Voice from the Commonwealth Commentary, World Views and Occasional Rants from a small 'l' libertarian in Massachussetts
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
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Praise for Voice
"A smart fellow...I do like, recommend and learn from Barbera's blog." -Roger L. Simon
"Your blog is bullshit"- anonymous angry French reader.
That's good stuff right there. The President not only hold the Dems feet to the fire, he shoves the right into the flames.
"I can't imagine an elected member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying, `I think I'm going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision,' " Bush said. "It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States."
"If I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, `Vote for me,' and `Oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I am going to wait for somebody else to act,' " Bush said. "I don't imagine Saddam Hussein sitting around, saying, `Gosh, I think I'm going to wait for some resolution.' "
Oh, I'm sure Daschle will come out and talk about how disappointed he is that the President is making this a politcal issue. Well Tom, if you would just let the Congress and Senate debate it now, as war is themost important issue tthat a country can undertake, perhaps it wouldn't be political. And let's not mention the fact that your Party's politicizing Judicial nomineees threatens to destroy one of the brances of our government.
Looks like the final decision has benn made in Australia. Downer gave his speech to the UN today.
"Grave concerns remain about Iraq's present capabilities."
He said Iraq's defiance was a direct challenge to the authority of the UN Security Council.
"Iraq's flagrant and persistent defiance is a direct challenge to the United Nations, to the authority of the Security Council, to international law, and to the will of the international community," he said.
"We (UN members) cannot stand by and allow ourselves to be ignored.
"Nor must protracted negotiations be allowed to weaken and eventually paralyse efforts to allay fears about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"Otherwise, if Iraq's pursuit of these abhorrent weapons is allowed to continue, we may shortly be asking ourselves why we failed to act."
This is actually fairly important. Australia has a large grain deal with Iraq and has threatened that Australian soldiers will face very harsh consequences if they are captured in a war against them.
This is a decent job of an interview of Hassan Rohani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, by Chris Wallace at ABC. When Rohani waffles Wallace goes back to the qustion. Espcially about support of suicide bombing and Hamas and Hizbollah and the Karine A. I understand the need for afew soft balls but over all I applaud him for keeping the questions coming.
France and Denmark are leading the charge to forcibly deport failed asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants. Britain and Spain are said to support the measure also.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told his 14 EU counterparts meeting in Copenhagen on Friday that an enforced repatriation programme would encourage other unwanted migrants to go home voluntarily, diplomats said.
"If there is only the choice between leaving voluntarily and staying on, we will not have a lot of success...It is only natural to work together to solve this problem," Sarkozy told reporters, adding that the EU needed to find the financial means to implement the proposals.
Bahrain is playing coy. Being very small, they are coming under pressure from Iran and Iraq to not supportt the US. But being possible the most deomcratised nation in the region I think they see the opportunites of being close to the US.
In a condolence message which he sent to U.S. President George W. Bush marking the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Sheikh Hamad expressed "Bahrain's condolences to all those affected by the tragedy," and reaffirmed his country's "unwavering commitment to stand with the United States and the international community in combating international terrorism and those who support, harbour or finance it.
"We remain completely convinced of the effectiveness of such an international action as has been demonstrated over the last 12 months, in stamping out the threat of terror and in ensuring that the world will never again endure attacks such as those of September 11.
"I look forward to continuing to work closely with you in this task, and send you and the American people my renewed sympathy and condolences on this most painful anniversary," the King wrote.
Now that could be a watershed. The country I thought least likely to say anything, Egypt, has said they swould back, althoug reluctantly, a UN-backed mandate to attack Israel.
"Egypt, because of practical reasons and principles, cannot support U.S. military action unless there is a UN resolution against Iraq's refusal to implement international resolutions and, in this case, Egypt will support the resolutions of international legality," Maher said. "If there is a UN resolution that imposes certain measures on Iraq, we will support it," he said in the interview with ***Time*** magazine, excerpts of which were published in Arabic in Cairo's ***Al-Ahram*** daily. "Iraq must accept the return of the international weapons inspection team. If it doesn't, Egypt sees that this must be dealt with in the framework of the United Nations." But Maher cautioned that Egypt still believed "a military strike would destabilize the Middle East."
"The Arab peoples are angry at what is happening in Palestine and, for humanitarian reasons, at what is happening to the Iraqi people. "A strike on Iraq will exacerbate this anger, even though many people in the Arab region have no sympathy for (president) Saddam Hussein," he said as quoted by AFP.
Speaking of Comrade Bob. Along with 300 more farmers arrested his forces picked up a recently retired judge.
Also on Friday, police arrested a recently retired judge, who had tried to sentence the justice minister to prison, accusing him of bias against the government and irregularities in office.
In a continuing crackdown against alleged government critics -- including judges, reporters and human rights workers -- former High Court Judge Feargus Blackie, 65, was taken by police from his Harare home before dawn, his wife, Adrienne, told The Associated Press..
Where the hell is the world's media on this. They wail and decry America for the arrest and detention, without full Constitutional Rights, of armed men whose organization states that their goal is to murder Americans and their allies. Political prisoners are rounded up in the hundreds in Zimbabwe and you don't see a front page above the fold headline in a single newspaper. No exposes just an article tucked away in the regional news.
Barron and Farrakhan and the others scream about the violation of civil rights when Ashcroft asks Arab men to voluntarily come in for interviews with the FBI yet praaise and honor and bestow all glory on a tyrant who has his men rape and murder the people he rules.
This is old but, somehow I missed it before. Back in July Louis Farrakhan was in Zimbabwe visiting Comrade Bob.
I start by asking you what brought you to Zimbabwe?
We came as a result of reading the demonisation of President Mugabe over the issue of land reform. We came after witnessing the launching or the birth of the African Union in Durban to show solidarity with President Mugabe and with the idea of land reform.
Turning to politics, can you tell us your impressions about the state of opposition politics in this country?
I don't think there is anything wrong with opposition but opposition in my judgement should not be opposition for opposition's sake. It should be opposition based on ideas, plans and programmes that we may think are better than what the Government in power is offering.
It's the same with the opposition media. In a democratic society the media has a very important role to play and not opposition for the sake of opposition and the vile and ugly reporting is not, in my judgement, responsible journalism.
If we have a legitimate critical analysis of our governments, we should feel free to prove them.
But just to be vile and become very personal in our attacks on one another does not add to democracy. In fact, it begins to tear down the same governments we are trying to build.
Turning to America, what is the status of the black man now compared to 20 or 30 years ago. Has anything changed and if so what has changed?
The status of the black man in America in spite of all of the great work of many of our great leaders and organisations is very bad. The majority of the people are still suffering greatly as in Zimbabwe.
Aids has become a pandemic that is killing young Africans from 19 to 30. We find the same destructive presence of Aids in the black community in America killing mainly our young men form 18 to 45. There is much job losses and we are still fighting against police brutality and mob attacks so even though we have had some advances and we have a much large middle class that seems to be doing fairly well, even those are angry and upset because of what is called the glass ceiling - meaning they can only fog as high as their corporate bosses who are white would allow them to go. So on every state on every form in America we are still struggling and we will continue to struggle until there is total liberation of our people.
This is interesting. Gives you some hope that the rest of the European elite any someday feel the same way.
Italians must accept historic responsibility for the deportation of the Jews to Nazi concentration camps and other crimes of Benito Mussolini's dictatorship, Italy's formerly neo-fascist deputy prime minister said in an interview published Thursday. Gianfranco Fini told the Israeli daily Haaretz that he and his National Alliance have abandoned all fascist and racist ideology, and offered his support for Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians. ``Indeed, as an Italian I must accept responsibility. In the name of the Italians I have to do that,'' he said. ``The Italians bear responsibility for what happened after 1938, from the enactment of the race laws.''
He then goes on to put his support fully on the side of Israel.
In the newspaper interview, Fini expressed support for Israel and sharply criticized Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. ``I am convinced that today, and especially after the 11th of September, the security of Israel is the security of the West and the security of the democratic peoples,'' he said.
I think Hussien finally realizes that his time may be up.
Iraq has stepped up its attempts to move weapons and financial aid to the Palestinian Authority areas, in an effort to resume terror attacks against Israel. Baghdad's plan is to refocus international attention on the Israeli-Arab conflict and hope for a second front in case of a U.S. attack against Baghdad.
The defense establishment has spotted new signs of attempted Iraqi weapons smuggling to the West Bank and Gaza, including from Jordan. The Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front yesterday held a rally in Gaza where financial grants from Saddam Hussein were handed out to 32 families of Palestinian dead. The rally included an appearance by Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who called for "unity in the ranks of the resistance," and drew a connection between Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation and the U.S. threats to strike at Iraq.
However, I think he reads Bush wrong. Bush is not about to be diverted by more violence in Israel. In fact it will probably push him to move faster.
The US Army is helping Afghans in Bamiyan with a new radio station.
The fledgling radio station, started with the help of the U.S. Army in May, is still battling technical hiccups that can knock it off the air for days at a time. But with a potential reach of 50,000 people, it has a powerful influence throughout the Bamiyan valley of central Afghanistan. ``Our goals are to provide news, to spread new information to the people to improve their thinking,'' said station manager Qurban Ali Fasihi.
Many men take their portable radios to work so they won't miss Radio Bamiyan's one-hour program, which starts at 6 p.m. Women congregate in one home to listen together to the health and human rights programming.
Staff Sgt. Joe Smith, chief of the U.S. Army Psychological Operations team in Bamiyan, calls the station the ``public crown'' of his team's work since coming to Bamiyan in April. His three-member team is charged with building rapport with the residents in a 35-mile swath of the valley, an area rich with historical treasures where people are still recovering from the strict rule of the Taliban regime that was ousted last November by a U.S.-led military coalition.
They talk with residents about their needs, get feedback on coalition activities and distribute posters and leaflets warning residents to avoid land mines, condemning the Taliban and urging support for coalition activities. Other brochures promote acceptance of different ethnic groups. Bamiyan province is home to the Hazara, who suffered heavily at the hands of the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. Under Taliban rule, hundreds of Hazarans were killed or imprisoned and farmers were prevented from planting crops.
I find it somehow touching that we these people now find such pleasure in the simple joy of being able to listen to the radio and drop off letters for programming suggestions. It makes me think of just how wrong all the pampered protesters who say that we were wrong in the toppling of the Taliban. It alos gives me hope that the people of Afghanistan really do get it and want to have peace and a voice in the government. It will spread.
Though there are frequent equipment breakdowns, Radio Bamiyan has already made its mark in the community. Listeners regularly offer suggestions to improve the broadcast — more Dari singers and more international news, for example — and many take advantage of the regular ``Ask a Doctor'' or ``Answers to Your Letters'' programs. Listeners drop off letters personally, since there is no telephone service through much of Bamiyan. They ask for advice on treating children's ailments, why the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas and why the station is not playing a particular singer.
``Every society wants different things,'' said Fasihi. ``We play according to their beliefs. It is difficult because there are modern vs. old-fashioned ideals here. We have to please both.''
The U.S. Army provides the generator to keep the station on the air, but Smith expects it will eventually become completely independent. Fasihi has been soliciting non-governmental organizations for advertising dollars, though the response so far has been minimal. ``Now we're in the crawling stage, but the station is definitely going in the right direction,'' Smith said.
Good story about a fertilizer factory near Mazar-i-Sharif that has been in continuoous operation since 1973.
``In the beginning, everything was new, everything worked well,'' Padshah said. ``They taught us how to operate the machines, and when the Russians left, we showed we could stand on our own.''
When the Taliban seized power in much of the north in the late 1990s, the Islamic militia placed one of their religious leaders in charge and barred the 200 female employees from working. They have since returned.
Another of the new management's first actions was to affix a sign to the wall of the main factory floor that read ``God is great. We always appreciate Him because he made us.'' There are no plans to take it down.
But the Taliban tried to impose their authority by forcing out many skilled employees, including engineer Ghulam Ali Jawshan. He took jobs in the provincial departments of agriculture and construction, and spent time in Pakistan.
Jawshan, who got a job at the factory when it opened, was back at his old desk as Taliban power eroded under U.S. bombing and the advance of anti-Taliban northern alliance forces.
He said Kode Barq has survived for so long because workers guarded the place themselves and always kept the machines running. They even stuck around when the buildings swayed in earthquakes over the years.
``The factory is like a home,'' he said. ``We take care of it.''
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Friday rejected the unconditional return of U.N. arms inspectors as demanded by Washington, saying the move would not avert U.S. military designs on Baghdad.
"The return of inspectors without conditions will not solve the problem ...because we have had a bad experience with them. Is it clever to repeat an experience that failed and did not prevent aggression?" Aziz told Dubai-based Arab satellite station MBC in an interview to be broadcast at 11:00 a.m. EDT. The footage was seen in advance by Reuters.
For a good look at the insepector's bad experience with Iraq. See the previous story.
Want a good look at what inspectors go through in Iraq. Here you go.
Lt-Col Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, of the German Army Medical Service, was one of Unscom’s top on-site investigators. In July 1998, deep inside the six-storey command post of Saddam Hussein’s Air Force, she had managed to persuade some officers to open a safe filled with documents. She was seeking evidence of the past manufacture, possession and use of biological agents as weapons.
As usual, the Iraqis had lied and lied - saying the documents were irrelevant to her enquiries. With the temperature inside the office rising to 54C (130F), Wadsack now faced a growing number of Air Force thugs and bully boys. As they menaced her, her eyes flicked to the document and caught the giveaway word “khas” - “special”, the euphemism used by the Iraqi military for biological and chemical warfare matters. She took the document, as she was fully entitled to do.
Her UN interpreter confirmed that it appeared to contain written evidence of munitions used by the Iraqi Air Force. These weapons included LD-250 bombs which Iraq had used to test biological warfare agents such as anthrax and botulinum toxin. The Iraqi Air Force officers shouted at her that the document was not relevant and she could not take it. She held her position and suggested a compromise: by which she would photocopy the document and the original would stay in the safe.
But when Wadsack tried to make copies the photocopy machine had already been sabotaged. The Iraqis made urgent phone calls to Baghdad. They came back and told her that permission to take photocopies had been revoked but she could make notes.
More phone calls to Baghdad, then another security officer bore down on her and said permission to take notes had been rescinded. He asked to see something on the document as a pretext and, as she held it up, he snatched it from her, thus crossing the dangerous line between verbal harassment and physical coercion. The colonel used her phone to call her chief executive, Ambassador Richard Butler, direct in New York. He negotiated an arrangement by which the document would be placed in a tamper-proof plastic envelope with UN seals at each end. The Iraqis would keep the document but it would eventually be revealed. It remains unexamined to this day.
Perhaps Kofi and Jaques and Gerhardt ad Daschle and the other appeasers are right. Let's just go through a few more years of that. After all it should only be a year or so until Saddam completes a nuke and then the inspectors can leave once and for all. Want some more
Terry Taylor, the former Colonel of the Royal Anglian Regiment, and now director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, was an Unscom arms inspector in Iraq who was deeply hated by the Iraqis. By 1997 the Iraqi spy apparatus had penetrated Unscom’s own offices on the 30th and 31st floors inof the UN building in New York, both with electronic listening devices and one active Iraqi-paid agent.
When Taylor and Wadsack planned one key operation infor Baghdad they were forced to retire to a noisy Thai restaurant on Third Avenue, where strategies were discussed quietly and diagrams drawn on table napkins.
Taylor says: “Before entering Baghdad for the operation we went to a safe house in Bahrain where we dry-ran the operation. We knew our hotel room in Baghdad was bugged 24/7 and we knew the usual ‘special girls’ would be on duty in the lobby. Next we had to agree the use of special code words we could use in front of our numerous Iraqi minders. Also, in the past, people we have been looking for have literally jumped out of windows carrying secret files, so we had a plan to deal with that too.”
The ever-present minders would often discover where the UN inspectors were heading and give warning. “There was no point giving them a hint of our destination,” Taylor recalls, “as they invariably sanitised the location within hours. I forbade all operational discussions on internal phones in the hotel or even in public places or rooms. Important conversations were scribbled on scraps of paper and shown to the person concerned. All very le Carré, and all very necessary, believe me. “Even when we set off, we used a small portable GPS (Global Positioning System) to plot the route and we kept our hands over it because the minders were desperately trying to find out where we were going.” Taylor eventually got to his man, a university professor and expert on the deadly ricin, a favoured toxin for individual assassination.
There is example after example here of how useless the inspections were.
First it was the Jews and now Democrats and Klansman. It's everybody's fault but their own.
The senior McKinney spelled out those he said were responsible for his daughter's defeat in a word: "J-E-W-S." He said his own constituents had decided to select "a Klansman" over re-electing him.
"I've always worked on what the Democrats wanted and tried to defeat Republicans," he said. "Now I'm an independent . . . . We're through with the Democrats."
Or it could be Billy, that the Democrats (as well as all right thinking people) are done with you.
All American troops should be withdrawn from Germany and the bases closed (how's your eceony doing now Herr Chancellor?). They are free to criticise and whine all they want but it is going too far. In Schroeder's bid to outdo Chretien and even France. Shroeder has made clear that he may ban US overflights in a war against Iraq.
Ten days before Germany’s general election, opposition to a war on Iraq appeared to be spinning out of control yesterday when left-wing Social Democrats said the Government should ban US air bases in Germany taking part in any attack.
Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor, whose Social Democrats have surged in support since he came out in opposition to President Bush, refused to rule out the possibility of an overflight ban. “This question will be resolved when the occasion arises,” he said in a crisp, open-ended answer to Stern magazine.
Geuss that invocation of Article V. So just like Kofi Schroeder now changes tactics when it looks like his old position about nouniltaeral action be taken. But not only does he outdo France and Canada, he outpaces Kofi by intimating that even with a coalition and UN approval he may just decide not to support us. Not only should our troops be withdrawn, in the future any German offers for assistance in any venture should be flatly denied.
Some Social Democrats, speaking in a private briefing to reporters, made plain that Germany should not allow an “unacceptable” war to be waged from its soil. “We have said we want no part of a war that aims to topple Saddam Hussein, that we will not finance it, that we will withdraw our anti-contamination unit from Kuwait,” said one prominent leftwinger on condition of anonymity. “The logical next step is that we exclude the use of US airbases in Germany.”
What a posturing group of whiners. It must give the NY Times the warm fuzzies.
The US told Russia to back off Georgia, after Putin linked support against Iraq to military action against Georgia.
"The United States strongly supports Georgia's territorial integrity and would oppose any unilateral military action by Russia inside Georgia," a State Department spokesman told Reuters.
On the other hand Georgia does need to work to stop the Chechens. And we should be pressuring them to work with Russia and maybe allow some joint actions to root them out. Russian civilians are murdered on a regular basis by the groups working out of Georgia.
Qatar is now saying they will consider allowing America to stage attacks from their territory.
Qatar's foreign minister said yesterday that his government would seriously consider any request from the Bush administration to launch warplanes and combat forces from the Al Udeid Air Base, noting Qatar's "very special relationship with the United States."
The United States has not yet requested "permission for an attack from Qatar to Iraq," Hamad said at Brookings. "If they ask us, we will look seriously, but at the moment there is no decision" because there has been no request.
But Hamad indicated that Hussein was under no illusions about where Qatari sympathies would lie in the event of a conflict with the United States. "The Iraqis know that we have a very special relation[ship] with the United States," he said. "It is not secret and [American forces] are already in Al Udeid."
Still wondering why Kofi shifted from a call against US 'unilateral' action to a Israel Palestinian first delaying tactic. He knew support would fall in line once we made very clear to the UN General Council that Saddam had to go, a number of nations would fall in to support us.
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, has also made clear that he may also come round if the US does not object to his repressing rebels in Georgia, and guarantees the £6 billion his country is owed by Iraq.
That is what the deal with Iraq was all about. Now Putin is going to make us assure him that Iraq's new government will pay up or we will. The deal works for Putin all around. He gets in our favor for agreeing to let us take down Saddam and looks good in Russia for getting a good chunk of change out of us. The Georgia concession is tough though. They are helping us right now, giving too much on that shouldn't be part of the deal. I say we put pressure on Scheverdnaze or get him to work with Putin.
Jordan quietly shifted positions, too.
Jordan, the Arab kingdom seen as one of the most influential opponents of the war, has confirmed that it would not stand in the way of the US if it does decide to attack Iraq.
Wow! I don'y pay attention much to people in Holywood. Too self-absorbed for me to bother caring. But, along comes Mel Gibson. How non-Holywood can you get?
Mel Gibson, a Roman Catholic who is to play Christ in a new film, has attacked the Vatican, saying that he does not believe in the Church as an institution. Gibson, 46, had a Catholic upbringing and attended a Catholic boys’ school in Australia. He is scathing about the Church’s hierarchy, saying that the Vatican was “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
“I believe in God,” he told the newspaper Il Giornale. “My love for religion was transmitted to me by my father. But I do not believe in the Church as an institution”. Gibson has a private chapel at his home in Malibu, California, at which the service is conducted every Sunday in Latin.
Gibson, whose latest film, Signs, is released today, is said by friends to have become more conservative in his religious views in middle age.
He has been married to his wife, Robyn, for more than 20 years, unusually long by Hollywood standards, and says that his faith enabled him to survive as a family man despite the drinking binges and infidelities that accompanied his early success.
He protects the privacy of his seven children (six of them sons) fiercely, but he said that his “adventuresome” daughter Hannah wanted to be a nun, and he was very happy about it. She was “healthy, smart and well travelled” and he did not have to worry about her.
At a conference in Indonesia today there was a call for modernization of Islam.
"We are also determined that post-September 11, 2001, Islam in Indonesia will not be hijacked by a perverted ideology that refuses to come to terms with the need to reform and reshape a world vastly different from so many centuries ago," Juwono said during an international seminar on Islam and the West -- One Year After Sept. 11, 2001: Obstacles and Solutions in Search for a New World Civilization -- held at the Jakarta Inter-Continental Hotel.
He said events in the Middle East resonated quickly in Indonesia's domestic situation, and affected the nation's future politically, economically and strategically.
But the former defense minister said the vast majority of Indonesian Muslims believe we can provide an enriched discourse and constructive dialog on the need for all members of the ummah (Muslim community) throughout the world, to adjust and peacefully come to terms with American-dominated globalization.
Now Kofi knows that America has a good number of nations supporting action and that it is indeed not going to be a 'unilateral' action. Therefore he has changed the debate. Now he says we must deal with Israel and the Palestinians first.
In his speech at the annual General Assembly debate, the secretary-general put Iraq second on a list of four current threats to world peace "where true leadership and effective action are badly needed." First on the list is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and after Iraq comes Afghanistan and the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. Annan said an international peace conference on the Mideast is needed "without delay."
Ahhh yes. The UN solution to all the world's problems. A conference. Where Israel will get denounced. Arafat will be praised and the right for Hamas to consider mudering Israeli civilians will be upheld.
"If Iraq's defiance continues, the Security Council must face its responsibilities," Annan said.
You mean any more than he has in the past 12 years?
A first hand account of how bad it is for the people of Zimbabwe (not the Colonialis Whites Mugabe always rails at).
This is about life, Mr President. Stop the circus. Let us not see politics where there is no politics. Let us see starvation for what it is and get food aid to save the starving people of Zimbabwe.
To hell with populist politicians when people are starving to death. To hell with populist politics when people are on a daily basis failing to gather the raw materials to eke out even a simple meal.
To hell with populist leaders when children have to abandon their playing to queue for mealie meal.
The problem with ZANU PF politicians is that when they reach oratory orgasm at international conferences, they tend to overlook the real needs and suffering of the common man in Zimbabwe and concentrate on politicking.
Such a reasonable and rational leader that Saddam. Why can't we just tlk to him some more and give up the sanctions.
The Egyptian daily al-Joumhoreyah said in Wednesday that the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein threatened to destroy Qatar if Doha permits the US to use its military bases in attacking Iraq.
Reacting to a cartoon on the editorial pages of The Namibian last Friday, the Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) said in a statement yesterday that the depiction of Nujoma as an "attack dog" to catch British Prime Minister Tony Blair had gone beyond the bounds of freedom of expression and showed no respect towards the personal character and integrity of the party and Namibia's President.
They urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, with Nujoma as acting Minister, to pass legislation making it a "punishable offence for any member of the public, especially arrogant euro-centric journalists, to insult the presidency as well as the character and dignity of the head of state".
Iraq's U.N. ambassador criticized President Bush's speech to the General Assembly on Thursday, saying it lacked credibility and was motivated by revenge and political ambition. "He chooses to deceive the world and his own people by the longest series of fabrications that have ever been told by a leader of a nation," Ambassador Mohamed al-Douri said.
Besides the fact that everything Bush said is backed by UN Resolutions.
So tell me again about how moderate the Khatami government is and how Israel shouldn't be supported because we overstate the danger to they face.
Iran is refusing to accept pre-conditions for implementing a trade and cooperation agreement with the European Union, including the recognition of the state of Israel.
The EU has also called on Iran to cease its support for militant organisations and to respect human rights - all of which have been rejected by Teheran.
The word from U.S. President George Bush to Prime Minister Chretien on Iraq at their Detroit meeting on Monday was to listen to his speech today at the UN. This cold shoulder by the American president of a Canadian prime minister is indicative of how distant Washington has become from Ottawa.
And that should be a matter of concern to all Canadians.
What has brought about this situation is obvious. Canada is no longer seen as a reliable player in the vital game of nation-states where the currency is military power and peace is at stake.
Chretien's disregard for military power is reflected in the steady decline of defence expenditure as a percentage of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) during his term in office. In 1993, defence expenditure amounted to 1.9% of GDP, and presently amounts to 1.1% of GDP. At this level, Canada sits at the bottom of both the G8 nations and the Western European members of NATO. Spain and Holland are ahead of Canada, as is Turkey.
The long years of neglecting Canada's defence needs amounted to taking somewhat of a free ride in the council of western nations. When the crunch came in the form of a shooting war, as in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, Canada could not sustain a military presence for the long haul.
Sept. 11 also exposed the hollowness of the idea of "soft power" diplomacy as a substitute for military power.
Those who spoke about soft power, as did Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian foreign minister - "influencing the behaviour of other nations not through military intimidation but through a variety of diplomatic and political tools" - were, perhaps, not being disingenuous as much as they were striving to mask their refusal to invest in Canada's Armed Forces.
Diplomacy in a quest for peace is only effective when supported by military power.
The Green Party is urging Cynthia McKinney to run for President. I say she should. Just to see her debate Al Sharpton. What wiould they have if they can't call the other racist?
"She's very interested," Eidinger said. "I've asked her to her face twice if she would run. I told her, 'You are on the very short list of people in this country the Green Party would like to draft to run for president. Would you do it?' Her exact words were: 'Sure.' "
Sheik Omar Chreitien tells us that September 11th was partly America's fault, for being so powerful.
"I said: `When you're powerful like you are, you guys, this is the time to be nice.' That's one of the problems. You cannot exercise your power to the point of humiliation for the others," Chrétien said. "The Western world, not only the Americans, but the Western world has to realize because they are human beings, too. There are long-term consequences if you don't look hard at the reality in 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.''
British praise for President Bush. A nice assessment of the President.
Over the past year, Mr Bush has shown himself to be a president for the Americans in the unexpected situation in which they found themselves. In the days after the World Trade Centre's towers fell, America's confidence was devastated; its spirit could have been September 11's greatest casualty.
Imagine what the reactions of Mr Clinton, say, or Al Gore might have been to September 11. Mr Gore's hallmark is caution; his finger-wagging attitude would have been woefully inadequate. Americans felt that Mr Bush was with them, not an external critic. He took America into war in Afghanistan, and the war was won.
Mr Bush's blunt approach came as relief from Mr Clinton's "I feel your pain" approach. Mr Bush did what Mr Clinton would never dare to do: he spoke of good and evil. And, to the embarrassment of British observers, he invokes God. "Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray," he said last September 14.
To Americans, this seems not embarrassing, but natural and right. After September 11, Mr Bush's approval ratings were the second highest in American history, 88 per cent. Even now, despite some anxiety over war on Iraq, his ratings are 69 per cent - Mr Clinton's all-time high.
Mr Bush's go-it-alone stance and his tough talk have raised European hackles. But his attitude was what Americans needed. Mr Bush is responsible for America's recovery, as Rudolph Giuliani is responsible for New York's. Mr Bush speaks - today as last year - of Americans' future; their resolve, not their wounds. They might not have known it when he was elected, but Americans have found in Mr Bush a great leader.
There is also a great truth that needs to be understood in Europe and the UN that is alluded to at the end. That America's recovery is in the hands of Bush, not in the hands of the UN Security Council or Paris or Berlin or Brussels.
Of course, New York is in the hands of Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki now. Not Giuliani.
In a British tabloid that is notoriously anti-America I was shocked to find this.
One year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting - the mass murder of thousands, live on television.
As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.
An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil. But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year.
There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country - too loud, too rich, too full of themselves and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.
America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon?
But wait there is more. For those who scream at every action America takes.
The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11.
Remember, remember.
Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers.
Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum. Remember, remember - and realise that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.
So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex.
So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.
And a call to do what is right.
Remember, remember, September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America.
"We are on the side of those who want to prevent threats to the world," Aznar told parliament on Wednesday, a day after Bush consulted
with the Spanish leader about Iraq.
"I want to exhaust all of the channels of persuasion in relation to the crisis with Iraq," Aznar responded, adding that, "I hope for a U.N.
resolution." But he also made clear he would support Bush even if the Security Council did not. "It is incredible that the Iraqi regime for some time has been trying by all means to acquire weapons of mass destruction and give cover to terrorism," Aznar said."We will always be on the side of those who like us and with us fight for the cause of freedom and against terrorism," he said. Aznar had told Bush a U.N. resolution supporting military action against Iraq was preferable but not necessary, newspapers said, citing sources close to Aznar.
Well Kofi. That is Spain, the US, Britain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Kuwait, Australia and Israel. Still to unliateral for you?
The GUlf News is not an overly America friendly paper, but this line, worked into an article about Musharraf.
Pakistan's ruling regime must pat itself on the back for what it claims to be the economic success story in the past one year, following last year's terrorist attacks. But as the country joins the rest of the world today, commemorating one of the worst tragedies in human history, the balance sheet for the Pakistani economy remains far from clear.
They don't go so far as to call it terror, or even an attack, but it is not follwed by a 'but' or a reference to the 'tragedy' faced by the Palestinians.
Japan is debating what thier role is in the fight against terrorism.
During his discussion with LaFleur, Nukaga, an influential LDP member, said: "The Japanese people won't support the United States if it chooses to suddenly attack Iraq. It will be difficult (for Japan) to directly aid the United States because of constraints imposed by the Constitution."
Listening to the resolute tone of LaFleur's remarks, Nukaga came away from the meeting feeling Japan, as a U.S. ally, would have to make a painful decision about how to respond if the United States attacked Iraq.
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Japan enacted its Antiterrorism Law and dispatched Self-Defense Forces vessels to the Indian Ocean to provide logistic support to U.S. and British military forces.
Japan also made diplomatic contributions to the antiterrorism campaign, including hosting an international conference on reconstructing Afghanistan. But the Antiterrorism Law was hastily prepared and can only be applied for a limited period.
Contingency bills intended to form the pillars of Japan's response to an armed attack have been carried over from the last ordinary Diet session to the next Diet session, but do not contain clauses concerning antiterrorism measures.
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, when asked for his advice on the summit talks in North Korea on Sept. 5, said: "You should carefully discuss his visit to North Korea with President Bush when he visits the United States, and you should act in close cooperation with him." Nakasone reemphasized that Japan should not act in any way contradictory to U.S. policies toward North Korea.
An unidentified ship spotted Sept. 4 off Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture was believed to be a North Korean vessel because it raised the North Korean national flag. Repeated intrusions by unidentified ships have directly threatened Japan's national security.
Takushoku University Prof. Satoshi Morimoto pointed out that "compared with the United States, Japan's attitude toward terrorism and other new types of threats is too lenient."
Japan has reached a point at which it must seriously consider permanent legislation allowing it to exercise the right to collective self-defense to counter any kind of emergency.
Koizumi's summit talks with North Korea and Japan's response to U.S. attacks on Iraq will be touchstones that will reveal whether Japan has been successful in the efforts it has made at crisis management and diplomatic strategy over the course of the year following the terrorist attacks.
A former foreign minister said both issues would demand "significant decisions that seriously affect the fate of the nation."
Iranian police arrested 145 for "vulgar acts, creating fear among people, rowdiness and disturbing public order". Ten of them may face the death penalty. "The judiciary has formed a special committee to take quick measures against miscreants." We all know what they mean by 'miscreants'. Twenty-five arrested at a 'depraved birthday party'. Fifty more at another 'depraved party'
Why isn't our media speaking about this? Why isn't George Bush pushing this harder?
Conflicted feelings about Mohammed Atta near his home in Egypt
``You still interested in all that?'' asked Hussein Maarouf, smoking a water pipe with his brother at a coffee house. ``So what!'' he retorted when reminded of America's black day. ``We've seen so many deaths in the 1967-1973 wars (with Israel). Death is normal.'' If Atta was really the lead hijacker in the attacks, Maarouf said, he deserves what he got. But if Atta did it, he continued, it was for money.
``Don't give me that garbage about jihad and Palestine and those slogans we hear in the mosque,'' he said. ``If someone goes and kills himself, it must be for something material in return.''
Like most of her customers, Sayyed doubts Atta led the attacks. ``Obviously, if it were proven that an Egyptian did it, the Americans would punish us terribly,'' she said. ``No good Egyptian would risk that.''
On Sept. 11, 14-year-old Mohamed Ashour sat with his father. The boy wants to be a soccer star and says he hates Osama bin Laden. ``Bin Laden was wrong,'' he said. ``But now it looks as if he and the United States are just like each other. Both go attacking anyone whose thinking is not like their own.''
His father said he didn't know Mohamed Atta. ``But if he was responsible,'' the father said, ``how can they call him a hero? He killed himself, damaged his nation, and goes down in history with a blackened name. This is a hero?''
UNlike the ungrateful people coddled (not that we in America are not) nations, the Afghans understand that actions are betters than endless 'debate'.
In Kabul, where giant banners proclaim Afghans' sympathy for the victims of the attacks, Mayor Anwar Jigdalig sent a condolence message to the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. ``We share your grief,'' he said. Afghans too have suffered heavy losses, he said. ``We lost 1.5 million martyrs during the invasion of the Soviet Union.''
Humaira Wali Hakmal, who wears a black and maroon striped headscarf but has abandoned the Taliban-mandated burqa, said she grieves for the victims of the attacks in the United States. ``But I know that because of what happened in New York, the United States and the world, which had forgotten us, now pays attention to Afghanistan,'' she said. During the five years the Taliban ruled Kabul, Hakmal stayed at home, dreaming of the day she could return to her job as a professor of law at Kabul University. Today, she lives that dream. ``My life is happy,'' she said in a voice steady and determined. ``I remember when my father told me about what had happened in the United States I began to shake.''
He remembers Sept. 11, 2001, as keenly as most Americans. ``I was in my clinic,'' he said. ``I thought America would attack. Everyone knew what was going on. The foreigners were using our country,'' referring to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
Of course you can't please everyone.
``I'm not pro-Taliban but I don't like the presence of Americans in Afghanistan,'' he said. ``America is interfering in Afghanistan. Not only here but also in other Islamic countries,'' he said. ``If America changes its anti-Muslim policies, maybe in the future, the U.S. will be safe from this kind of act.''
Some interesting things have happened on this day. Besides the obvious.
1571 – France's King Charles IX and Huguenot leader Admiral Cologny reconcile; Turkish fleet attacks shipping in Adriatic Sea, and John of Austria assembles fleet to oppose them.
1609 – English explorer Henry Hudson sails into the New York river that now bears his name.
1683 – John III Sobieski of Poland and Charles of Lorraine raise the Turkish siege of Vienna, marking the end of Turkish domination in eastern Europe.
1940 – Four teenagers follow their dog when it disappears down a hole near Lascaux, France, and discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings.
1944 – First US troops reach German soil in World War II.
1970 – Palestinian guerrillas blow up three hijacked airliners in Jordan 1996 – Taliban rebels consolidate their hold on the strategic eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.
1997 – Six Lebanese soldiers and one civilian are killed when Israel launches rockets at Lebanese army positions in south Lebanon.
Saudi Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz said Wednesday the Arabs back a U.S. strike to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and that publicly expressed opposition to such a move was merely propaganda for local consumption.
"There is a covert Arab-Western consensus on the need to topple Saddam," Talal told the Egyptian opposition daily al Wafd.
Talal, a half brother of King Fahd, is well known for his calls for reform in Saudi Arabia, such as his approval of Western-style elections, a practice unknown in the kingdom.
"When the Arabs claim that they are against hitting Iraq, they just want to appease Arab public opinion and because they fear innocent people in Iraq being harmed," he said.
Report from the US Embassy in Singapore. My Step-Mother writes...
They had a Memorial service at the US Embassy this morning...They have a bell out front that people could ring from 8:46 a.m. Sing time until 8:45 p.m. when the moment of silence happened in New York. Singaporeans, Indians, Americans, Europeans, Muslims all went by all day long and rang the bell, brought flowers, etc.
I can tell you from my two years in there. Singaporeans have a deep and lasting love and appreciation of America.
Very creepy. I work in the John Hancock Tower here in Boston. The wind today is like I haven't seen in a very long time. It howls around the building. Things rattle and occasionaly a gust is strong enough to rock the building. On this day, especially, it is somewhat unnerving as it sounds like the roar of jet engines. Not to mention that we are within a two minute flight of Logan Airport.
Gerald Ford writes. Why is it that for one year since Sept 11th 2001 we haven't heard a word from Ford yet get Clinton and Carter non-stop?
On a recent visit to Ground Zero I was struck by the enormity of the gaping wound in Lower Manhattan. At first glance, much of the city has returned to its pre-Sept. 11 rhythms. But make no mistake: Like America, New York is in recovery. It is far from recovered.
No mass media coverage no self-centered reflections on what he had done. Just a quiet personal chance for honoring those who died.
The lesson he has learned?
We have taken the worst they can inflict; we have responded with the best we can summon. Evil has had its day. It can inflict terrible pain for a time. But it cannot prevail in the long run.
Scarcely a day goes by that I don't give someone directions to Ground Zero. They start coming up out of the downtown subways at the crack of dawn, clutching their New York City tourist maps, which are sorely deficient in Ground Zero information.
I always expect them to be disappointed -- it's drab, it's ugly, it looks like an ordinary construction site, and there's not really anything to see there -- but they never are.
They stand by the chain link fence for a long time. They buy the picture books at the sidewalk vendor stands. You can get one called "Day of Horror" and another one called "Day of Tragedy," but as it turns out, they both have the same 32 pages of color photos of the Twin Towers in flames.
I guess it depends on whether you're an "it's so horrible" person or an "it's so tragic" person.
They eventually wander over to St. Paul's Chapel and file slowly past the memorials that have been fastened onto the wrought-iron fence by thousands of other pilgrims. There are banners from elementary schools in Iowa, poetic essays from distraught teenage girls in Maryland, wilted flowers, messages from fire departments in Texas, proclamations from town councils in the Australian outback. And candles, so many candles, which eventually melt into a multi-colored mess that runs along the bottom of the fence.
If you took a poll of New Yorkers, most of them would say rebuild, and rebuild on a grand scale. But Ground Zero doesn't belong solely to New York. It really is a national property now, and the idea of the victims groups to turn it over to the federal government as a national park is not that far-fetched in theory. (As a practical matter, it's virtually impossible.)
What's disturbing to me is that most people can't make the leap from memorializing the actual ground to memorializing the people, who don't dwell in that ground, regardless of what particulate matter it might contain. If ever we needed symbolism, this would be the time. It's too bad that the authorities decided not to have an open competition among architectural firms, because the answer to all these competing interests could probably be found more quickly in the mind of an artist than that of a bureaucrat.
If I were doing it, I would want 50,000 architects from every country in the world considering the event, the site, and the meaning of it all, and sketching designs in their studios that would be submitted to a jury. Because the solution is likely to be something out of left field, something that no one has thought of, something that's not based on old models (the green market in Seattle, the downtown performing arts center like those in other cities).
If Sept. 11 really did change us, then what emerges at Ground Zero should be something strikingly novel and unexpected, a mixture of blood, tears, hope, and faith. And when we saw it, we would know it. And we wouldn't argue about the bedrock anymore. We would have the dirge, but we would also have the wake. If you want to look to other cities for solutions, look to New Orleans. When people die, they mourn, but they also have a parade.
'Dispute it like a man," says Malcolm to Macduff, when the news reaches him that his whole family has been slain, all his pretty chickens and their dam.
And Macduff replies, "I shall do so; but I must also feel it as a man!"
That is where we were a year ago: a reasonable place to start. The appropriate first response to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., after rescue efforts, was grief for all our losses. As they were terrorist attacks, intended to instil fear in us, it was also important that we not fear, nor panic. No enemy is defeated by lashing out. An enemy is defeated deliberately.
Where it brought us.
The time had come to look only forward, to "dispute it like a man." We have had a full year to assess the issue before us and, while there are many fine points to be raised about tactics along the way, these are secondary.
Unfortunately, the United States is one year into a complex war, which most other Western countries and fellow targets, just watch them fight. First against Afghanistan and soon against Iraq, the U.S. seeks to do what is painfully necessary to end the threat of massive terror attacks, and its allies carp and second-guess, throwing the odd scrap of aid, usually in expectation of payoffs.
What we need to remember.
But al-Qaeda is only a small part of the problem. Without the complicity of powerful established interests, and the direct patronage of rogue regimes, and co-operation between one terror group and another, no single organization could last very long. From Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda to Yasser Arafat's Fatah, they flourish because they help one another. And they are unreachable because they have so many places to hide, whenever they need to hide -- from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley across a great arc of land to "Azad" Kashmir --and within Somalia, Sudan, Libya, elsewhere.
One must be naive to think the issue reduces to al-Qaeda; catatonic to believe that, for example, Saddam Hussein is not in the thick of terrorist support and planning; or that Hezbollah and Hamas exist to attack Israel alone; or that the Saudi princes are unaware of what their protection money goes to pay for; or a great many other propositions people would like to believe because if they were true, we might not have to fight.
And yet the greatest possible foolishness is to believe that Islamist terrorism is an expression of despair and hopelessness. It is a living, communicating force. It is, no less than Nazism was to the Germans, a response to defeat, victimhood, resentment, despair. But it is the opposite response: like Nazism, Islamism expresses a triumph of the will.
The Islamists think that they are finally winning, that they have found a method to defeat the West, that the United States is a paper tiger. They thrive on appeasement, as the Nazis thrived, and they have no intention of becoming peaceful.
Celebrations will occur today, to mark the anniversary of 9/11, in so many parts of the Muslim world -- from the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, to the Kebayoran mosque in south Djakarta. Imams will be leading prayers to commemorate what they will describe as a great Muslim victory. This is not despair but triumphalism.
There is no possible quick fix to a breach so large in the world's order. And there will be no peaceful way to close it. We are living in a fantasy ourselves if we think it will somehow blow over.
What we must do.
But we have faced that kind of thing before. The Nazis were living an apocalyptic fantasy; so were the fascists of Mussolini's Italy, and the emperor-cultists of Tojo's Japan. In many ways, the antebellum U.S. South once fell into such a collective fantasy, and behaved aggressively in a like way. Such enemies were never going to be won over by reason or negotiation, and every proposal for appeasement strengthened their hand.
One thing and one thing only can rescue the Islamists from their fantasy world -- and that is total, ignominious defeat. But so long as there is a single jurisdiction, anywhere on the planet, where they are free to hide, plot and dream, the war isn't over. Iraq is just the start.
That is the hard fact of life. Only the infantile narcissism in so much of the post-modern West prevents us from seeing it plain. The enemy we confront is defeatable, though it may be a hard and bitter fight.
A question remains about the enemy within: ourselves. Do we have the stomach to do what it will take? Can we stop our whimpering and "dispute it like a man?"
Ex-Taliban Minister says the movement is finished in Afghanistan.
A former deputy minister of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime said on Wednesday the movement had lost popular support and there was no chance of it ever making a comeback. "The Taliban were narrow-minded, that was a major reason why the people were not happy with us," Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar, who served as the Taliban's deputy foreign minister, told Reuters in the group's former bastion of Kandahar.
Don't know if anyone suggested this yet if they have I support the idea, if not I put it forward. Instead of future September 11th's (the actual day ont the event) being a national day of mourning and grief why not make it a day to pay our respects to Firefighters, Police and Rescue Workers? It would allow us to remember the dead while not turning it into a show of weepier-than-thou.
Howard Stern has an interesting solution to the question of advertising today. He is only advertising, by talking to owners, for stores in Lower Manhattan that were affected by September 11th.
A year after the horrific events of 9/11 I still find a lot of peoples' attitudes amazing. The most common complaint is 9/11 was terrible, a real tragedy, but the US is overreacting.
Well I disagree with that. The USA is the greatest power in the world and the events of 9/11 was an attack on their very symbol. It would be quite difficult to pronounce any reaction, as over reaction, such was the enormity of the attack. I hear otherwise liberal, educated people criticising the removal of the Taliban. One friend even says that Afghanistan is worse off. The lot of the Afghan people is now infinitely better than under the Taliban. Yet there are so many people in Bangladesh who criticise their overthrow.
The same goes for Iraq. It is only the intransigence of the Iraqi dictator that has led to the threat of war. How can anyone defend that Saddam I don't understand? In spite of its errors and frequent misconceptions the US is on the whole a force for good. The proof of that is in the fact that in spite of being hated by so many people there are very few indeed that wouldn't rather be in the US.
On Tuesday after the faileds attempt on Hamid Karzai's life, there was a pro-Karzai rally to celebrate his survival. There were a few of hundred people. It is inspiring to see that in a country that has had mor than two decades of war can celebrate life. This is what I am taliking about. These fewhundred will spread their message the more people infected with the idea of peace and stability will reject violence, al-Qaeda and the Taliban when they realize that the path being offered them by Karzai and America is one of prosperity and peace.
Hundreds of people held up giant Afghan flags and waved large photos of President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday to show support for the new national government and the leader they nearly lost to an assassin.
``We know that these people are Afghanistan's enemy. They are hiding in Pakistan and Iran and they are planning plots against this government,'' one tribal leader said. ``Open your eyes and if you see someone who wants to disrupt the situation, hand them over to the government.'' The gathering was intended to voice southern Afghanistan's continuing support for its president, an ethnic Pashtun who hails from Kandahar, Popal said. ``This rally was organized not by the government but by the people — tribal elders, spiritual leaders and scholars. We want to support our government and condemn this act of terror,'' he said. ``Hamid Karzai is struggling to unite this country and stabilize this government. For that, he was many enemies. But he also has the support of the people.''
As opposed to the coddled self-righteous idiots living softly in America you have schoolgirls in Afghanistan.
The leaders of Ghazni, which is about 150 kilometers, or 90 miles, from Kabul, responded by posting armed guards at the school and resuming classes.
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Since then, 2,500 girls in black cotton uniforms and white head shawls have packed the school each day, attending in two shifts. The students are blithely unconcerned that they have almost no desks or chairs, and that supplies of notebooks and pens are inadequate. The joy of one group of 10-to-12-year-olds, sitting on the floor, was infectious, and a visitor had only to ask whom they credited for their change of fortune to set off a cheerful chorus.
.
"America! America! America!" they cried, and then, "George W. Bush!" Across Afghanistan, the joy of freedom regained is evident wherever a traveler goes: in the bazaars, thriving with an instinctive Afghan entrepreneurship that withered under the Taliban; in the cheerful traffic jams that choke cities like Kabul, where emptied streets echoed just a year ago; aboard trucks bearing some of the 1.5 million people returning home after years as refugees in Pakistan and Iran, and among the millions whose livelihoods and simple pleasures the Taliban repressed.
.
Women work again. Traders fly off to cut deals in Karachi and Delhi and Dubai. Families argue over which television programs to watch on their new satellite systems. People play music again and sing traditional Afghan ballads. Old men parade caged birds and small boys fly kites. Any fair reckoning of what the United States has accomplished here since Sept. 11, and what it has not, does well to begin with these liberties, for they are the starting point for Afghans when they are asked about the past 12 months.
Tell you what. I will trade every little-minded hater at the anti-America rally in Scotrland tomorrow for those 1,200 schoolgirls.
The story also contains a plea for us not to forget Afghanistan this time.
In Ghazni, the headmaster, Abdul Samad, beamed as he listened to the girls thank America and then took a visitor aside to offer a sober sentiment: "Please tell America we feel very sorry for what happened on Sept. 11, because thousands of innocent people were killed. But please tell them, too, that Sept. 11, for us, was a starting point, and not the end. "This time, we need America to stay with us, and not to run away."
I am one hundred percent behind this plea. The forces that fought the Taliban with us had been fighting the Taliban for years, we would not have been able to achieve such a stunning victory without them. They know the country and the people were willing to not resist their coming. Also many of these menfought as our proxies against the Soviet Union. We do owe them and we should honor that. Luckily it seems our Ambassador feels the same way. He alludes to what I have been saying for some time. Afghanistan will not be stable overnight. The vast majority of the population has no tradition or memory of what aa civil society looks like. That means that in the short term, at least, we must focus on rebuilding and protecting the cities, while carrying out operations (diplomatic and military) that prevent the warlords in the countryside from consolidating to much power. As the cities find peace and law again it will spread. But it will notbe quick. So we must stand fast in the face of the pundits who know only the guilded society they live in and demand we make the changes in Afghanistan happen now.
"Our promise at the outset was that we would get rid of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and make sure that they didn't come back, and we're well on the way to accomplishing that," said Robert Finn, the U.S. ambassador, who has won wide admiration among Afghans for his efforts to speed up the flow of aid.
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"But we're at the beginning, not in the middle, and not at the end," Finn said.
Plans to stage an anti-American play featuring Osama bin Laden dressed up as Santa Claus in a city church on the anniversary of September 11 have sparked a furious row. A Conservative front bench MSP today branded the production "intentionally provocative".
The controversial play by acclaimed playwright Andrew Dallmeyer, called Wanted: Dead or Alive, will be performed in the Augustine Church on George IV Bridge tomorrow night. It tells the story of a man who works as Santa Claus in a shopping mall in Florida. As the play progresses it emerges that the man is actually Osama bin Laden in disguise. The play contains strongly anti-American sentiments and condemns United States foreign policy.
When someone with less 'liberal' points of view try to start a debate, based strictly on facts, it is conedemned as racism, hate-speechor something of that nature. Hating America and mocking it and its people is just a means of sparking a 'debate' about how to further condemn and hate America. Self-righteous fools.
"Well if you guys really mean it I guess we're in." But of course, they still maintain thet UN Resolutions should be sought.
"At the moment, there is no question of France committing itself in Iraq," said Michèle Alliot-Marie, defence minister. "Having said that, it is clear that the French armed forces are always ready. The aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is undergoing routine maintenance but can leave again at any time."
This was interesting, also.
Nicolas Sarkozy, interior minister, said on Tuesday that the government would expel convicted foreign terrorists and cancel their citizenship if they were French. He also said he had been refusing entry to Muslim fundamentalist preachers. "Each week, I end up refusing entry to a certain number of preachers or imams who don't speak a word of French and who want to fuel mosques and places of worship with ideas contrary to the values of the republic," Mr Sarkozy said.
I can't even begin to express how outraged I am over this. The New York City Council's black and Latino caucus is going to honor Comrade Bob at a reception on Thursday.
An interesting interview with General Gustav Hägglund, Chairman of the EU Military Committee.
Hägglund reminds us that Europeans have a long experience of terrorism on their soil, but that Americans believed themselves to be safe behind the barriers of the Atlantic and Pacific.
"Osama bin Laden's goal was almost certainly just this, the shaking of that sense of security. He wanted to prove particularly to Saudi Arabia that not even the United States is invincible - it is possible to take the fight to the Americans, too."
I agree that it was a message to all of the Arab leaders, as well as America. Bin Laden has long stated that any Arab leader working with the UN or America is a traitor to Islam.
"I have noticed that some have put forward the sort of opinion that runs: 'What's it all got to do with us anyway - the Yanks got what they deserved'. But what would these people say if Finns had been among the bodies cremated in the World Trade Center, or if the plane had taken down the Strand Inter-Continental in Helsinki?" Hägglund points out that this is not wild speculation; Finland is in there with those countries whom the Muslim terrorists count as their enemies. He nevertheless issues the consoling follow-up that Finns do not represent a very tempting target for terrorists. "I was working in a UN role with UNIFIL in Lebanon at the time when terrorists were taking Westerners as hostages. It was said then that one French or English hostage was worth around a million dollars to the kidnappers, and an American was worth perhaps five million. A Finn was probably worth around ten bucks. The cold truth is you don't exactly rock the world's boat by killing a Finn or two."
A stern reminder for those who think they are safe because they are not American. You may not be specific targets but, remember the ideology of fundamentalist Islamists allows for no non-combatants. We live in the "House of War".
The shock of last September affected American sentiments so dramatically that Hägglund believes Europeans have not really been able to keep up with the pace of things. A particularly difficult pill to swallow has been the realisation that in the Americans' new world map, Europe is no longer slap in the middle, but way out on the margins. After World War II, U.S. security policy was founded on providing a bulwark against Communism. The Soviet camp and China were surrounded by a buffer-zone of military alliances. The most important of these was NATO. "The United States' importance in the aggressive stemming of Communist influence was paramount. Without the Americans, Stalin's troops would almost certainly have rolled forward at least as far as the English Channel. For this alone, Europe owes the Americas a big debt of gratitude."
Some haven't forgotten.
Hägglund's task as the Chairman of the EU's Military Committee is to procure for Europe its own disciplinary arm. This is the intended purpose of the 60,000-strong crisis management force, which should be operational next year. According to Hägglund, with troops such as this at their disposal the Europeans would have had the means, for instance, to handle the Kosovo crisis on their own. "It is in the interests of both the Europeans and the Americans that we are able to put out our own fires in such a way that the Americans can save their resources for other tasks."
Indeed it would be nice to restation thoe 100,000 American soldiers.
Although the respective takes on the Iraq issue may diverge, in Hägglund's view the Americans are doing an important job in trying to keep order around the world. "Nobody is suggesting that the Americans are handling the role of world policeman out of purely unselfish motives, but all the same, the world would be in a much worse mess if nobody stepped up to bat."
Thank goodness some non-Hawk European had the grace to say this.
Though both China and Russia have publicly stated their opposition to a military assault on Baghdad, Washington hopes that both can be convinced not to use their veto if a resolution on Iraq comes before the Security Council. Russia may be tempted to abstain if the United States offers it lucrative oil deals and promises that multi-billion-dollar agreements it is negotiating with Iraq will be honoured if Saddam falls. China rarely votes against initiatives when all other opposition is muted, preferring to cast its veto only when resolutions directly affect it or Taiwan, which it believes belongs to the mainland.
Could be, but I still think China might see it as an opportunity to block America.
On Friday Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, is to meet with the 10 members of the Security Council who do not hold veto power, and whose support for the U.S. plan could prove crucial.
That is provovative.
Diplomats said yesterday any explicit mention of the use of force would be resisted by several members, including veto-wielding members such as Russia. But Security Council resolutions often have to be devised with language that is acceptable to differing international agendas and that can be interpreted differently from one country to the next.
"A resolution might use the words that there would be the 'severest consequences' if Iraq does not allow the inspectors unfettered access to facilities," said one Security Council diplomat. "This would allow a country such as Russia to say that it had not actually authorized the use of force. On the other hand, everyone knows how the Americans would interpret it."
If you insist. I am still skeptical of it playing out like that. I have begun seeing this as a power play between the Transnational Porgressives and America. If they can force America to submit to the UN in its quest for a defensive pre-emptive war, this will be a major victory for the forces of Transnational Progressivism. If they can force us to plead with the UN for approval to physically defend ourselves they can leverage it to force things like the ICC, Kyoto, Global Taxes, CEDAW and a host of other measures that are in violation of the Constitution.
Alan Dershowitz discusses pre-emptive war with Iraq. His conclusion will dismay many on the left.
Here is what we are being told about Iraq. Over the past 14 months, Iraq has been trying to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, capable of being used as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. It is also developing a capacity to use drone aircraft to spray chemical and biological agents. Most frightening, it is expanding its efforts to enlist terrorists as carriers of weapons of mass destruction. If these facts are true -- and there seems little dispute about their accuracy -- then we can be relatively certain of two conclusions: One, Iraq is determined to develop nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them, and two, it does not yet have that capacity. The third, and perhaps most crucial, conclusion is the most hotly disputed: How much time do we have before these weapons become operational, and is it enough to warrant further efforts short of attack, such as UN inspections and other diplomatic actions? The Bush administration says no, time is on Iraq's side, and as soon as it develops a nuclear capacity, all hope of inspections and diplomacy will be futile. Critics of the administration argue for more time and more diplomacy. The stakes are high and the facts are uncertain. In the age of conventional warfare, the presumption might well favour waiting. But if waiting realistically increases the risk that we or our allies may be exposed to nuclear, biological or chemical attack by Iraq or Iraqi-sponsored terrorists, then the presumption may well favour immediate preventive action, especially if it can be taken so as to minimize civilian casualties. Whatever course we pursue, we may turn out to be wrong. The real question is, would it be worse to err on the side of action that turns out to be unnecessary, or of inaction that exposes us to preventable devastation?
This is the problem in dealing with Saddam. Either way he will use weapons of mass destruction. It is the only way he can be remembered for a thousand years it is the only way he can kill enough people to become Saladin.
Al-Qabas daily said Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told an unnamed Kuwaiti political figure that Saddam recently said: "If I allow inspectors to return, I'm allowing the end of the regime. And I wish to end in glory."
The people that don't think he will use them even if we just allow things to go on the course they have been for the past decade are being somewhat delusional. They think that he is willing to die peacefully. He is not. When he feels the time has come he will launch the war to assure his legacy. Do we want to let him do that when he has the arsenal he feels will assure him of his legacy or do we want to end it now?
Fatah, the 'militant' arm of the PA and inder the direct control of Yasser Arafat, recruited a 15 year old to carry out suicide attacks. This was done on the same day Arafat 'condemned' suicide bombings.
The news from France sounds like some pretty decent statesmanship on George Bush's part. Chirac went from being totally against the war to saying that it should be prefaced by an ultimatum to Saddam. He lays it out with no equivocating and no concessions. Saddam must allow unlimited unhinderd inspections within three weeks or face a UN backed attack. Chirac's plan would seem to indicate that Bush will have France's vote in the Security Council when the time comes. Which leaves Russia and China. I think Putin is enough of a pragmatist to know that given the choice (siding with Bush or siding with Saddam) there is really only one way to go. Which leaves China. That could be very difficult. And this is why I am skeptical of this plan. Agreeing to and just hoping that the second resolution is a given could be dangerous.
I still maintain that the US has the right to launch a pre-emptive attack on the very real threat posed by Saddam. I also admit that it would look nice if the UN passed Resolutions to support the action. If for no other reason that to shut-up the weenies out there insisting that we get UN approval, all the while assuming we can never get it.
Next time someone tells you Arafat 'offered' to step down. Even CNN says that it seemed like he was joking.
In what appeared to be a joking aside, Arafat also said he was willing to let the Palestinian Legislative Council replace him. In what appeared to be an off-the-cuff remark, a smiling Arafat also told the council, "If you want, you can bring someone else to replace me in the executive powers. I wish you would do it and give me some rest."
They even go so far as to point out that while 'condemning' attacks against Israeli civilians, he did not actually call for an end to the attacks. Like I said below. Same old crap.
Headline Yasser Arafat Denounces...BlahBlahBlah.
Sub Header Same Old Rhetoric.Nothing New to See Here.
In Other News Media forgets that Arafat has Said this Dozens of Times in the Past
Tom Dasche needs to start here if he wants some answers. The questins addressed:
1) Why now?
2) Why do we not declare war on other states that may pose a threat, such as Iran or North Korea?
3) What could Saddam's weapons of mass destruction do?
4) Would not our action against Iraq make it more likely that we shall be killed?
Screw the 'physical' braveness lauded by Maher, Ted Turner, Michael Moore and the other America-hating fools. They were brave enough to suprise attack tens of thousands of innocent people who didn't know what was about to happen. These men got on the scene and willingly went in to situation where they knew that chances were they would not make it out, to save lives. Job or not, it takes incredible physical and mental bravery to do what they did. I will take one NY City Firefighter in place of a thousand Mohammed Attas. And you couldn't give me enough Mahers, Turners or Moores to equal one of those brave Firefighters.
Just in case you were still unclear on the agenda. A violent protest at Concordia University in Motreal caused a cancellation of a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu. No diversity of thought need be heard.
Some of the several hundred people who gathered to protest Netanyahu's visit accused him of being a terrorist and said he had no right to propagate anti-Palestinian views.
For one, these are probably the same morons who moan about the stifling of 'dissent'. And as for propagation of 'anti-Palestinian views', I wonder how many of these self-righteous hypocritical twits shouted 'Death to Israel" (of course seeing no contradiction in the propagation of their views in the effort to stifle someone else's right to speech)? Gah!!! I can't stand people like this.
A thought about Daschle's tactic in now trying to delay a vote on Iraq. Not only does it prevent the Dems from having to statre where, exactly, they stand on the defense of America. The constant talk in the papers and swirling rumors will keep the Markets jittery. Allowing the Dems to point at a bad economy. If this is even partially behind Daschle's decision he should be tried as a traitor for putting American lives at risk for political gain.
The three F-16's that were sent to intercept Flight 93 were Air National Guard planes that launched with no armaments capable of downing the jet. With the other three planes already striking their targets the pilots decided among themselves that if necessary they would ram Flight 93 to prevent it from reaching it's target.
Soon thereafter, the Secret Service called back, asking whether the squadron could get fighters airborne. The unit's maintenance section was notified to get several F-16s armed and ready to fly. Anticipating such an order, Col. Don C. Mozley, the 113th Logistics Group commander, had already ordered his weapons officer to "break out the AIM-9s and start building them up." The missiles had to be transported from a bunker on the other side of the base, which would take a while.
"After the Pentagon was hit, we were told there were more [airliners] coming. Not 'might be'; they were coming," Mozley recalled.
Sasseville grabbed three F-16 pilots and gave them a curt briefing: "I have no idea what's going on, but we're flying. Here's our frequency. We'll split up the area as we have to. Just defend as required. We'll talk about the rest in the air." All four grabbed their helmets, g-suits and parachute harnesses, and headed for the operations desk to get aircraft assignments.
Another call from the Secret Service commanded, "Get in the air now!" Almost simultaneously, a call from someone else in the White House declared the Washington area "a free-fire zone. That meant we were given authority to use force, if the situation required it, in defense of the nation's capital, its property and people," Sasseville said.
He and his wingman, Lucky, sprinted to the flight line and climbed into waiting F-16s armed only with "hot" guns and 511 rounds of "TP"--nonexplosive training rounds. "They had two airplanes ready to go, and were putting missiles on Nos. 3 and 4. Maintenance wanted us to take the ones with missiles, but we didn't have time to wait on those," Sasseville said. Maj. Dan (Raisin) Caine and Capt. Brandon (Igor) Rasmussen climbed into the jets being armed with AIM-9s, knowing they would take off about 10 min. behind Sasseville and Lucky.
"We had two air-to-air birds on the ramp . . . that already had ammo in them. We launched those first two with only hot guns," said CMSgt. Roy Dale (Crank) Belknap, the 113th Wing production superintendent. "By then, we had missiles rolling up, so we loaded those other two airplanes while the pilots were sitting in the cockpit."
Hutchison was probably airborne shortly after the alert F-16s from Langley arrived over Washington, although 121st FS pilots admit their timeline-recall "is fuzzy." But it's clear that Hutchison, Sasseville and Lucky knew their options were limited for bringing down a hijacked airliner headed for an undetermined target in the capital city. Although reluctant to talk about it, all three acknowledge they were prepared to ram a terrorist-flown aircraft, if necessary. Indeed, Hutchison--who might have been the first to encounter Flight 93 if it had, indeed, been flying low and fast down the Potomac--had no other choice.
Sasseville and Lucky each had 511 rounds of ammo, but that only provided roughly a 5-sec. burst of the 20-mm. gun. And where should they shoot to ensure a hijacked aircraft would be stopped? Sasseville planned to fire from behind and "try to saw off one wing. I needed to disable it as soon as possible--immediately interrupt its aerodynamics and bring it down."
He admits there was no assurance that a 5-sec. burst of lead slugs could slice an air transport's wing off, though. His alternative was "to hit it--cut the wing off with my wing. If I played it right, I'd be able to bail out. One hand on the stick and one hand on the ejection handle, trying to ram my airplane into the aft side of the [airliner's] wing," he said. "And do it skillfully enough to save the pink body . . . but understanding that it might not go as planned. It was a tough nut; we had no other ordnance."
Bit o' Patriotism coming from an Asian immigrant artist in San Francisco.
A 5-mile ribbon of red, white and blue flapped in the morning breeze beneath the Golden Gate Bridge as some 2,000 volunteers formed a human chain along the coast to remember those who died a year ago in the terrorist attacks.
The banner, containing more than 5,000 American flags, stretched as far as one could see Sunday and took nearly two hours to unfurl — a sight artist Jian-Hai ``Pop'' Zhao has worked much of the year to experience.
A review of the Canadian military by a group of prominent civilians and retired soldiers turned up some dire warnings.
NEWS STORY
Military on verge of collapse - report
Broad group accuses Liberals of 'neglect of duty'
Sheldon Alberts, Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief
National Post
Monday, September 09, 2002
ADVERTISEMENT
OTTAWA - In an ambitious and blunt review of Canada's military readiness, a group of the country's most prominent civilians and retired soldiers accuse the Chrétien government of being derelict in its duty to protect Canadians and warn the Armed Forces are on the brink of collapse.
The Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century, in a report to be released today, concludes that Ottawa has shown itself since the Sept. 11 attacks to be uninterested in improving the military.
As a consequence, the group says, Canada is at risk of becoming unable to defend its territory and ceding sovereignty to the United States as the Pentagon prepares to launch a continental defence program next month.
"For Canada not to have started to address the purpose, nature and configuration of its defence and security establishment in a coherent, co-ordinated and comprehensive way one full year after September 11 -- the single most catastrophic security event on North American soil in the history of either North American nation -- can no longer be qualified as 'benign.' It is neglect of duty," the group says in its 39-page report.
"It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Canada's leaders appear more interested in their internecine struggles for control of the governing party than in the long-term security of their citizens. That the government is, at a bare minimum, completely disinterested in its men and women in uniform, there can be no doubt."
A legal conundrum in Iran. A man who beheaded his seven year old daughter because he suspected her uncle had raped her (post mortem showed that she was still a virgin), is facing calls from his communty that he be hanged. Under Islamic Law, however, only the father of the victim can plead for a death sentence.
First of all, I would think it more honorable to behead the man I though raped my daughter. Somehow murdering a little girl doesn't come across as very honorable. And without saounding like I am trying to imply anything. I wonder what the people in his community would be saying if it turned out that the girl was no longer a virgin? Would they still be calling for him to be hanged for committing such a brutal inhuman act, would they be calling for the hanging of the uncle or would they have approved of him 'defending' his 'honor fame and dignity'?
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