U.S. Air Force has awarded General Dynamics Network Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), a contract to support the Integrated Maintenance Data System (IMDS) Functional Baseline at Maxwell AFB Gunter Annex, in Montgomery, Ala. The base award is valued at $2.7 million with options that could total $9.8 million. The IMDS task order calls for General Dynamics to support the Air Force in developing a single functional baseline for five maintenance information systems as a new IMDS architecture is developed. The new architecture will integrate existing legacy systems supporting Air Force maintenance management and reporting activities into a single, modern open system, supporting nearly 150,000 Air Force personnel worldwide.


It looks like someone finally got it working, far as I can tell. God, I hated CAMS.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  I went to a panel discussion for alumni of my business school a bit over a year ago. The topic was using your business background in government service as many of us were interested in seeing how we could 'do something' post 9/11.

The most impressive speaker (in terms of career accomplishments, bearing, intelligence, etc.) was a guy who had been a major exec at IBM when it was turned around. He was retired by 9/11 and asked to come to the FBI to help modernize their systems after the 9/11 post mortem revealed agents were not sharing across offices, etc.

He was by far the most frustrated, negative speaker of the lot. He said the FBI people were smart, but the system was dysfunctional. He said he had to wait in a congressional office and get dissed by a 20-something staffer over $500k decisions that wound up taking 6 months. He contrasted this with his time turning around IBM where he could make multi million dollar moves on the spot and tell the board later.

I heard soon thereafter that he left the FBI. It was a depressing revelation to me. I decided to stay in the private sector.

No doubt Chucky's staff contributes to the problem as they, and their esteemed colleagues, politicize every dime of government spending.
Posted by: JAB || 03/21/2006 15:16 Comments || Top||

#8  In another bill from CSC to the FBI, all but $44,000 of a $1.95 million invoice was listed as "other direct costs" with no additional explanation provided.

That'll be for the hookers and booze..... Another training essential :)

Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 15:21 Comments || Top||

#9  A roundtable for ideas.

An apolitical dictator for results.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 15:22 Comments || Top||

#10  I don't know, but speaking from multiple experiences, any large scale top teir ERP/MRP project like an SAP implementation is huge risk. It all comes down to project management, but most/many companies that implement fail to understand the tool they are buying but more over how to implement the tool. The project manager is key in this.

And yes, SAP has a special meaning for most of us in the biz, usually of pure evil - though a cash cow from some!

For those not in the biz, SAP represents the largest, most complex 'commercially' availaibe ERP system on the planet. Enterprise Resource Planning / Manufacturing Resource Planning - large, complex, often fully integrated system which you use to plan and execute your business functions; such as: Purchasing, Inventory Control, Order Management, Accounting, etc

Often implementations of SAP (and others) fail. Large ones, esp SAP, tend to run 18, 36 even 48+ months with never a payback or full implementation.
Posted by: bombay || 03/21/2006 16:28 Comments || Top||

#11  Alan,

I am pretty sure he meant the SAP product given the context of the FBI installing the equivalent of an executive information system.
Posted by: DanNY || 03/21/2006 16:31 Comments || Top||

#12  Heh, Bombay, not only did you beat me to the draw but you gave a pretty good overall clarification for those not in the business.
Posted by: DanNY || 03/21/2006 16:32 Comments || Top||

#13  Why can't FBI agents use Google or Yahoo mail until the Government gets through its BS mode? The problem with most Government people is that they can't think outside their own tiny bit of the program. They have no concept of what goes on elsewhere, and the majority of them have so little curiousity they won't even look out the window to see if it's raining. IT isn't rocket science, but trying to reproduce paper systems online doesn't work. Trying to explain that to someone who's done the paperwork for 30 years is like trying to explain color to a man blind from birth - they just don't have a reference system they can use. It's amazing how quickly the military adapted to computer technology at the lower levels, and how long it took "upper management" to get on board.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 16:49 Comments || Top||

#14  O.P. Personally I wouldn't want the FBI relying on Google (of all people) for their email - you never know who might be looking at it. They are a lot little too LLL for my tastes.

OTOH what's wrong with MS Outlook or Lotus Notes? Heck even IMAP using SSL.... Giving people email isn't that difficult.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 17:31 Comments || Top||

#15  Steve-
Gawd, a fellow CAMS vet. I helped implement it at Langley AFB in the late 80s - we were ORDERED to throw out every piece of paper that we used in the old scheduling system, finding one in the section would be an IMMEDIATE write-up. On the Monday morning they first lit CAMS up, it crashed about three hours into the day and stayed that way for nearly four months.
Fortunately, this little Staff Sergeant had the smarts to stash several boxes of forms at his residence, and had them in the trunk that morning. The result was that two squadrons out of three couldn't even schedule a paper-clip changeout much less fix anything.
CAMS sucked swampwater when it DID work.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/21/2006 19:40 Comments || Top||

#16  Pathetic. I'd always envisioned (and hoped) that these guys had the best, or close to it. As a DOD logistics drone, looks like NMCI all over again. God Bless You All.

at
Posted by: Asymmetrical Triangulation || 03/21/2006 19:47 Comments || Top||

#17  As an American-taxer, I'm embarassed and very dissapointed, period.
Posted by: Spinens Snesh1941 || 03/21/2006 20:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Anti-War Artists Give Benefit Concert
Like, wow, man...
NEW YORK - Michael Stipe, Susan Sarandon, Cindy Sheehan and others marked the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with a concert to benefit groups campaigning against the war. Organizers of Monday night's "Bring 'Em Home Now!" concert said 3,000 tickets were sold.
Sounds like it was... Woodstock all over again!
"I was raised by peace activists," Moby announced to the crowd at Hammerstein Ballroom from a stage flanked by two oversized peace symbols. He then accompanied Laura Dawn in a rendition of Buffalo Springfield's Vietnam-era song, "For What It's Worth."
Moby and Laura Dawn. Wow. I'm sure everyone was mesmerized...
Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, gained international attention last summer with her monthlong protest outside President Bush's Texas ranch."It's awesome to me because there are more and more kids getting involved," Sheehan said before the concert.
...and it's another freebie for me over my dead kid's body!
Sarandon said artists were playing their part in the anti-war effort by attending the concert and through the movies Hollywood is producing.
Drumming up business. Good for you, Susan! The industry can use the help.
"Look at `Syriana,' look at `Good Night, and Good Luck,'" Sarandon said of two recent films that deal with issues of war and censorship.
Take that evil oil companies and Joe McCarthy!
The actress, who said she was in talks to portray Sheehan in a film, said the activist "gave a face to all that was going on."
...a butt ugly one.
Profits from the ticket sales will go to anti-war groups including Gold Star Families for Peace, which counts Sheehan among its founding members, and Veterans Against the War.
Far out! Okay, kids! Let's build some Big Giant Puppets!
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 11:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Moby was there?

Curse you, Captain Queeg! You let him get away!
Posted by: Mike || 03/21/2006 12:04 Comments || Top||

#2  "I was raised by peace activists," Moby announced

That explains a lot.
Posted by: Slaviting Glaviter6044 || 03/21/2006 12:43 Comments || Top||

#3  3000 is the best they could do - even with nearly a year of planning? Color me unimpressed and encouraged.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 03/21/2006 12:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Michael Stipe? Susan Sarandon? Moby?

How many tickets out of the 3000 were comped for that lineup?
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 13:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Based on their website, that is the max crowd for the Hammerstein Ballroom. This means that when planning, they assumed the maximum number of tickets they could sell was 3k. I suspect they knew that they would have a hard time filling a larger venue.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 13:12 Comments || Top||

#6  The funny thing is these a**hats don't give a s**t about the troops. I have no idea what they are really doing except using this as a reason to group grope.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/21/2006 13:55 Comments || Top||

#7  How many tickets out of the 3000 were comped for that lineup?

heh
Posted by: lotp || 03/21/2006 14:37 Comments || Top||

#8  I was doing my daily recon of the LLL sites and were disappointed by the numbers at the crowds last weekend. The new them is that people didn't attend because: A) ANSWER was stealing the show, B) Too many domestic (LLL M0Onb@t) issues, or C) they have become distinctively anti-Semitic and by golly that turns some Jewish people off. I would add that not too many Americans are rising up to be part of what is turning into an Anti-American movement.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 18:31 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Bin Laden Sought 'Joint Operations' With Saddam
An Iraqi intelligence document released last week indicates that Osama bin Laden sought to conduct "joint operations" with Saddam Hussein's regime six years before the 9/11 attacks - and was given the green light by the Iraqi dictator.

The document, detailed in the March 27 issue of the Weekly Standard, describes a Feb. 1995 meeting between bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence that was personally approved by "the Honorable Presidency" - an apparent reference to Saddam.

"We discussed with [bin Laden] his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda [who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality] and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz [Saudi Arabia]."
Rest at link.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 10:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, but there was no connection. Move along...
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 22:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Hillary As Popular As Herpes In Jersey
The Garden State spells big trouble for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who gets clobbered in 2008 New Jersey test runs by Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain, a new poll shows.

Giuliani slams Clinton in New Jersey 53 to 39 percent and McCain wallops her by 54 to 39 percent in the Quinnipiac University poll.

The poll could fuel Democratic doubts about Clinton because Democrats have been winning there. In his losing 2004 bid, John Kerry comfortably beat President Bush in New Jersey 53 to 46 percent.

Clinton gets clobbered despite the fact Bush is now very unpopular in New Jersey, with 65 percent of Garden Staters turning thumbs-down on the president.

Both McCain and Giuliani beat Clinton among women as well as men but she's weakest with men, losing to McCain by nearly 2-1 among men.

The March 8-14 poll surveyed 1,147 registered voters and has a 2.9-point error margin.

In New York, Clinton beat both McCain and Giuliani in a recent RasmussenReports.com survey.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 10:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When you have sexual political relations with that woman, you not only have relations with Hillary, but with everyone else that Bill came into contact with.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 11:02 Comments || Top||

#2  That's because we have to watch NYC talking heads who are much smarter than the average person orgasm on 5 different channels every time Hillary opens her pie hole.
It's enough to make anyone sick.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 03/21/2006 11:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Ed I think your wrong because I think it has been a LONG time since Bill hit that!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 11:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Ed, I thinnk that's only true through 1986.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 11:23 Comments || Top||

#5  C'mon, guys, I'm sure there's been someone the two of them have had in common.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 11:28 Comments || Top||

#6  I think Hillary would look good on a Snap-On Tools calender.
Posted by: SR-71 || 03/21/2006 12:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Thanks SR-71. I'm gonna need gallons of brain bleach to get that image out of my head.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#8  I think Rigid is more her speed.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 12:50 Comments || Top||

#9  Actually, Herpes outpolls Billary for president.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:48 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Troops Relax at Their Own Disney Resort
EFL

It's not exactly camouflaged, but just beyond a bamboo thicket near where the Monorail whisks tourists to the Magic Kingdom, the Army owns a resort with a critical wartime mission.

The 586-room Shades of Green at Walt Disney World Resort has no guard gate with saluting soldiers, no humvees in the parking lot. Except for five service flags out front, there's little hint of a military installation.

Here, the Army and its civilian staff must provide all the first-class dining, activities and service any family visiting Disney would expect. But the resort serves an exclusive clientele: active-duty service members, military retirees and reservists -- and their family members.

"The visit here has to be transparent; there should be no sign here that we're not Disney," says civilian general manager Jim McCrindle, who also is (according to regulations) the "installation commander."

The Army and its civilian staff also must provide a quiet retreat for military families with a husband or wife who is returning from combat or preparing to go. McCrindle says he sees "various stages of relaxation" among the guests, noting that "a soldier has a certain look when they've been in a combat zone -- the stare."

He said he often sees couples touched by combat slowly walking the grounds just talking. After seven to 10 days, he says, tensions ease, loud noises seem bearable to the combat veterans, and the vacationers blend with the rest, joining the morning rush to breakfast and buses to EPCOT or Disney-MGM Studios.

Providing "R&R" for all service members is a job the Army takes seriously, having opened four such getaways around the world since World War II.

And accommodations at Shades of Green are nothing like barracks. A standard room comes with two queen beds, a balcony overlooking Disney's championship Palm golf course and a spacious clay-tiled bathroom.

But the ultimate lure, guests say, are the rates, which start low and rise with rank. An Army private or Air Force airman pays $77 per night for that standard room; a colonel pays $106. The same room would cost about $250 at a nearby comparable private resort such as Disney's Polynesian Resort.

The Army has invested more than $130 million in Shades of Green, and it reports that every penny came from money raised at its resorts.

The Army has doubled the resort's size in 10 years. It operated at 95 percent capacity for 2005, with the average stay lasting five days with three people per room. In all, Shades of Green served about 150,000 guests last year.

A recent $90 million expansion included about $6 million for features that comply with government "defense of force" standards. They include a 170-camera security system and a detached parking garage designed to insulate the lodge from an explosion.

The Army paid $43 million for the resort structures in 1996 and signed a 100-year lease for the land.

Again, the Army reports, the costs -- including a two-year closing and renovation from 2002 to 2004 -- were covered by the lodging, food and drink payments from service members.

As for the name Shades of Green? It refers to the hue in most of the services' ground combat uniforms, McCrindle says.

"We couldn't call it the Pink Orchid," he said. "We couldn't call it 'The M-16 Stopover' either."
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 10:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks, Desert Blondie. I'm glad to know we've got something special for the troops to enjoy with their families.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:29 Comments || Top||

#2  As inspiring and heartening as this story is, it's one I hope the media does not pick up and run with. You know what the results would be, ranging from claims of elitism to turning the site into a venue for demonstrations.

If there is one thing that galls (the nicest word I could find) above all others, from my point of view, it is the bald-faced lies told by everyone on the Left regards supporting the troops. Mr Badanov has captured the gist of their real wish: dead Americans. The more, the better. Mere chips in the game, but powerfully emotional chips to be played for partisan purposes. A pox on them all.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 15:54 Comments || Top||

#3  I hope enlisted personnel have priority.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 16:12 Comments || Top||

#4  something good and deserved for the troops? SSsshhhh or it'll be a campaign weapon for Feingold or any other anti-military puke
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 17:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Was there about three years ago. Nice place, not far from The Floridian.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/21/2006 19:20 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Abu Ghraib Dog Handler Found Guilty
A jury found an Army dog handler guilty Tuesday of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by terrifying them with a military dog, allegedly for his own amusement. Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, was found guilty of six of 13 counts. He had faced the stiffest potential sentence of any soldier charged so far in the Abu Ghraib scandal. He was charged with 13 offenses and faces up to 24 1/2 years in prison if convicted on all counts. The seven jurors - four officers and three enlisted soldiers - began deliberating Friday after four days of testimony.

The government contends that Smith, of the 523rd Military Police Detachment, Fort Riley, Kan., used his dog to intimidate five prisoners for fun and competed with another canine handler trying to make detainees soil themselves.
The other dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 31, of Fullerton, Calif., is to stand trial May 22.

In closing arguments Friday, a prosecutor said Smith had violated two tenets of his training: treat prisoners humanely and use the minimum amount of force needed to ensure compliance. The defense argued that Smith was a good soldier who had done what he was supposed to do by having his dog bark at prisoners in a dangerous, chaotic environment where policies were so fuzzy that even the general who supervised interrogations testified he felt confused.

Smith was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with five counts of maltreatment of detainees, four counts of assault, two counts of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, one count of dereliction of duty and one count of indecency. Nine other soldiers have been convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib. Among them, former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the stiffest sentence - 10 years in prison.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 10:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Poor dog, handled by a moron and staring a smelly terr in the face.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Smith's description is an accepted US and international interrogation and intimidation technique unless as charged or the dog was allowed to bite the prisoner. Furthermore, he's a Sergeant - as such he follows any interrogation protocols he was given. Ordinary Sergeants are not supposed to conduct such types of interrogations on their own unless in the presence of an officer(s); or being watched by an officer(s) andor senior NCO's. For Officers, espec for commanders, it is not a defense that policies were "fuzzy" as officers know their actions and decisions, or lack thereof, will be scrutinized above enlisted personnel.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 20:21 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Some U.S. officials fear Iran is helping Al Qaeda
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials, already focused on Iran's potential for building nuclear weapons, are struggling to solve a more immediate mystery: the murky relationship between the new Tehran leadership and the contingent of Al Qaeda leaders residing in the country.

Some officials, citing evidence from highly classified satellite feeds and electronic eavesdropping, believe the Iranian regime is playing host to much of Al Qaeda's remaining brain trust and allowing the senior operatives freedom to communicate and help plan the terrorist network's operations. And they suggest that recently elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be forging an alliance with Al Qaeda operatives as a way to expand Iran's influence or, at a minimum, that he is looking the other way as Al Qaeda leaders in his country collaborate with their counterparts elsewhere.

"Iran is becoming more and more radicalized and more willing to turn a blind eye to the Al Qaeda presence there," a U.S. counter-terrorism official said.
The accusations from U.S. officials about Iranian nuclear ambitions and ties to Al Qaeda echo charges that Bush administration figures made about Iraq in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.

Those charges about Iraq have been discredited. And in the case of Iran, some intelligence officials and analysts are unconvinced that Al Qaeda operatives are being allowed to plot terrorist acts. If anything, they suggest, the escalating tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq would logically cause Iran's Shiite government to crack down on Al Qaeda, whose Sunni leadership has denounced Shiites as infidels.

A U.S. intelligence official said he did not see any relaxation in Iran's restrictions on Al Qaeda members. "I'm not getting the sense that these people are free to roam, free to plot," the official said. Still, the official acknowledged that the relationship between Tehran and Al Qaeda officials within Iran was largely unknown to U.S. and allied intelligence, especially since Ahmadinejad's election last summer.

To some U.S. intelligence officials, what worries them most is what they don't know. "I don't need to exaggerate the difficulty in determining what these people are up to at any given moment," the intelligence official said. The U.S. counter-terrorism official was more blunt. "We don't have any intelligence going on in Iran. No people on the ground," he said. "It blows me away the lack of intelligence that's out there." U.S., European and Arab intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issues publicly.

Ties between Iran and Al Qaeda were highlighted by the Sept. 11 commission, which disclosed a wealth of details about such connections in its final report. The commission said Iran and Al Qaeda had worked together sporadically throughout the 1990s, trading secrets, including some related to making explosives. Iranian representatives to the United Nations did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

In November, the State Department's third-ranking official, Undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns, said the U.S. believed "that some Al Qaeda members and those from like-minded extremist groups continue to use Iran as a safe haven and as a hub to facilitate their operations."

A year ago, Iranian delegates to a global counter-terrorism conference circulated a document describing Iran as "a major victim of terrorism." The document blamed links between drug trafficking and terrorism for "thousands of security problems," especially along Iran's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda operatives and family members have lived in Iran for years, many since late 2001, when they fled the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan. Many other Al Qaeda figures fled to Pakistan — a U.S. ally — and are believed to be there still. Four months ago, Iran declared that no Al Qaeda members remained in the country, but U.S. officials reject the claim. At other times, Iranian officials said that Al Qaeda members were kept under house arrest and their activities monitored.

In Tehran, analysts said American officials were misreading Iran's intentions. The fact that the government has not heeded U.S. demands to turn over Al Qaeda suspects should come as no surprise given the state of relations between the two countries, said Nasser Hadian, a political analyst at Tehran University.
"They won't. Why should they" without receiving something in return? he said.

Some of the suspects have been indicted in the United States in connection with terrorist attacks, including the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, but Iran has refused to extradite them. Among them is Saif Adel, believed to be one of the highest-ranking members of Al Qaeda, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri. Whatever restrictions might be placed on the network's activities within Iran, Adel — who has a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head — was able last year to post a lengthy dispatch about Al Qaeda activities in Iran and Iraq that was widely circulated on the Internet. U.S. intelligence officials consider the posting authentic.

In the dispatch, Adel said he had used hide-outs in Iran to plot with Abu Musab Zarqawi to make Iraq the new battleground in the group's war against the United States. Iran had detained many of Zarqawi's men, Adel wrote, but they ultimately slipped into Iraq and began attacking U.S. forces. U.S. officials say intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda operatives have engaged in at least some terrorist planning from Iran, including Adel's alleged orchestration of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in May 2003 and the masterminding of several attacks in Europe.

For several years, the U.S. counter-terrorism official said, satellite feeds have helped officials monitor some of the day-to-day activities and movements of Adel and other senior Al Qaeda operatives in Iran. The intelligence suggests that the Al Qaeda leaders have been monitored by Iranian authorities but could move and communicate somewhat, the official said.

U.S. officials also said that other senior Al Qaeda figures — including Zarqawi, now the group's point man in Iraq — had moved in and out of Iran with the possible knowledge or complicity of Iranian officials. The Al Qaeda members in Iran include three of Bin Laden's sons. Some of his wives and other relatives are suspected of being there as well, as is Al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith, U.S. officials say.

Of special concern, they said, is the number of Al Qaeda operatives in Iran who are of Egyptian descent and loyal to Zawahiri, the Cairo-born physician who merged his Egyptian Islamic Jihad with Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks. Adel is a former Egyptian police official. In addition, U.S. officials confirmed intelligence showing that three other Al Qaeda operatives with Egyptian roots — Abdallah Mohammed Rajab Masri, also known as Abu Khayer; Abdel Aziz Masri; and Abu Mohamed Masri — are in Iran. Authorities believe them to be, respectively, the head of Al Qaeda's leadership council, a biological weapons expert who heads the network's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction; and its top explosives expert and training camp chief.

The U.S. counter-terrorism official said the Egyptians' presence was troubling because Tehran for more than a decade has supported Egypt's two largest militant groups — Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gamaa al Islamiya — in their violent campaign to topple the Cairo government.

Though the Sunni-Shiite divide has prompted Tehran in the past to say it had "no affinity" with Al Qaeda, U.S. officials believe there is a history of cooperation between Iran and some Sunni militant groups, including Al Qaeda. Iran nurtures such ties, they say, to enhance its regional influence and punish Arab political foes through intimidation and violence.

Bin Laden sent Adel and others to Iran and Lebanon in the early 1990s to learn bomb making from Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah, the Iran-affiliated militant group, U.S. officials say. They fear he and other Egyptians may still have ties with Iran's military and intelligence services.

The Sept. 11 commission concluded that Iran had harbored Al Qaeda operatives wanted in the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa and other terrorist attacks.
It quoted one top Al Qaeda official as saying Iran had made a "concerted effort to strengthen relations with Al Qaeda" after the 2000 attack on the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen.

Imprisoned top Al Qaeda operatives also have told U.S. officials that Iran let Islamic militants traveling to and from Afghanistan and Pakistan pass freely across its borders without passport stamps — including at least eight of the 19 future Sept. 11 hijackers, the nowdisbanded commission said. The panel strongly urged the Bush administration and Congress to investigate the ties between Iran and Al Qaeda. Recently, commission member Timothy Roemer said in an interview that Washington still had not adequately addressed those ties.

U.S. and allied intelligence agencies say that, more recently, they have picked up indications of closer cooperation. The intelligence includes European wiretaps of militants discussing how Iranian officials would help them or look the other way.

U.S. officials fear Ahmadinejad may be strengthening ties with Al Qaeda with the help of Iranian intelligence and military agencies, particularly the Revolutionary Guards. The intelligence official and others noted that Ahmadinejad himself rose through the ranks of the guards, an elite military unit. U.S. government officials have accused the guards of financing and orchestrating terrorist acts in the region by groups including Hezbollah, which is suspected of blowing up U.S. military facilities and embassies in the 1980s and killing hundreds of Americans.

Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, who receives classified briefings on Iran, said U.S. intelligence indicated that Tehran was engaged in some kind of collaboration with Al Qaeda leaders.
"The cooperation is substantial," Sherman said. "Key operatives of the most successful terrorist organization in history are spending their time in the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism…. That is of massive concern."

U.S. officials fear that an Iranian hard-line faction or even a rogue official could conspire with Al Qaeda or provide access to the country's military arsenal. Despite the mutual antipathy between Sunnis and Shiites, some U.S. officials argue that the Iranian regime and Al Qaeda share a common enemy — the United States — and that both oppose the establishment of a pro-Western democracy in Iraq.

John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, told Congress on Feb. 2 that Iran was engaged in a broad campaign "to disrupt the operations and reinforcement of United States forces based in the region, potentially intimidating regional allies into withholding support for United States policy toward Iran and raising the costs of our regional presence" for the U.S. and its allies.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 09:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “U.S. intelligence officials…on Iran's potential for…Some officials…believe the Iranian regime…And they suggest that…may be forging…a U.S. counter-terrorism official said…The accusations from U.S. officials…some intelligence officials and analysts …they suggest…A U.S. intelligence official said…the official said…the official acknowledged that … Al Qaeda officials... To some U.S. intelligence officials, what worries them most is what they don't know…the intelligence official said…U.S., European and Arab intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issues publicly…said the U.S. believed…and are believed to be…analysts said…American officials…U.S. intelligence officials consider…U.S. officials say intelligence suggests…the U.S. counter-terrorism official said…The intelligence suggests…the official said….U.S. officials also said…with the possible knowledge or complicity of Iranian officials…are suspected of…U.S. officials say…U.S. officials…Authorities believe…The U.S. counter-terrorism official said…U.S. officials believe…U.S. officials say…operatives also have told U.S. officials…U.S. and allied intelligence agencies say…they have picked up indications…U.S. officials fear…may be…The intelligence official and others…U.S. government officials have accused…which is suspected…U.S. intelligence indicated…U.S. officials fear…could conspire…U.S. officials argue…potentially intimidating…”
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/21/2006 12:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Whaddaya mean "fear"?

KNOW would be more accurate.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Some fear? Why are the rest so obtuse?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I suggest "pissed". Normally not a word I favor, but it certainly fits in this instance. Any US Official who "fears" Al Qaeda should be dismissed without hesitation or recourse.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 15:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Methinks this one needs a surprise meter...
Posted by: DanNY || 03/21/2006 16:35 Comments || Top||

#6  To some U.S. intelligence officials, what worries them most is what they don't know.

Ya think?
Yeah, put me on that list too...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 16:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Some U.S. officals fear the Pope may be Catholic....


.... Film at 11!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 17:32 Comments || Top||

#8  DG, find a new schtick. This one is getting old.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/21/2006 19:23 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Taiwan Creates Its Own Smart Bombs
March 21, 2006: The U.S. has refused to sell Taiwan aircraft weapons that could be used to attack China. In particular, this means no radar homing (AGM-88C HARM) missiles and JDAM smart bombs. Both could be used to demolish Chinese anti-aircraft defenses. Late last year, it was agreed that refusing the HARM made some practical sense as well, because the new Chinese air defense systems (the Russian SA-10 series) has a long range radar that could detect and nail a HARM carrying aircraft, before the HARM could be launched.

To get around this refusal, Taiwan has been building their own version of the American JSOW (Joint Stand Off Weapon) Also called the AGM-154A, the Taiwanese version is called the Wan Chien. Taiwan recently made a very public announcement about Wan Chien, which was another way of sending a "don't attack us" message to China.

JSOW is basically a smart bomb with wings. That enables it to glide up to 70 kilometers from the aircraft dropping it, to a target on the ground. Range is about 25 kilometers if dropped from low altitude. JSOW also contains more elaborate fins and software that enables it to follow a specific route. Like the wingless JDAM smart bomb, JSOW uses GPS and inertial guidance (as a backup) to find its target. Like JDAM, JSOW hits within 30 feet of its aiming point. The U.S. pays about $250,000 for each JSOW. The Taiwanese could use their Wan Chien. JSOW as a form of HARM to take out the latest Chinese air defense radars, by adding additional sensors to the guidance system.

Taiwan is also building its own version of HARM, called Tien Chien 2A. JDAM technology is a lot simpler than these two other projects, and Taiwan could easily design and build its own. Refusing to sell them just costs the U.S. export sales. On the other hand, it allows the United States to tell China that it didn't sell JDAM to Taiwan, thus defusing tensions over Taiwan. In reality, of course, Taiwan can just go build their own JDAM, which they will probably do.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 09:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good for them.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Surprise the Taiwanese aren't working in the background with the Israelis. Both know that they can not count on others to back them when the chips are down because of politics in their 'friends' countries.
Posted by: Therese Omavimp4314 || 03/21/2006 10:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Bravo, Taiwan. Next up should be a tidy little dam buster for Three Gorges. It's about time China got a nice slap in the face.

On reflection, this is much like Israel versus all the Arab states around it. Here's tiny Taiwan holding at bay (with our help) gigantic China. What a splendid thumb in the eye for China. This standoff must really frost the politburo's collective sphincters.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 11:04 Comments || Top||

#4  TO: Surprise the Taiwanese aren't working in the background with the Israelis.

The Israelis are too busy selling to the Chinese. That's a relationship worth billions, much more than they're ever going to get from the penny-pinching Taiwanese.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 03/21/2006 11:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Scratch....
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:26 Comments || Top||

#6  an isolationist....
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#7  them tai chi wordz 6er
Posted by: jonesin || 03/21/2006 13:02 Comments || Top||

#8  Taiwan should also make an s-load of the cheapest possible medium-range (500 mile) missiles carrying ordinary high explosives. "Fat" missiles with perhaps 2000-lb. warheads.

The reason being that there are four major cities facing Taiwan on the mainland, in otherwise mountainous terrain. Each of these cities would act as a hub to transport weapons used against Taiwan. So if those four cities were reduced to rubble, only smaller "maintenance" attacks would be needed to radically increase the degree of difficulty for the mainland to attack Taiwan.

A more accurate guidance system would prevent any efforts by the mainland to blockade Taiwan, and with a time fuse would make a hella anti-sub weapon, once a sub had been detected with coastal sonar.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 13:28 Comments || Top||

#9  Any chinese speakers in the house that can translate "Wan Chien"?

I bet it's scary.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 16:28 Comments || Top||

#10  The ROC wouldn't hurt those cities. It would capture them if attacked!
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 17:56 Comments || Top||

#11  Everybody Wan Chien tonight! Uh huh!
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 19:34 Comments || Top||

#12  Late last year, it was agreed that refusing the HARM made some practical sense as well, because the new Chinese air defense systems (the Russian SA-10 series) has a long range radar that could detect and nail a HARM carrying aircraft, before the HARM could be launched.

HARM has passive sensors. If the bird is low enough, SA-10 won't detect squat. Plus the PRC has IIRC only about 200 of them and they won't be sitting on the Taiwan Strait - they'll be around the leadership's bunkers.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/21/2006 19:52 Comments || Top||

#13  I wonder just how many nukes Taiwan has socked away here and there? We KNOW the Israelis have nukes. I'm sure Taiwan has at LEAST one, aimed at the Three Gorges Dam. Cleaning up after that would take all the energy China and ten other nations have. Just don't ask for OUR or Japan's help...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 23:24 Comments || Top||

#14  Aw, hell, OP - I'd give 'em a hand.

*golf clap*

See, that wasn't hard, now was it? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 23:28 Comments || Top||

#15  Wife isn't sure how to translate but suggests Wan Chien is closest in meaning to someing like I-Ching.

So "throw the dice".

A good name!
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 23:32 Comments || Top||


Iraq
When News Almost Isn't News
March 21, 2006: The initial document dump of captured Iraqi materials has already produced one major find. This is a letter reporting a discussion with Taliban leadership shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001. This is the second document to emerge that confirms a relationship between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda, the first being a memo recovered by a Toronto Star reporter in April, 2003, shortly after the liberation of Iraq.

These communications are something that has been denied by many who opposed the war. This, in conjunction with a mainstream media that is sympathetic to many in the anti-war movement, has meant that such evidence is often unreported on – or if it is reported, it usually is buried in the back pages – and then more effort is placed into dismissing the evidence. For instance, when ABCNews.com reported on this letter and three other documents, it made a point of minimizing the document's importance by citing Iraqi intelligence's refusal to disclose its source – and the refusal to name the Afghan consul with whom the source talked with. Of course, it fails to compare the Iraqi effort to protect sources with those of other intelligence agencies or even the new media.

This is not the first time the media has taken such great pains – and in a somewhat disingenuous manner. In 2004, three Fedayeen rosters were leaked to the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which apparently showed that Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi who attended the January 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, was working for Iraq. The Washington Post tried to make it look like a case of mistaken identity, but did not seem to notice that in Arabic, names can be spelled in a variety of different ways Wikipedia lists over 30 spellings for Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi's name.

In the 1980s, all this would simply have died down – but in the late 1980s, alternatives to the mainstream media began to emerge, starting with talk radio. In the mid-1990s, more alternative media sources began to come into their own, including internet-based sources, and media sources like Fox News Channel and the Weekly Standard. This began to get stories around the mainstream news outlets, a classic case being the debunking of the memos used by CBS in its 2004 report on President Bush's Air National Guard service – often forcing other mainstream media outlets to cover the story. The same will likely be the case with this new memo – as people will check it (and translations) out for themselves.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 09:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wikipedia lists over 30 spellings for Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi's name.

For 49 Pan, who is concerned about getting such things right. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:52 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Cindy Speaks!
To Joe Scarborough, MSNBC

SCARBOROUGH: And going back to the war again, though, and obviously you‘ve been critical of the Bush administration during Katrina, but I have supported this war.

SHEEHAN: I know you have.

SCARBOROUGH: But I want to expand out on your attitude not only towards this war, but other wars. That you think that the president was evil, do you think he was a terrorist when we went into Afghanistan? And you could ask the same question regarding civilian lives about FDR during World War II.

Certainly we killed hundreds of thousands of Germans, killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese. Do you think FDR was a terrorist there?

SHEEHAN: Actually, let me talk about Afghanistan first. 9/11 was a horrible time in American history and none of us will ever forget it. But Osama bin Laden and 16 Saudi Arabians that went through—a lot of them went through Dubai to get to America, they‘re the ones that perpetrated that crime against America, not the people of Afghanistan and not the people of Iraq.

And George Bush reacted inappropriately to that horrible event and Osama bin Laden is still at large, and he said he would get him dead or alive. And I think you go after the criminals, you don‘t go after innocent people.

SCARBOROUGH: So you oppose Afghanistan. Do you think FDR was a terrorist in World War II because hundreds of thousands of Germans and Japanese civilians died during those wars?

SHEEHAN: Well, let me tell you, Joe. I‘m a pacifist and I believe war is wrong. And if you look at the history, World War II happened because of World War I and the suppression and sanctions against the people of World War I. I‘m a total pacifist and I think finally now, this is the 21st century and we need to stop killing each other to solve problems, especially imaginary problems.

SCARBOROUGH: All right. Cindy, we certainly disagree, but like I said before, certainly our thoughts are with you. Thoughts and prayers are with you .
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 09:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The conservatives are keeping her alive because they need controversy and ratings. Sometimes the cable talking heads seem more like Pro Wrestling.
Posted by: Penguin || 03/21/2006 11:34 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't see how the wires can be so long? BuckBallium maybe?
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The Dude: And, you know, he's got emotional problems, man.
Walter Sobchak: You mean... beyond pacifism?
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 13:44 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Hillary Clinton to Bush: Send Military to Darfur
2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who says she was misled into voting for military intervention in Iraq, now wants the U.S. Air Force to lead an international coalition to stop the genocide in Darfur.
I think Special Forces would work better, but who am I to question the wisdom of her Highness
Mrs. Clinton, whose husband did nothing to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide, sent a letter to Bush on Thursday where she urges:

"The United States can and must do more." Clinton then adds helpfully: "Below are 13 ways in which you can take action."

1. Convene a meeting of world leaders to address the crisis in Darfur.
2. Appoint a Presidential Envoy to Sudan.
3. Lead the U.N. Security Council in authorizing a peacekeeping mission in Darfur
4. Support the African Union.
5. Enforce the no-fly zone
6. Lead the U.N. Security Council in enforcing Resolution 1591
7. Lead the U.N. Security Council in enforcing Resolution 1564
8. Ensure that the U.N. Security Council listens to the experts.
9. Stop the violence from spreading into Chad
10. Call publicly for better behavior from Khartoum.
11. Work with the U.N. Security Council to address attacks by rebel groups in Darfur
12. Plan for reconstruction in Darfur
13. Support reconstruction in southern Sudan


The letter, posted to Hillary's official Senate web site, says Bush should "convene, without delay, a meeting between leaders of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the African Union, and other interested world leaders, to map out an action-plan for Darfur."

Among the actions Hillary wants Bush to take: "Immediately enforce the ban on offensive overhead flights in Darfur that was established by Security Council Resolution 1591." Mrs. Clinton cited the expert military opinion of Sen. Joe Biden, who claims a U.S.-led coalition of the willing could enforce the no fly zone with "no more than 12 to 18 fighter planes and a handful of AWACs."
Add a dozen A-10s for ground attack and you got a plan. Oh, that's only if you plan on using them.
"Our continued failure on this issue is unacceptable," she declared.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 09:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Often just the presence of a force (say Apache heliocopters) can turn the tide in a regional conflict, if given enough time (9 months). Linking the posited Apache force with the threat of infantry is a war winner.

/BC
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Bush to Hillary: Okay, the first thing YOU do is go to the Pentagon, and ask them what they think of your brilliant schemes. Get it in writing, with their names signed to it. Literally everybody at the Pentagon who supports your idea should sign on.

Then forward that document to us. We'll get back to you about it.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  like i said, Hilarys got potential. Whats impressive is that she doesnt see a need for another UN resolution. Its striking in fact. What she needs to work on is getting better military advisors. I like Joe Biden, but a military expert hes not.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:30 Comments || Top||

#4  I'd feel better about the plan if it had a step called "9. Kill the m-----f-----s." Because that's what we're talking about, not "peacekeeping."
Posted by: Matt || 03/21/2006 9:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Joe Biden's a military expert?
I did not know that....
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 9:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Of course, then you have to get into the nitty-gritty details of HOW.... ;)

(For one, re: Hillary Clinton's citing Biden in using "no more than 12 to 18 fighter planes and a handful of AWACs" -- those would have to be fighter-bombers, presumably with more close air support capabilities.)
Posted by: Edward Yee || 03/21/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#7  One sniper team could solve the problem, just recind the order on assassinations and get the right one or two guys and the problem will resolve itself.

Either that or support partitioning the Sudan and watch the North clean up their act to avoid foreign involvement.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/21/2006 9:46 Comments || Top||

#8  She forgot to add:

14. Issue a strongly worded letter of comdemnation

This is all a bunch of Hillary-speak. In other words highly nuanced BS. Nowhere is there a step for, Take Action to end Massacres.
Posted by: TomAnon || 03/21/2006 9:50 Comments || Top||

#9  I don't like Hillary one bit, but she at least acknowledges that we have a military to use. Can not say that for the rest of the Democrats except Lieberman or Zell.
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/21/2006 10:04 Comments || Top||

#10  This is just Hillary trying to get to the right of W. Political opportunism. Probably wants the troops used in Darfur to come from Iraq.

Posted by: SR-71 || 03/21/2006 10:10 Comments || Top||

#11  she should go herself .. One gaze from that sour faced , snotty bitch will have the enemy turned to stone ..
Posted by: MacNails || 03/21/2006 10:12 Comments || Top||

#12  The left finds it easiest to advocate for war where there is no US interest.

Must be more, you know, noble.
Posted by: eLarson || 03/21/2006 10:14 Comments || Top||

#13  Cant do it on a conventional scale. The man power just isnt available. You can not send planes to bomb without ground controllers. This is a by product of the Serbian Air War. Best case would be to put Special Ops in and have them call in the air support. That, initself, is a risky option.

NATO troops are in Afghanistan right now... they will not come to join us in this UN endevor.

# 12 and 13.... I dont even want to think of the monetary sinkhole that will become.

Someone mentioned sending an Apache(s) helicopter to hang out there. Your right, this has an awesome effect but the logistics to keep them flying is no small feet and would require a base. Which would requre security, airfield, and lots of other things just to support an aviation unit.

Should something be done? Yes. Can we do it right now? No.
Posted by: armylife || 03/21/2006 10:19 Comments || Top||

#14  Hillary would probably be a good foreign policy president. She's a real bitch. She has lot's of anger with Bill she needs to work out. And she would not be able to get anything done domestically with any conceivable congress that would be elected. She'd be sure to start a war with Islam, and that could work out OK.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 10:20 Comments || Top||

#15  ArmyLife I was kinda making fun of the endless goosechase the Apache's were put thru during the late Balkans conflict. I think it would be senselss to do the same thing.

I need quality sarc tags, perhaps Meme Depot has 'em.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#16  So Hillary wants to send our military, allegedly over-streched, worn-out and demoralized, to interfere in the internal affairs of a nation which poses "no immediate threat" to America? Hah and Bah!

If you replace the African names and UN Resolution numbers in Hillary's 13 Step Plan with Iraq related ones, it sounds exactly the process we went thru that "misled" the Democrats into Iraq. Maybe someone can explain why involvement in Iraq is bad and involvement in Darfur is good?
Posted by: SteveS || 03/21/2006 10:32 Comments || Top||

#17  The Hillary Presidential campaign started.
Posted by: pescador || 03/21/2006 10:40 Comments || Top||

#18  Because, of course, wielding supreme, unilateral power is okay provided that the right woman party is wielding it. God, I hate "Democrats".
Posted by: BH || 03/21/2006 10:42 Comments || Top||

#19  1. What is the intended out come?
2. What force structure are you willing to commit and for how long?
3. How are you going to sustain the logistical support for any force deployed?
4. What rules of engagement are the uniformed military permitted?
5. When things go wrong are you going to pull out immediately or make adjustments to achieve the goals specified in point 1?
6. How many lives both our military and Sudanese civilians can we count before you think its a good idea to execute point 5?

Just asking. Since these are the items you and your backers have been whining about for a couple years. We hold you to the same standards you have held others before cause we don't believe in one set of rules for others and a separate set of rules for you.
Posted by: Therese Omavimp4314 || 03/21/2006 10:44 Comments || Top||

#20  Did I miss something or did she omit the step of getting Congressional war making authority?

Oh yeah, does she say WHY the UN is going to be anymore staunch on Darfur then they have been up to now? Where's her appeal to the EU?

This is nothing more than typical Democrap BS. Blah.
Posted by: AlanC || 03/21/2006 10:49 Comments || Top||

#21  Will the military be allowed to kick butt? Or is it just blow and no show?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 10:50 Comments || Top||

#22  Bill the the blow and no show thingee.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 10:57 Comments || Top||

#23  "Maybe someone can explain why involvement in Iraq is bad and involvement in Darfur is good?"

well i supported our involvement in Iraq, but heres one difference. Theres actually an ongoing genocide in Darfur we could prevent, while in Iraq the genocide was not ongoing in 2003 (though of course there were still dissidents being killed)
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 11:01 Comments || Top||

#24  What, no exit strategy? This is a plan? WTF!
Posted by: john || 03/21/2006 11:07 Comments || Top||

#25  I say,"Send Hillary to Darfur!"
Posted by: doc || 03/21/2006 11:08 Comments || Top||

#26  So what are the Darfor-force advocates saying? We should redeploy away from the border of Iran and put all these forces in the middle of the Sahara instead?
Posted by: Phil || 03/21/2006 11:13 Comments || Top||

#27  Too cruel, doc. For the Darfurians, I mean.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 11:14 Comments || Top||

#28  So, how soon after intervention can we count on them shouting, "quagmire!"? If the democrats are not prepared to get some actual killing done, they can STFU. Intervention is not enough. We need to snuff janjaweed with some AC-130 weed whackers.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 11:18 Comments || Top||

#29  That pic draws 'em like bees to honey.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 11:25 Comments || Top||

#30  This is nuts. We're about to start all-out bombing raids on Iran - and Hillary wants to have the Air Force carry out sorties over the Sudan? We did not do any of this humanitarian war stuff when we had a force three times the size during the Cold War. But we're supposed to start doing it with our much diminished forces today? While our people are flying missions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And prepping for the big game in North Korea and Iran?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 03/21/2006 11:26 Comments || Top||

#31  Did Scrappleface hijacked Newsmax?
Posted by: Swiss Tex || 03/21/2006 11:33 Comments || Top||

#32  But we're supposed to start doing it with our much diminished forces today?

That's called: Writing a check with your mouth and expecting someone else's ass to cash it.
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/21/2006 11:48 Comments || Top||

#33  Iraq, Afganistan and maybe Iran were/will be due to a percieved threat to this country and its people therefore justified. Darfur is not a threat to us we are not the worlds police.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/21/2006 11:56 Comments || Top||

#34  An obvious attempt to out Condi, Condi and further solidify ethnic opinion and votes against President Bush and the republicans. The people of the Empire State should rightly be very proud of their US Senator from Arkanasas. I would add one more to the list:

14. Anticipating the total failure of points 1 through 13, plan to henceforth and forever more stay the hell out of African politics.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/21/2006 12:33 Comments || Top||

#35  For a long time, people in Darfur were dying at a rate of 6000-10000 per day. More meetings and resolutions will ensure they continue dying.

I can't stand Hillary, but if she has great persuasive power and can get the commitment of France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Britain for IMMEDIATE MILITARY ACTION against the Sudanese janjaweed, then great. No talk, no resolutions, no meetings-just military action. Dems have been whining since the begining of the Iraq War about building consensus and getting our international partners to join us? OK-let's so what you can do, Hil. As soon as France and company commit bombs, planes and soldiers, we're all ears.
Posted by: Jules || 03/21/2006 13:17 Comments || Top||

#36  Please refrain from putting us Brits in the same category as France , Jules :)
But in essence your arguement is quite correct
Posted by: MacNails || 03/21/2006 13:39 Comments || Top||

#37  Good point. Sorry. MacNails.
Posted by: Jules || 03/21/2006 13:50 Comments || Top||

#38  A bigger error: make that 6000-10000 per MONTH. Third blog mistake of the day-I better wake up a bit before writing more.
Posted by: Jules || 03/21/2006 13:53 Comments || Top||

#39  You've just established an unjumpable gate, Jules. The [non-British] EU countries aren't actually going to do anything -- they prefer playing the Pontius Pilate role, wringing their hands and watching the disaster. But that absolutely is the best answer to Senator Clinton's (or anyone posturing for effect's) adventurism: "Show us your international coalition!"
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:01 Comments || Top||

#40  First she's telling Billary what to do, now she's tellin' Bush what to do.

A woman's place is behind the stove cookin' dinner for hubby and finding his slippers and newspaper.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:36 Comments || Top||

#41  Biden? A military expert?

Dear God, the only thing he's expert at is getting hair plugs planted in his pate and blowing gas.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:39 Comments || Top||

#42  Cant do it on a conventional scale. The man power just isnt available.

And she wants Bush to admit that so she can pound him for it, saying Iraq was a mistake &/or has been mismanaged.

Captain American, with all DUE respect, the rest deleted.

Let's just say I disagree strongly with that ridiculous last comment. ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 03/21/2006 14:40 Comments || Top||

#43  Jules,

You forgot China's permission. Gotta have all the SC members or it's a nogo.
Posted by: AlanC || 03/21/2006 14:47 Comments || Top||

#44  Surely you mean, "in front of the stove," my dear Captain A. Behind the stove is where the stovepipe meets the chimney, and is of no use for cooking supper or anything else. Oh, and you forgot your /sarcasm tag.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:47 Comments || Top||

#45  Hillary's got balls and she's willin to use 'em.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/21/2006 15:12 Comments || Top||

#46  A woman's place is behind the stove cookin' dinner for hubby me and finding his my fuzzy pink slippers and newspaper trashy magazine.

Here, Captain, fixed it for ya. ;)
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 15:16 Comments || Top||

#47  Sure, Hill - we'll send troops to Darfur.

We've got plenty of extras being wasted in the Balkans. And we all know that the EUnichs can certainly handle any small problems in their own back yard. Them being superior and all that.

Asshole.

If anyone really wants to solve the problem in Darfur, let's arm the genocidees. Heavily.

You know - it's that right of self-defense thing.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:25 Comments || Top||

#48  You know - it's that right of self-defense thing.

Just try to get a Democrat to admit any such thing exists.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 16:02 Comments || Top||

#49  Yes, but... Desert Blondie, in your condition you should get everything you want... immediately. And all the nice and loving things that haven't occurred to you yet, as well.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 16:19 Comments || Top||

#50  Man, CA, talking about putting a kick me sign on your own back!
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 16:33 Comments || Top||

#51  Frank, I'm a man with big shoulders and such. Besides, depending on which audience Billary is playing to, one could find her doing the domestic chores.

And, by the way, shouldn't we not diminish the importance of those who do opt to stay home and do the real work?

For a moment there, I thought ya'll were taking exception to by comments about Commander Hairplugs Biden.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 17:03 Comments || Top||

#52  Slow Joe Biden the plagiarist? I think they drilled too deep for those plugs - disabled all but the ego in the cranium
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 17:29 Comments || Top||

#53  Thanks, tw. The Tsar is being a sweetheart, even though my mood swings are right up there with any teenage girl's.

I don't think either one of us can wait till October! ;)

(CA knows I'm just kidding, anyway. I just couldn't resist when he put it that way...)
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 17:42 Comments || Top||

#54  Cut off all food aid to Darfur.

Once UN troops find there are starving wimmin and children they can be boning the UN will get enough troops for Darfur.

Plus if enough starve, the left can enjoy watching people die in a peaceful and euphoric way, just like Shiavo.

A twofer!
Posted by: badanov || 03/21/2006 19:05 Comments || Top||

#55  Badanov:

Interesting perspective! I'm not sure if the UN "piece" keepers or Billary will be the first in line to "attend" to the afflicted. Bill surely would feel their pain.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 19:44 Comments || Top||

#56  Desert Blondie, hold on to your hat -- the mood swings get worse after. Add 3-6 months of inadequate sleep to the hormones finding new ways to swing, especially if you don't breast feed. (The hormones produced when you nurse are actually very calming for both mother and child.) Tell him now that you will mean it when you yell at him later, but that you really are sorry, and that you know it'll be hormones and exhaustion when he yells back in self-defense. And after that you'll look back on it all and remember all the good bits... the bad bits are just cost of living, I promise. *hug*
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 20:55 Comments || Top||


Europe
32 Indicted in Spain for Courthouse Plot
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A Spanish judge indicted 32 people for allegedly plotting to drive a truck packed with explosives into a courthouse that has been the hub of anti-terrorism investigations, authorities said Tuesday. The 32 men, mostly Algerians, were charged with membership in a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack and forgery of public documents, Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska said in his March 13 ruling.

The suspects include Mohamed Achraf, the alleged mastermind who was extradited from Switzerland to Spain in April. Spanish authorities suspect Achraf was planning to ram a truck loaded with 1,100 pounds of explosives into the court in downtown Madrid.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's past time to make document forgery a serious offense, with commensurate punishment. Carrying multiple passports, whether or not of the collectible Pakistan-made type, ceased to be an amusing eccentricity post-9/11 (yes, I realize that all the 9/11 gents were carrying legitimate passports, but the principle still holds).
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:16 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
N. Korea Suggests It Can Strike U.S. First
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North's official news agency. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat. "As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike," the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States."
Just remember, you never get a second chance to make a first strike
Last week, the communist country warned that it had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it would strengthen its war footing before joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this weekend. The spokesman also said it would be a "wise" step for the United States to cooperate on nuclear issues with North Korea in the same way it does with India.

Earlier this month, President Bush signed an accord in India that would open some of its atomic reactors to international inspections in exchange for U.S. nuclear know-how and atomic fuel. The accord was reached even though New Delhi has not signed the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. North Korea has withdrawn from the treaty.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They have a dead wish. If they strke the US , they will became a radio-active desert for the next two or three centuries.
Posted by: pescador || 03/21/2006 9:36 Comments || Top||

#2  For some reason, while reading this brief article, I had an odd recollection back to an unrelated maxim I once heard - to the effect "any ship can be a minesweeper - once."

'Sort of the geopolitical version of "suicide by cop".

Once the hammer drops on Iran, I wonder what ol'Kimmy is going to be thinking -"Gee, we were once part of a three-nation axis of evil - but now the other two are gone. I wonder if I should be drawing any conclusions here....."
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 03/21/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#3  At the very least, Washington should openly recognize North Korea's rhetoric as a de facto declaration of war. It is critical that loons like Ahmadinejad and Kim be given full credibility as threats so that, later on, they are held to their word when we bomb the crap out of them.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 10:37 Comments || Top||

#4  "Go ahead ... Make my day!"
Posted by: doc || 03/21/2006 11:06 Comments || Top||

#5  I wonder when he'd start banging on his high chair again for attention.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/21/2006 13:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Old Kimmie baby fails to understand the difference between fission weapons and fusion weapons. The difference, other than some serious technological advances, is a tremendous difference in yield. Kimmie's little fusion popguns can't produce yields above about 140Kt. The Russians detonated a 40Mt fusion weapon in the early 1970's. The US detonated a couple of 12Mt weapons, before scaling back to smaller, easier-to-maintain yields. There's also that difference in quantity: Kim may have up to a dozen weapons, while the US has over 20,000. Kim really needs to learn to stop yanking the tails of tigers, before he's eaten alive.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 16:33 Comments || Top||

#7  Two words - "Ohio class"
Posted by: DMFD || 03/21/2006 19:14 Comments || Top||

#8  My instincts are telling me this is Kimmie's North Korea version of Radical Islam's "American Hiroshima", where attacks on AMer cities are also intended as cover for strikes against Dubya, the GOP, and the GOP-controlled NPE, includ but not limited the possibility of NorKor commandos penetrating into the USA. It may China's PLAAF and PLAN thas been a'buzzin Japan, but one thing the Norks have is a sizable commando conventional capability. The Muslim Radical terrorists > akin to God/Faith-based Socialist commandos and sappers; the Norks are Secular Commie Socialist comando-sappers. Iran = North Korea > Nukes = Commie/Mullah-promised Manifest Destiny and Great Power/Nation" Status, as demanded and acknowledged by both the West and Russia-China. IRAN + NOKIES > GET WHAT THEY WANT, OR ITS DEATH TO EVERYBODY AND THE WORLD. THE COMMIES GET TO PRETEND THEIR IDEO WORKS AND HAVE BROUGHT GREATNESS TO THEIR PEOPLES - THE WEST AND WORLD GET TO LIVE A FEW YEARS MORE BEFORE THEY FINALLY, ACTUALLY, TRY TO KILL US FOR GOOD.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 20:06 Comments || Top||

#9  hmmmm - that would mean they can strike Japan with nukes. Wanna make that threat, punk?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 20:19 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez Again Talks of a U.S. Invasion
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned that if U.S. troops were to invade any Latin American country, "revolutionaries" from across the region would join forces to battle the Americans. Chavez's remark in a speech Monday night confirmed what many in Venezuela have long presumed: that his government would go to the aid of a close ally like Cuba in the hypothetical scenario of the U.S. sending troops. Although U.S. officials often dismiss his claims as outlandish, Chavez insists his country must be on guard to face any potential U.S. military attack. Washington also has said repeatedly it has no plans to attack Cuba.

The Venezuelan leader said the U.S. "should know that if it wants or someday decides ... to invade any of our countries - be it Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, today, tomorrow or the next day - we would be there gathering together the revolutionaries to do battle with weapons in hand against U.S. imperialism." The U.S. has accused Chavez of trying to export his socialist "revolution" to neighboring countries, saying he is a destabilizing force in the region.

Chavez has responded furiously that he poses no threat, saying the U.S. is the one with a history of invading countries from Iraq to Panama. He also lashed out Monday against Washington's efforts to promote free trade deals with Latin American countries. "They're making deals with the devil," he said. Chavez argues the U.S.-proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas would help transnational companies grow wealthier at the expense of Latin America's poor. He has joined Cuban President Fidel Castro in proposing a "Bolivarian Alternative" trade pact based on socialist principles rather than free-market competition.
Cuz socialism has worked so well, er, somewhere


"I am convinced that in this century we will bury U.S. imperialism, sooner rather than later," Chavez said.
Funny, I seem to recall a Soviet leader making the same boast.

Chavez addressed an audience at the presidential palace after officials signed a deal for Venezuela to sell fuel under preferential terms to El Salvador cities governed by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front - a political party that in the 1980s was a rebel group fighting U.S.-backed troops.
Despite political tensions between Chavez's government and Washington, Venezuela still sells the largest share of its oil to the United States.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Russia-China > 2015-2018, where war against America and only AMerica is not only realistic/possible but desired. Iff the USA is not under OWG and anti-sovereign Socialism, the Failed/Angry Left reserves its unilateral and unconditional right to use any and all means neccesary to achieve that end, including but limited to MAD global nuke war - you know, the reason why only the Radical Muslims attacked America on 9-11. THe Commies/Maoists since pre 9-11 provide advisory, weapons, and materiel-tech support to armed Muslim and other terror groups ergo only the Muslims attacked on 9-11. We know, Chavez, we know.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 20:48 Comments || Top||

#2  It's almost like he's pleading for us to invade, or something similar. What a whacko!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 23:20 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Earthquake hits northeast Algeria
ALGIERS - An earthquake hit the northeast Algerian town of Laalam east of Algiers late Monday killing at least four people and injuring 53, local authorities in Bejaia district said quoted by national radio. About 30 houses collapsed, Algerian news agency APS quoted the authorities as saying, adding that large quantities of rescue materiel had been sent to the affected region.
The director of Bejaia’s health department told the radio that the injured were not seriously hurt, suffering from fractures or shock.

Algerian national radio said the quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale shook the Kherrata region at 1944 GMT. Its epicentre was situated near the town of Kherrata, between Bejaia and Setif (respectively 260 and 300 kilometres -- 165 and 190 miles -- east of the capital). The tremor was strongly felt in the east of Bejaia region over around 100 kilometres (65 miles), causing panic among the population.

Algeria, the north of which is in a seismic zone at the junction between the Eurasian and African plates, is regularly affected by earthquakes. In May 2003 Algiers and its region were struck by a violent quake that killed 2,300 people and injured more than 10,000.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I notice all these earthquakes started hitting Dir el Islam since you know who stopped bloging.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Shhhttt, no one is supposed to tell.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#3  No reason to keep it secret. I was pissed at the ring stays.
Posted by: Allahn King of the Southern Wresters || 03/21/2006 11:04 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Terror attack foiled
A large-scale suicide attack in the Tel Aviv district averted. A Palestinian terrorist carrying a powerful explosive caught Tuesday on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. A nationwide alert in force across Israel has been lifted and all highways blocked for several hours have reopened to traffic.

The Shin Beit had intelligence of several vehicles carrying Palestinian suicide bombers from the northern West Bank via Jerusalem to the Tel Aviv area. One was caught in a GMC carrying 10 Palestinians near Shalavim near Latrun on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. A powerful bomb and other weapons found in the vehicle indicating a combined attack was planned. They surrendered when surrounded by police and IDF commandos. The Shin Beit reports 70 active terrorist threats, 10 of them specific.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:26 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm sure Sharon Stone would like to meat these guys.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 9:43 Comments || Top||

#2  The important thing is for Humanitarian aid to Palestinians to continue.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:09 Comments || Top||

#3  The suicide bombers surrendered? Something does not compute there - wouldn't they blow the vans and settle for just taking out a few of the police and commandos?

I guess they can say no more.
Posted by: Wholuter Glolurong9041 || 03/21/2006 12:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Hurrah for Shin Beit! It'll be interesting to know who armed and sent to bad guys. I do hope the response Israel sends is appropriately explosive.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:33 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Bangkok shrine attacker is killed
A Muslim man has been beaten to death in Thailand after attacking a Hindu shrine in the capital, Bangkok. The man - who was reported to suffer from mental health problems - was set upon after smashing a statue of the Hindu deity Brahma. Two men, reportedly cleaners at the shrine, have been charged with murder. The Erawan shrine, built 50 years ago, is a popular site with tourists and devotees, who pay musicians and dancers to celebrate wishes granted there.

Police said that Thanakorn Pakdeepol, 27, broke into the shrine, which houses a four-faced statue of Brahma, early on Tuesday morning. He used a hammer to destroy the deity, before being attacked by several men. "After a scream from a street vendor shouting 'our father was destroyed', I saw three or four men arresting that man and beating him up," taxi driver Somyos Srikamsuk told Channel 3 television. "He was unconscious, but still alive when police got there." Pakdeepol's father told Reuters news agency that his son had been in and out of mental hospitals for the past decade. The family said they had no idea what made him do it.

The shrine was built in 1956 to ward off bad luck from the nearby Erawan hotel, where the foundation stone had been laid on an inauspicious day. Thousands of Thais visit the shrine every day and return with gifts when they believe their wishes have been granted. Street vendors line the roads selling garlands and wooden elephants to be presented as offerings. After the attack on Tuesday it was hidden, covered by a white sheet.

Brahma is worshipped by Hindus as the creator. People pray to him for everything from a new child to a lottery ticket. Local people say the incident is unlikely to provoke revenge attacks, as there are few incidences of religious intolerance in Bangkok, says the BBC's Chris Hogg in the Thai capital.
I wouldn't count on the muslims being so tolerant, this guy likely just got bumped up from "nutcase" to "holy martyr"
But there was much sadness among the devotees clustered outside the locked gates to the holy site, who could not understand why the attack happened.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's weird, I recall reading a similar story in a VS Naipaul book, happened in Malaysia way back, IIRC. Apparently, smashing infidel's idols (hindu or buddhist for Naipaul) does happen spontanously when muslim men are near by. I wonder why?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 8:40 Comments || Top||

#2  The man - who was reported to suffer from mental health problems...

Way to be redundant. They said he was Muslim in the very first word of the story.

(Anyone else find that both odd and refreshing?)
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 9:27 Comments || Top||

#3  So sad, too bad and yes itn redundant.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:56 Comments || Top||

#4  I live in Bangkok, and I know the Erawan shrine very well. The reports are correct that the destroyed figure was of the Hindu "god" Brahma (which - by the way is the Hindu designation for the character known as "Abraham" in Jewish, Christian, and Moslem religious texts). What is not properly explained is that - based on the "come on in" inclusive approach that Thai Buddhists take toward other religions, this shrine was considered as a very important Buddhist shrine- indeed, the younger Thais (at least) refer to the figure (in English) as "the four headed Buddha".

The official "spin" being given here in Bangkok is heavily pushing the "mentally ill" angle, and down-playing the "Muslim nut-case" angle. The two cleaners who wacked the perp were arrested - it will be interesting to see what becomes of them.

Virtually every day down in Southern Thailand, armed Muslim thugs murder a handful of random victims - postmen, teachers, Buddhist monks, rubber plantation workers - on and on. It utterly amazes me that Thais haven't yet gone more broadly "medieval" on the miscreant population.

This wacko just pushed the Thai Muslim population one step closer toward facing the wrath of unleashed Thai anger.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 03/21/2006 10:25 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Chad launches raid against rebels
Chad's army has launched an offensive against rebels operating along the border with Sudan. Rebel positions in mountains along the border are being attacked, a government spokesman told the Reuters news agency. Two rebel groups are involved. Tension has inceased in recent months, with Chad and Sudan accusing each other of backing rebel groups. Last week, the Chad authorities said they had foiled an attempt to stage a coup against President Idriss Deby.

Clashes are reported between government forces and two rebel groups operating in the area, Scud led by Yaya Dillo, and RPJ, led by Abakar Tollimi. Observers in the border area have seen convoys transporting Chadian government forces and weapons, and President Idris Deby is reported to be supervising the fighting.
Analyst Andrew Manley has told the BBC that in recent months President Deby has been looking increasingly vulnerable, faced with the growing rebellion in the east and a loss of support among neighbouring countries and traditional allies like France.

In December, Chad declared a state of war with Sudan following a deadly attack launched from Darfur by Chadian rebels. Sudan repeatedly denied allegations made by Chad that it was backing the rebels and sending Arab militias in support. In February, Chad and Sudan signed an accord to resolve their differences over fighting along the border. Mr Deby seized power in 1990 after launching a rebellion from bases in Darfur.
Posted by: Steve || 03/21/2006 08:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "In December, Chad declared a state of war with Sudan following a deadly attack launched from Darfur by Chadian rebels"

Im I the only one who finds it bizarre that Chad considers itself in a formal state of war with Sudan, yet has not sent troops across the border? Or called on other nations to aid it.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:37 Comments || Top||

#2  I say take advantage of this and back Chad. Use their ground forces, augment with our SF and air power. Just me thinking out loud.
Posted by: armylife || 03/21/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Exactly, armylife. Lots of heavily armed "social workers" with air support.

Can't leave Chad hangin' y'know.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 14:37 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
UN uses Lego on an anti-racism poster
Denmark, check your inbox. The United Nations High Commission for "Human Rights" has a message for you.
Posted by: Glating Ulomorong4142 || 03/21/2006 08:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  is this for real??? if so its fckin disgusting. Someone wants to make a anti racism poster with a suicide belt on - see how they respond. Sheesh i'm stunned by the offensiveness of this and only hope its some kind of a joke.
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/21/2006 8:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Forty-six years have passed since the Sharpeville massacre, where 69 demonstrators were shot and killed during a non-violent protest against apartheid on 21 March.

How lovely, they conveniently forgot to give mention the more recent Rwandan Genocide and slaughter of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, mostly carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, during a period of 100 days from April 6th through mid-July 1994. "Human Rights" my ars. They'll always blame the Plassjapies (white country folk and farmers), never themselves.
Posted by: Plassjapies || 03/21/2006 8:57 Comments || Top||

#3  It's on the UN's own website.

I don't think it's a joke.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 9:02 Comments || Top||

#4  It's a joke.

It's a sick joke.

Just like the rest of the UN.

The worst part of the joke is, we're funding it.

Let's stop.
Posted by: Phil || 03/21/2006 9:09 Comments || Top||

#5  The UN version of subtlety. I'm sure they're giggling over their eggs benedict this morning, figuring nobody got the joke...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 9:09 Comments || Top||

#6  I recommend the Margaret Hassan Lego set. There is her torso, her arms, her legs. Look, her head in the dump. Can you put her back together?
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 9:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Racism takes many shapes: Jews who refuse to be butchered; Europeans who refuse to live under Sharia;...
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:18 Comments || Top||

#8  Time to make "Good Muslims" in quanity.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 11:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Somebody needs to educate the UN on what "racism" means. Last time I checked, a belief system doesn't equal a race. Nor does a nationality, unless of course the UN is saying that all Danes, including Danish Muslims, are of the Danish "race".

This latest from the UN is a VERY dangerous piece of news-the message is that people no longer have a right to disagree with belief systems. This form of PC is suicidal.
Posted by: Jules || 03/21/2006 11:30 Comments || Top||

#10  Never mind the obvious racism (it is the UN, after all) - Did they get written permission to use Lego's intellectual property?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:37 Comments || Top||

#11  I think I'll go buy some legos and donate them to Toys for Tots
Posted by: 2b || 03/21/2006 16:09 Comments || Top||

#12  Lego the UN's doors shut.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 17:19 Comments || Top||

#13  can someone explain why this is offensive - i don't get it.
Posted by: Elmerens Slinerong2144 || 03/21/2006 18:07 Comments || Top||

#14  Islam is not a race. F#cking UN morons
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 18:46 Comments || Top||

#15  Elmerens-The Lego piece is a symbol of Denmark. The government of Denmark would not apologize for a PRIVATELY owned Danish publication which printed the original, tame Mohammed cartoons. The UN is saying that Denmark is thus "racist" against Islam.
Posted by: Jules || 03/21/2006 20:36 Comments || Top||

#16  The UN might want to think twice about screwing with LEGO
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 21:02 Comments || Top||

#17  We must combat all forms of intolerance by celebrating the diversity and the differences that enrich the human family. But we must work to reduce the differences that are imposed, rather than chosen, that speak of deprivation rather than fulfilment and that fuel the xenophobic discourse about the relative merit and desert of individuals based on stereotypical attributes attached to their race, religion or ethnicity.”
Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights


Someone should tell this dipshit that religion isn't 'imposed' but is chosen.

Even with Islam you have a choice - just ask that guy in Afghanistan....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 22:33 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Israeli convicted over body enlargement scam
I think I'll specialize in that type of stories, for some reason...
JERUSALEM: An Israeli court has sentenced a man to two years in prison for operating a fake clinic that offered penis enhancements and so-called medical treatments to make people taller, which failed to work. Simon Sofer told dozens of clients he was a doctor and said he could add up to 10 cm to their height or six cm to their genitals, the Tel Aviv court said. His clinic, in operation since 1999, was not medically supervised, a government prosecutor had told the court. Sofer has appealed the conviction.

He pre-charged patients 5250 and 16,000 shekels to increase their height with a Russian-made treatment method. He told the court genitalia enlargements were not performed, despite advertisements that promised them.
So spam is not always true? Damn, I perhaps shouldn't have sent my bank account info to that nice nigerian fellow.
People who sought to become taller were suspended from the air by their arms and legs, or had their bodies stretched with weights. Others were poked with needles or given food supplements and exercises to perform at home.
YJCMTSU

"Only a lunatic could take a person who has not been checked (by a doctor) and hang him upside down," the court in a transcript quoted a witness as saying at one trial session in February. The court said Sofer had endangered the health of his clients and that none had received their "expected" result. A judge sentenced him to two years jail, taking into account he had no criminal record and lives with his mother, who supports him financially. The court gave no age for Sofer.
15? 17? That wouldn't even surprize me.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 07:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ah, I see. Kind of a...package deal.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 8:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Somehow, I can't summon any sympathy for the clients.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Btw, given the methodology of size increasement, I'd be very interested to know what would have been the doinker enlargement procedure. Somehow, I picture hanging weights and sharp needles injecting silicon, too, sounds like real fun. Hey, your genitalia is now bloated, crimson with ready-to-burst black veins, and in perpetual, painful throbbing erection, yeah, but it *is* 6 cm longer... customers would have flocked to his clinic, that's just too bad he was prevented from servicing his fellow humans.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 10:28 Comments || Top||


Arabia
"The West's Conflict With Islam & Muslims is Eternal - a Preordained Destiny"
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 07:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19238_Its_In_the_Koran&only
Posted by: DeadRobertPreston || 03/21/2006 7:45 Comments || Top||

#2  "The West's Conflict With rats is Eternal - a Preordained Destiny"
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:13 Comments || Top||

#3  I can identify with this headline - and I have a simple thought - "lock and load."

May Rangers Lead the Way!
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 03/21/2006 10:34 Comments || Top||

#4  "The West's Conflict With Islam & Muslims is Eternal

This has been a fact for quite some time now. People who either will not or cannot realize this may eventually have to be confined as abbettors or traitors. Nearly every single feature of our modern society, like co-ed universities, male obstetricians, sex in movies, co-ed swimming, alcohol in any form, smiling, laughing, farting, non-religious music and biting a hangnail in public all represent dire and death-fatwa level offenses to Islam, the Koran, Mohammed, Allah and every last camel born since 700AD.

The level of incompatibility between Islam and fundamental human rights 21st century life is so profound that they are essentially mutually exclusive. Everyone who wants to live a life of liberty and freedom had better begin to realize this and buy lots of guns.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 12:06 Comments || Top||

#5  "ceterum censio Saudi Arabia delenda Est"
free translation : and I still think Saudi Arabia must be destroyed.
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 12:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Luke Skywalker, it is your destiny.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/21/2006 14:46 Comments || Top||

#7  IOW, no matter whom America's enemies are, nor what -ISM, and be it from Creeping Socialism, or the Global Caliphate,or MAD anti-US Global Nuke War, etal. all America and Americans are in a "Kill or Be Killed, Fight or Die, Rule or be Slave" etc situation - heck, its dubious whether the holocaust-happy Chicoms and other Global Governmentists/Gulaggists will even allow defeated Americans the privelege of being alive and enslaved. NO MATTER THE ENEMY, IT STILL COMES DOWN TO EITHER AMERICA WINS, OR IT DIES; AND RUNNING AWAY TO CANADA OR OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD ONLY MEANS AMERICANS DIE LATER, NOT SOONER, WID THE REST OF US.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/21/2006 19:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Joe, sometimes you do speak with a crystal clarity. ;-)
Posted by: twobyfour || 03/21/2006 20:41 Comments || Top||

#9  If that's their attitude, kill them all.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 23:16 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Agent Faults FBI at Moussaoui Trial
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States.

During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit — a witness for the prosecution — accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI.

His testimony appeared to undermine the prosecution's case for the death penalty. Prosecutors argue that had Moussaoui cooperated by identifying some of the 19 hijackers, the FBI could have alerted airport security and kept them off the planes.

Moussaoui is the only person to have been convicted in the United States on charges stemming from Sept. 11. His sentencing trial began several weeks ago, but the prosecution's case was nearly gutted when it was learned that a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration had improperly coached key aviation security witnesses. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema decided to allow the government to present a limited amount of aviation testimony and evidence.

Samit's recollections Monday were the first ground-level account of how FBI agents in Minneapolis — where Moussaoui was arrested on a visa violation 3œ weeks before the attacks — were appalled that their Washington supervisors denied their requests for search warrants in the effort to find out why the Frenchman was taking flying lessons and what role he might have in a wider plan to attack America.

"They obstructed it," a still-frustrated Samit told the jury, calling his superiors' actions a calculated management decision "that cost us the opportunity to stop the attacks."

The government considers Samit's testimony essential to its case. On March 9, the agent told the court about his arrest of Moussaoui, now 37, and his desperate efforts to win the suspect's cooperation.

Yet much of his testimony Monday might have backfired on the government. The jury easily could have been left with the impression of an FBI so at odds with itself that it not only missed critical clues of an impending terrorist attack, but did not even know how best to coordinate efforts to stop it.

snip. Makes you wish for the good old days when they wore dresses and kept files on everybody.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 07:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One could only wish the FBI went through a cultural reform like Iraq. Fire all the old hack/Baathis management, take back the low level workers and some of the next level supervisors. There is bound to be some problems in the next phase but you'll end up with a more effective and reliable organization afterwards then if you kept the old self-serving bureaucrats with bad habits in place.
Posted by: Javirt Whaiter9406 || 03/21/2006 8:22 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Six geezers arrested in protest
Six anti-Americanwar protesters were arrested Monday on suspicion of blocking an entrance to Raytheon Missile Systems.
Yours truly works in the first building inside the gate.

Protesters billed the event as a "citizens' weapons blockade" timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Defense contractor Raytheon makes the Tomahawk cruise missile. About 15 protesters blocked the company entrance at 1115 E. Hermans Road, off the Nogales Highway, during the noon hour, said Dawn Barkman of the Pima County Sheriff's Department.
Played merry hell with our lunch plans. Grrrrr. We had to use the company cafeteria. Death is too good for them.

In a news release distributed before the protest, organizers said they wanted to stop shipments of bombs and missiles.
"We are here today to say no to weapons and no to murder except of Americans or Jooooos," retired teacher and protester Nancy Gallen was quoted as saying in the news release. The demonstrators said their actions were part of a larger anti-war effort called the National Campaign for Sedition Nonviolent Resistance Against the War in Iraq.

Gallen, 69, and other protesters were arrested and released at the scene. They face five charges apiece: obstructing a highway, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, public nuisance and violating a state law that requires that pedestrians stay on sidewalks or near roadsides. Considering the snowbirds haven't left yet, they were taking their lives in their hands. I stay far from roadways when walking. The other Tucsonans who were arrested were identified by the Sheriff's Department as Patricia Birnie, 76; Gretchen Nielsen, 73; William Moeller, 52; Scott Kerr, 30; and Lawrence McPherson, 61.
With one exception, all aging hippies caught in a 40-year time-warp. Oh, well, the terrorists thank them for their support.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/21/2006 07:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is this the actual OVER THE HILL GANG??????
Posted by: ARMYGUY || 03/21/2006 8:55 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL Jackal, I have never know anybody who likes their cafeteria. But that’s what you get for working for the evil military-industrial complex. Ever so often I see some of aged hippies on the State Capital with signs: “Impeach Bush” “Bush=Hitler” “Free Mumia” “Taste Great” “Less Filling”. I just shake my head and wonder what synaptic in their brain stopped working. FYI their “crowd” never number more than ten and I always mange to make eye contact and flip them the bird as I drive by.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 10:48 Comments || Top||

#3  arrested Monday on suspicion of blocking an entrance

So there is some question about what they were doing?

/someone please teach journalism students how to write!!
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:08 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
IRS wants to allow tax preparers to sell data
Posted by: lotp || 03/21/2006 07:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IRS can kiss my ass.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 11:25 Comments || Top||

#2  What a bunch of crap. I already don't use a lot of services because they sell data. The tax preparers will loose a lot of buisness to software programs which file for you. Bad, bad buisness decision.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 12:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh, and FLAT TAX NOW!!! GET THE IRS OUT OF THE US!!!

Ok, I feel better now.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/21/2006 12:33 Comments || Top||

#4  TaxCut send a copy to H&R Block when you e-file. H&R Block sells this to interested parties and credit rating companies.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 12:45 Comments || Top||

#5  Another reason my accountant and I use the old-fashioned paper method.

Anyway, what's the big rush in getting your refund? You shouldn't be getting a big refund anyway - unless of course you enjoy giving the gu'mint an interest-free loan for a year.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:39 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Insurgents Storm Iraqi Jail, 28 Killed
This isn't good. It's been a while since the bad guys have pulled off this large an operation; it would be very interesting to know just who was sprung.

Insurgents Storm Iraqi Jail, 28 Killed
By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents stormed a jail about dawn Tuesday in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad, killing at least 17 policemen and a courthouse guard. Authorities said all 33 prisoners in the lockup were freed and 10 attackers were killed in the battle.

As many as 100 insurgent fighters — armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — stormed the judicial compound in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. The assault began after the attackers fired a mortar round into the police and court complex, said police Brig. Ali al-Jabouri.

After torching the police station, the insurgents detonated a string of roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said. At least 13 policemen and civilians and 15 gunmen were wounded in the attack.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 07:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  seeing as it was a provincial lock up, I doubt they freed anyone important. But I agree, its not good.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like it's in the sticks. An unpacified area maybe. Needed a little someting to keep the headlines negative.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Its not a provincial capital, IIUC, but its big enough to have a lockup, courthouse etc. Bigger than a village.

In any case insurgents operating in a group this big, and pulling off a raid is NOT good. Sure its the sticks - a lot of the Sunni triangle is "the sticks".
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:39 Comments || Top||

#4  A surprisingly reasonable and informative report from al Reuters.



....
"The governor of Diyala province, which has a volatile ethnic and sectarian mix and has seen many al Qaeda attacks in recent months, had the police commander and other officers arrested.

"He suspected them of complicity in the dawn raid, which police said involved about 100 fighters, probably from al Qaeda.

....
"Police said investigations were being hampered because the gunmen seized radio equipment, making the police radio network insecure and unusable.

"The area has seen several such large-scale assaults on police and army posts, apparently by al Qaeda-linked insurgents defying Iraq's new U.S.-trained security forces.

"Iraqi intelligence officials have said they believe the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may be now be in Diyala.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 18:35 Comments || Top||


Europe
Sweden FM quits over cartoon row (Backlash?)
Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds has resigned in a row related to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. She has been strongly criticised in the press after the foreign ministry ordered the website of a far-right party to be shut down. The site had been due to publish the cartoons, which sparked a furore after their initial publication in Denmark. She was also criticised over the Swedish response to the Asian tsunami, in which about 500 Swedes died.

Ms Freivalds resigned just six months before an election in Sweden, in which the ruling Social Democrats face a resurgent opposition. "It was her own decision," Prime Minister Goran Persson said after his foreign minister's announcement. He has said Deputy Prime Minister Bosse Ringholm will take over as foreign minister temporarily. Ms Freivalds was rounded on by the press when a far-right website was forced to close on 9 February, after a foreign ministry official contacted the site's hosting company. Critics said this was an intrusion on the freedom of speech.

The minister said she did not order the official to contact the company, but a later report from the ministry said she was involved in the decision.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/21/2006 06:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ima guessin ita be along time befor Sveden has ze sharia
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 03/21/2006 6:46 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Bush is a victim of America’s political civil war
Gerard Jackson

The Bush presidency has revealed the enormous ideological rift that has been developing for more than forty years in America, and yet the vast majority of Americans are still not fully aware of it even though there has probably been nothing like it since the civil war.

On one side of the political gulf there are the fanatical win-at-all-costs Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as abolitionists didn’t believe in the legitimacy of slavery and the Southern Democrats in the legitimacy of Lincoln’s presidency.

To these Democrats, the Gores, Hillarys, Reids, Jesse Jacksons, Streisands, etc., the Republicans are the equivalent of nineteenth century slave owners. The irony of which is completely lost on these fanatics considering that those slave owners were Democrats

These comments are not mere speculation. About six years ago Curtis Cans, head of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, pointed out that political inspired hatred has been building up for some thirty years, blaming television for this phenomenon. But 1972 was the year that the radicals captured the Democratic Party. From that moment the Democrats’ ruthless urge win began to be transformed into a policy of political extermination.

These radicals brought with them the disease of the crusading spirit of intolerance. Firm in the righteousness of their cause (however incoherent at times), convinced that America was built on injustice, exploitation and oppression they have waged an unconditional war against the infidel, the barbarian conservative, the enemy of all that is good and just. That the Republican Party was formed on an anti-slavery platform is something these dangerous fanatics have tried to write out of history, just as they try to suppress anything that contradicts their Orwellian views

Much of the last century’s politics remind me of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where the battleground was doctrine and the object the saving of souls. Heretics, on both sides, who refused to recant frequently met a fiery end at the stake. Although it is true that Martin Luther did not, unlike the lovely Mr Alec Baldwin, did not favour putting to death those who disagreed with him.

But fanaticism has a price and that price is the abandonment of reason and tolerance. That is why some Dems feel free to accuse Bush of being evil and wanting to reintroduce slavery. We see the same thing in Hollywood where, for example, a huge Hollywood crowd gave a Streisand a rousing reception when she called on it to vote for Gore because he will stack the Supreme Court with ‘judges’ who will twist the Constitution to fit their ideological agenda. (So much for the separation of the powers)

According to this deep Hollywood thinker the 1999 election was “a war against bigotry, against discrimination of any kind, racial, religious or sexual orientation.” To her and the rest of “Hollywood’s celluloid intellectuals,” Republicans are the forces of Darkness while the Democrats are the forces of Light. This feeling is genuine, pervasive and dangerous and it is poisoning the whole of the body politic, eating away at civil political discourse.

How did these Democrats arrive at such a risible and contemptible view of conservatives, or anyone else who disagrees with them? Having convinced themselves that they alone are concerned with social justice and oppression, and only they care about the poor and the underprivileged it is but a short step to assume that anyone who questions their vision or so-called remedies must be stupid or malevolent.

Just as religious fanatics from centuries past could not tolerate the existence of those who questioned their theology and so could only ascribe to these critics a devilish malevolence, neither can our “new Democrats” tolerate any who challenge their sacred political doctrines.

Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 05:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "The right thinks the left is stupid; the left thinks the right is evil."

Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 8:06 Comments || Top||

#2  This has been true since the days of Hamilton and Jefferson. It will always be true. The problem right now is we're too evenly split.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 8:09 Comments || Top||

#3  On one side of the political gulf there are the fanatical win-at-all-costs Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as abolitionists didn’t believe in the legitimacy of slavery and the Southern Democrats in the legitimacy of Lincoln’s presidency.

more like ...

...Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as Marxist didn’t believe in the legitimacy of multi-party democracy.
Posted by: Javirt Whaiter9406 || 03/21/2006 8:13 Comments || Top||

#4  "The right thinks the left is stupid; the left thinks the right is evil."

That's why the Republican presidents have, without fail, been portrayed as dumb. More like the left is naive and self destructive.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 9:16 Comments || Top||

#5  I read somewhere that Republicans are either portrayed as dumb, or as cold hearted bastards.

Nixon was a cold hearted bastard.

Reagan was both. First term he was portrayed as dumb, then as a cold hearted bastard when it was realized the dumb thing didn't resonate.

Bush senior, when they even noticed him, was a cold hearted bastard out of touch with the people and uncaring.

Bush Jr is doing the Reagan. First he was dumb and Cheney was running the show behind the scenes, then he became Hitler. I read that going into the 2000 election Bush knew the two general media positions and positioned himself as dumb feeling that it was a better way to go with America.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/21/2006 9:52 Comments || Top||

#6  I'm getting to the point that I think the left is evil.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/21/2006 13:23 Comments || Top||

#7  Funny, I think that the Left is both evil and stupid.
Posted by: Secret Master || 03/21/2006 15:05 Comments || Top||

#8  The problem is not liberals. The problem is leftists who have convinced enough sheeple that they, too, are liberals, rather than American hating scum who use the blessings of liberty to destroy the USA from within.

Pathetically and shortsightedly, liberals are blind to the fact that even if they realize their fantasy of defeating the evil conservatives by swallowing hard and aligning themselves with leftists, they will then be the authority de jure in leftsist's crosshairs.
Posted by: Hyper || 03/21/2006 15:10 Comments || Top||

#9  good article
Posted by: 2b || 03/21/2006 16:16 Comments || Top||

#10  I still think bi-partisanship will congeal on the Iran issue. Jihad life is cheap.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 16:26 Comments || Top||

#11  OT : Listen To dogs, did you see my french websites list here (see comment)?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 16:28 Comments || Top||

#12  it will take a couple catastrophic poll losses but teh Dems will eventually split into two parties, or start putting reasonable candidates (other than poseurs for mil support) who actually want to protect our nation as no. 1 priority. I'm only 46, so maybe not in my lifetime...
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 18:20 Comments || Top||

#13  The problem began with VietNam and the draft. Most of the Dems went to college to take the 2S deferment and avoid the draft. To keep from dealing with the fact that while they were hiding, safe in college taking political science courses, those who couldn't afford to go to college were drafted and had to go to war in their place, these worms demonized the war and those who fought it. They were cowardly, intolerant slime then and they have not aged well.
Posted by: RWV || 03/21/2006 22:27 Comments || Top||

#14  "The right thinks the left is stupid; the left thinks the right is evil."

Thanks, RC. You took the words right out of my mouth.

I've been saying the same exact thing for awhile now, in particular to my associates on the left. I think it acurately captures the fanatcism of the left, which is the main point I try to make when arguing against it.
Posted by: eltoroverde || 03/21/2006 23:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
So, you thought the European constitution was dead, did you?
Democracy is dangerous, much better to let the Enlightend elites rule us peasants. After all, they've been to college and everything. Next step : the integration of Turkey into Eurabia, I mean the EU.
By Daniel Hannan

Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force - certainly de facto and probably de jure, too. Never mind that 15 million Frenchmen and five million swag-bellied Hollanders voted against it.

The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them. Here's how they'll do it.

First, they will shove through as many of the constitution's contents as they can under the existing legal framework - a process they had already begun even before the referendums.

Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.

True, there are one or two clauses that will require a formal treaty amendment: a European president to replace the system whereby the member nations take it in turns to chair EU meetings; a new voting system; legal personality for the Union.

These outstanding items will be formalised at a miniature inter-governmental conference, probably in 2007. There will be no need to debate them again: all 25 governments accepted them in principle when they signed the constitution 17 months ago.

We shall then be told that these are detailed and technical changes, far too abstruse to be worth pestering the voters with.

The EU will thus have equipped itself with 100 per cent of the constitution, but without having held any more referendums. Clever, no?

Don't take my word for it: listen to what the EU's own leaders are saying. Here is Wolfgang Schüssel, Chancellor of Austria and the EU's current president: "The constitution is not dead."

Here is Angela Merkel, leader of Europe's most powerful and populous state: "Europe needs the constitution… We are willing to make whatever contribution is necessary to bring the constitution into force."

Here is Dominique de Villepin, who, in true European style, has risen to the prime ministership of France without ever having run for elected office: "France did not say no to Europe."

And, on Tuesday, our own Europe minister, Douglas Alexander, repeatedly refused to rule out pushing ahead with the bulk of the text without a referendum.

For the purest statement of the Eurocrats' contempt for the voters, however, we must turn to the constitution's author, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Here is a man who, with his exquisite suits and de haut en bas manner, might be said to personify the EU: so extraordinarily distinguished, as Mallarmé remarked in a different context, that when you bid him bonjour, he makes you feel as though you'd said merde.

"Let's be clear about this," pronounced Giscard a couple of weeks ago. "The rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be corrected."

He went on to remind his audience that the Danish and Irish electorates had once been presumptuous enough to vote against a European treaty, but that no one had paid them the slightest attention.

The same thing is happening today. Since the French and Dutch "No" votes, three countries have approved the text and three more - Finland, Estonia and Belgium - look set to follow in the coming weeks, which would bring to 16 the number of states to have ratified.

At the same time, the European Commission has launched a massive exercise to sell the constitution to the doltish national electorates.

Their scheme goes under the splendidly James Bondish title of "Plan D". I forget what the D stands for: deceit, I think, or possibly disdain.

Anyway, squillions of euros are being spent on explaining to us that we have misunderstood our true interests.

While all this is going on, the EU is proceeding as if the constitution were already in force. Most of the institutions and policies that it would have authorised are being enacted anyway: the External Borders Agency, the European Public Prosecutor, the External Action Service, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the European Defence Agency, the European Space Programme.

The text is not, as the cliché of the moment has it, being "smuggled in through the back door"; it is swaggering brazenly through the front.

Whenever one of these initiatives comes before us on the constitutional affairs committee, I ask my federalist colleagues: "Where in the existing treaties does it say you can do this?"

"Where does it say we can't?" they reply. Pressed for a proper answer, they point to a flimsy cat's-cradle of summit communiqués, council resolutions and commission press releases.

To be fair, this is how the European project has always advanced. First, Brussels extends its jurisdiction into a new field of policy and then, often years later, it gets around to regularising that extension in a new treaty.

The voters are thus presented with a fait accompli, the theory being that they will be likelier to shrug their shoulders and accept it than they would have been to give their consent in advance.

This, indeed, is how the EU was designed. Its founding fathers understood from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer of power had to be referred back to the voters for approval.

So they cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion.

Indeed, the EU's structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic in that many commissioners, à la Patten and Kinnock, have been explicitly rejected by the voters.

In swatting aside two referendum results, the EU is being true to its foundational principles.

Born out of a reaction against the Second World War, and the plebiscitary democracy that had preceded it, the EU is based on the notion that "populism" (or "democracy", as you and I call it) is a dangerous thing.

Faced with a result that they dislike, the Euro-apparatchiks' first instinct is to ask, with Brecht: "Wouldn't it be easier to dissolve the people and elect another in their place?"

To complain that the EU is undemocratic is like attacking a cow for being bovine, or a butterfly for being flighty. In disregarding public opinion, the EU is doing what it has been programmed to do. It is fulfilling its prime directive.

Sadly, we British are also exhibiting one of our worst national characteristics, namely our tendency to ignore what is happening on the Continent until too late.

With a few exceptions - and here I doff my cap to the pressure group Open Europe, which is waging a lonely campaign to alert people to the danger - we are carrying on as though the French electorate had killed off the constitution, and so spared us from having to think about the European issue at all.

Once again, we are fantasising about the kind of EU we might ideally like to have, rather than dealing with the one that is in fact taking shape on our doorstep. Will we never learn?

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP. Rachel Sylvester appears tomorrow.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 04:57 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Never for a minute. The loonies will keep coming back and coming back until they get their way by exhausting the majority.

That is their way. And unfortunately the tactic very often succeeds.
Posted by: kelly || 03/21/2006 10:16 Comments || Top||

#2  "It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!!"
-- Colin Clive, 1931
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 11:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Get it 85% of the way then all you need is a catastrophe and a dictator to cement the final pieces.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/21/2006 12:07 Comments || Top||

#4  I might even think that person is being groomed for the position already. At least they're probably down to the short list.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/21/2006 12:09 Comments || Top||

#5  85% of the proposed constitution is a whale of a lot of pages of laws. How long do you think it will take?
Posted by: James || 03/21/2006 16:24 Comments || Top||

#6  Never(get) for a minute. The loonies will keep coming back and coming back until they get their way by exhausting the majority.

That is their way. And unfortunately the tactic very often succeeds.


That's the way it is with zombies. They keep coming until you run out of ammunition or they get you.

Unless you shoot them in the head that is.

Apocalyptic prediction says the Antichrist will arise from just this sort of EU dictatorship and that he will eventually be shot in the head (and later rise from the dead - apparently).

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/21/2006 17:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Drat! That should have read "Never (forget)..."

Sorry...

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/21/2006 17:05 Comments || Top||

#8  Resident Evil 9 - Return of the EU Constitution
Posted by: DMFD || 03/21/2006 19:07 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
My Ideal War
How the international community should have responded to Bush's September 2002 U.N. speech.

By Christopher Hitchens

Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally would have waged a campaign to liberate Iraq. I became involved in this argument before the Bush administration had been elected, and for me it always was (and still is) a matter of solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan and of the need for the United States to change its policy and be on their side. I am now authoritatively told that we should have been on their side to the tune of 100,000 or so extra troops, and I must say I do not object. Nor would I have objected then. However, it's the point of principle that matters. And one simply cannot turn to international friends and say, look, what with the state of the opinion polls, I think we'll have to be seeing a bit less of each other.

This commitment doesn't override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were cheated or even lied into the war. It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the "Saddam Hussein? No problem!" view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was "in his box," and so forth. A couple of recent disclosures lend some point to my view. The first are the findings published in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, and the second is the steady work of Stephen Hayes, over at the Weekly Standard, aimed at getting some of the captured documents declassified.

The long report in the May-June Foreign Affairs gives us a view of the regime that confirms the essential contours of Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear. A system of hideous cruelty we have learned to take for granted, but this also reminds us of a system of amazing irrationality. Saddam Hussein wanted, until the very last days, to maintain ambiguity about his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Given his past record, there was absolutely no reason why any serious government should have taken his word that he had dropped this stance. (And we also know, from the Duelfer report and many other sources, that he hoped to retain his latent ability to restart production once the sanctions—which were themselves a crime against the Iraqi people—had been lifted or rendered ineffective.) It is in the light of that last point that one of the article's crucial discoveries must be read. Saddam believed until the end that the French and Russian governments would save him. He also knew what we—at the time—did not: The oil-for-food system had turned into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his support in French and Russian circles. He thought that contracts would speak louder than words, and in this instance he wasn't completely crazy to do so.

As for the "terror" connection, Hayes in a series of unrebutted articles has laid out a tranche of suggestive and incriminating connections, based on a mere fraction of the declassified documents, showing Iraqi Baathist involvement with jihadist and Bin Ladenist groups from Sudan to Afghanistan to Western Asia. If you choose to doubt this, you might want to look at the threat, neglected by the U.S. military, of the "Fedayeen Saddam." (See also Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor's admirable new book Cobra II.) This interestingly named outfit, known to many of us for some time, did most of the serious fighting against the coalition after the ignominious and predictable collapse of the Iraqi army and the Republican Guard. Its ranks were heavily augmented with foreign jihadists, and from this para-state formation and its recruitment pattern, we get an idea of the way in which things would have gone in Iraq if it had been left alone. Never mind "imminent threat," if that phrase upsets you. How does "permanent threat" sound?

So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.

Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/21/2006 02:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He makes a rock solid case for disbanding the UN.
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 14:38 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Shining Path planning a comeback?
Peru's brutal rebel movement, the Shining Path, long thought to be all but extinct, is on the warpath again, boosted by an alliance with drug traffickers.

Its Maoist guerrillas almost vanished after the capture of their founder and leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1993, with only a few hundred left sheltering in remote highlands.

But those mountains are now the setting for a dramatic growth in cultivating coca to produce cocaine, and veteran fighters are now serving new masters, the drug barons.

The Shining Path once forced the whole country to its knees in a war that claimed 70,000 lives. The front line in this conflict is Aucayacu, a cradle for the insurgency in the past and centre of the cocaine trade now.

Peru threatens to reclaim its title as the world's foremost coca producer, snatched from it by Colombia in the mid 1990s.

"All the conditions are ready for a rapid expansion of the Shining Path, as happened with Colombian rebels in the 1980s," said Col Benedicto Jimenez, the policeman who caught Guzman.

Little has changed in the jungle over the years and much of it is controlled by Jose Flores, known as "Artemio", the most senior Shining Path commander still at large.

Eight policemen were killed in an ambush outside Aucayacu last December after a local police major refused to come to an "arrangement" with the drug lords.

"The Shining Path have become contract killers for drug traffickers," said a former interior minister Fernando Rospigliosi.

The ambush was followed by a police raid in which Artemio's second-in-command was killed and, in revenge, the murder last week of three suspected informers.

"Alipio", the commander of the Shining Path's other major surviving wing, commands 150 fighters from the Vizcatan mountain, a peak never conquered by the state.

His new recruits are drawn from subjugated Ashaninka indigenous Indians. He also imposes taxes on the local industries - logging and coca growing.

"In this area the Shining Path have their own drug crops and laboratories," said Gen Carlos Olivo of the anti-narcotics police. "Alipio is making serious money."

But the Shining Path's bloody reputation ensures that few are drawn to support the resurgent guerrillas voluntarily.

A former commander who would not give his name said: "Peru will never be taken in again by them."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wouldn't be surprised to see Hugo Chavez behind this.
Posted by: Rory B. Bellows || 03/21/2006 2:34 Comments || Top||

#2  "El sendero luminoso de Jose Maria Mariategui" to reference the old group by its proper nomenclature. They followed a strict Maoist doctrine and I don't believe would throw in with a garbage ideology populist such as Chavez. But who knows...
Posted by: borgboy || 03/21/2006 21:54 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Former ISI chief sez Sharif did meet with Binny
Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif did meet al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at least three times in order to get financial help, according to Khalid Khawaja, the former official with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Khawaja, once a close friend of Osama bin Laden, rejected the statements by a spokesperson for Sharif's political party, denying that Sharif had sought political cooperation from bin Laden in the past.


"Nawaz Sharif met Osama Bin Laden on at least three occasions and was desperately seeking his financial assistance," Khawaja told AKI in response to recent news reports regarding a possible meeting between the two.

In an interview with a national Urdu daily, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the leader of the largest Islamic party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and of the six party religious alliance MMA, said that Nawaz had repeatedly met Osama bin Laden who offered him money to buy the loyalties of parlimentarians in the late 1980s in order to topple the government of then prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Ahmad also said that bin Laden was a big supporter of Nawaz Sharif's bid to be prime minister in 1990.

Soon after the publication of the interview, the information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Siddiqul Farooq, denied any contact between Nawaz Sharif and Osama bin Laden.

"Osama is above all this politicking," said Khawaja. "He is a great man and will remain great. Even if Nawaz Sharif’s party refuse to admit a contact between Osama and Nawaz, it will not change the facts which were witnessed by many people including Khayyam Qaisar (Nawaz Sharif’s personal staff officer) and myself," Khalid Khawaja maintained.

Khalid Khawaja is a retired squadron leader of the Pakistan Air Force who was an official in Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, in the mid 1980s. After he wrote a critical letter to General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 till 1988, in which he labeled Zia as hypocrite, he was removed from the ISI and forced to retire from the airforce.

He then went straight to Afghanistan in 1987 and fought against the Soviets along side with Osama Bin Laden, developing a relationship of firm friendship and trust.

Khalid Khawaja’s name resurfaced when US reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and subsequently killed. Pearl had come to Pakistan and met Khalid Khawaja in order to investigate the jihadi network of revered sufi, Syed Mubarak Ali Gailani.

"Actually the situation needs to be understood from very beginning as everybody has got the facts intermingled” Khawaja maintained.

“Soon after the plane crash of then President General Ziaul Haq in August 1988, I was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The biggest challenge before us was to save Afghan Jihad as in the post-Zia period the victory of the secular Pakistan Peoples Party was like writing on the wall.”

“So initially a few Pakistanis, including myself, planned an alliance which would be dominated by Islamic parties and also include the moderate Pakistan Muslim League. We wanted clear domination of hardline religious parties so that moderate Muslim League would not deviate from the cause of Jihad,” Khawaja asserted.

“A businessman, Tanveer Sheikh, Dr Adil of Jamia Farooqia, Karachi and myself were the three person who initiated this task. Tanveer Sheikh provided the seed money and we established an office in a bungalow in an upmarket neighborhood of Karachi.

"At that time we had zero percent support from ISI. Though they knew of our plan and we both used to exchange notes as well" he said.

"We had meetings with all top religious figures ranging from Mufti Rafi Usmani to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and finally brought them together under the umbrella of Muttahida Ulema Council (United Islamic Scholars Council).”

"However, the irony of this situation was that when all there was a ground-swell for a broader Islamic alliance the ISI hijacked the whole plan and deviated partners into IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance).

Even then, Khawaja said, they did not give up and tried to outwit Benazir Bhutto . We met Altaf Hussain of MQM and he agreed to vote against Benazir Bhutto, then we tried to cut a deal between Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz was ready to give a big share to Fazl in power but Fazl insisted on premiership. As a result of these differences, Benazir Bhutto prevailed and with a very simple majority formed her government in 1989" Khawaja recalled.

“Now after Benazir Bhutto formed her government and the opposition parties moved for a vote of no-confidence, Osama Bin Laden comes in a picture,” Khawaja recalled.

“However, let it be clear that Osama is Mujahid. His aim was not to manipulate Pakistani politics. His whole life revolves around the cause of Jihad” he said.

“I still remember that Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the "Sheikh", which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia. "

The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself, Khayyam Qaiser is the witness for that meeting in which Khayyem, the personal staff officer tried to take a photograph but Osama’s friends there stopped him.

Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."

These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif's comprehension and he kept asking me. "Manya key nai manya?" [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a grant of 500 million rupee [US 8.4 million dollars at today's rate]. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the [Saudi] royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged [as premier] by General Pervez Musharraf [in a coup in 1999]. Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia,”

“Now with these immortal accounts secured in my memory I see the denials published in newspapers, that Nawaz had nothing to do with Osama, and I think "how can people forget their mentors?". Nawaz proudly said that he is friend of US president Bill Clinton and but denies his association with a revered holy figure like Osama Bin Laden,” Khalid Khawaja concluded.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:49 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Actually the situation needs to be understood from very beginning as everybody has got the facts intermingled” Khawaja maintained.

“Soon after the plane crash of then President General Ziaul Haq in August 1988, I was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The biggest challenge before us was to save Afghan Jihad as in the post-Zia period the victory of the secular Pakistan Peoples Party was like writing on the wall.”

“So initially a few Pakistanis, including myself, planned an alliance which would be dominated by Islamic parties and also include the moderate Pakistan Muslim League. We wanted clear domination of hardline religious parties so that moderate Muslim League would not deviate from the cause of Jihad,” Khawaja asserted.


Oh the tangeled webs we weave, when first we practice to decieve [did not coin this »:-)]

*

Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."

/heard that one b'fore
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 1:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Soap opera nation.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 1:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Nawaz proudly said that he is friend of US president Bill Clinton and but denies his association with a revered holy figure like Osama Bin Laden,” Khalid Khawaja concluded.

Interesting names to have linked in the same sentence.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:19 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Terror insurance is a new busines in Iraq
Twice in the past year, Muhammad Said has survived assassination attempts that left his car riddled with bullets. He works part time as a bodyguard for his father, a Baghdad city councilman, and helps a friend who has contracts with the American military. Both are very dangerous jobs.

So last month, Mr. Said, a slim, baby-faced 23-year-old, did what a small but growing number of Iraqis are doing: He walked into the offices of the Iraq Insurance Company and bought a terrorism insurance policy. It looked like an ordinary life insurance policy, but with a one-page rider adding coverage for "the following dangers: 1) explosions caused by weapons of war and car bombs; 2) assassinations; 3) terrorist attacks."

It cost him 125,000 dinars, about $90. Mr. Said paid more than most people because of his risky occupation. The payout, if he dies, is five million dinars, around $3,500, or about what an Iraqi policeman earns in a year.

That guarantee appears to be the first off-the-shelf terrorism policy in the world, insurance experts say. In most countries, of course, there is no need for it: death by terrorism is rare enough that it is usually covered by ordinary accident insurance. In Iraq it is not, partly because the state used to compensate the families of war victims directly. So the Iraq Insurance Company began stepping into the gap about a year ago.

"Am I worth only five million dinars?" Mr. Said asked wearily, after signing his policy. "It is not a solution. But Iraqis can be attacked by anyone, just walking on the street: Americans, insurgents, the Iraqi Army." The payout is not a lot of money, even by Iraqi standards. But in a country where terrorism kills hundreds of people a month and no one can rely on the government or employers to provide for their relatives afterward, it seems to be an idea with a future.

The Iraq Insurance Company, a state-owned group, has sold about 200 individual terrorism policies in the last year, and is now negotiating with several government ministries and private companies for group policies that would cover thousands of employees.

The idea of insuring ordinary people in what may be the most violent place on earth came from Abbas Shaheed al-Taiee, an executive at the Iraq Insurance Company.

"It is a kind of gift to the Iraqi people," said Mr. Shaheed, 53, a big, heavyset man with terribly serious eyes and a reputation as a master salesman. "We have expanded the principles of life insurance to cover everything that happens in Iraq."

Amazingly, the company has yet to pay out on a single claim.

"We have sold policies in Dawra, Ramadi, Falluja," Mr. Shaheed said, naming some of the most dangerous places in Iraq. "The contract is a good luck charm."

Mr. Shaheed (whose name means martyr in Arabic) emanates a gravitas that must be an asset in his line of work. He manages a sales staff of about 50 across Iraq, but also sells the policies himself, traveling from one workplace to another, like a kind of bureaucratic Grim Reaper.

He says the terrorism policy makes no distinctions between who fires the shots or detonates the bombs. He would be perfectly willing to insure an insurgent, though he has not done so to his knowledge, he said.

"It is a market here; there are no differences," he said, in his grim baritone. "We evaluate people's pockets."

In the United States and Europe, insurance companies offer customized policies to organizations sending employees to dangerous places, including Iraq (some news organizations, for example, insure their reporters this way). But those policies are highly tailored to each company's activities and risks, and they are generally expensive.

The idea of a standardized, terrorism life insurance policy appears to be unprecedented, said Robert Hartwig, the chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute in New York.

Some other insurance experts agreed that the policy was a novel one, but said they would hardly call it a good deal. "In an American context, it's very overpriced," said Robert Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, an association of consumer rights groups. "In America, you could probably get $100,000 worth of life insurance coverage for maybe $125 to $150," especially a healthy 23-year-old, he said. "And that would cover you no matter how you died."

Selling insurance in Iraq has never been easy. The first insurance companies here were established in the 1950's, when they competed with Western companies. But the idea never gained wide acceptance, in part because some Islamic authorities disapprove of insurance, considering it akin to gambling.

Also, many Iraqis preferred to rely on their tribes or families in case of accidents or deaths. The state also played a powerful paternal role: during the Iran-Iraq war, for instance, the government generously compensated the families of soldiers who died, sometimes with a car or property as well as money.

After the Persian Gulf war in 1991 the market shrank further, because foreign reinsurance companies pulled out, forcing Iraqi companies to depend only on their own assets, said Aziz Hassan, a former deputy finance minister.

Strangely, Iraqi insurance companies have done relatively well since the fall of Saddam Hussein, despite a stagnant economy and the uncertainty over Iraq's future. Six private insurance companies were founded in 2004, and now compete with the two state-owned companies.

The Iraq Insurance Company has renovated its offices — they were looted and burned after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 — and the company now employs between 250 and 300 people. They have sold at least 2,700 life insurance policies since the fall of the Hussein government.

In 2005, the company's net income was about $2.5 million at current exchange rates. "We broke records," said Bassim Mahdi Saleh al-Sheikhli, the company's managing director. "Business has never before been so good."

The company attributes much of its success to salesmen like Mr. Shaheed, who now operate more freely — albeit more dangerously — than they did in the past.

"From my point of view, sales is an art," said Mr. Shaheed, who has worked at the Iraq Insurance Company for 18 years. "For instance, talking to a father with children is different from talking to a man still single. You have to bring out his passion to protect his family."

Because the salesmen carry money and travel, their own jobs are unusually dangerous. They do not carry guns. Many have bought terrorism insurance themselves, including Mr. Shaheed.

One rule applies to all prospective clients. "When we talk about death and risks, we refer to ourselves: 'I might die tomorrow,' " Mr. Shaheed said. "When we talk about the payment, we say, 'The company pays you.' "

Once a client has agreed to buy a policy, a price is negotiated. It ranges from 60,000 dinars for the safer professions — teachers, businessmen and the like — to 125,000 for policemen and translators for Western companies. The payout is the same regardless.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Shaheed sat at a desk in his second-floor office, chatting quietly with a potential client. Nearby on the couch sat Basmel Nafaa, a 48-year-old businessman with a bald head and an impish grin. Mr. Nafaa had already bought an ordinary life insurance policy, and was considering buying terrorism coverage too.

"He's the best we have here in Iraq," Mr. Nafaa said of Mr. Shaheed. "He's a good hunter."

Mr. Nafaa recounted how Mr. Shaheed had approached him at the wholesale market where he often works, as if by chance. The salesman chatted amiably about mutual friends, and then began telling a story about a man who had died without leaving anything for his wife and children. Before long, Mr. Nafaa was sold.

"He hardly even needs to remind you of the dangers you face," Mr. Nafaa said. "We see it everywhere."

Mr. Nafaa began offering examples. A few months earlier, his 12-year-old son Joseph was standing outside the family home waiting for a school bus that never came. The boy persuaded his mother to give him money for a taxi. Minutes later, he said, a suicide bomber in a car exploded right next to the bus stop, which is across from the home of a high-level government official. Six people were killed.

Mr. Nafaa showed photographs of his house, which was badly damaged. "I had no insurance at that time," he said.

Then Mr. Nafaa gestured across the room at his cousin, Baseem Makadsi — the other prospective client — who still has a crease on the back of his skull from where a bullet crashed through the window of his car and grazed him while he was driving to the market with his son.

"If he had not leaned over to speak to his son, he would be dead," Mr. Nafaa said. "He lost a lot of blood."

Mr. Makadsi was not yet sold on terrorism insurance. He was thinking of taking his family out of Iraq.

But Mr. Nafaa persuaded himself. "I will buy it," he said. "There is a big probability to be killed by insurgents here. Higher than anywhere else in the world."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jizya, anyone? Come git ya Jizya here...
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 03/21/2006 8:40 Comments || Top||


US casualties down in Iraq
U.S. military deaths during the past month have dropped to an average of about one a day, approaching the lowest level since the insurgency began two years ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data.

The decline in U.S. deaths comes as Iraqi casualties are the highest since the U.S. military began tracking them in 2004.

In the past month, nearly five times as many Iraqi forces and civilians were killed as troops in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, U.S. military data show.

The shift from spring 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi casualty rates were comparable, reflects an insurgency that increasingly targets Iraqis and the growing presence of Iraqi forces on the front lines.

“The Iraqi army is far bigger in number, far higher in training capability and far more willing to go where the fight is and take casualties,” British Defense Secretary John Reid said in an interview.

On the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, however, a wave of violence against Iraqis is prompting talk of civil war. In an interview Sunday with the British Broadcasting Corp., former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi said, “We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”

Vice President Cheney disagreed. Speaking on CBS' Face the Nation, Cheney said, “What we've seen is a serious effort by (insurgents) to foment a civil war. But I don't think they've been successful.”

According to U.S. military data, about 15 Americans and 73 Iraqis are killed or injured each day. A USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data shows the number of U.S. forces killed during the war has declined steadily since November.

RAND Corp. military analyst Nora Bensahel says the increasing level of Iraqi casualties “means Iraqi security forces are in positions of responsibility.” The United States, which has 132,000 troops in Iraq, is “doing fewer patrols on its own and more in support of Iraqi operations,” reducing U.S. casualties.

The U.S. military also has cut the number of American deaths by thwarting the homemade bombs that are the insurgency's prime weapon. Soldiers and Marines now find and neutralize more than 40% of the bombs, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in an interview. That compares with 30% in September. Lynch said that 41 insurgent bombmakers have been killed or captured. Insurgents “are losing skilled bombmakers,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iraq's 240,600 security forces increasingly are fighting insurgents directly, the Pentagon says. Sixty-three Iraqi units are operating independently or in a lead role with coalition support, up from 37 in September. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari says military recruiting remains strong, despite the rising casualties.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.

That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011443.php#011443
Posted by: Javirt Whaiter9406 || 03/21/2006 8:27 Comments || Top||

#2  outstanding piece of info there Javirt - really puts it into perspective. What really worries me is if, no rephrase that when the big one starts with Iran and we face potentially losing thousands in a few months or even hate to say it a day if chem weapons are involved, how are we going to cope with a media which will inevitably cry 'defeat' even if we struck back ten times as hard and had the initiative and control of the Iranian battle space the media would paint it as utter defeat and with that power behind them i fear certainly in the UK the anti war nuts would put up such a barrage of lies and distorted facts that public opinion really would drop to disaterous levels. sad but i think it could happen
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/21/2006 8:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Shep, if the people have been properly prepared, the MSM will be ignored. It will take something like that for the LLL to lose their control of the MSM and their confidence in themselves. The people are a lot more savvy than the MSM leads us to believe.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 9:29 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't mean to downplay Sheps numbers, but that's the fixed cost of having an armed force. The recent unhappy 2,300 is the variable cost.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 10:38 Comments || Top||

#5  There's no one in the military that's "unaware" of the cost. AFN would make a point of bringing the deaths to our attention when someone in the military was killed in training. Non-military accidents were another thing, and the smaller number of deaths by "natural causes" was almost ignored. Units, though, kept these people alive and in the memories of those assigned to them. The 1st TAC lost an aircraft (RF-4C) and both crewmembers in 1987 during an air show. Two friends of mine suffered minor injuries aiding others during the Ramstein air sho plane crash in 1988. Just sitting here thinking, I can recall at least 11 deaths from military duty and another 24 or 25 to accidents in units I was assigned to. That doesn't include the nine that died in a C-46 plane crash in Panama in 1967 - a plane I was supposed to be on until the last minute. War is a serious business. Training for it has to be as realistic as possible. That's sometimes fatal for the trainees, either from equipment failure, or a momentary distraction, or your or someone else's mistake. Half the deaths in Iraq have been from accidents, not bullets.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 17:37 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
US still searching for Afghan Stingers
The U.S. military says it is on the lookout for Stinger antiaircraft missiles in Afghanistan following media reports the Taliban may be trying to use them.

U.S. military spokesman Colonel James Yonts said no Stingers have been found so far.

Stingers are highly accurate antiaircraft missiles that were supplied by the United States to mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s. Not all of the Stingers from those days have been recovered.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Your Stingers are usually found around blasting caps.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:25 Comments || Top||

#2  whats the shelf life on that missile?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/21/2006 11:01 Comments || Top||

#3  I've read 10 years for the battery/coolant pack. That can be easily replaced. I've also read 15 years before the propellant degrades below spec (hot climates and rough handling speeds degradation).
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 11:23 Comments || Top||

#4  This was posted yesterday, from Strategypage (there were similar articles over the past couple of years too) : The Stinger Missile Myth.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 11:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Here's an interesting site about Afghan war rugs, with Soviet troop carriers, tanks, weapons, and Stinger launchers woven in.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 11:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Here's a more detailed site.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 11:42 Comments || Top||

#7  Nice, thanks!
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 12:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Fascinating sites, Seafarious. I wonder, are those rugs made mainly for personal use, or for the tourist trade? Or are collecters so avid for novelty that even the poorer qualities fly off the shelves?

/just wondering. I wouldn't have such a thing in my house, no matter how historical. But it might appeal to Mr. Wife's Uncle Peter, who was a Green Beret in Viet Nam.... Oh dear. This could become an expensive Christmas, 'cause if we start with one of the many uncles...
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#9  The author of the articles links to his ebay auctions. He seems to be a quality seller, with genuine interest and expertise in the field.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 12:46 Comments || Top||

#10  Since we're talking about rug making, here's an interesting little snippet or two.

The intricate weaving patterns of a fine rug require rather complex alternations between selected colors. Rather than come up with a lengthy "knit two, purl one, drop three" sort of mnemonic, instead, the color threads are unspooled to a short distance from the loom and individuals (usually children) actually dance the pattern into the rug. The footwork is more easily remembered than a complicated verbal sequence.

In a truly fine hand-loomed tribal rug that is made with vegetable dyes, one should be able to detect, along the rug's length, variations within a given color's intensity as harvesters have returned to a seasonal settlement and collected new batches of the same berries or flowers used in making the dyes.

If someone is trying to sell you a rug as "tribal" and the colors are entirely consistent from end to end, it is most likely a fake or does not use vegetable dyes.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 13:50 Comments || Top||

#11  As to the "dancing" mentioned above, think of a Maypole dance and how it intertwines the ribbons into a braid. Same basic idea.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 13:53 Comments || Top||

#12  Ed-
Please believe me, those numbers are overoptimistic by a couple orders of magnitude. Even something as thoroughly simple as a 2.75" FFAR rocket motor has a remarkably short shelf life, and they are kept in climate controlled mags by skilled, trained technicians who have access to equally skilled technical support. The Afghan Stingers had none of that. After a year or two at MOST they were significantly degraded; after 20+ years they are effectively useless and more of a danger to the shooter than an aircraft.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/21/2006 19:34 Comments || Top||

#13  look
µÍÎÂÊÔÑéÏä
Posted by: Ulaigum Angailet7896 || 03/21/2006 23:34 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Naji Sabri told CIA that Saddam had significant chemical weapons
In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

But on that very trip, there was also a secret contact made. The contact was brokered by the French intelligence service, sources say. Intelligence sources say that in a New York hotel room, CIA officers met with an intermediary who represented Sabri. All discussions between Sabri and the CIA were conducted through a "cutout," or third party. Through the intermediary, intelligence sources say, the CIA paid Sabri more than $100,000 in what was, essentially, "good-faith money." And for his part, Sabri, again through the intermediary, relayed information about Saddam’s actual capabilities.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

The sources say Sabri’s answers were much more accurate than his proclamations to the United Nations, where he demonized the U.S. and defended Saddam. At the same time, they also were closer to reality than the CIA's estimates, as spelled out in its October 2002 intelligence estimate.

For example, consider biological weapons, a key concern before the war. The CIA said Saddam had an "active" program for "R&D, production and weaponization" for biological agents such as anthrax. Intelligence sources say Sabri indicated Saddam had no significant, active biological weapons program. Sabri was right. After the war, it became clear that there was no program.

Another key issue was the nuclear question: How far away was Saddam from having a bomb? The CIA said if Saddam obtained enriched uranium, he could build a nuclear bomb in "several months to a year." Sabri said Saddam desperately wanted a bomb, but would need much more time than that. Sabri was more accurate.

On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.

In the weeks following September 2002, after first contact with Sabri was made in New York, the agency kept much of his information concealed within its ranks. Sabri would have been a potential gold mine of information, according to NBC News analyst retired Gen. Wayne Downing.

"I think it’s very significant that the CIA would have someone who could tell them what’s on the dictator’s mind," says Downing.

But, intelligence sources say, the CIA relationship with Sabri ended when the CIA, hoping for a public relations coup, pressured him to defect to the U.S. The U.S. hoped Sabri would leave Iraq and publicly renounce Saddam. He repeatedly refused, sources say, and contact was broken off.

When war broke out, Sabri was defiant and outspoken. "Those aggressors are war criminals, colonialist war criminals. Crazy people led by a crazy, drunken, ignorant president," he said.

After the war, former CIA director George Tenet once boasted of a secret Iraqi source.

"A source," he said in a speech on Feb. 5, 2004, "who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle." Sources tell NBC News Tenet was alluding to Sabri. Tenet said that the source — meaning Sabri — had said Iraq was stockpiling chemical weapons and that equipment to produce insecticides, under the oil-for-food program, had been diverted to covert chemical weapons production. However, in that speech, Tenet also laid out what Sabri had disclosed: that there was no biological program, that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons but had none.

After the war, Sabri was not arrested or put on the notorious "deck of cards." He lives in the Middle East and NBC News is not revealing his location for security reasons. According to Downing, that he is living in the Middle East may be significant.

"The fact that he was there, that he was able to get out, live openly, like he is, says that for some reason he received some special status," says Downing.

NBC News repeatedly requested comments about this report from Sabri, either in written form, by telephone or in person. NBC News contacted Sabri several times by phone, and hand delivered a letter to a representative of his, explaining in detail the substance of this report, including the details about weapons of mass destruction. Sabri confirmed he received the letter, but repeatedly refused to comment in any way, neither confirming nor denying any of the information in this report.

So did the CIA. The agency also would not comment on Sabri, or answer why it discounted or ignored Sabri's assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  F&*K YOU pmsNBC
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 1:49 Comments || Top||

#2  "... ignored Sabri's assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

So it only counts as a WMD program if all three components (chem, bio, nuke) are present and ready to use? Sabri said 'no bio program, nuke program but a long way from deployable, and "Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas".
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/21/2006 7:16 Comments || Top||

#3  "It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence."

It also raises the question;
What actually passes for journalism these days?
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/21/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#4  What actually passes for journalism these days?

Anything, apparently.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 12:54 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Philippines stepping up attacks against Abu Sayyaf
The Philippine military is stepping up military operations in Mindanao against Islamist terrorists with links to al-Qaida.

The stepped up operations were ordered by Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, chief of the military's Southern Command, and follows the capture last week of two prominent leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group.

"Civilians are supporting us and we're working closely with other law enforcement agencies in the hunt against Abu Sayyaf and their supporters," The Manila Times quoted him Monday.

Abu Sayyaf has not taken part in peace talks between Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines and the government.

Two prominent commanders of the group, Jaulkaram Hadjaini and Burham Sali, were captured separately last week. Hadjaini was taken on Jolo island, while Sali - also known as Commander Abu Sanny, was captured in Parang, Maguindanao.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:41 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good. Do so effectively, please, even after the Americans have gone.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:37 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistani Taliban now in control of North, South Waziristan
A powerful new militia dubbed "the Pakistani Taliban" has effectively seized control of swaths of the country's northern tribal areas in recent months, triggering alarm in Islamabad and marking a big setback in America's "war on terror".

The militants are strongest in North and South Waziristan, two of seven tribal agencies on the border with Afghanistan. Strict social edicts have been handed down: shopkeepers may not sell music or films; barbers are instructed not to shave beards. Yesterday a bomb blew up a radio transmitter in Wana, taking the state radio off the air.

Article continues
Militants collect taxes from passing vehicles at new checkpoints, and last week an Islamic court was established in Wana to replace the traditional jirga, or council of elders. Rough justice has already been dispensed elsewhere. A gang of seven alleged bandits were executed in Miran Shah in December and their bodies were hung from a post in the town centre.

The violent puritanism is spreading. On Sunday a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a police vehicle in Dera Ismail Khan, near South Waziristan, killing seven people. More than 100 pro-government elders and politicians have been killed in the past nine months, said a diplomat.

The Pakistani military deployed 70,000 troops to Waziristan two years ago to rein in the militants. But the campaign is faltering. An army assault against an alleged al-Qaida training camp outside Miran Shah on March 1 left more than 100 dead.

Fareed Ullah Khan, a resident, said he cowered inside his home for three days as shells whistled overhead and the air rattled with gunfire. As the fighting intensified, his family scurried from room to room in search of safety.

"We were afraid the bullets might land where we were hiding," said Mr Khan, who has since fled to Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier province. President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to quell the revolt. Since declaring a curfew in Miran Shah, government troops have regained control. But some people are worried. "The so-called war on terror is going badly," said one diplomat.

Comparisons to the emergence of the Afghan Taliban in the early 1990s are increasing. Although they have distinct identities, the groups are strongly linked - both are ethnic Pashtun - and Afghans use Waziristan as a rear base.

Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban is a loose alliance of tribal militia operating under radical clerics such as Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq. Many are angered by heavy-handed Pakistani military attacks against suspected al-Qaida hideouts, which are thought to have killed hundreds of civilians over the last two years.

The tribesmen are allied with al-Qaida fugitives, mostly from Uzbekistan and Chechnya. The foreigners have blended into the tribal structures, buying loyalties and marrying local women.

Foreign reporters are banned from the area and most local journalists have fled. One, Hayatullah Khan, 32, was abducted in December and is still missing.

The US is impatient to catch more senior al-Qaida figures. Unmanned Predator drones, now armed with Hellfire missiles, sweep over the tribal areas on surveillance missions so often that villagers now recognise their engine noise.

In January American forces destroyed a house in Bajaur tribal agency where it thought al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was hiding. Thirteen villagers were killed. The US has carried out several strikes, said a well-placed diplomat, but it has let Pakistan claim responsibility.

Such attacks have won the militants much support. "These are not the proper Taliban," said the refugee Mr Khan. "They are the common people who have revolted against the [Pakistani] government and targeted killings by Americans."

The Taliban presence in northern Pakistan also concerns Britain, which is deploying more than 3,300 troops in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

British intelligence contributed "heavily" to a list of about some 150 Pakistan-based Taliban suspects that the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, brought to Islamabad last month, the diplomat said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pakistan has no firm control of the area. There is no law but the lawlessness of the Taliban and their wannabee Paki relatives. Time to teach the whole area what we CAN do if we get angry enough - bomb the area until there's not even a blade of grass living there. Keep bombing it for another couple of weeks, to destroy any remnants of trails, former buildings, and walled compounds still in place. Then seed the area with mines until there's one every 4-6 inches. Tell Perv we want a half-dozen scalps, and they'd better be genuine, or we do the same to the rest of Pakikaka land. Also tell Perv that if there's any seething, we'll change his name to Perf(orated), and put a stop to the seething with a couple of Buffs. We're tired of playing Islamostupid games, and we're going to get serious about ending tribal stupidity.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/21/2006 17:22 Comments || Top||

#2  name of the month Perf(orated)

good un OP!

Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 18:47 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ahmadinejad wants West to apologize
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday said the West should apologize to Iran for accusing it of trying to develop a nuclear weapons program and said his country would continue to resist international pressure to halt its nuclear energy program.

"Today they tell our nation that nuclear energy is a bad thing and it is not necessary for our people to have it. But the nation of Iran has stood (for its right)," he said in a televised speech to mark the Iranian New Year, which begins Tuesday. "Those who head war and crimes accused the Iranian nation of war seeking. They insulted our nation. I do advise them to apologize."

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes but Western countries who believe otherwise have pushed for
United Nations action — including possible sanctions — against the country.

Ahmadinejad stressed that Iran would not give up its nuclear rights.

"Today we announce with pride that the peaceful knowledge and technology are at our disposal in order to be used for different purposes, including electricity generation, and we have not borrowed it from anybody that can take it away from us," he said.

Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran should be compensated for a two and a half year suspension of its nuclear activities. Under heavy pressure from the West, Iran suspended its enrichment of uranium and related activities in 2003 and began negotiating with Germany, Britain and France to reach an agreed framework for its nuclear development. It resumed nuclear research earlier this year when talks failed.

The United States and its European allies want Iran to permanently abandon uranium enrichment and all related activities, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel for reactors or materials for a nuclear bomb.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Piss off, ratbag.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 2:02 Comments || Top||

#2  From the Truman-Doctrine to the Mohammad-Doctrine

America as friend of Iran, which owes its territorial integrity to the nuclear-diplomacy of the militarized-Truman period (prior to his loss of backbone):Link

US government on the notorious Kennan-Marshall "containment" policy, which followed the nuclear boot of the Soviets out of occupied Iran and sandbagged "rollback" imperatives, leading to Joe McCarthy's famous attacks on Marshall appeasement and subsidy of the enemy:Link

Anti-Kennan:Link

In his latter day phase of advanced senility, Kennan (a Carter stooge) opposed the Reagan Doctrine, but witnessed the fruit of same as the Warsaw Pact collapsed:link

Reagan's legacy:Link

First notice of Bush-Doctrine (pre-emptive war):Link

Executed Muslim Brotherhood terrorist, Syed Qutb, on binding historicity of total and final warfare against "disbelievers,":Link

Muslim agit-prop agent all but admits the futility of both exporting freedom to, and expecting non-aggression from a Muslim majority entity, in that the only democratic vote of which they recognize validity, is for the sovereign Muslim deity, "allah," whose recitation ("quran") orders Muslims, "Jihad is prescribed to you":Link

Before they instigated 9-11, Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami leaders disparaged both US military doctrine and American resolve to effectively counter jihad-aggression:Link

After Oval Office consultation with Jamaat-i-Islami operatives in the US, President Bush posits the alleged passive nature of Islam:Link

Islamic tyrant of Iran, emboldened by the West's surrender to Hamas, claims their Revolution is spreading, manifesting his intention to use Hizbollah for genocide operations against Israel first, then America:
Link

A prominent contemporary defender of the Reagan-Doctrine on the stakes of Iranian proliferation:
Link

Final Jihad, after the last stage of our surrender to the West's mortal enemies, and complete success of the Mohammad-Doctrine:Link
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 2:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Piss off, ratbag

channeling mojo..

Ahmadinejad wants West to apologize

piss off dickweed assrag!

Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Ouch! My above post appears pessimistic, when my message is that in face of Iran's threats, the West will finally get its act together and do something about the Muslim menace. Few Iranians are aware that 300,000 Americans of Iranian descent have abandoned the Arabist murder cult of Islam, and prefer to think of themselves as: Persian. Persians would help us de-indoctrinate their Arabized countrymen.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 2:16 Comments || Top||

#5  Mr. Natural sez he wants Ah-madman-ejad to go F#@& himself.

Posted by: R. Crumb || 03/21/2006 3:25 Comments || Top||

#6  If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will just FOAD at this moment a lot of lives will be saved in the near future. And btw I'm not an American.
Posted by: Duh! || 03/21/2006 4:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Hey R.C. That's actually Mr. Goodbar sez
Posted by: ARMYGUY || 03/21/2006 8:38 Comments || Top||

#8  Durka Durka ... Ahmadinejad!

/Team America
Posted by: Chinter Flarong9283 || 03/21/2006 10:04 Comments || Top||

#9  Sorry we've used a biological agent that wiped 90% of your population.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:14 Comments || Top||

#10  We in the United States apologize for electing Jimmy Carter in 1976, who allowed tha Ayatollah Khomeni to take power, and make the Shah's actions look like those of a choirboy. There's the apology.
Posted by: BigEd || 03/21/2006 10:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Damn right big Ed.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 11:16 Comments || Top||

#12  We are very sorry indeed that you are such a complete a-hole.
Posted by: Ackoopmed || 03/21/2006 11:20 Comments || Top||

#13  To: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

From: US State Department

If you want an apology, please be so kind as to crawl up our @ss and fetch it. Should that prove inconvenient we strongly urge you on no uncertain terms to go f&ck a rock.

PS: Forecasts indicate that it is advisable to begin wearing an asbestos turban.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||

#14  Will a 50 megaton H bomb with ahmadiboy at its receiving end be considered as a proper apology ??
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 13:43 Comments || Top||

#15  50 megatons? Bombs don't come that big, not even the thermonukes.

The standard 710kt will work just fine.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 13:50 Comments || Top||

#16  Sure, we'll say we're sorry.

We're sorry you're such an insane asshole.

Now fuck off. We're busy preparing your dispatch to HELL.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 15:31 Comments || Top||

#17  This reminds me of this apology:
Captain John Sheridan: I apologize. I'm … sorry. [pause] I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to hell. [pause] As with everything else, it's the thought that counts.



Posted by: bruce || 03/21/2006 20:03 Comments || Top||

#18  Either apologise for calling uthers "The Great Satan", and the 444 days of hostage taking or you'll be real sorry!

The language the primitives deserve. The need is there for proper accountability.

Anyway events get 'mysteriously' moulded by karma anyhow.
Posted by: Duh! || 03/21/2006 22:50 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Sherpao defends record on fighting al-Qaeda
Several important al-Qaida members have been killed in military operations in Pakistan's tribal region, the country's interior minister said on Monday.

Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao told the Senate Monday evening that the Pakistani government had the list of the foreign militants who were arrested and killed in Waziristan and only recently 29 foreign militants were arrested which proved their presence in the areas.

He said that Sheikh Abdur Rehamn al-Mesri, Abdul Shoaib Samarkandi and Hamza Rabi were among the al-Qaida important men killed during the operations.

Earlier opposition senators criticized the military operations in Waziristan and blamed the government for the law and order problem in the tribal region. They opposed the use of force and urged the government to find out a solution through dialogue.

Sherpao said that the government was only taking action against the foreign militants who had taken refuge in the tribal areas. " These foreign militants were repeatedly asked to surrender with the assurance to live peacefully in the area. But not a single foreign militant surrendered and registered himself with the government leading to action to flush them from the area," he said.

The minister said that law enforcing agencies only responded when fired upon and several personnel were killed by the miscreants. He said that the government had ensured that there was minimum collateral damage as a result of action against the miscreants. He said that Pakistan would never allow its soil to be used for acts of terrorism against any country.

Sherpao said the Senate must condemn through a resolution the acts of terrorism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan and to maintain law and order in both areas.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Sakra's grandfather was offered governorship of Hatay
Louai Sakka, currently on trial charged with being a "top level" Al-Qaeda terror network administrator for which he is expected to receive a life sentence, is originally Turkish.

Sakka, allegedly prepared the passports for two of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and is also being held responsible for the explosions in Istanbul.

Yaser Sakka, the elder brother of Sakka who will appear in court today, came from Syria to Istanbul on March 17 and visited his brother.

Through his lawyer Osman Karahan, Yaser Sakka showed Zaman his grandfather Bekir Sakka's identity card sample taken from Hatay in 1924 and the passport his grandmother Hatica Sakka received in order to travel to Syria's capital Aleppo on 3 June 1939, together with her two children. Sakka’s brother confirmed that the family was originally from Turkey.

Yaser Sakka also told that the Sakka family moved from Seydisehir Konya to Hatay during the Ottoman era.

After the Ottoman State collapsed and the Republic of Turkey was founded, their grandfather Bekir Sakka migrated to Syria.

The president of Turkey at the time, Ismet Inonu, proposed the post of Hatay governor to Sakka’s grandfather to encourage the family to stay in Turkey.

According to the vital records register, Sakka's grandfather was married to two women, Rabia and Hatice, and had four children, Azime, Aliye, Mehmet and Ibrahim Halil.

Louai Sakka is the son of Mehmet Sakka who was born on 12 September 1935.

Mehmet Sakka's identity card includes information that he was registered at the county of Antakya, district of Derbuz, Page No: 269, Registration No: 5.

Sakka's father, who was engaged in commerce in Halep, owned a plastics factory in Syria. Sakka has ten brothers and sisters and was born in Halep in 1973.

Lawyer Karahan said Sakka, who will appear before the court for the first time today, will admit to planning actions against Israeli ships, but denies the allegations that he financed the bomb attacks in Istanbul.

Karahan also said Sakka will make important statements about the 9/11 attacks, CIA operations, Turkish intelligence and the UK's policy on Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Iraqi insurgency's strength lies in its media savvy
Chilling new footage obtained by ABC News shows hooded insurgents handing out supplies to schoolchildren as they visit a school in the town of Ramadi, located to the west of Baghdad.

"Who do you love, the mujahedeen or the Americans?" asks one of the hooded men in the latest insurgent propaganda tape.

"The mujahedeen," the students answer in unison. One little boy then goes on to call the Americans infidels, while another says the Americans kill "like this" as he waves his finger around.

"What I think has made the insurgency in Iraq so different from previous ones is the insurgents' enormous media savvy," said Bruce Hoffman, a counterinsurgency expert and director of the RAND office in Washington, D.C.

True to the 21st century's digital age, insurgents use dozens of Internet Web sites to wage the propaganda campaign and to pass on the latest tactics, including killing techniques, to other insurgents.

"So, in other words, all the lessons that they're learning on how to attack the United States are being communicated and shared not only throughout Iraq but with insurgents and terrorists throughout the world," Hoffman said.

While the number of active insurgents is currently estimated at about 30,000 throughout Iraq, experts who advise the U.S. military say those who are assisting the insurgency number in the hundreds of thousands.

"Almost like our minutemen during the American Revolution, [they're] people with a weapon who were available at a moment's notice to be summoned to battle," Hoffman said of the insurgents.

The best-known insurgent — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq — has managed to evade an extensive U.S. manhunt. But U.S. officials now say he leads just one of about 60 to 100 different insurgent groups.

"These forces can't be beaten in one single battle," said Kalev Sepp, formerly with the U.S. Army Special Forces. "On any day in Iraq, we're fighting 100 different battles down at the neighborhood and village level in what's been called a mosaic war."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Who do you love?" - beyond this jihad-worshipping asshole reporter, I see a copyright
violation
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:37 Comments || Top||

#2  I prefer
Iraqi insurgency's strength lies in media's total luck of savvy.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't forget their loyal allies - the Mainstream Media -- who are right in the thick of spreading their propaganda, misinforation and lies -- all in order to get americans killed.

The MSM wants to make Bush look bad -- no matter how many American lives it takes.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 11:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Gee, stunningly cutting edge "media savvy". The Black Panthers were doing the same thing in '69 for crying out loud.

If it was Americans handing out the school supplies, the kids would be saying the mirror image. It's a simple survival skill after generations of dictatorship.

I've got no similar excuse for the guy from RAND or the reporter who takes it seriously.
Posted by: Grump Angomock8256 || 03/21/2006 13:32 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Crime is a major obstacle to law enforcement in Kenya
Crime in the Kenyan capital is so rife that the city is famously known as "Nairobbery" -- a pun on what is seen as a serious obstacle to attracting foreign investors and lifting the country out of poverty.

"We are living in dangerous times," the Sunday Standard newspaper said in a recent report on crime, showing how people felt east Africa's richest country had become more risky.

The signs of a society struggling to contain robberies, murders and rape are evident everywhere in the sprawling capital of roughly 3.5 million people which is east Africa's main commercial hub and home to one of the continent's largest slums.

Private security guards stand outside banks and shops, people in the well-off suburbs live behind high walls and electric fences, visitors are told not to go out after dark.

Rape has become so common that billboards warn against "human beasts". Almost everybody has a tale of being a victim of crime or knows someone who has and local media run daily stories about armed robberies, carjackings and gun battles between police and armed gangs in broad daylight.

Paul Andre de la Porte, who heads the United Nations Development Programme in Nairobi, said crime was more of an obstacle to private sector inflows than corruption, which has dominated headlines with high profile figures accused of being involved in multimillion dollar scams.

"If we could get rid of the level of insecurity that we have in Kenya, that would be a major breakthrough for its socio-economic development," de la Porte said.

The economy -- helped by booming tourism -- has picked up since President Mwai Kibaki won power in 2002, growing by some five percent last year from an average of two percent in the late 1990s under his autocratic predecessor Daniel arap Moi.

But critics say it still underperforms partly due to the government's failure to deliver on promises to root out graft and violent crime, and fix poor roads and other infrastructure.

The most recent comparative statistics show that Kenya received less in crucial foreign direct investments than its poorer neighbours Uganda and Tanzania -- $46 million (26 million pounds) in 2004 compared to $237 million and $470 million respectively.

Apart from deterring investors, analysts say insecurity can also hurt existing firms by pushing up costs and restricting operations. Many businesses close early in Nairobi where owners swiftly pull metal grills over windows to protect goods.

Merchant International Group, a London-based consultancy which measures investment risk by assessing 10 criteria, gave Kenya a worse grade than many other African countries, in part reflecting its problems with corruption and organised crime.

Despite being one of sub-Saharan Africa's most developed and stable countries, Kenya received the same overall rating for this year's first quarter as volatile Ivory Coast, while Sudan was judged to be slightly less risky, despite violence in its Darfur region.

"We consider there is an insecure climate in terms of foreign investors operating in the country," said Rashna Writer, head of the consultancy's global risk department.

A United Nations study last year said crime was a key factor in preventing countries across Africa from rising out of poverty. It listed the high proportion of young, unemployed people, glaring income inequalities and rapid urbanisation as reasons for high levels of violent crime.

Samuel Mwaura Waweru, chief executive of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance business lobby group, said things were not as bad as some believed in Kenya but added there was a problem.

"Poor security scares away potential investors, they don't come," he said. "It impacts negatively on the existing investors because they have to try and make up for security deficiency in-house, which is expensive."

De la Porte said he believed Kenya could see annual growth of at least 7-8 percent, provided the government successfully cracked down on crime and corruption and donors raised aid levels sharply to help create a better investment climate.

Police say they are making progress, with figures showing a 12 percent fall in overall crime last year, but some critics say they see little sign of this on the ground.

"Considering the mounting reports of rape, robberies, murders, carjackings, ethnic clashes, arson and other crimes, that assurance rings hollow," the Nation daily said in an editorial.

Kenyan and foreign aid agencies said in a report last year that rape, incest and indecent assault had increased fourfold in the country of 32 million people over the past four years.

A recent travel warning from the United States -- whose Nairobi embassy was the target of a deadly bombing attack in 1998 blamed on al Qaeda -- also underlined security threats.

"In addition to the terrorist threat, there are increasing incidents of criminal activity ... especially after dark," the State Department said in December's statement.

Such language irritates Waweru, who says the situation has improved and that it is worse in many other countries.

"Kenya has one of the best security records for tourists, yet in spite of that the country is presented as having a security crisis," Waweru said. "Because of that perception the potential investors are discouraged."

His words were echoed by businessman Bhupen Gala, owner of a textile business that employs about 200 people.

"It is not so bad. I've not seen a single robbery on this road," Gala said in his shop in central Nairobi where he sells clothes made at a plant on the outskirts of the city.

"Red tape is a bigger obstacle than robberies."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Crime is a major obstacle to law enforcement in Kenya"

You gotta be kidding.

Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 2:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Of course, but law enforcement is a major obstacle to crime too. Sometimes, being a thug is not all that easy, espcially when you get the tip of your fingers raw counting your money.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||

#3  No reason they can't co-exist. Cut down on the friction, red-tape and overhead.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:24 Comments || Top||


Iraq
US forces under more scrutiny in Iraq
U.S. forces in Iraq have come under scrutiny as more detailed allegations emerge from an Iraqi human rights group and Iraqi police about a U.S. raid last week in which they say eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports.

Iraqi police and human rights groups say 11 people were killed in a dawn raid on a village just north of Balad. They say the dead included at least five children and four women. The U.S. military confirms that four people were killed, including two women and a child.

Tonight the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad told CBS News the military is not disputing the possibility of other casualties and will cooperate with an Iraqi police investigation.

However, he said that U.S. forces were targeting a facilitator for al Qaeda in Iraq who was captured in the raid. He also said U.S. forces were fired upon as they approached the house in question, so they returned fire with both ground and air assets.

But as Logan reports, that's not what an independent Iraqi human rights group, Hammurabi, believes happened after interviewing villagers who claim the American forces tried to cover up their actions.

"They tried to change the crime scene, so they blew up the house to make it look like it was an air strike that killed them, but we have papers and pictures that show they were executed," said Dr. Abdul al-Mashadani.

Meanwhile, at least 38 more people were killed by insurgents and shadowy sectarian gangs, police reported on Monday, the third anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq.

• The Joint Chiefs chairman says U.S. troop strength in Iraq may "plus up" now and then, even as Iraqi forces take greater control of their country. Marine Gen. Peter Pace said occasional events may merit a bump in American forces for short periods, just as they did in advance of Monday's Shiite religious observance. Pace says Iraqis already have demonstrated their capability by controlling half of Baghdad — what he calls a "pretty tough neighborhood."

• In other violence, a roadside bomb exploded just a few hundred yards from an Interior Ministry lockup in central Baghdad, killing at least three police commandos and a prisoner, al-Mohammadawi said. Four commandos were injured in the midday attack.

• In southeast Baghdad, also toward evening, a roadside bomb blew apart a minibus killing four pilgrims returning from a pilgrimage in the holy city of Karbala, where millions of Shiite faithful gathered to mark the 40th and final day of the annual mourning period for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

• Five pilgrims on their way to Karbala were wounded in a drive-by shooting earlier in the day in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, police said.

• Demonstrators around the globe marked the third anniversary of the war with protests. About 150 war protesters gathered outside the building where President Bush was giving a speech Monday about progress in Iraq, banging drums, holding peace signs and chanting for him to leave. At the Pentagon, 51 Iraq war protesters who said they wanted to deliver a mock coffin to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were arrested and held briefly.

• As millions of pilgrims gathered in Karbala on Monday, Baghdad International Airport was ordered closed through Tuesday "to avoid any violence during the (religious) commemoration," said Transportation Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abdul-Wahab.

• Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, Md., President Bush said, "We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq. And a victory in Iraq will make this country more secure and will help lay the foundation of peace for generations to come." Mr. Bush continued his series of speeches on Iraq Monday, speaking at the City Club of Cleveland. During this speech, Mr. Bush said he has "confidence in our strategy (video)."

• Debate continues over the state of Iraq after three years of war. Vice President Cheney echoed the president in hailing political progress in Iraq, noting that the Iraqis have met political deadlines. In an interview on Face the Nation Sunday, Cheney told anchor Bob Schieffer, "What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment a civil war. But I don't think they've been successful."

At least 2,314 U.S. military personnel have died in the war, which is estimated to have cost $200 billion to $250 billion so far. President Bush says about 30,000 Iraqis have been killed, while others put the toll far higher.

The killing has been on an upward spiral since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra. An Associated Press tally, including the deaths reported Monday, put the toll at 992 since the golden dome atop the Askariya shrine was left in rubble by two bombers, who are believed to remain at large.

Police found the bodies of at least 15 more people — including a 13-year-old girl — dumped in and near Baghdad. The discoveries marked the latest in a string of gruesome, execution-style killings that have become an almost daily event as Sunni and Shiite extremists settle sectarian scores.

About nightfall Monday, a bomb rocked a coffee shop in northern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and 23 others. The bomb was left in a plastic bag inside the shop in a market area of the Azamiyah neighborhood, police Maj. Falah al-Mohammadewi said.

At about the same time, gunmen killed two oil engineers leaving work at the Beiji refinery north of Baghdad. An electrical engineer and technician were gunned down at the nearby power station, Beiji police Lt. Khalaf Ayed Al-Janabi said.

Baghdadis voiced anger Monday when asked about their lives as the war entered its fourth year. The uncertainty they had over their future after Saddam Hussein was toppled continues, while violence and bloodshed have become a way of life, Logan reports.

"Since (U.S.-led troops) came into Iraq, we get nothing," said Ali Zeidan. "Three years have passed by for the Iraqi people and they are still suffering psychologically ... and economically."

In the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, gunmen opened fire on a former Baghdad mayor as he left his house Monday morning, causing serious injuries. Assailants killed one policeman and injured four police officers and two civilians late Sunday in three separate attacks on police patrols in the city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of the capital.

On the political front, Iraqi leaders still had not formed a government more than three months after landmark elections for the country's first permanent post-invasion parliament, but they did announce an agreement on establishing a Security Council to deal with key matters while negotiations proceed.

"It was a successful meeting, and we have agreed on forming a National Security Council whose powers will not contradict the constitution," Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab political leader, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The council, to be headed by President Jalal Talabani, was established as an interim measure as politicians struggle to agree on the makeup of a new government following the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

Al-Dulaimi said nine council seats would go to Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, while Kurds and Sunni Arabs each would control four seats and the secular bloc two. Talabani, a Kurd, would head the group.

The exact powers of the council, if any, were not explained. But it appeared to have been formed to ensure that politicians from minority blocs would at least be consulted in advance on important government and security decisions.

The political discussions on forming a government began last week under pressure from U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Al-Dulaimi said the talks would not resume until Saturday because of Shiite and Kurdish holidays this week.

The U.S. military's goal is to have Iraqi security forces in control of 75 percent of the country's territory by this summer, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Baghdad said. In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer, the President's National Security advisor, Stephen Hadley, said that the military may not reach that goal by the summer, but is making progress toward it.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:26 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
The MSM's been prayin for Mai Lai. They've had the story written for 3 yrs now.

Posted by: macofromoc || 03/21/2006 0:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Bull Shit

the Marines were fired upon.

the throwback coward muslim terrorists hid behind skirts and kids while they fired up the Marines, so they are to blame.

its the cause and effect thingy.
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 1:57 Comments || Top||

#3  yep looks like yet another in a long list of cases where the eneamy has choosen to intermingle and move in with innocent civilians with zero regard for those civilians safty. Not our fault if they choose to ignore that. Infact the bigger story is infact that the eneamy continues to use civilians as human shields with care as to thier safty. Imagine if coalition troops were driving around with civilians tied to thier tanks and apc's - my god there would be outrage that would make the whole world go wild with rage yet these fckers continue to do this without any fear of so called 'journalists' exposing them for what they are.
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/21/2006 5:52 Comments || Top||

#4  I really, really, really would like to see the Geneva convention (or what I understand of it anyway) to be fully applied in letter and *spirit* by the USA and by western forces in general : "play fair, and you'll get fair treatment; play dirty, and then we're not bound to play fair anymore".

Thus, non uniformed irregular fighters may be summarily shot, use of forbidden weaponry and tactics means the other side can up the ante as much as he wishes, uses of civilians as human shields is forbidden and frees the other side from any responsability in his response,...

I may be gravely mistaken (my only superficial knowledge of theses conventions actually comes from RB comments), but I am under the impression than the Hague and Geneva conventions are byproducts of clear-minded times, not the tranzi excuse for the Freedom fighters(tm) to get away with anything while western forces must fight with *one hand tied behind their back* (see the numerous attacks on weaponry that uses technology to offset the numerical advantages of 3rd world armies, such as cluster bombs) that the msm and our global Enlightened Elites are selling us.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 6:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Those clear headed times were when rules like the GC applied only to Europeans and they did whatever they wanted elsewhere. Somehow I doubt our operations in the Philippines or Latin America in the early century lived up to the GC. Nor did any European colonial order keeping.

I'd rather see us drop out of the GC. I suspect the only country that has ever even remotely complied with the GC wrt Americans is Germany. With Europe becoming Eurabia, it is unlikely any country will ever again observe GC wrt Americans.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 7:38 Comments || Top||

#6  I may be gravely mistaken (my only superficial knowledge of theses conventions actually comes from RB comments), but I am under the impression than the Hague and Geneva conventions are byproducts of clear-minded times...

Yep, and America's government's attitude towards them has remained remarkably clear-headed while the rest of the world when foggy-brained. For example, a lot of people cite a convention the US didn't sign onto as reasons al'Qaeda are entitled to POW status -- the US didn't sign onto it because the Reagan administration realized it would just be letting terrorists off the hook.

Those clear headed times were when rules like the GC applied only to Europeans and they did whatever they wanted elsewhere. Somehow I doubt our operations in the Philippines or Latin America in the early century lived up to the GC. Nor did any European colonial order keeping.

I doubt anyone on the other side of any of those conflicts obeyed the GC -- or ever intended to.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/21/2006 8:03 Comments || Top||

#7  One thing we must not do is treat enemies who do not follow the GC (the 'Insurgancy' and their puppet masters Iran and Al-Q) as of they do. This places our men in danger since they (the enemy) has no reason to follow the GC since we will follow it regardless.

We also should announce this policy publically - to the EU, Media, UN and directly to the face of the Iranian UN Ambassidor.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 8:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Let's see if we clarify things a little.

Tonight the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad told CBS News the military is not disputing the possibility of other casualties and will cooperate with an Iraqi police investigation.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Can you win a war with one brain lobe tied behind your back
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 9:59 Comments || Top||

#10  Can you win a war with one brain lobe tied behind your back

No, but apparently you can be a journalist with one hand over your eyes and the other over your ears.
Posted by: john || 03/21/2006 14:08 Comments || Top||

#11  One hand for both ears, john? That's quite some trick -- no wonder those journalists are so well respected nowadays. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 20:43 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
Arabic is now a major language post-9/11
There can be few subjects that unite Norwegian army officers, Uzbek religious students, Korean contractors and would-be CIA agents. A perhaps unintended consequence of the September 11 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington is that the Arabic language has become one.

For different reasons the events triggered by September 11 have sparked an upsurge in the numbers of students learning Arabic across the world. This in turn has translated into booming business for Cairo, traditionally the centre of learning in the Middle East for both religious students and foreign diplomatic services.

Language schools and university departments in Cairo that were considering closure five years ago are now struggling to keep up with an exponential rise in demand.

"I couldn't have imagined when we opened that we would have all these students. I feared we would close in six months. But, praise Allah, George W. Bush has been doing our business well," said Raafat Amin, director of Kalimat, a school formed by a group of teachers after the British Council closed its own Arabic course.

Several teachers and students said the biggest driver of demand had been the reality US and other western countries only recently woke up to: that the world was not as unipolar as they had believed it might be in the aftermath of the cold war. In the new world order, Arabic has joined Mandarin to become what Russian was to the cold war.

The CIA at one point had to advertise its own embarrassing deficit by appealing for Arabic- language speakers on its website.

Army officers from countries that sent troops to Iraq alongside the US in 2003 are still mostly ill-equipped to speak to Iraqi hearts and minds in a language that can take five years of study to master. They form some of the droves of students enrolling in immersion courses in Cairo language schools.

Administrators at Cairo's burgeoning language schools sniff an opportunity to consolidate the trend in the recent US shift to "transformational diplomacy" announced by Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and heralding a new proactive, hands-on kind of diplomat.

But it is not only diplomats and would-be CIA agents, driven by a steep increase in US government funding for language students and the near certainty of employment afterwards, who are turning up in numbers.

A group of Norwegian officers at Kalimat, who had studied for two years at home before spending an intensive two months in Cairo, said they could find themselves using their Arabic in a UN peace- keeping operation in Sudan.

Barbara Hassib, managing director of Cairo's International Language Institute, where enrolment numbers have been rising 25 per cent each year, says demand from western countries has been accompanied by a steady increase in students from Korea and Japan.

Other colleges said the Chinese are also turning up in small but growing numbers as Chinese business, energy and diplomatic interests in the Middle East expand.

Alongside the established institutions are now a good number of charlatan outfits, as well as private tutors who have specialised in training expatriate spouses to haggle for vegetables and direct Cairo taxis.

Just as spectacular is the rise in demand derived from the Islamic revival that has accompanied America's more aggressive foreign policy in the Muslim world. This has drawn back growing numbers of students from non-Arab parts of the Muslim world, from Indonesia, Africa and such central Asian republics as Uzbekistan.

Waleed al-Gohary, the founder of Fajr, one of only two schools with govern- ment authorisation, says the number of students passing through his three schools in Cairo has risen from below 500 in 2000 to nearly 3,000 last year.

Unlike the other schools, which tend to mix colloquial and standard Arabic, Fajr, meaning dawn, teaches only the classical language of the Koran. As such it tends, although not exclusively, to cater for religious students preparing to attend Cairo's Al Azhar university, the centre of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The terrible thing is language is a conduit of culture.

Arabic spreading everywhere can only mean islamic influence also spreading

we can thank Bill Clinton's regime for this.

While Bin Laden was plotting and planning he was asleep at the wheel.
Posted by: anon1 || 03/21/2006 5:01 Comments || Top||

#2  While Bin Laden was plotting and planning he was asleep at the wheel

This is a lie: Bill Clinton was not asleep, Monica was keeping him awake.
Posted by: JFM || 03/21/2006 7:11 Comments || Top||

#3  The Arabic language is a conduit for anti-culture.

It is completely infested with Allan worship-isms
Inshallan, alhumdallan, bismallan

If you say these words too many times, Allan plants a worm in your brain. Before too long you will be memorize Quor'n, an recite an then you will accept miracle of clear signs, this revelation from Allan. GROW YOUR BEARD, INFIDEL especially your naked wimmens, bump head on ground five times, always use three stones for toilet AND STOP using dirty toothbrush, when blessed profit, (pigs be upon him) use only special allan twig.

Then you will finally experience true freedom, that amerykkken dont understand, because you will be free from desire for freedom, because we are all allan slaves, see?
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 03/21/2006 8:34 Comments || Top||

#4  "The terrible thing is language is a conduit of culture.

Arabic spreading everywhere can only mean islamic influence also spreading"

Middle eastern Jews spoke arabic for centuries, without becoming muslims. The great work of medieval Jewish philosophy, the Guide to the Perplexed, was written in Judeo-Arabic (is to Arabic, as Yiddish is to German)

Israeli Jews learn arabic in school. Hasnt turned them into muslims, or into soft on the arabs.

I once was on a bus traveling through the desert in Israel. In the back was a bunch of Moroccan Jewish "youth". They began singing songs, one of which (I was told) was a chant "Begin, King of Israel" which they sang in Arabic. They were fluent in Hebrew, but I think they liked that song, which they sang to piss off arabs.



Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Spot on, LH.

And I'll add that the Soviets crammed Russian language down the throats of Eastern European students for decades and advanced their cause not one inch.
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/21/2006 10:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Hahahaha! *applause*

re: Arabic -- hey, gotta learn what they're saying when the cameramen aren't English.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 03/21/2006 11:42 Comments || Top||

#7  LiberalHawk

Pleaaaaaase. The first thing Wahabists do when tey set their sights in a couuntry is to propose to teach Arabic. They did it in Chechnya, they did it in Afghanistan. Ilplicit in Islamism is te idea that you are not a real Muslim (and that means not a real human being) if you don't speak Arabic. Look at how Mullah Omar became Bin Laden's toy because the later coulsd speak classic Arabic.

Also in history, North Africa was corced to speak Arabic. Like in speak Ara&bic or... Alos the Algerian government who has ever played the card of Islamism to keep in power has set its goals in eradicating the use of both French an dn Berberic. In fact it also wants to end with Algerian Arabic: it wants people speaking classic Arabic ie Arabic from VII century.

Finally the resistance to islamization ever passes by resistance to teh AZrabic language. In Algeria the activists of Berberic tend to hate Islam and a number either have becvaome agnostic and in some cases converted to Christianism. In Turkey Mustafga Kemal abolished the use of Arabic letters , of Arab-inspired laws or garments and last but not least forced the use of Turkish for prayers.

So the fact that Arabic is making inroads is a bad omen.
Posted by: JFM || 03/21/2006 15:27 Comments || Top||

#8  The Reformation resulted from the Catholic bible being translated into local tongues. When people can read a thing for themselves, they form their own ideas about it. When all these people can read the Quran for themselves, and understand the spittle-filled speeches without waiting for MEMRI translations, the Islamists will find themselves well and truly screwed.

And when a Miss Gentle of Dubai(?)University comes to Rantburg to argue that Islam is a religion of peace, and encounters arguments in Classical Arabic better than her own from people who understand her holy book considerably better than she does, either her dear little head will explode or she'll have to rethink her dangerous prejudices. (I forgot -- in the history of Mrs. Davis, there was a third person involved: Murat of Turkey, with whom there was either a fight over the female, or a classical menage -- I was never quite certain. My apologies to all.)

The Muslims think they own Arabic, just as for a long time the Church owned Latin. Now Latin belongs to the scholars, and Arabic will belong to our hard-headed troops.

However, it is a concern in places like France, where it is intended to be part of the mandatory school curriculum as part of the Conquest. Of course, the Buers will find the learning as difficult as the French do -- since it isn't their native tongue, either.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Sorry. Beurs.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:50 Comments || Top||

#10  I think JFM is the one who's right there, his Algeria example being particulary valid, as re-arabization (though imported customs, cf. that somali writer bitterly complaining about the rapid arabization of Somalia in an old RB story, and mainly the classical arab teaching) and re-islamization go hand in hand.

Btw, IIRC, back in 1982, the socialist gvt was basically bankrupted thanks to its well thought and realistical policies; the late president François Mitterrand then asked for and received a $4 billions loan (around 40 billions francs or something like that at the time, I think, quite a large sum) from Saudi Arabia.
The quid pro quo was that classical arabic was to be teached to the muslim immigrés kids in french schools during special classes supposedly to help them better know their roots (remember, the Eurabia agreement supposedly impose to avoid integration and maintain the arabic/muslim identity of the migrants), plus radicals were to be put in charge of "french" islam (that's when Algeria, Morocco, and all sent their muslim brotherhood imams to form the french muslim clerics, and that the basis for the UOIF, french muslim brotherhood, were set).

Well, the funny part is that many of the maghrebins/north africans (this term being more correct, "maghreb" meaning western Arabia and being the conqueror's name for the land) in France are actually berbers, who do not speak, at least as their native language, arabic... and yet, they were forcibly "arabized" by the french authorities... disgusting... and anyway, algerians, tunisians,... speak a local version of arabic which differed much from the classical arabic taught.

JFM is quite right, teaching arabic is part of a cultural hegemony Grand Plan. This is NOT innocent!
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 16:17 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Bangladesh is now a major terror hotspot
Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is on an India visit and one of the main issues that New Delhi may bring up is the harbouring of insurgents from the north-east.

For India, the concerns of Bangladesh becoming a safe haven for the terrorists, are mounting India has made it very clear that patience is running thin in Delhi over Dhaka's attitude

As the separatist groups flex their muscles from neighbouring Bangladesh, north-east India continues to simmer.

Bangladesh has emerged as the second front of Islamic terror in South Asia over the last five years.

Notwithstanding the repeated demands from India for dismantling terror infrastructure in Bangladesh, it still remains a major hub for the ultras with as many as 172 insurgent camps operating in that country.

"Bangladesh is taking some action against them. They have launched a few operations in which some militants have been killed. But it is not enough, Dhaka needs to do more," outgoing BSF Director General R S Mooshahary said.

Many Islamic radical groups, some with links to Osama bin Laden led al-Qaeda, have set up their training camps in the country along with about 18 terrorist groups that are active in North-east India.

There are nearly 200 camps, mostly close to the Indian border, of these terrorist and fundamentalist organisations inside Bangladesh.

A meeting between the security agencies manning the border of the two countries, Border Security Force (BSF) of India and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), nearly three months back on the issue of the terror camps running in Bangladesh ended on a stormy note.

The chief of BDR left the press conference abruptly because India had made it clear that patience was running out in New Delhi over Dhaka's attitude towards the problem especially when it comes to harbouring terror groups active in India.

India has already given a list of 172 terrorist training camps active in Bangladesh which are run by 18 outfits from North-east India have set up bases in 20 districts across the border.

"We have given them a list of 172 insurgent camps. They verified it and they say they are not there, which I feel is a routine reply," he said adding, "We are sure there are camps and we are sure that some insurgents from India have taken shelter in Bangladesh."

The list of these training camps available exclusively to CNN-IBN shows that United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), which has been trying for a peace accord with New Delhi, and National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) run the maximum number of camps, 38 each.

The ULFA has been running its training campsin Chittagong, which is also the hotbed for Islamic fundamentalist activities in Bangladesh.

The camps are being run at Sherpur, Cox's Bazaar, Mymensingh, Bandarban, Sunamgunj, Kurigram, Comilla, Jamalpur and Khagrachari and Tangail.

Cox's Bazaar is the main smuggling route in the country of illegal arms whereas Khagrachari is the place where ULFA chief Paresh Barua survived a bid on his life in 2001.

Apart from these place camps are also being run at Moulavi Bazaar, Rangamati, Netrakona, Panchagarh, Nilphamari and even capital Dhaka.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) which is fighting for an independent homeland in Manipur has found a safe haven in such camps operating on Bangladeshi soil.

The problem has acquired a new and frightening dimension as Indian intelligence agencies allege that insurgents in Bangladesh are getting help from Islamic fundamentalist groups

"The entire security spectrum will go haywire if this happens," former deputy chief of Research and Analysis Wing(RAW), the Indian agency responsible for external intelligence, Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy says.

Nandy, who has been keeping a close watch on the activities of these groups in Bangladesh, also said that most of these insurgent bases are being funded by Pakistan's external intelligence agency, the ISI.

"All these Islamic terrorist groups and our North-east insurgent groups are the masters of one and the same. It is the ISI and the DGFI of Bangladesh that have teamed up too destabilise this region," he adds.

The concern has been mounting in India because as the terrorist groups flex their muscles from neighbouring Bangladesh, North-east India will continue to simmer.

These outfits have been trying to imprint ethnic identity through armed insurgency and Bangladesh has even refused to accept the problem or address India's concern.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bangladesh has emerged as the second front of Islamic terror in South Asia over the last five years

old news here at News Service of Truth, Justice and the American Way, Rantburg News Service.

/thankyouverymuch
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 1:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Correct, RD. I've read several blogs and news sites where this was seen as a surprise. But I'd been reading about it on the RB for months prior. This is what makes RB invaluable - not to mention the informed commentary and first-rate snark.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 03/21/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Rantburg - your one stop shop for the latest in WOT news.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/21/2006 20:30 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Fahd al-Farraj's will posted online
The will of Commander Fahd bin Farraj Al-Jweir Al-Farraj, one of the commanders of the Al-Qaeda organization in the Arabian Peninsula.

Fahd Al-Farraj in training in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Battar Camp.

Drive the polytheists out of the Arabian Peninsula

Fahd Al Farraj: "I want to clarify and to reiterate the goals we wish to accomplish, with Allah's help, and to respond to some doubts about the mujahideen, raised by the scholars of evil, who level such accusations against them. First of all, the goal of our jihad is to elevate the word of Allah, to drive the polytheists out of the peninsula of Muhammad, to apply his law in all aspects of life and on all people, and to remove injustice from our oppressed brothers everywhere."

"To all the Muslim peoples wherever they may be, I say: How long will you remain silent? How long will you accept this humiliation and degradation? How long will you continue to be ruled by the law of the tyrants, yet remain silent? Where is your Islam? Where is your worship of Allah? Islam is not a religion in name only - it is a religion of faith and action. The Crusaders, the Hindus, the Zoroastrians, and their apostate helpers rule and control you and your brothers. They are fighting against your religion, and are fighting you in your livelihood. They are violating your honor, yet you remain silent. Have your humiliation and degradation brought you that low? Would you agree to become apostates, Jews, or Christians? Would you agree to abandon the religion of Islam?"

"I ask every Muslim on the face of the earth: Would you agree that one of these infidels enter your home, and violate the honor of your sister, your mother, or your daughter? Of course you would not. The women in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Indonesia, Kashmir, and the Philippines are our sisters, our mothers, and our daughters. I am amazed how you can continue to sleep undisturbed, while your brothers are being killed, and the honor of your sisters is being violated. Awaken from your slumber, and support your oppressed brothers. Fight for the sake of Allah, and you will receive one of the two good things: victory or martyrdom."

"To the security forces, I say: I am amazed at you. When you are told to wage jihad, you cling to this world. But when [Saudi Interior Minister Prince] Naif Bin Abd Al-'Aziz tells you to sell your souls to his government and to fight for his sake, and to defend the Americans, in exchange for 3,000 riyals and hell - you are willing to sell your souls cheaply. Have you stooped so low? Are your souls worthless for you? He calls you 'martyrs of duty,' but think what you will say to Allah if you meet him, after having killed a mujaheed who fought for the sake of Allah, in order to defend the Americans, or if he killed you when you were defending the tyrants. Stop working for the tyrant, and join the mujahideen, otherwise - you know full well who the mujahideen are, and what they have prepared for those who stand in their way."

"To the Saudi government, I say: All I say to you is what the Prophet Muhammad said to the infidels of Qureysh, when he was alone: 'I have brought slaughter upon you.' By Allah, your kingdom will come to an end. The mujahideen will defeat you. Do you know why? Because Allah supports us, and no one supports you. Do you know why? Because Allah said in the Koran: 'If you support Allah, He will support you,' and we trust and believe in the promise of Allah. If you only knew what our young men have in store for you, you would be busy arranging your escape from this peninsula."

"To the Americans, I say: Get out of the peninsula of Muhammad, and all the lands of the Muslims, and stop supporting the Jews in Palestine and the Christians in the lands of the Muslims. Otherwise, you will encounter only death, destruction, and explosions."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You really stand tall Mr. Fahd. At least among little warts like yourself.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 3:21 Comments || Top||

#2  "Drive the polytheists out of the Arabian Peninsula"

Sounds like a bloody good idea. Start with the mob that grovel in the dirt five times a day towards that ancient centre of polytheistic idolatry they call the ka'aba, home of the Gharaniq and their moon god, whose symbol appears on top of every moskkk.


"If you support Allah, He will support you, and we trust and believe in the promise of Allah. If you only knew what our young men have in store for you, you would be busy arranging your escape from this peninsula."


That would be the magnificent Buqayq attack - hardly a resounding victory for the brave lions of his-slum. BTW, if a resident of Iraq is an Iraqi, what do you call a resident of Buqayq?


"Fight for the sake of Allah, and you will receive one of the two good things: victory or martyrdom."

Ok contestant number one, we've eliminated door number one for you. Now lets have a look and see whats behind door number two...


"To the Americans, I say: Get out of the peninsula of Muhammad, and all the lands of the Muslims, and stop supporting the Jews in Palestine"

D'ye mean to say the $billions creamed off our US/EU taxes for Palestinian humanitarian aid has been going to Jews??? Dammit - we been tricked by those wily rootless cosmopolitans, yet again...


"Otherwise, you will encounter only death, destruction, and explosions."

Yup. Plenty more where they came from too.
Posted by: Admiral Allan Ackbar || 03/21/2006 6:39 Comments || Top||

#3  OK. Fine. You need to get out of all historically Christian or Jewish lands: Antioch, Alexandria, Medina, Yemen, Jerusalem...

You can keep the empty quarter.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/21/2006 7:09 Comments || Top||

#4  drive the polytheists out of the peninsula of Muhammad

Yeah, but once all the Indians go home, who's going to do the dirty work? Certainly not a Saudi!

-------------

I guess the concept of "writing a will" is different in Saudi Arabia. Ranting's all well and good, but....who inherits this guy's camel? His copy of the Koran? His AK47? I sure hope he didn't pay good money for this piece of crap.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 7:17 Comments || Top||


Europe
Judge throws Sakra out of court
A judge ousted a key Syrian al-Qaeda suspect from his courtroom on Monday for contempt of court, after the suspect refused to stand up before him on the opening day of his trial for allegedly masterminding deadly bombings in Istanbul.

Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa is on trial, along with 72 other suspected al-Qaida militants, for alleged involvement in the series of suicide bombings that killed 58 people in Istanbul in 2003.

Judge Zafer Baskurt asked al-Saqa several times to stand up in court, and then ordered him thrown out when he refused.

"My beliefs prevent me from standing in front of people like you," al-Saqa told the judge.

As soldiers escorted him out, al-Saqa shouted: "I fought a Jihad, I killed Americans, I will not stand up before you!"

Baskurt also ordered a spectator detained for shouting in support of al-Saqa.

The court then proceeded with the trial without al-Saqa, formally joining the Syrian's case with the case of the 72 other suspects.

Turkish prosecutors claimed that Osama bin Laden personally ordered al-Saqa, 32, to carry out terror attacks in this predominantly Muslim but pro-Western country.

Al-Saqa is accused of serving as a point man between al-Qaeda and home-grown militants behind the November 2003 bombings, which destroyed a British bank, the British consulate and two synagogues. He is charged with giving the Turkish militants about $170 000.

Al-Saqa and his alleged Syrian accomplice, Hamid Obysi, were captured in Turkey in August after an alleged failed plot to attack Israeli cruise ships. Obysi is also on trial along with other al-Qaeda suspects.

Al-Saqa reportedly told interrogators that his failed plot to attack an Israeli cruise ship was financed by Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who allegedly gave him $50 000 to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in his name.

Omar is believed to have sought refuge in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

A prosecutor's indictment said al-Saqa had bought a speed boat and an underwater scooter to be used in that attack, as well as an apartment in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya for use as a safe house.

Al-Saqa admitted to failed plans to make a bomb and stage an attack on Israeli tourist ships. Al-Saqa and Obysi were captured after an accidental explosion forced them to flee the safe house in Antalya.

Al-Saqa had cosmetic surgery, according to a medical report, and operated by using an array of fake IDs and employing aliases, even with his al-Qaeda contacts, according to the indictment.

Several accused Turkish al-Qaida suspects recognised al-Saqa's photos, but identified him with different names, most calling him "Syrian Aladdin."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "I fought a Jihad, I killed Americans, I will not stand up before you!"

sounds like a confession - hang him
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:25 Comments || Top||


Sakra disrupts trial in Turkish court
The al-Qaeda operative accused of organizing the 2003 Istanbul bombings and a botched attempt to sink an Israeli cruise ship appeared in a Turkish courtroom on Monday -- and did his best to take it over. Louai al-Sakka, 32, who by his own account worked beside insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, first told the court he was someone else, then was hustled out of the morning session after refusing to stand to address the judge.

"I performed jihad and killed Americans! Why should I stand up in front of you?" Sakka shouted as guards tugged him toward the door. "Should I stand in front of these liars?"

Sakka, a Syrian described by Turkish officials as a senior figure in al-Qaeda, is accused of providing other operatives with about $170,000 from the group to carry out four truck bombings that killed 57 people over two days in November 2003. Monday was the opening day of trial for Sakka, who is being prosecuted along with 72 Turks. With the Turks' trial winding down after more than two years, defense attorneys argued unsuccessfully Monday that adding Sakka to the case would cause even further delay.

"I'm not holding a bomb. I just want to talk," Sakka told Judge Zafer Baskurt in the afternoon session, after being summoned from a back row where he had been mugging and joking with other defendants. He again refused to stand, indicating he acknowledged only Islamic law. The judge responded by recessing the proceedings for two months.

Further complicating the trial, Sakka's attorney was ordered off the case Monday because he faces charges himself. Turkish prosecutors accuse Osman Karahan, a proponent of militant Islam in good standing with the Turkish bar, of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. Karahan, who also represented 14 other defendants in the Istanbul case, said the indictment falsely links him to last year's bombings of the London transit system.

"All these efforts are to prevent Sakka from talking, because if he talks, a few states would collapse," Karahan said. Sakka already faces prison in Jordan, where he and Zarqawi were convicted in absentia for plotting to blow up hotels and tourist landmarks in the so-called millennium plot. Turkish police arrested him in August while he was allegedly completing plans to steer an explosives-laden yacht into an Israeli cruise ship off the Turkish coast. The plan was discovered when fire broke out in the apartment where he and an accomplice were constructing the bomb, authorities said. Karahan has quoted Sakka as saying he planned to die attacking the cruise ship. He supposedly believed he would be captured otherwise; his identity was known despite efforts to alter his face through plastic surgery.

On Monday, however, his identity was at issue. More than 20 journalists failed to recognize Sakka as he entered the court building. Cleanshaven and skinny at the time of his arrest, the defendant had put on substantial weight in prison and grown a full beard. He insisted to the judge that his name was Ekrem Ozel, the name on the identity card he was using when arrested, and demanded he be fingerprinted to prove it.

Karahan said he was not sure of his client's identity, either. He said that Sakka, who specialized in moving Islamic militants through Turkey with false papers, had moved in and out of Turkey 55 times on 18 different passports.
"This is going to be a case of worldwide importance, so we need to determine scientifically exactly who he is," Karahan said.
Cut him in half and count the rings
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Bush defends Iraq record, concedes some setbacks
President Bush on Monday held out the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar as an example of American success in the war, but he also acknowledged in remarks that were as grim as they were hopeful that the city's improvements were not matched in other parts of Iraq.

In the second of a series of speeches meant to build up sagging support for the war, Mr. Bush said American forces had driven insurgents from Tal Afar in 2004, only to see them move back in two months later. The Americans learned from their mistakes, he said, and in 2005 worked with Iraqi forces to retake lost ground and begin to bring the city back to life.

"I wish I could tell you that the progress made in Tal Afar is the same in every single part of Iraq," he told the City Club of Cleveland at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. "It's not."

Over all, Mr. Bush's speech was a positive message that conceded some of the setbacks on the ground, a formulation meant to portray the president as not living in a fantasy world about the three-year-long war.

"In the face of continued reports about killings and reprisals, I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," he said. "Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don't."

To answer that, Mr. Bush told his audience his story of Tal Afar, a city of 200,000 near the Syrian border that was a crucial base of operations for the Iraqi insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The insurgents had turned the city into a nightmare of violence, he said, with beheadings, kidnappings and mortars fired into soccer fields filled with children.

"In one grim incident, the terrorists kidnapped a young boy from the hospital and killed him, and then they booby-trapped his body and placed him along the road where his family would see him," he said. "And when the boy's father came to retrieve his son's body, he was blown up."

But Mr. Bush recounted how American and Iraqi forces initiated a major military offensive against the insurgents last fall, including the construction of an eight-foot dirt wall around the city to cut off escape routes. After successful combat operations were over, he said, more than 1,000 Iraqi forces were deployed to keep order. "In short, you see a city coming back to life," he said.

Military analysts do not dispute Mr. Bush's version of events, and correspondents on the ground say that the security situation in Tal Afar is significantly better than it was before the military operation last fall.

But the analysts also say that the offensive required so many American troops — 5,000 — that it would be difficult if not impossible to replicate in other parts of Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, and that success in Tal Afar does not translate into improved security for most Iraqis.

Democrats used Mr. Bush's speech to step up their criticism on the three-year anniversary of the war, saying that the White House was on the verge of trading a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, for chaos.

"That outcome looks increasingly likely because of the dangerous incompetence of this administration," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said in a statement. "We went to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their job, without the support of our major allies, without enough troops to prevent a security vacuum, and without a plan to win the peace."

After Mr. Bush concluded his remarks, he took numerous questions from the City Club, a nonpartisan group that calls itself the oldest free-speech forum in America and prides itself on asking sharp questions. Members of the audience queried him about the administration's secret eavesdropping program and the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, among other topics.

Mr. Bush appeared relaxed throughout, and in a question about Iraq segued to Iran. "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," he said, adding, "I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel."

The crowd broke into applause and then Mr. Bush said, "At any rate, our objective is to solve this issue diplomatically."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/21/2006 00:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But the analysts also say that the offensive required so many American troops — 5,000 — that it would be difficult if not impossible to replicate in other parts of Iraq

That makes no sense. As I recall, we have substantially more than 100,000 troops in Iraq from the U.S. alone, and even if only half of them are combat troops, that means this can be repeated ten times simultaneously. Given that there are lots of other troops in the Coalition, not to mention the Iraqi troops straining at the bit to demonstrate their abilities, that little bit of "Yes, but" analysis demonstrates the ability of the analysts to see considerably less deep into the rock than most.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:24 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez blasts Bush as 'donkey' and 'drunkard'
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday lobbed a litany of insults at US President George W Bush ranging from "donkey" to "drunkard" in response to a White House report branding the left-wing leader a demagogue. Chavez is one of Bush's fiercest critics and has repeatedly accused the US government of seeking to oust him from the presidency of Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and a supplier of around 15 percent of US crude imports.

"You are a donkey, Mr. Bush," said Chavez, speaking in English on his weekly Sunday broadcast. "You're an alcoholic Mr. Danger, or rather, you're a drunkard," Chavez said, referring to Bush by a nickname he frequently uses to describe the US president.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lame criticism from a Castro boot-licker, and a latter day Peron wannabe. Someone should Fark a tin-pot on his head, for accuracy.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 3:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Wrong party, estupido. He's an elephant. The party of treason comprises the donkeys.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/21/2006 7:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Why does this guy remind me of my three yr old throwing a hissy fit because nobody is paying attention to him.
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/21/2006 8:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Obvious small penis man syndrome.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 8:58 Comments || Top||

#5  White House reponse to Chavez:

"Chamo tu eres tremendo marico. Tu mama."
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 9:39 Comments || Top||

#6  "You're an alcoholic Mr. Danger, or rather, you're a drunkard," Chavez said, referring to Bush by a nickname he frequently uses to describe the US president.

I would give any amount of money to hear Pres. Bush refer to Chavez in a speech as Napoleon Cellulite.
Posted by: BH || 03/21/2006 11:52 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Refugees welcome decision to round up weapons
A decision by Fatah to round up "unnecessary" weapons inside refugee camps was welcomed by both Lebanese officials and camp residents Monday, according to Fatah chief in Lebanon Sultan Abu al-Aynayn. Abu al-Aynayn had announced late Sunday night that his faction would start rounding up weapons inside the camps in accordance with a decision made at the national dialogue last week. Talking to The Daily Star, Abu al-Aynayn said his decision also was motivated by a desire to regulate the use of weapons inside camps, because it was "about time to do so." But he added that the step was going to need time. "It is not something we can do overnight," he said. "But it is completely our intention to end the presence of all unnecessary weapons," he said.
"How long do you think it'll take?"
"Prob'ly 60, 70 years."
He refused to describe the step as "disarmament," however.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
"We will leave weapons with factions authorized to maintain the security of the camps," he said. Lebanon's top leaders had agreed last week to disarm all Palestinian factions outside Lebanese camps within six month. They also agreed to start discussing ways to regulate the presence of arms inside camps. But Abou al-Aynayn said he was taking the step without any coordination with Lebanese authorities.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yours are weapons. Mine are the traditional household tools of a Palestinian peasant. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:58 Comments || Top||


Europe
Chirac backs PM over youth employment law
French President Jacques Chirac has backed his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in pressing ahead with a controversial youth employment law, which has been opposed by a series of mass demonstrations. Unions are vowing a new day of nationwide protests next week after an ultimatum for its withdrawal passed with no hint of concession.

Mr Chirac is urging trade unions and student leaders to begin constructive talks. "I want to appeal to the responsibility of everyone of us," he said. "These demonstrations must take place calmly and with respect for everyone. I want to reiterate that the first employment contract is an important part of the policy of fighting unemployment. It will create new jobs for young people who are today, for the large part, outcasts of the labour market."
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
2 inmates escape from Saudi jail located in rented house
Ohfergawdsakes.
JEDDAH — The prison in Jizan is located in a rented house, according to a report in the Arabic daily Okaz. The daily quoted Major General Dr Ali Al Harithy, head of the Kingdom’s prison administration, as saying that the recent sensational escape of a thief and a sex offender from Jizan jail was because they were imprisoned in a house and not a secure prison.
But they were very pious.
General Al Harithy added that the escape was made easier by the fact that the prison is in fact a rented house and does not even have a proper watchtower. He said that the prisoners were detained for robbery and no one expected them to remove the iron sheet leading to the vent and reach the roof through the pipelines.
It was held in place with sheet metal screws. The little ones. And duct tape. Looked secure to the Somali work crew that put it up.
The prison, which is in a residential area and is surrounded by homes with families, apparently made the getaway easier for the two inmates. “The prison has houses all around, which only made the escape that much easier, he added.
Apparently no one looks out the front window in Saoodiland.
Now a widespread hunt has begun for the fugitives whose families are said to be assisting the prison officials.

Asked about how would such lax imprisonment be corrected, Al Harithy told Okaz about the government’s plans to invest nearly SR2 billion to create correction facilities outside towns and cities making it difficult for escapees to just blend into the crowd. “We have a five-year plan to build seven correction houses around the Kingdom at the cost of SR1.6 billion. We are working to develop current prisons as they are located inside the cities. We will build detention centres at police stations in remote areas to replace rented buildings,” he said.
Those are for the common folk. Princes will be kept in palaces.
Amongst the cities proposed to receive their own state-of-the-art prisons are the coastal city of Jeddah and the Kingdom’s capital, Riyadh. “Jeddah, Riyadh, Madinah, Namas, Qurriyat, and Beesh are first on the priority list for these correction facilities. We have already invited and received tenders for the projects,” Al Harithy added.

Despite the multi-million investment, he could not guarantee that another jailbreak like Jizan wouldn’t happen again. “There is no establishment without loopholes. Such things could always happen as changes occur in society as it develops. We have to be more vigilant, prepared and put proper measures in place to counter such happenings,” Al Harithy said.
Which means you need to hire guards from outside Saoodi-controlled Arabia.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We have to be more vigilant, prepared and put proper measures in place to counter such happenings,

In other words the price went up to look the other way.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/21/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
WaPo: Everything That's Wrong With Bush Admin - Manliness
Man Overboard - By Ruth Marcus
Tuesday, March 21, 2006; A17
I have a new theory about what's behind everything that's wrong with the Bush administration: manliness.
mmmmm...does that include Condi?
"Manliness" is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as "confidence in the face of risk," is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute.
as opposed to vacillating and temporizing until the polls come in?
Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere.
like straight talk in diplomacy rather than Burgess Meredith in a $600 dress hoping her brooch conveys determination and State policy?
Though manliness is "the quality mostly of one sex," Mansfield allows that women can be manly, too, though the sole example he can seem to come up with, and deploys time and again, is Margaret Thatcher. "Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive?" he wonders, but not really. "Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?" Me-ow!
Karen Hughes and Condi have shown more leadership skills and done more for women than all of the NOW/ACLU ditzes together
"The problem of manliness is not that it does not exist," Mansfield concludes. "It does exist, but it is unemployed." Well, um, excuse me, but I think -- it's just my opinion, now, maybe you disagree, and I'm sure we could work it out -- Mansfield has it exactly backward. Manliness does exist. The problem is that it's overemployed -- nowhere more than in this administration.

Think about it this way: Is a trait exemplified by reluctance to ask directions -- "for it is out of manliness that men do not like to ask for directions when lost," Mansfield writes -- really what you want in a government deciding whether to take a country to war?
nice slur...guess the PMS is up next?
The undisputed manliness of the Bush White House stands in contrast to its predecessors and wannabes. If Republicans are the Daddy Party and Democrats the Mommy Party, the Clinton White House often operated like Mansfield's vision of an estrogen-fueled kaffeeklatsch: indecisive and undisciplined. (Okay, there were some unfortunate, testosterone-filled moments, too. hubba hubba - Ruth sounds a little excited, no? ) Bill Clinton's would-be successor, Al Gore, was mocked for enlisting Naomi Wolf to help him emerge as an alpha male; after that, French-speaking John Kerry had to give up windsurfing and don hunting gear to prove he was a real man. And Bush's father, of course, had to battle the Wimp Factor. Mansfield recalls Thatcher's manly admonition to 41 on the eve of the Persian Gulf War: "Don't go wobbly on me, George."

No wimpiness worries now. This is an administration headed by a cowboy boot-wearing brush-clearer, backstopped by a quail-shooting fly fisherman comfortable with long stretches of manly silence -- very "Brokeback Mountain," except this crowd considers itself too manly for such PC Hollywood fare. "I would be glad to talk about ranchin', but I haven't seen the movie," Bush told a questioner.
or spent the night embracing a man...
There are, no doubt, comforting aspects to the manly presidency; think Bush with a bullhorn on top of the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. After a terrorist attack, no one's looking for a sensitive New Age president. Even now, being a strong leader polls at the top of qualities that voters most admire in Bush.
but you'd prefer a puss in charge...say Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, right, Ruth?
But the manliness of the Bush White House has a darker side that has proved more curse than advantage. The prime example is the war in Iraq: the administration's assertion of the right to engage in preemptive and unilateral war; the resolute avoidance of debate about the "slam-dunk" intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; the determined lack of introspection or self-doubt about the course of the war; and the swaggering dismissal of dissenting views as the carping of those not on the team.
hmmmm - domestic violence card appears
The administration's manliness doesn't stop at the water's edge. Pushing another round of tax cuts in 2003, Vice President Cheney sounded like a warrior claiming tribute after victory in battle: "We won the midterms. This is our due," Cheney reportedly said. After the 2004 election, Bush exuded the blustering self-assurance of a president who had political capital to spend -- or thought he did -- and wasn't going to think twice before plunking down the whole pile on Social Security.

Mansfieldian manliness is present as well in Bush's confident -- overconfident -- response to Hurricane Katrina (insert obligatory "Brownie" quote here). And the administration's claim of almost unfettered executive power is the ultimate in manliness: how manly to conclude that Congress gave the go-ahead to ignore a law without it ever saying so; how even manlier to argue that your inherent authority as commander in chief would permit you to brush aside those bothersome congressional gnats if they tried to stop eavesdropping without a warrant.

Mansfield writes that he wants to "convince skeptical readers -- above all, educated women" -- that "irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason." Sorry, professor: You lose. What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt.

But that's just my view.

marcusr@washpost.com
feel free to write to Ruth - use manly words and cuss a lot - deep down, I bet she likes it.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  shoulda HT'd Drudge - my bad
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Be nice.

Let Ruthie play with her new strap-on.
Posted by: badanov || 03/21/2006 1:06 Comments || Top||

#3  ME MAN FROM MARZ

ME LIKE WAR

ME DRAG WOMANS BY HAIR BACK TO CAVE

/hey and i voted for GWB twice! [2000 & 2004]
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Marz = okay by me.
War too, when need be.

Touch the hair and die, buddy. ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 03/21/2006 7:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Why, yes, we should try to achieve consensus with the likes of Ahmadinejad. I'm sure if we would just bring ourselves to agree that Israel should be wiped off the map that we would get along swimmingly.

I'm sorry, dear Ruth, but rolling over and taking it isn't exactly "womanly". That's more along the lines of a stupid broad who prefers to whine when she doesn't get her way, yet refuses to get off her ass and do anything to actually make the desired result appear.

I think Ruth needs to get acquainted with this series of books. Not a lot of consensus building, restrained, introspective ladies with a touch of self-doubt in those pages.


Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 7:01 Comments || Top||

#6  So we have Manliness versus Victimology.

I think the dimocrats have picked another fantastic loser.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 03/21/2006 7:57 Comments || Top||

#7  And Roosevelt and Truman were .... ?

Carter and Clinton were in tune with their feminine self? Explains a lot. So we can count on Hillery's Manliness?
Posted by: Javirt Whaiter9406 || 03/21/2006 8:09 Comments || Top||

#8  So a Harvard professor is now the "expert" on "manliness"?
Yeah, I'm sold.
Jeez, Harvey, maybe you should've sent a copy to Larry Summer's?
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 9:27 Comments || Top||

#9  He probably did send a copy to Larry. He was one of the few faculty trying to stiffen Larry's spine. You might want to check up on Harvey.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 9:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Consider me enlightened. He must be fun at those faculty cocktail parties.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 10:22 Comments || Top||

#11  Manliness
Picture -

NYC Fireman on 9/11
Marine in Falluja
Coast Guard Rescue on the Gulf Coast

When the $hit hits the fan, everyone is looking for 'manliness'. The left was done its best through browbeating rhetoric and royal judges to shackle manliness in this country. Notice however where their tools fail as with the muzzie zealots, they keep their mouth shut. Its all about power. In our case they have taken tools to control that power, one they fear but only because they see it as a threat to their claim to power. In the second case, they fear the power of the those exercising it, but can do nothing about it.
Posted by: Speath Uloluns3561 || 03/21/2006 15:33 Comments || Top||

#12  Kim du Toit
Posted by: Angack Sperong2266 || 03/21/2006 15:39 Comments || Top||

#13 
lotp Touch the hair and die, buddy. ;-)

[ring in nose on a short leash]

Ohh my bad i ment ME DRAG WOMANS BY HAIR BACK TO CAVE would you like to come in and have some chamomile tea?

[/ring in nose on a short leash]

»:-)
Posted by: RD worm || 03/21/2006 19:22 Comments || Top||

#14  *wipes feet on RD worm*

you don't have to actually remove the spine, boy
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 20:20 Comments || Top||

#15  "...restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt..."
Oh yes, just what we need. Perhaps Ruth can advise us on which language to learn for our future: Farsi, Arabic, or Chinese. At least those of use who survive the bomb.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/21/2006 20:45 Comments || Top||

#16  LOL!
Posted by: RD worm || 03/21/2006 21:54 Comments || Top||

#17  More generally GWB is a vertebrate, as opposed to his most recent challenger (and his predecessor).
Posted by: DMFD || 03/21/2006 22:05 Comments || Top||

#18  I think, to put it bluntly, that the difference between George W Bush and the Democrats is that Bush is more interested in what he can do for the country than how he can manipulate the system to enrich himself.
Posted by: RWV || 03/21/2006 22:13 Comments || Top||

#19  Hillary Clinton Puts Bill On A Leash

Billary:I'm boss, Hil tells Bill

Clintoon: Senator's word is now 'final,' says the ex-Prez

WASHINGTON - After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said.

/channeling
Posted by: RD worm || 03/21/2006 23:13 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Afghan interference to blame for Waziristan violence
Afghan interference in North and South Waziristan is to blame for the deteriorating law and order situation in the tribal region, Asfandyar Wali, parliamentary leader of the Awami National Party, said in a debate on the Balochistan and Waziristan issues in the Senate on Monday.
The Islamic blame game takes on a new dimension...
Supporters of Gulbadin Hekmatyar have been moving around freely in Bajaur Agency for the last year and a half, Wali said. “The spill-over from North Waziristan is visible in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts of the NWFP,” he added.
Howzat Afghanistan's fault? When bandidos cross the border it's your responsibility to chase 'em out...
He said the government should hold talks with Waziri tribesmen and Baloch nationalist leaders to resolve the problems.
But what good will that do if it's all Hek's fault?
If Gen Musharraf is ready to talk to the Indian prime minister, why is he reluctant to talk to his fellow countrymen in Balochistan and North Waziristan, he asked.
He can only talk to one person at a time?
Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the government believes in resolving issues through political dialogue, but will not hold talks with terrorists and “miscreants”. Winding up the two-day debate, Sherpao said the government was open to negotiations with “those who believe in development and peace and progress of the country”. The minister said there were no “military operations” in Balochistan and Waziristan, and the government was only conducting “focused operations against miscreants”.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the islamic parallel thingy, yjcmtsu
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:12 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
RAB nabs Fazar Ali in Kutubpur
Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-9 arrested JMB activist Fazar Ali in Kutubpur village in Jamalpur in the early hours yesterday. He was an accomplice of Garibullah, a JMB ehsar member, reports our Mymensingh correspondent. The Rab also recovered seven books on jihad from his possession.
Among them would be the classic of terror warfare "Jihad for Dummies."
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Yer comon' wit us, Fazar!"
"I confess!"
"Not yet, that comes later. Sheesh."
"Sorry."
"We got us a system, y'know?"
"Yeah, so I hear."
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 1:56 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL!

1st Annual Pruitt for aspiring amateurs goes to Mojo!
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:30 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Polls open at Benin run-off presidential election
Polls have opened in a second-round presidential election in Benin to replace the west African country's long-serving President Mathieu Kerekou. Almost four million voters were to go to the polls, which opened at 7:00am local time to choose between the former head of the West African Development Bank, Yayi Boni, and former parliamentary speaker Adrien Houngbedji.

In the first round of voting on March 5, Mr Boni came out ahead of a field of 26 candidates with 35.6 per cent of the vote. Mr Houngbedji was second with 24 per cent. On Thursday, the constitutional court had upheld a request from the electoral agency to postpone the vote until Wednesday but the president, who holds ultimate constitutional responsibility, ignored the ruling.

The last minute confusion over the poll is likely to increase worries that it might be marred by political confusion and fraud allegations. International monitors pronounced the first round broadly free and fair, despite warnings of fraud from Mr Kerekou, who has ruled Benin for 30 of the past 34 years but who at 72 is considered too old to stand for re-election.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan’s Islamists Aspire for Majority in Next Elections
The newly elected leader of Jordan’s largest political party, the Islamic Action Front, said yesterday he considered it a “natural right” for the country’s mainstream Islamists to form a government if they clinch a majority in next year’s general elections. “It will be a natural right for Islamists to form a government in Jordan if they obtain a majority at the forthcoming elections,” Zaki Bani Rshaid told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in an interview.

He said the IAF would not reckon on traditional US opposition to the rise of Islamic administrations in the region that gathered momentum after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. “The United States cannot dictate the destiny of the Arab and Islamic worlds. It is rather decided by the peoples’ will,” he said.

Bani Rshaid, a moderate, was elected earlier this week by the IAF Shoura (Consultative) Council as new secretary-general of the party. He succeeded Hamzeh Mansour, who held the post for the past four years. The IAF is the political arm of the Islamic Brotherhood Movement, which also elected Salem Falahat as new leader at the outset of this month to succeed Abdul Majeed Thuneibat.

In the opinion of several commentators, Bani Rshaid and Falahat represented a new centrist generation of Islamic leaders who stepped in after the old hawkish guard of the country’s mainstream Islamic entity opted to lay down their arms or suffered defeat at the elections of the Shoura Council, the movement’s highest decision-making body.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good. Taquia is the best weapon ROPers have.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 21:23 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Bird flu splits into two strains
The H5N1 bird flu in humans has evolved into two separate strains, a development that will complicate the search for a vaccine and the prevention of a pandemic, US researchers have reported. The genetic diversification of the pool of H5N1 avian influenza viruses with the potential to cause a human influenza pandemic heightens the need for careful surveillance, researchers said at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta. "Back in 2003 we only had one genetically distinct population of H5N1 with the potential to cause a human pandemic. Now we have two," said Rebecca Garten of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped conduct the study.

One of the two strains, or clades, made people sick in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand in 2003 and 2004 and the second, a cousin of the first, caused the disease in people in Indonesia in 2005. Two clades may share the same ancestor but are genetically distinct - as are different clades, or strains, of the AIDS virus, the team from the CDC found. "This does complicate vaccine development. But we are moving very swiftly to develop vaccines against this new group of viruses," said Dr Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's influenza branch.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
6 Major Powers Hold UN Meeting on Iran
Top officials of the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council and Germany were to meet later yesterday to plot a long-term strategy against Iran’s nuclear program. While the UN Security Council seeks to refine a draft motion urging Iran to suspend the uranium enrichment — a key stage in nuclear weapon development — the meeting of the six major powers will take a broader look at the international confrontation with Iran.

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns was to huddle with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak and Foreign Ministry political directors John Sawers of Britain, Stanislas de Laboulaye of France, Zhang Yan of China and Michael Schaefer of Germany at Britain’s UN mission from 2000 GMT, diplomats said. Germany, France and Britain have pursued three years of inconclusive negotiations to coax Tehran off its nuclear program in exchange for economic incentives.

A Western diplomat told AFP that the ambassadors of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — would join in at the end of the session. The gathering comes as the 15-member Security Council is reporting some headway in its bid to agree a revised Franco-British draft urging Iran to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands that it restore international confidence in its atomic program, which Iran insists is peaceful.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Brits are talking surprisingly tough. They seem interested in heading towards militarily enforceable sanctions - some kind of blockade, IIUC. Russians and Chinese wont be too eager for that, I think.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Good Cop, Bad Cop. Split the difference.

Get all 5 signed on to any resolution and it gives W the fig leaf of multilateral condemnation with sufficient ambiguity to permit force. He'll never get everyone explicitly on board for action, so settle for the best face for domestic purposes.

He then has to go to Congress for authorization of force to back up the resolution. And he needs to start prepping the people. The tin ear on these guys is astounding.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/21/2006 10:14 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Turkmenbashi: Read my book, go to heaven
The President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, has told his people that reading his book on morality would make them smarter and could help them go to heaven. Turkmenistan's President for life, often known by his official title - Turkmenbashi the Great - was addressing a gala concert to celebrate the traditional central Asian new year, Nu Ruz, on the first day of spring. He told his audience that when he was writing the two volumes of the Rukhnama - his book of Turkmen history and homespun philosophy - that he prayed to God to bless those who read the book three times aloud. He said he had asked God to send such people straight to heaven.
I'm sorry. I just have a hard time taking somebody who adopts the epithet "the Great" seriously. Maybe naming one of the months after his Mom has something to do with it. I mean, what was the matter with "Thermidor"?
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Kinda looks like Wayne Newton, don't he?
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 2:09 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL mojo and Fred.
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:26 Comments || Top||

#3  ...You know, this guy just SCREAMS for a reality show.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/21/2006 8:18 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL His emminence the Turkmenbashi...

Well you know, he has a "gentle" side. He once saw a girl with gold teeth in front and set her up with his personal dentist so she could have white teeth, and thus attract more men. He thought she was pretty otherwise....

Yes, mojo he does look like Wayne Newton
Posted by: BigEd || 03/21/2006 10:57 Comments || Top||

#5  He's "On the Money"
Posted by: BigEd || 03/21/2006 11:03 Comments || Top||

#6  gh3y
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 03/21/2006 11:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Sung to
"Casey Jones"




Come all you Turkmens that want to truly hear
The story of our brave and good leader dear.
Niayzov is what's our leader was called,
But Turkmenbashi, that's his real name.
When our land became our own back in '91,
He took us towards the old rising sun,
He came to Ashkabat with ideas in his head,
And he swore he'd take us all to that promised land.
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
Turkmenbash' giving orders penned by hand
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
And he swore he'd take us all to that promised land.

When he pulled up to the parliament,
He was not happy with what he saw;
Turkmenbashi knew exactly what to do!
That he had to make a final call.
He looked then at his right hand;
Then he looked upon his left;
I can not do it all by myself,
The army knows what's best!
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
Turkmenbash' giving orders penned by hand
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
And he swore he'd take us all to that promised land

So all Turkmens hear me now well,
He demands such true loyalty;
If you go again' him just once,
It's the last thing you will see.
Be happy that you're here,
And not sent to be on the moon.
Be so loyal to our leader,
And never will you ever swoon.
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
Turkmenbash' giving orders penned by hand
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
And he swore he'd take us all to that promised land

Turkmenbasi is in all our hearts ,
He is wrapped in all of our souls,
And to be like him we hope
Oh what else could be our goal?
We will read and know all his words
Learn to recite them from toddlerhood
And when we've got them down
We will know that we are so good
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
Turkmenbash' giving orders penned by hand
Turkmenbash' took the reins of power,
And he swore he'd take us all to that promised land

Posted by: Ogeretla 2006 || 03/21/2006 11:32 Comments || Top||

#8  Roll on Oman.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:39 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
MMA leadership pursues Barelvis to keep alliance intact, vibrant
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s (MMA) leadership has pursued the leadership of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Pakistan (Noorani) to keep the alliance intact and vibrant, sources in the alliance told Daily Times. “The MMA, at present, represents all major sects and jurisprudences of the religion through its representative parties, and if any of them pulled out, it would immensely harm its present stature as an undisputed Muslim body,” an MMA insider.

Recently, the JUP-N had sent a letter to the six-party alliance’s top leadership, complaining of the dominance of two major parties – the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam of Maulana Fazlur Rehman – and hinting at a ‘bitter’ decision if the situation remained unchanged. Soon after that letter, the JUP-N leadership appointed late Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani’s son – Anas Noorani – as the chairman of the party’s supreme council, empowering him to take all crucial decisions. Besides, the party leadership appointed a three-member committee to contact all Barelvi groups and individuals to forge a Barelvi alliance, which has many leaders, including Mufti Munibur Rehman and Sunni Tehrik leader Abbas Qadri. The JUP-N kept nothing under wraps when its leadership announced an exclusive Barelvi alliance but the MMA’s Deobandi leadership received the clear message that the creation of such an alliance would deprive it of its representation to the Barelvis. Besides, it would have to face a parallel force in next year’s general elections.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Look at all that lard. Is gross obesity the main qualification for membership in the MMA?
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/21/2006 3:16 Comments || Top||

#2  How did they accomplish such rotundity when all the McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants were destroyed in the riots?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 15:32 Comments || Top||


Gas line blown up in Quetta
A gas pipeline was blown up in Quetta late on Monday, disrupting gas supply to nearby areas. Officials in the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited said that the valve of the four-inch diameter pipeline, which supplied gas to surrounding villages, was blown up by unidentified men. It was the fifth attack on a gas pipeline in Quetta in the last month. Meanwhile, an unidentified man calling himself 'Azad Baloch' claimed that the Baloch Liberation Army attacked a paramilitary check post in the Kahan area of Kohlu, killing at least four personnel.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gas line blown up in Quetta

Bugti Gas leak
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 1:40 Comments || Top||

#2  We hates the Pipes.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Allan prohibits cylidrical/tubular conveyance of natural gas, water, and sewage...better to let them run in a ditch down the center of the village
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 20:05 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Rahman himself led raid to kill AL leader
Are we starting to get a picture of the Keystone Kroox, chased by the Keystone Kops?
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) supremo Abdur Rahman has admitted that he himself led a failed operation to kill an Awami League leader in Mollahat in Bagerhat in August 2002.
"I dunnit an' I'm glad!"
Rahman on March 19 told interrogators a 13-member JMB team, which also included Bangla Bhai, chased AL leader Tarapodo Poddar of Gaola village but could not have him due to locals' resistance.
"Get him!"
"Help! Help! I'm bein' oppressed!"
"Get 'em!"
"Curly-toed slippers, don't fail us now!"
As the AL leader managed to escape, the attackers took shelter at the house of a JMB activist.
"Quick! In here!"
Police had arrested six militants including Bangla Bhai, but Rahman evaded arrest, the JMB chief told the interrogators.
"[Huffa puffa!] He's in there, officers!"
"Abdur! Damn you!"
"Hey! Where'd he go?"
The criminal genius militant mastermind kingpin also said 20 JMB cadres in Bagerhat are looking for an opportunity to launch bomb attacks on some specific targets.
"Aaaarrr! Arrest our criminal mastermind, will they! Gimme that bomb!"
Meantime, the sedition case filed against JMB's seven Majlish-e-Shura members on March 13 was transferred yesterday to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police. Rahman and Bangla Bhai were shown arrested in a case filed for August 17 serial bomb blasts in Bogra yesterday where a court ordered reinvestigation into the case.
"You must reinvestigate the case!"
"But, yer honor! We been investigating it since August!"
The JMB supremo and 12 others including Bangla Bhai stormed the house of AL leader Tarapodo at Gaola on the night of August 16, 2002, reports staff correspondent in Khulna. Rahman said they attempted to slaughter Tarapodo as he had protested holding of a secret JMB meeting at Gaola the same evening.
"Aaaarrr! Protest our secret meeting, will he? We'll see about dat! Where's my shutter gun?"
"Here y'go, chief!"
"Thanks. We got any round of bullet?"
"It was a dark and stormy rainy night," Abdur Rahman told the members of Task Force for Interrogation (TFI) in Dhaka while being quizzed about August 17 blast in Bagerhat and militants' training in the Sundarbans. "His (Tarapodo's) son Tapan hit me in the head with a log when his father was going to be slaughtered.
"Har har! I've got yez now, Tarapodo! Prepare to meet yer maker!"
"[CONK!] Run for it, Pop!"
"Tarapodo managed to run away taking the chance," a source in the DB of Bagerhat who interrogated Rahman at the TFI quoted him as saying. They chased Tarapodo in a desperate attempt to slaughter him, but failed as villagers came forward and resisted them, the source added.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Too many chiefs, not enough indians...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||

#2  I find myself jonesing for a plate of goat fritters and a pot of super-sweet tea as I read these stories...
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/21/2006 11:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Here and I thought it was just me.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Ima too!
Posted by: jonesin || 03/21/2006 12:46 Comments || Top||

#5  And to think on Saturday night he was giving James Toney a beating for the world heavyweight championship (boxing)

Busy guy :P
Posted by: MacNails || 03/21/2006 17:29 Comments || Top||

#6  a draw, McNails.....can you believe it?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 19:27 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Musharraf's would-be assasin files new appeal
Mushtaq Ahmed, who is convicted of attempting to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, has filed a fresh appeal on Monday under article 185(3) of the constitution in the Supreme Court, which will be heard by a full bench on Wednesday. Earlier he had withdrawn his appeal when the Supreme Court pointed out that such an appeal did not lie under article 184(3) of the constitution, as it was not a matter of public importance.

On Monday Colonel (retired) Mohammad Akram filed the fresh appeal. In November 2004 a military court had sentenced Mushtaq Ahmed to death under the Air Force Act for being part of a 2003 assassination bid on President Musharraf by blowing up the Jhanda Chichi bridge in Rawalpindi a few seconds after the president's motorcade passed over it.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
3 Iraqis arrested for 'illegal entry into Iranian waters'
Three Iraqi nationals were arrested late Sunday for illegal entry into Iranian territorial waters northwest of the Persian Gulf.
The next line, though, makes it questionable:

An informed source, speaking on condition of anonuymity, told IRNA on Monday that the Iraqis were arrested by border guards as their motor boat was approaching Iranian territorial waters near Arvandkenar fishing port. Several arms were nabbed from the group, he added. Iraqi fishermen, on at least 12 occasions this year, have tried to illegally enter Iran's territorial waters in Arvandkenar and a number have been arrested during each occasion.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel lets trucks through Karni crossing
Israel has briefly reopened the main commercial crossing into the Gaza Strip, allowing half a dozen trucks loaded with food to enter the Palestinian territory. The UN's representative in Gaza has warned of a humanitarian crisis caused by the closure of the crossing. Israel has kept the Karni terminal closed for most of this year, citing a security threat.
That'd be gun-totin' hard boyz, of course...
Karni is the main commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel. And after warnings that Gaza was running out of basic foodstuffs such as bread and dairy products, Israel briefly reopened the terminal. About six trucks carrying flour and sugar were allowed into Gaza, then Israel again ordered the crossing shut. Palestinian officials say the food delivery falls well short of what is needed to supply Gaza's 1.4 million residents. Israeli officials deny Gaza is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis and they blame the Palestinian Authority for lack of food supplies.
Start checking warehouses...
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  well, that's what you get when you vote terrorist Hamas into power and send suicide bombers every other week.

Gettin' better than what you deserve.

Hurry up with that wall, will ya?
Posted by: anon1 || 03/21/2006 4:56 Comments || Top||

#2  They kill us, we feed them.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Yup, and you provide them with electricity, sewage treatment and drinkable water, collect and pay them their custom duties... while the euros (and the USA too) fund their administration, the UN provides every others services, and the international left (and quite a few rightwing mvts) excuses them for just about anything.

It's like being on the dole, but with lots of gun sex and blood spilling.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 10:18 Comments || Top||

#4  I've always been a generous sort, let everythinhg thru except the water.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 10:55 Comments || Top||

#5  6
This gives a whole new meaning to the slogan frequently used by the late (unholy) Yasser Arafat, and I quote : "let them dring the seawater of Gaza"
The irony, Oh the irony of it all....
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 12:54 Comments || Top||

#6  Sorry, it shoud have been "drink"
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 12:55 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Pakistan needs to target Taliban, says Abdullah
Pakistan needs to do more to combat Taliban elements on its territory, said Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah here Monday. Pakistan's efforts against Al Qaeda have been much appreciated but it needs to treat the Taliban the same way, Abdullah said, during a talk at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank here.

Extremist elements in northwest Pakistan are recruiting, training and sending groups of Taliban to Afghanistan, he said. "We don't make a distinction between foreign Al Qaeda, or Talibans who are involved in terrorist action. That is what is expected so we try to convince (Pakistan) that this is in their best interest," he added. "In many areas of our relations there have been a lot of progress in the past four and a half years. In the security field, we need to work more together. If everybody believes that there are some training camps there in Pakistan, those are not doing good for anybody. Those are sources of instability and terror. If we all know that the leaders of Taliban there, that they are active, acting behind what is happening in Afghanistan - it will have implications for all of us in the region."
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Today's BGO Award winner.
Posted by: mojo || 03/21/2006 13:14 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
What if they gave a protest and nobody came?
SCOTTSDALE - It was a very small army that protested the Iraq war Friday outside the Scottsdale offices of U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
An army of two.
But the Arizona Repugnant felt bound to cover it anyway?
Only two peace activists stood near Raintree Drive and Northsight Boulevard, holding anti-war posters for passing cars to see.

The protest, part of a national campaign to call attention to the human cost of the war, urged Hayworth, R-Ariz., to support legislation reducing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.

"The ways of peace are not bombings and breaking into houses and scaring little children and families," said Judy Whitehouse, 63, of Phoenix, adding that pulling troops out of Iraq would force Iraqis to work together in building a society.
It would also embolden al-Qaeda no end.
Linn Russell, 56, of Scottsdale, said the war is being mismanaged and shows President Bush is unqualified.

"I feel he's a leader who has failed to lead us in moments of crisis and is leading us in the wrong direction politically," Russell said.

Hayworth was not at his office.
Posted by: Korora || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  when you can name all the protestors onsite, it's not a protest, nor a tantrum, it's dingleberry on the ass of freedom
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:33 Comments || Top||

#2  very eloquent Frank and well said..Hear hear!!

/i'll use that on another blog someday promise
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:06 Comments || Top||

#3  The Arizona Repulsive has been historically staffed with hacks who couldn't cut it at the more famous big city papers. This is a paper that covered the opening of a Planet Hollywood as a major, front page event for days. I kid you not. Then, when the big stars didn't want to talk to them, they acted genuinely hurt. They're not exactly the creme de la creme, either journalistically or intellectually.

They can't get enough snotty, snide remarks in at President Bush, refuse to call illegal aliens anything other than "immigrants", and have never criticized Phoenix city government no matter what they do. The local "Pennysaver" has more integrity than the Repulsive ever had.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 7:26 Comments || Top||

#4  I used to deliver that paper during the Watergate era, DB. When their publisher died, they covered that as front page news every day for about a week. Are you old enough to remember their kitschy editorial cartoonist, Reg Manning? If you are, you'll chuckle at the mere mention of his name.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/21/2006 21:07 Comments || Top||

#5  I was a tiny tot then. But I remember seeing his work illustrating some local publications, like for APS (didn't he do Reddy Kilowatt?) and some other stuff.

Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 21:34 Comments || Top||

#6  Reddy was created at the Alabama Power Company and debuted March 11, 1926.
http://www.answers.com/topic/reddy-kilowatt
Posted by: Darrell || 03/21/2006 21:44 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Tsvangirai to lead Zimbabwe Opposition
Zimbabwe's veteran Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been elected for a fresh tenure to lead his splintered party, which has posed the most serious challenge to President Robert Mugabe's long rule. "The president has been nominated unopposed," declared Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) national chairman Isaac Matongo after a two-day convention in the capital attended by thousands of supporters.

Mr Tsvangirai closed the convention, lamenting deteriorating standards of living among the majority of Zimbabweans and pledging to "lead from the front" in protests against Mugabe's nearly 26 year rule. "I promise to use all available resources and will power to see off the tyranny in Zimbabwe today," Mr Tsvangirai said. "We must resolve this national crisis," he said. "The dictator must brace himself for a long, bustling winter across the country."

He did not say in what form and when the protests would take place but urged Zimbabweans to stock up provisions in anticipation of the protests. Opening the two-day congress on Saturday, Mr Tsvangirai urged Zimbabweans to brace for a series of "peaceful, democratic resistance" protests against President Mugabe's nearly 26-year rule.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Turkish Military Rejects Call to Probe General
Turkey’s military yesterday rejected a prosecutor’s call to investigate a top general over allegations of abusing his position and setting up an illegal group, saying the request was politically motivated. The prosecutor in eastern Van province had accused Gen. Yasar Buyukanit this month of trying to foment unrest in the mainly Kurdish southeast and harm Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

The allegations angered the military and embarrassed the government, which distanced itself from the claims and defended Buyukanit — No. 2 in Turkey’s military hierarchy. “The General Staff decided there was no need to open an investigation,” the military said in a statement on its website.

“Parts of this indictment went too far and had a more political than legal content, targeting some (military) personnel with the aim of eroding the general staff and weakening its will in the battle against terror,” it said. The Justice Ministry has said it was investigating the prosecutor, Ferhat Sarikaya. Some media have said elements within the ruling Justice and Development Party, which has Islamist roots, secretly support the prosecutor’s claims because they want to undermine the staunchly secularist Buyukanit.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wheels with wheels. Military stages fake terrorist incidents to justify crackdown on the Kurds, which upsets the EU and makes it less likely Turkey will be admitted. Military wins because they won't have pesky EU notions like the Military being subordinate to elected officials and people can speak whatever language they like (as long as they are not in Brussels). Politicians don't want to draw attention to the fact the military is not under their control or worse provoke a coup.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/21/2006 0:26 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
WHO Suspects 14 People Infected with Bird Flu in Azerbaijan
Experts from the World Health Organization suspect 14 more people are infected with bird flu in Azerbaijan where two girls died of the the H5N1 virus earlier this month, Interfax reported Monday. A group of WHO experts reported their suspicions after visiting the Salyansky district of Azerbaijan, 150 km to the south of the capital Baku. Earlier three residents of the district were provisionaly diagnosed with bird flu.

Meanwhile, the state commission for preventing the spread of bird flu in Azerbaijan and coordinating the work of relevant government bodies has issued a statement that says no new areas of bird flu outbreak have been discovered, Regnum news agency said. “Bird flu has not been discovered in new areas. The Health Ministry has said no-one has been hospitalized [with suspected bird flu] in recent days, and that it has stockpiled the medications and disinfectants necessary to prevent and treat the bird flu virus,” the statement read.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Fatah supporters storm govt compound
Palestinian gunmen linked to the former governing Fatah party have stormed the main government compound in the Gaza Strip, in the worst internal violence there for months. The gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades say they are angry at the government's failure to give them jobs in the Palestinian security forces.
Lemme get this straight: They're shooting the place up because they're not getting jobs in law enforcement?
There are reports of several injuries in exchanges of fire with police. A senior member of the new Hamas administration, Mahmoud al-Zahar, is blaming Fatah for the violence. "It's one of the costs caused by the previous administration, when they appointed more than 15,000 police in the security section without taking permission from the authorised people," he said.

Palestinian Gunmen Take Over Power Plant
Three dozen gunmen blocked the main road leading to the Israel-Gaza crossing on Monday, exchanging fire with policemen trying to remove them from the area, officials and witnesses said. Two gunmen and a policeman were wounded. The firefight erupted along a road Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas needs to use to leave the Gaza Strip. Abbas was scheduled to leave Gaza on Monday morning and head to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Earlier, two dozen gunmen briefly infiltrated a power plant elsewhere in Gaza, exchanging fire with security forces and wounding two policemen, officials said. Gunmen also briefly entered a hospital near the Gaza town of Khan Younis. Several of the gunmen were recently hired by the Palestinian security services and demanded their salaries.
"Hokay. You passed your face-making test and your gun sex test. You know all the words to the Allahu Akbar chant. I guess you're hired! Welcome to law enforcement!"
"Good! Gimme my paycheck!"
Others were jobless and seeking employment. The gunmen are affiliated with Abbas' Fatah Party. Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly taken over government buildings and offices to press demands for jobs and salaries.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fred, you're hilarious.
Posted by: JAB || 03/21/2006 0:14 Comments || Top||

#2  "Lemme get this straight: They're shooting the place up because they're not getting jobs in law enforcement"

"You have a nice car here. Give me 10 bucks and I'll watch it for you. Don't, and I cant guarantee WHAT will happen"
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/21/2006 9:12 Comments || Top||

#3  I think a Palestinian version of "Cops" would really be something to see...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Something akin to Father's Day in Harlem?
Posted by: Not me || 03/21/2006 12:21 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd sink-trap myself for that. A self-sinking. Dumb.
Posted by: Not me || 03/21/2006 12:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Lemme get this straight: They're shooting the place up because they're not getting jobs in law enforcement?

All of them must have graduated with honors from the Korben Dallas School of Negotiating™.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 13:15 Comments || Top||

#7  And we gave these bozos guns....
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 13:34 Comments || Top||


Europe
EU threatens sanctions over 'flawed' Belarus poll
The Belarus government faces fresh sanctions and further international isolation after European election monitors delivered a devastating critique of Sunday's elections. The poll was ostensibly won by Aleksander Lukashenko, the incumbent President of the former Soviet republic, a man described by Washington as Europe's last dictator.

Official results gave Mr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, 82.6 per cent of the vote. His closest rival, the opposition leader Aleksander Milinkevic, apparently received just 6 per cent. Mr Milinkevic, a softly spoken former academic, claimed the result had been rigged and said the opposition would try to annul the result through a series of legal challenges to force a rerun. "He is not the legitimate president. He does not have the right to rule," he told reporters.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which fielded more than 500 observers, concluded separately that the election was neither free nor fair. It complained that the Belarussian KGB had created a "climate of intimidation" on the eve of the poll by associating opposition activists with terrorists. It said that opposition candidates were in effect prevented from campaigning, that activists were harassed, physically beaten and jailed, that the state media practically ignored the opposition and that undue pressure and threats were applied to state employees to get them to back Mr Lukashenko. "The right to freedom of association and freedom of assembly was ... largely disregarded," Alcee Hastings, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, said. "There was a pattern of intimidation and suppression of independent voices."

European foreign ministers ordered EU diplomats in Minsk to draw up a new list of Belarussian officials who could be subject to a visa ban, likely to be formalised next month. But the scope of the sanctions remained unclear with no decision on whether to extend them to Mr Lukashenko, or whether to target Belarussian companies linked to the government. At present six officials from Belarus are on the EU's visa ban list.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh no, not EU sanctions! I bet Lukashenko is quaking in his jackboots.
Posted by: Spot || 03/21/2006 11:28 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Car-bomb makers' cell busted in Kashmir
Indian troops shot dead four militants in Kashmir and arrested five others allegedly involved in making and setting off car bombs in the main city of Srinagar, the army said yesterday. The four were killed during two separate gunbattles in northern Kupwara district and southern Poonch district early Monday, said army spokesman Colonel Hemant Juneja. He said the fighting erupted when troops ringed two hideouts in the forest areas of the two districts bordering Pakistani Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the army and police in a joint operation arrested five members of the dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin in Srinagar. "The five were involved in preparing and detonating car bombs in Srinagar," an army statement said. This month there have been two car bomb explosions in Srinagar that injured over a dozen Indian soldiers and a few civilians. Hizbul claimed both attacks. "The busting of the module is a big success for the security forces and a blow to the militants," the statement said, adding the rebels were detained while they were actually planting a bomb inside a stolen car.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Maoist Rebels Kill 2 Child ‘Informers’
Maoist rebels kidnapped and killed two teenagers in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh after branding them police agents, officials said yesterday. The teenagers, Nagesh, 15, and Yelisha, 13, were among five minors kidnapped by guerrillas on Friday from a village in Prakasam district, 270 km south of Hyderabad. They were shot dead by rebels who suspected the boys of passing information on the Maoists to police, officers said, adding that it was the first time that children in the state had been targeted in this way.

Singa Prasad, a leader of a local Maoist committee, claimed responsibility for the killings of the children in a statement which was left with the dead bodies. One of the kidnapped children was released on Sunday and returned home with news of the killings.
This is why Maoists need to be killed.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is why Maoists need to be killed.
No doubt about it. IIRC, Mao had about 70 millions people killed, and counting, it seems.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 8:06 Comments || Top||


Reviving the Caliphate
By Akhilesh Mithal
The fear that all Muslims of the world are uniting/united with the object of hurting and harming the USA is haunting the President and his coterie. The word getting the workout from the top leaders these days is “caliphate” — the term for the 7th century Islamic empire that spanned the Middle East, spread to South-west Asia, North Africa and Spain, then ended with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. Caliphate is a mysterious and ominous word for many Americans and the administration knows it.
It wasn't a word many of us thought about until we started reading up on Islam and Islamists in the wake of 9-11-01. Then we kept stumbling across the term. Pooh-poohing the idea seems kind of disingenuous. But then, the rest of the article is, too.
They recognise that there is a lot of resonance when they use the term “caliphate”. Zbiignew Brzezinski (national security adviser to President Carter said that the word had an “almost instinctive fearful impact”.

More than 40,000 members of the Hizbut Tahrir on Sunday (March 5th, 2006) took to the streets of Indonesian cities to protest injustice against their religion across the world, marking the fall of the last caliphate in Turkey.Hizbut Tahrir advocating one Islamic caliphate in the world, rallied to the National Monument (Monas) square, opposite the U.S. embassy in Central Jakarta. "Down, Down (with) the USA. Up, Up (with) the Caliphate" said placards waved by protesters in Jakarta, including veiled women and their children. Similar rallies by Hizbut Tahrir members were reported in the Indonesian cities of Surabaya in East Java, Solo and Semarang in Central Java and in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Bandung in West Java, Padang in West Sumatera, Medan in North Sumatera, Lampung, etc.
Maybe to him. Most of us had to pause and look it up. The Islamic world not having been front and center in the affairs of the world for the past few hundred years — remember "the Sick Man of Europe"? — we weren't up on the intricacies of their thinking, if any. Imagine our surprise when we revisited the Wonderful World of Turbans and found comic-book quality Evil.
The US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned that Al Qaida’s ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the Caliphate with dire consequences for the USA.
Gawd knows various big turbans have announced just that enough times. Hizb ut-Tahrir's dedicated to that very premise. I can't fault him for taking them at their word, though obviously Akhilesh Mithal can.
As now we hear talk of a revival of the Caliphate (an institution that disappeared in 1924) it is time to consider some facts which might be relevant. The English word Caliph derives from the Arabic Khaleefah. The root “khalf” means “to leave behind”. The English equivalents would be “vicegerent”, “deputy”, “viceroy”, “lieutenant” or “successor”.
The banner of the Hizb ut-Tahrir website has the quote "And there shall be khilafah rashidah." The name of the website is Khilafah.com. Khilafah is the rule of the Khalifa.
In the Holy Quran (Sura ii 2Cool Adam is described as God’s khaleefah on earth. And when God said to the Angels, “I am about to place a vicegerent (khaleefah) upon the earth,” they said, “Wilt thou place therein one who will do evil thereon and shed blood?”

Prophet David is also mentioned as a khaleefah in the Quran. The Dictionary of Islam, published in 1885, says, “In Muhammadanism it (khaleefah) is the title given to the successor of Muhammad (On Whom Be Peace) who is vested with absolute authority in all matters of state, both civil and religious, as long as he rules in conformity with the law of the Quran (the holy book) and the Hadees (traditions of the prophet).”

The first Caliph Abu Bakr succeeded the Prophet in 632 AD (11 AH) and the institution suffered great vicissitudes such as the assassination of the ruler, abolition of the dynasty, and total eradication at the hands of the Mongol Hulaku (1258) but reappeared in different places until the last Caliph and Sultan of Turkey was deposed and exiled by Mustafa Kamal in 1924.
The Turks present an interesting case study in what the caliphate would bring to the lands it ruled — an initial period of aggressiveness (fall of Byzantium), followed by defeat (Lepanto, Gates of Vienna), followed by a long, slow descent into senility and ineptitude. The descent can be attributed only in part to the defeats — indeed, it's more likely the defeats can be attributed to the descent. Part of that was due to the practice of strangling potential rivals with bowstrings, which managed to eliminate the best and the brightest, leaving rule to the most vicious. With innovation effectively outlawed, the Grand Turk allowed the Islamic world to slip into torpor, poverty and ignorance. That's their legacy, and those pushing the caliphate want to export it.
Turkey was simultaneously declared a state without any Islamic paraphernalia.
Coincidentally, Turkey is today probably the most advanced Muslim nation, with the possible exception of Malaysia.
With Turkey no longer a Muslim state, Hyderabad Deccan in India became the largest state ruled by a Muslim in the world of 1924. The Nizam, a puppet of the British Indian government, promptly entered into a matrimonial alliance with the erstwhile ruler/Caliph and brought the Princesses Durru-Shehwaar (Pearl of Emperor size) and Niloufer (Blue Lily) as brides for his two sons. The Princess Durru-Shehwaar was raised to succeed her father and educated in arts, civil and military. She was made Princess of Berar and soon became most popular in Hyderabad. The Nizam disinherited his sons and making his grandson Mukarram Jah, born of Princess Durru-Shehwaar, and therefore uniting the bloodlines of Turkey Sultans with his own heir to the Hyderabad throne. The idea was that if and when the Caliphate were to be revived the children of the union between the Asaf Jahi Nizam and the Sultan Caliph of Turkey would be available, ready and willing to take up the assignment.
I don't think the guys pushing for the reestablishment of the caliphate have the descendents of a princess of Hyderabad in mind for the big turban. I believe they're looking for somebody more, shall we say, Arab? Perhaps a prince? Maybe tracing his ancestry all the way back to the Profit (PTUI)?
The Nizam himself was deposed in 1948 and his progeny have shown no interest in taking up the role for which they were conceived and born. Princess Durru Shehwaar died in London, where she had lived for many decades, at 3 am on February 7, 2006 at over 90 years of age. Perhaps Americans can, to ease their disquiet, contact Prince Mukarram Jah and get a statement from him that he is against the revival of the Caliphate, which was vested in his mother’s family through thirty seven generations from the year 1299 AD.
Unless he's got lotsa money and he can prove he's an Arab, he's not the one we have to worry about.
Posted by: john || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This Prince Mukarram Jah lives in Turkey now with his fifth wife.

His divorce settlements did not go well and he is said to be close to bankruptcy (no triple talaq in Turkey).

Didn't help that Indian government bought the family jewels for a pittance.

He is the little boy on the left



His father (at center) was more frugal

The last Nizam Osman Ali, however, used to follow a rather austere lifestyle. He wore the same tattered fez for 35 years and ate off a tin plate on a mat on the floor of his bedroom.

Yet, when the Indian government ran into a cash crunch soon after independence in 1947, his loan of gold sovereigns occupied two wagons of a special train to Bombay.

Earlier, during World War One, he made a generous contribution of 25 million pounds to the British exchequer, for which he was rewarded with the title of 'Exalted Highness' -- the only such title given to any of India's erstwhile maharajas by the colonial rulers.

Osman Ali, the legend goes, wrapped the 185-carat Jacob diamond, one of his most prized possessions, in newspaper and used it as a paperweight.


The treasure comprises 173 pieces of rare value and antiquity. Among them are the uncut Jacob Diamond, one of the seven biggest diamonds in the world, weighing 184.75 carats; a seven-strand pearl necklace strung with 150 large and 230 small pearls, with a two-diamond pendant attached to it; a pair of bracelets studded with 270 diamonds, 22 fine partially uncut and unmounted emeralds weighing 414.25 carats; and a diamond-set belt made in France by Oscar Massi Pieres. There are also rings, brooches, buttons, studded swords, diamond-studded images of camels, gold ingots

Photo Gallery of Nizam's Jewellery






Posted by: john || 03/20/2006 19:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.


* The treasure of the Nizam of Hydrabad, which now is a property of the Government of India is one of the largest and the most valuable collection of the Indian jewellery.
* The treasure belongs to the Asaf Jah dynasty that ruled the state of Hydrabad from 18th century till the independence of India.
* The collection contains over 25,000 diamonds weighing over 12000 carats.
* The weight of the 2000 emeralds in the collection is over 10000.

Posted by: john || 03/20/2006 19:14 Comments || Top||

#3  The last Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten (the cousin of Queeen Elizabeth) laid down the law as regards the accession of princely states to the dominions of Pakistan and India.
The state had to be contiguous with either India or Pakistan. No independence was possible.

The Nizam refused, wishing to join Pakistan even though most of his subjects were Hindu and most importantly, the state was entirely surrounded by India. Accession to pakistan would violate Mountbatten's guidelines and was not allowed.

Muslim radicals supported him. A muslim militia called the Razakars engaged in an orgy of rape, looting and murder, even into India itself.

The now Governor General Mountabtten advised caution and Nehru held his hand.

The Razakar leader Kasim Razvi vowed that "if India invaded nothing but the bones and ashes of 10.5 million Hindus would be found".

After Hyderbad loaned 200 million to Pakistan and sent a delgation to the UN, India had had enough

The Indian army was sent in, operation Polo - "a police action" according to India.

It is said many of the Nizam's Arab troops and the Razakars were summarily executed by the Indian army.
Posted by: john || 03/20/2006 19:34 Comments || Top||

#4  WOW john, facinating history.

nice rock collection too!
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.

I have contacted you because I got your name through a confident. I have possession of the jewels of Nizam and need help getting them out of Nigeria. If you will provide your bank account numbers...
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/21/2006 9:53 Comments || Top||

#6  I was talking over the concept of a renewed Caliphate with my Iranian friend. If there was a total reversion to the lifestyle of that time, the lack of modern medicine, the imprisonment of political dissidents and wholesale slaughter of homosexuals, refusniks and uppity wimmenfolk would result in a tremendous loss of life. Combined with the violent overthrow of all countries necessary, my friend quickly estimated that such an event could easily cost the world half of its population.

Compared to the 1.25 billion Muslims in this world, some 3.5 billion potential lives to be lost represent a definite tipping point. It is the perception of this and several other tipping points which have convinced me that Islam is a threat to all non-Muslims and must be contained or destroyed.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 11:53 Comments || Top||

#7  As some on Bros. Judd say, the Caliph resides in DC......
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/21/2006 13:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Son, what do you want to be when you grow up ??
Oh Father, I want to be a loyal member of Hizbut Tahrir.....
Califate my foot... first they will have to learn to count on the fingers of their second hand (the one traditionally used by Moslems to wipe ass...), then we'll consider the califate...
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 13:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.
I thought Trump had them on display in the Haj Room of the Trump Taj Majal, but that was before he filed Chapter 11...
Posted by: capsu78 || 03/21/2006 17:38 Comments || Top||

#10  He would jump at the chance.

They've been kept in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai.

They were put on display once, in 2001.

Posted by: john || 03/21/2006 18:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Some 7000 Arab soldiers (mercenaries in the Nizam's army) were put on boats to Aden after capture by the Indian army in 1948.
200 Pashtun soldiers were likewise sent back to Afghanistan.

Large numbers of Razakar militiamen, who had committed atrocities, were summarily executed by the Indian army.
There were 200 000 militiamen originally so several thousand were probably shot in the days following the "108 hour war".

Interestingly, the Razakar leader Kasim Razvi survived. He was arrested but later migrated to Pakistan.

He had boasted he would plant the green flag of Islam on the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi (the seat of former Mughal power).
He had mocked the Indian army, bizarrely expecting to slaughter "thin dhoti clad" soldiers (his image of hindus was apparently derived from the persecuted hindu peasants who lived under muslim rule in Hyderabad).

Posted by: john || 03/21/2006 18:28 Comments || Top||

#12  I think Caliphate should be the new mineral name for the slightly radioactive ashen glazed rock left over from the "Big Pushback™". (Often found in what were primitive societies where toilets= slit trenches down main street and kids learn a religious book by rote head-banging, but have no marketable skills)
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 19:31 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
JMB cadre Sabbir to be quizzed in Brahmanbaria
JMB cadre Sabbir Ahmed Dulal will be brought back to Brahmanbaria from Sylhet soon for interrogation, police sources said yesterday. Sabbir has been shown arrested in the August 17 blasts in the town following confessions by four other JMB cadres, arrested here on Wednesday. Police sought 10 days' remand for Sabbir for interrogation regarding JMB activities and the August 17 blasts. A court granted the police prayer yesterday, the sources said. Sabbir of Brahmanbaria was arrested from a saloon in Paltan in Dhaka city on March 8 by a team of Brahmanbaria police and brought to Brahmanbaria.
"Marshal Dillon! Marshal Dillon! That Sabbir Ahmed Dulal feller's down to the saloon!"
"Okay. Let's go round him up, Festus!"
Later he was sent to Sylhet for interrogation in a case filed against JMB kingpin Abdur Rahman there after Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) found his (Sabbir) cheque book (account No. 11674 of Janata Bank in Brahmanbaria) during the operation at Surjadigal Bari in Sylhet city from where JMB chief Abdur Rahman was arrested. Police sources said Sabbir used to look after financing JMB activities in Brahmanbaria.
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!"
"We got the drop on you. That counts for somethin'!"
The four JMB cadres--Alamgir, Sohel, Arafat and Sheikh Muhammad Sumon-- arrested here on Wednesday, confessed their involved in the August 17 bomb blast.
"Oooowwwww! Ow! Ow! We confess!"
According to their confessions, 11 JMB cadres took part in the blasts and they were given Tk 1.5 lakh for this. Police hope that they would get more vital information from Sabbir. A manhunt is on in the district for the rest 7 JMB cadres, police said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
17 Afghans sentenced in Tajikistan
DUSHANBE: A Tajik court has sentenced 17 Afghans to up to 25 years in prison on charges of killing a police officer, taking hostages, and illegal weapons smuggling, a judge said Monday. The deputy chairman of the southern Khatlon regional court, Dzhamolkhon Saidov, said members of the group were also charged with drug smuggling but that an investigation of that case was still under way. The Afghans were sentenced to from 2 1/2 to 25 years in prison, while two Tajiks received one-year sentences for not reporting the group's crimes to police, Saidov said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Frozen pigeons cost visitor from Egypt Dh200 at airport
Honestly, we don't make this stuff up.
ABU DHABI — An Egyptian passenger, who arrived at the Abu Dhabi International Airport from Cairo had his frozen pigeons destroyed due to fear of bird flu. He also had to pay Dh200 to have the birds dispensed of. Abdul Hameed Mohammed Abdullah said the customs authorities had withheld the frozen pigeons when he arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, telling him the frozen birds must be sent to the veterinary quarantine for inspection, and to ensure that the birds are not H5N1 positive.
"Is that a frozen pigeon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
He said the customs department’s officials asked him to immediately hand over the birds to the veterinary quarantine at the air cargo building in the airport. Next day, when he came to the airport, the officials asked him to come on the following day. When he came on Saturday, he was asked to pay Dh200 as charges for destroying the pigeons, though the birds were found not infected with the deadly bird flu.
Shipping and handling!
Posted by: Steve White || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is that Walter Piegon in the picture?
Posted by: Peter Finch || 03/21/2006 18:58 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Nasrallah: We will be asking in talks 'how do we protect Lebanon?'
Hizbullah will be heading to the third round of the national dialogue with one major question for all participants on the round table: "How can we protect Lebanon?"
Most people would tell you that's why you have an army...
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah posed the question in a speech during a Shiite religious event Monday. Lebanon "is a small country with a very strong and well-armored enemy state as a neighbor," Nasrallah said. "Israel also has very strong support from the international community headed by the U.S."

Participants in the national dialogue, which will kick off Wednesday, will be discussing the resistance's weapons and the presidential issue. Nasrallah said: "We will not head to the round table with the notion that we shall never disarm, because that wouldn't be a dialogue. Nor will we accept that others come to the dialogue with the notion that they will be disarming the resistance, because it wouldn't be a dialogue. We will go there and discuss evidence and events and hopefully will try to reach a solution that accomplishes the best for Lebanon." He added: "There never was any talk of a deal being made to keep the resistance's weapons in exchange for ousting [President Emile] Lahoud."

Nasrallah also said: "I think that the table of discussion should also include socio-economic matters, and not only political ones. I believe that it is important that we try to find a solution to the unemployment problem in the country ... to ask questions such as why the most profitable economic sector, the telecommunications sector, is being privatized."
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  By commiting suicide.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/21/2006 10:15 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Cheney: Don't listen to Kennedy
Sen. Ted Kennedy is the last person to listen to in matters of responsible driving national security, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," Cheney responded to host Bob Schieffer's remark that Kennedy (D-runk) had said on the third anniversary of the Iraq war: "It is clearer than ever that Iraq was a war that we never should have fought. The administration has been dangerously incompetent and its Iraq policy is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.
"Incompetent" is the new meme. All Dems are hollering it whenever they get the chance.
"President Bush continues to see the war through the same rose colored glasses he's always used. He assures the American people we are winning while the lives of our troops hang so perilously on the precipice of a new disaster."
A bit overblown, I'd say, but The Last Kennedy has a penchant for overblown windbaggery...
Said Cheney: "I would not listen to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security.
"I'd sooner let him drive me home after a night of boozing!"
"I think what Senator Kennedy reflects is sort of the pre-9/11 mentality about how we ought to deal with that part of the world. We used to operate on the assumption before 9/11 that a terrorist attack, a criminal act, was a law enforcement problem. We were hit repeatedly in the '90s and never responded effectively. When the terrorists came to believe not only could they strike us with impunity but if they hit us hard enough that we'd change our policy."
Meaning they had the measure of people like Sen. Kennedy.
Cheney explained that "we changed all that on 9/11. After they hit us and killed 3,000 Americans here at home we said enough's enough, we're going to aggressively go after them - go after the terrorists where we can find them and go after those states that sponsor terrorism and go after people who provide them with weapons of mass destruction. That kind if aggressive forward-leading strategy is one of the main reasons we haven't been struck again. Senator Kennedy's approach is pack [up] and go home and retreat behind the ocean and assume we can be safe. It was learned on 9/11 that in fact what's going on 10,000 miles away in a place like Afghanistan has a direct impact on the United States when we lost 3,000 people.
But 9-11-01 was almost five years ago, way longer than the attention span of people like Kennedy.
"We know now that the biggest threat of all that we face is not just another 9/11 but a 9/11 where the terrorists have something like nuclear weapons or deadly biological agents. The Iraq situation has to be seen in the broader context of a global war on terror. It is a global contest. You can't look just at Iraq and make decisions there with respect as to how that's going to come out without having major consequences.
You can if you don't pay attention to what's actually going on in the world. You can if you don't have the brainpower to actually formulate a desired response. You can if you don't have the guts to stick with it after someone else has formulated a response. You can if you're a cheap politician whose primary concern is the next election, not the nation.
"I think we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think the evidence is overwhelming. I think Ted Kennedy been wrong from the very beginning, he's the last man I'd go to for guidance as to how we should conduct national security policy."
Posted by: Jackal || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bush sees the world through rose-color glasses.

Kennedy sees the world through the bottom of a whiskey glass.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/21/2006 7:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Kennedy is the biggest F*cking idiot besides Carter on the planet. Anybody that would listen to them are bigger idiots.
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/21/2006 8:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Good one Jackle, AGREE
Posted by: ARMYGUY || 03/21/2006 8:49 Comments || Top||

#4  "I would not listen to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security."

I wouldn't listen to Ted Kennedy for advice on how to mow my lawn...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/21/2006 9:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Ted is however the first person you'd want to listen to in all matters regarding booze & broads.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 03/21/2006 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
Posted by: Mike || 03/21/2006 12:06 Comments || Top||

#7  RantBurgs favorite plains scavanger takes no prisoners. :>
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:32 Comments || Top||

#8  "Incompetent" is the new meme. All Dems are hollering it whenever they get the chance.

Actually, its "dangerously incompetant" in the Donk instruction manual- Unfortunatly, using 2 11 letter words together on one bumper sticker leaves no room for "Bush Lied/ People died" and the rest of the earmarked talking points agreed to at the "DNC unified message" conference.
Posted by: capsu78 || 03/21/2006 13:54 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria jails 7 activists of an outlawed party
DAMASCUS — A Syrian security court on Sunday sentenced seven Kurds to jail terms ranging between six months and 10 years for belonging to an outlawed Kurdish party, according to a Syrian human rights lawyer. Anwar Al Bunni said the State Security Court convicted Balkhati Abdu, Mohammad Khalil Ellow and Walat Yunis to two and a half years in prison each on charges of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

In a statement, he said the court also sentenced Ali Sadek Ellow and Loqman Othman to seven years in prison and Ali Mohya to sixth months in prison. Ahmad Haj Omar was sentenced by the court for ten years on charges of “trying to change the entity of the society and weakening the national feeling,” Al Bunni said.

The PKK, which has battled Turkish forces for years while seeking autonomy in southeastern Turkey, once had offices in Syria. But authorities cracked down on the group’s activities as Syrian-Turkish ties improved, particularly amid fears over the growing influence of Iraq’s Kurds.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
US supports call for new Belarusian poll
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Indian court lets off minister
An India court on Monday rejected demands for action against a lawmaker who put an 11.5 million dollar-bounty on the heads of Danish cartoonists who drew controversial images of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (ptui pbuh). A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal described as "unfortunate" last month's offer by Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh state government. The court, however, said it couldn't "entertain" such appeals and suggested the petitioner, Vijay Kumar Tiwari, register a criminal complaint with the police against the politician.

Qureshi told a Muslim rally after Friday prayers last month that he would give "the avenger" 510 million rupees and his weight in gold. "The money will be paid by the people of Meerut," Qureshi said, who is the state's minority affairs' minister.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Men barred from selling women's lingerie
The Saudi labour ministry has warned shops selling lingerie that from June it will begin inspections to ensure men are not serving customers. Shops that fail to comply will face fines.
Once the shops have female staff in place men will also be barred from entering.
'cause they might not be able to control themselves, and they'll have to go shoot off ... their guns.
The government is struggling to implement a decree issued more than a year ago aimed at providing more jobs for women. A recent survey in the Red Sea city of Jeddah found that of 247 shops selling lingerie and beauty products only three employed women.
And just what were those three doing outside of their homes?
Most of the men working in the shops are thought to be Lebanese.
You certainly wouldn't expect a Saoodi male to soil his hands with work, would you?
Posted by: Steve White || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I prefer the clerks at Victoria's Secret to be hot young un-burqa'd females rather than sweaty Saudi Muttawa - but hey...that's just me, and the gift recipient doesn't need to know....
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:14 Comments || Top||

#2  The Religous Policeman had an interesting post on this subject. Scroll down to Sunday March 19, "Shopping".
Posted by: GK || 03/21/2006 0:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Most of the men working in the shops are thought to be Lebanese.

they'll just rehire them as Muttawa approved women.
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Of course, men can still sell the man-ziere
Posted by: Frank Costanza || 03/21/2006 2:56 Comments || Top||

#5  Yeah, but can they still BUY it? Theses panties and silk stocking with suspenders are very becoming. I mean, for your wife or something, that's what I meant. Theses saudi guys are so manly, they've got mustachios and are all sweaty, so I'm sure most of them are not tranvestite in-the-closet homos.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 5:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Frank, yes that and the puffy shirt.
Posted by: GORT || 03/21/2006 8:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Frank, I thought we agreed on the Bro.
Posted by: C Kramer || 03/21/2006 8:44 Comments || Top||

#8  What about a man purse,gotsta have a man purse!
Posted by: raptor || 03/21/2006 10:11 Comments || Top||

#9  Most of the men working in the shops are thought to be Lebanese.

Sung to
"We are Siamese"
from
"Lady and the Tramp"

We are Lebanese if you please
We are Lebanese if you don't please
We are former residents of Beiruit
There is no finer man than I am

Do you see that black nightie on the shelf there?
Maybe we can reaching it and sell it now
If we sneaking up upon a burqua
There'll be some fun for you, and for me too

We are Lebanese if you please
We are Lebanese if you don't please
Now we're looking over our new shop here
If we like we stay for maybe quite awhile

(Growl)

Do you hear what i hear? A woman buy
Where we findin' woman there's cop nearby
And if we look too closely we get whip lashed
Punishment by police for you, and also some for me.

(Reow)

We are Lebanese if you please
We are Lebanese if you don't please
Now we're looking over our new shop here
If we like we stay for maybe quite awhile

We are Lebanese if you please
We are Lebanese if you dont please
We are from a residence of Beiruit
There is no finer man then I am


There is no finer man than I am (No I am)

There are no finer men than we am
Posted by: Ogeretla 2006 || 03/21/2006 11:43 Comments || Top||

#10  Kudos to Rantburg's Composer Laureate.
Posted by: ed || 03/21/2006 11:46 Comments || Top||

#11  :> Go O!
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 12:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Ogeretla 2006!!
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 14:06 Comments || Top||

#13  But it's still OK for the brave macho Arab men to wear women's lingerie?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 23:29 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
University sacks disgraced stem cell scientist
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
The Blanket Shotgun Ban in M'sia Incorporated
Being muslims means you can't be criticized, iow.

Don't incite Muslims, warns Nazri
Pauline Puah
The government will not hesitate to use the Sedition Act against non-Muslims who “incite the sentiments” of Muslims, warned Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz. "We will not think twice about using this law against anyone who incites - that’s why we still need the Sedition Act and ISA (Internal Security Act)," he told reporters after receiving a memorandum in support of the amended Islamic Family Law (IFL) at the Parliament building today.

He said Muslims have shown a high level of tolerance but this has its limits. “Because we are tolerant people, we would like (others) to respect our threshold. It’s not for them to interfere in our (Islamic) affairs," he said. However, Nazri, who is the de facto law minister, said the government has no plans to draft a law to prohibit non-Muslims from raising matters or questions related to Islam. "We don’t need to have a law to prohibit discussion on any issue. This is a harmonious country and we respect one another, especially on religious matters.... Non-Muslims should understand there are some matters that they cannot touch or utter," he said.

He argued that Muslim Malaysians have never interfered in or ridiculed other religions, and that non-Muslims should therefore apply similar principles in matters involving Islam. Nazri revealed that the IFL, which was gazetted last month, will be tabled again during the current parliamentary session for more amendments. He also expressed disappointment with those Muslim groups that have questioned the provisions of the IFL. "They are Muslims (but) do not have in-depth understanding of the law. It’s best that we refrain from making statements that can be interpreted as Islam being unfair to women and so on," he said. Sisters in Islam has been the most vocal of NGOs that have campaigned against the IFL amendments.

Among the 43 NGOs that inked the memorandum were the Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim), Jemaah Islah Malaysia, Persatuan Cina Muslim Malaysia, Allied Coordinating Committee of Islamic NGOs, Darul Syifa' and Global Peace Mission Malaysia.

About seven of the 40 representatives, led by the Muslim Professional
Forum Bhd chairperson Dr Mazeni Alwi, stated their views in a discussion with Nazri. During the minister’s press conference that followed, a number of them flung remarks from the sidelines that made clear their dissatisfaction over media coverage of the IFL amendments. "The press is in love with nyamuk (mosquitoes). The press pick up nyamuk stories and flood the whole nation with (these) stories. When we write to correct the nyamuk, the press ignores our letters," said one NGO representative who could not be immediately identified.

The press-bashing theme was taken up in the memorandum, which read: "Media bias undermines journalistic standards and ethics and undermines your role as a fair institution. The media must acknowledge attempts to correct the distortion and confusion regarding Islam. Printed letters are truncated rendering them ineffective in response.”

The memorandum, among other points, denounced the “offensive and inflammatory” criticism registered. "Some non-Muslims understandably cannot relate to Muslims' reverence of the Islamic sacred text. The current trend of comments by non-Muslims on Islamic jurisprudence such as IFL has caused concern among Muslims," it said.

Meanwhile, Nazri earlier said the government has instructed the attorney-general to re-examine procedures pertaining to conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. This includes, informing family members, annulling marriages, providing for custodial rights, alimony, inheritance and confirming the religious status of a deceased person. The minister said the government is aware that such procedures must be improved to prevent controversies. However, he stressed that the government is not considering amending Article 121 (1A) which prohibits the civil courts from intervening in Islamic matters.

Calls for amendment were heard following the controversy that surrounded
the death of Everest hero M Moorthy last December. Commenting on this, Nazri said the issue was related to the fact that Moorthy had not informed his family about his conversion and had nothing to do with Article 121 (1A).
Anyone notices that his name minus a "r", spells "NAZI"?
Posted by: Duh! || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Duh!, that's a red herring; or rather, it's semantic name-calling that proves nothing. U FAIL

He said Muslims have shown a high level of tolerance but this has its limits. “Because we are tolerant people, we would like (others) to respect our threshold. It’s not for them to interfere in our (Islamic) affairs," he said. However, Nazri, who is the de facto law minister, said the government has no plans to draft a law to prohibit non-Muslims from raising matters or questions related to Islam. "We don’t need to have a law to prohibit discussion on any issue. This is a harmonious country and we respect one another, especially on religious matters.... Non-Muslims should understand there are some matters that they cannot touch or utter," he said.

THIS, on the other hand, is far more empirical evidence of plain bullshit.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 03/21/2006 0:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Edward is enforcing the long-standing no making fun of names Hudna.
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 9:58 Comments || Top||

#3  stop making me laugh!
Posted by: jonesin || 03/21/2006 12:56 Comments || Top||

#4  This is not a wise move in a country where the Mulsim Malays control the government, but the Confucian Chinese make all the money. And the Chinese are much more portable than the Malays.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 14:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Yep, and the Muslim Malays, too.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/21/2006 20:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Peace just a breath away, says Sharon Stone
Filed under "You just can't make this s&*t up".
A peaceful co-existence between the peoples of the Middle East is but a breath away, Hollywood star Sharon Stone said after a highly publicized visit to Israel. "It feels to me that we have an opportunity ... to choose understanding in a new way," she told a press conference in Paris when asked about her trip.

Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Any bets she didn't ride any Israeli Busses or visit any shopping centers or discos while she was there?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/21/2006 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  did she offer to blow anybody for peace? What the hell's this "breath"???
Posted by: Frank G || 03/21/2006 0:20 Comments || Top||

#3 

she's like Ghandi
Posted by: macofromoc || 03/21/2006 0:48 Comments || Top||

#4 
mah, bad, I meant gumby
Posted by: macofromoc || 03/21/2006 0:48 Comments || Top||

#5  What the hell's this "breath"???

She prolly got shotgunned a lung-full of hashish smoke.
Posted by: badanov || 03/21/2006 1:08 Comments || Top||

#6  comeon Sharon show us your blossom again.
Posted by: RD || 03/21/2006 2:09 Comments || Top||

#7  Sure, when they build that wall. Then there will be peace and the Palestinians can sit and rot there.
Posted by: anon1 || 03/21/2006 5:03 Comments || Top||

#8  She had lost an occasion to shut up.

I would like to lknow why Sharon Stone's thinks anyone should care about het opinion. Is she more learned, more intelligent, better informed on the subject than your average waitress? Does she thinkl that having displayed her pubic hairs in a movie makes her an authority on international politics.

Of course she does, but I see no raeson why she should get any airtime.
Posted by: JFM || 03/21/2006 7:08 Comments || Top||

#9  ...Her and Richard Belzer have all the answers, apparently.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/21/2006 8:20 Comments || Top||

#10  Well, she's at least as funny as Belzer....
Posted by: Inspector Clueso || 03/21/2006 9:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Well, whenever I think my career's in the shitter, I just think of Sharon Stone's.
And I feel better...
Posted by: Kevin Costner || 03/21/2006 9:13 Comments || Top||

#12  I think she misspelled it.
When she wore her micro-minis without panties it was a breath away..
Posted by: 3dc || 03/21/2006 11:20 Comments || Top||

#13  RD, you might get yer chance. She does have a movie coming out....Basic Instinct 2.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/21/2006 13:13 Comments || Top||

#14  Why doesn't Ms. Stone volunteer to be one of the legendary 72 virgins TM of Paleo fame???
A red convertible Lambourgini sports car will be given to the first to answer this riddle...
(warning ! actual proof of concept will be required)
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 03/21/2006 13:31 Comments || Top||

#15  "And it really is just a breath. It's just an agreement that's just a breath. We are not far apart. We can choose to have this alternative kind of growth that is a collective nuance of understanding.

That breath is the one sucking up lines off a mirror, I think. What is it about "Kill the Jews" that's open to nuanced understanding?

Posted by: AlanC || 03/21/2006 14:55 Comments || Top||

#16  A breath away?

What, is she going to give someone a blow job?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/21/2006 23:25 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
4 madrasa boys held for killing 11-yr-old boy
Sylhet police arrested four students of Fatehpur Madrasa in Sadar upazila early Sunday in connection with the killing of an 11-year boy of the same madrasa. The arrestees are Sarwar Alam, 18, Asaduzzaman, 17, Mujibur Rahman, 17 and Layek Miah, 18.

The victim Belal Hossain, a student of class six, went to join a Waj Mehfil in the madrasa on Saturday night and never returned home. Later locals learned Sarwar had called him out of the Waj Mehfil on that night. They also found Belal's ID card with him and suspecting his involvement in Belal's disappearance they handed him over to the police.

Sarwar confessed to police that he along with the three had hacked the boy to death and then dumped the body into a septic tank early Sunday. Police recovered the body and sent it to the Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College morgue for an autopsy. The arrestees confessed before a magistrate yesterday afternoon.
Posted by: Fred || 03/21/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm sure the motive wasn't homosexual predation related, no, no, certainly not, not theses pious madrasas boyz... yeah, the kid probably drew a picture of old Mo' because of zionist influence or something, and the boyz felt compelled to defend the prophet(tm)'s honor, that must be it.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/21/2006 5:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Upazilla Classics!
:>
Posted by: 6 || 03/21/2006 10:00 Comments || Top||

#3  The poor kid probably cracked a fart that sounded way too much like "Allah" or "Mohammed."
Posted by: Zenster || 03/21/2006 13:22 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2006-03-21
  Pakistani Taliban now in control of North, South Waziristan
Mon 2006-03-20
  Senior al-Qaeda leader busted in Quetta
Sun 2006-03-19
  Dead Soddy al-Qaeda leader threatens princes in video
Sat 2006-03-18
  Abbas urged to quit, scrap government
Fri 2006-03-17
  Iraq parliament meets under heavy security
Thu 2006-03-16
  Largest Iraq air assault since invasion
Wed 2006-03-15
  Azam Tariq's alleged murderer caught in Greece
Tue 2006-03-14
  Israel storms Jericho prison
Mon 2006-03-13
  Mujadadi survives suicide attack, blames Pakistan
Sun 2006-03-12
  Foley Killers Hanged
Sat 2006-03-11
  Clerics announce Sharia in S Waziristan
Fri 2006-03-10
  MILF coup underway?
Thu 2006-03-09
  Qaeda fugitive surrenders in Kuwait
Wed 2006-03-08
  N. Korea Launches Two Missiles
Tue 2006-03-07
  15 Dead, Dozens hurt in blasts in north Indian temple town

Better than the average link...



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