The Front Page
December 28, 2006
Somali Government Enters Mogadishu; Islamic Militia Retreats
AP
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali government troops rolled into Mogadishu unopposed on Thursday, the prime minister said, hours after an Islamic movement that tried to establish a government based on the Koran abandoned the capital and promised to make a stand in southern Somalia.
"We are in Mogadishu," Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi said after meeting with clan leaders to discuss the handover of the city. "We are coordinating our forces to take control of Mogadishu."
--- Some holy warriors. See what happens when you stand up to the cowards?
Gedi was welcomed to the town of Afgoye by dozens of traditional leaders from Mogadishu and hundreds of government and Ethiopian troops who have been fighting more than a week against the Islamic militia that had at one point taken over most of southern Somalia.
The Islamic movement's retreat early Thursday, which its leaders called tactical, was followed by looting by clan militiamen, a chilling reminder of the chaos that had once ruled Mogadishu. One resident said three men and a woman had been killed in the looting. Gunfire could he heard in many parts of the city.
--- They won't fight, but they'll loot. Sounds about right.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi vowed to inflict total defeat on the Islamic movement, saying the that he hoped the fighting would be over "in days, if not in a few weeks."
--- Ethiopia is the new superpower! I love them. I love their form of Christianity, their history. Fascinating. Love Ethiopian food too.
Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.
--- The day after President Ford dies, Bob Woodward turns him into an anti-war activist! Leave him alone already.
In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.
--- I guess he's preparing a new book, another masterpiece from Woodward the Great. Can you picture him waiting for the man to die?
President Ford, RIP.
December 22, 2006
India on alert for Gandhi attack
The Australian
GUARDS protecting Sonia Gandhi, India's Italian-born supreme political leader, are on red alert after a warning yesterday that she is the target of an al-Qa'ida plot.
Vandana Kini, the head of VIP security at India's Home Ministry, warned of a possible imminent attack on Ms Gandhi by the United Jihad Council, a group set up by al-Qa'ida and said to be supported by Pakistan's top spy agency, the ISI...
Last week, fears of a terrorist plan to carry out a Bali-style attack on the top tourist beach resort of Goa over the Christmas and New Year holiday period were backed by Israeli intelligence, with a warning to Israelis to stay away.
--- I hope there isn't any large attack over Christmas. Anywhere.
Earlier this week, three terrorists from the al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba who were carrying explosives, detonators and grenades were arrested by special police units close to Delhi's historic Red Fort, which has been the target of a previous attack.
Mrs Gandhi, widow of the assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, is now at the heart of the vast country's power elite and wields immense influence. But in a nation where more than 80 per cent of the people are Hindu, she remains a Catholic, and that makes her a target for Islamic jihadis.
--- Aren't all infidels targets?
Since 9/11, bin Laden has made it clear he loathes Hindus and despises India, and in this context analysts believe the country could be even more of a target now because of signs of an imminent rapprochement with Pakistan over the long-running conflict in Kashmir.
--- Whoa. Does Usama have Hinduphobia?
Merry Christmas!
December 21, 2006
Indonesia overturns Bashir's conviction
AP
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia overturned a terror conviction Thursday against the militant Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who served 2 1/2 years for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people.
This guy again
The Supreme Court ruling is likely to anger the United States and its regional ally Australia, both of which publicly accused the aging cleric of being a top leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group...
--- This guy has friends in high places. High in the "moderate" Indonesian government.
Supreme Court Chief Judge German Hoediarto told reporters he had decided to quash the conspiracy conviction following testimony from 30 witnesses, but gave no more details. A written verdict will likely be made public soon...
--- An Islamist puppet judge. 30 fricking witnesses!
Bashir has always denied any wrongdoing, but admits having known several Southeast Asian militants in the 1980s and 1990s who went to Afghanistan and trained there at al-Qaida-run camps.
--- Just acquaintences, your Honor.
Since his release, he has preached in towns across the country, espousing fiercely anti-American and anti-Jewish views and promoting his campaign to transform Indonesia's secular state into an Islamic one.
--- Finally free to do what he was called to do! Incite to murder!
Did you know that Indonesia practices a moderate form of Islam?
Virginia Rep's Muslim Immigration Warning Draws Fire From Islamic Groups
Fox News
A Republican congressman from Virginia sent a letter to his constituents warning that a newly elected representative's decision to use the Koran in taking the oath of office poses a danger to the traditional "values and beliefs" of Americans, and that the U.S. is in danger of "being swamped" by a wave of Muslim immigration.
Rep. Virgil Goode made the comments in a letter sent earlier this month to hundreds of constituents who had written to him about Rep.-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Democrat and the first Muslim in Congress...
--- It's a valid concern. What if someday there are 20 or 30 Muslim congresspeople all swearing to uphold the laws of Allah? Does the Constitution come first or is it superseded by Islamic law? Wonder how the ACLU will handle it.
I think it's fine to be sworn in using the Qur'an; the question is whether a Muslim will uphold the Constitution.
"The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran," Goode wrote.
Goode said the U.S. needs to stop illegal immigration "totally" and reduce legal immigration.
"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped," he wrote.
--- Good reasoning but politically incorrect. I mean, how dare he stand in the way of the formation of the Islamic States of Mexico?!
Yeah sure I'm "Islamophobic." Islamists who hate Christians and Jews, shouldn't they be labeled as Christophobic and Semitophobic?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Goode to apologize.
"Representative Goode's Islamophobic remarks send a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office," CAIR's national legislative director, Corey Saylor, said Tuesday night. "There can be no reasonable defense for such bigotry."
Goode spokesman Linwood Duncan said Wednesday no apology was forthcoming.
--- He'll probably start groveling eventually.
December 19, 2006
Guns silent as Somali Islamists' deadline passes
Reuters
BAIDOA, Somalia - Guns were silent in the sole stronghold of Somalia's interim government on Tuesday as an Islamist deadline to Ethiopian troops to leave or face holy war passed with conciliatory signs...
Nonetheless, the Islamists and Ethiopian-backed government troops remained dug in along a tense frontline just kilometres (miles) apart.
--- They blinked. You stand up to them like Ethiopia did, and they'll blink. It's one thing for Islamists to fight the West -- they just swagger and we run -- but they're smart enough not to mess with Ethiopians. Yet.
Baidoa is a potential ground zero in what many fear will become a regional war, sucking in Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea and spawning suicide bombings in east Africa.
--- Islamists have to make the first move. Considering their lack of courage in looking their enemies in the eye, it may not happen.
The Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) said they wanted peace talks, and backed off a threat by defense chief Yusuf Mohamed Siad "Inda'ade" that gave the Ethiopians a week to leave -- thrusting war fears into overdrive.
"We want the talks to continue and the Ethiopian troops to leave," SICC spokesman Abdirahman Ali Mudey said. "We did not mean we will attack them if they don't pull out but that talks cannot go ahead unless they pull out."
--- Huh? You read that last sentence? They're scared!
The government dismissed the deadline as the latest unfulfilled threat by the SICC, who had pledged jihad (holy war) against Ethiopians soldiers they view as invaders -- but then said they would only fight a defensive war.
"We only care about their actions and not what they say. As previously said by the president, we will not be the first to attack," Information Minister Ali Ahmed Jama "Jangali" said.
Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Solomon Abebe said it was up to the SICC to resolve a standoff Addis Ababa has been working to resolve peacefully: "On our part we've been patient knowing we benefit from peace rather than war."
--- "To secure peace is to prepare for war." I studied those philosphers, Metallica. Among others.
December 18, 2006
EU report: Muslims face 'Islamophobia'
AP
ATHENS, Greece - Muslims across Europe are confronting a rise in "Islamophobia" ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in job and housing markets, a wide-ranging European Union report indicated Monday.
--- Not surprised at the conclusion of an EU report. I'm sick of people labeling any kind of opposition to some ideology as a "phobia." A phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of something that isn't really scary. Sorry, Muslims are scary. No, not all Muslims, but some. It is not irrational to be afraid of them, because the killers are mixed in with the innocents. If there's one bullet and five empty chambers in a gun, it is rational to fear getting shot.
No I don't condone random acts of violence against Muslims.
The study, compiled by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, urged European authorities to strengthen policies on integration. But it also noted that Muslims need to do more to counter negative perceptions driven by terrorism and upheavals such as the backlash to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
--- I'm surprised they actually hold Muslims partially accountable for perceptions of them based on actual events.
"Muslims feel that acceptance by society is increasingly premised on 'assimilation' and the assumption that they should lose their Muslim identity," [Beate] Winkler [director of the Vienna-based group] said. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, many Muslims feel "they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism."
--- Uh, yeah.
The report urged EU nations to develop more clear legal frameworks for Muslim cultural and religious institutions, including ways to make more public funds available to Islamic community groups and help train local imams.
--- Why do lawyers always benefit from such bureaucratic bloviating?
December 14, 2006
FBI Issues Warning to Police as Terrorist's Health Fails
Fox News
The FBI has sent a bulletin to state and local law enforcement warning of possible terrorist reprisals as the health of an incarcerated terror mastermind fails, FOX News has learned.
Although the FBI said there is no credible indication that a plan for retribution is in place, the agency sent the warning as Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was treated in Missouri for a possible life-threatening illness.
The blind sheik, who was the alleged architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has called for revenge should he die in U.S. custody...
Abdel-Rahman's alleged last will, read at an Al Qaeda news conference eight years ago, called for reprisals should he die in an American jail.
"My Brothers ... if [the Americans] kill me, which they will certainly do — hold my funeral and send my corpse to my family, but do not let my blood be shed in vain," the will read. "Rather, extract the most violent revenge, and remember your brother who spoke the truth and died for the will of God ... the Mujahid Sheikh Omar Abdel al Rahman. In the name of God the kind and merciful."
--- Violent revenge in the name of the kind and merciful God!
If we were really civilized, we'd burn his body and dump his ashes in a sewer, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm kidding. Take it easy.
Wartime values to save the planet
The Australian
LONDON: David Attenborough, the elder statesman of the natural world, called yesterday for a return to wartime values to save the planet from global warming.
He hit out at four-wheel-drives, electrical standby facilities and lights that were left on unnecessarily as he demanded a change in moral and intellectual attitudes towards climate change.
He said that even tiny amounts of wasted electricity were immoral because they put "our grandchildren's lives in danger".
"I grew up during the war and during the war it was a common value that wasting food was wrong," he told British MPs. "It wasn't that we thought we were going to beat Hitler by eating every bit of gristle of meat, but it was accepted as wrong to waste food. People felt that widely, universally."
Such attitudes, Sir David said, should be revived...
--- If only Al-Qaeda were causing global warming, then we'd fight for our survival! This moron thinks global warming is as dangerous as Hitler. Of course, England will be a Muslim theocracy within a generation, but who cares, because:
Polar bears' genitals are shrinking! (because of industrial pollutants, of course).
Elder statesman of the natural world? What the crock does that mean?
"I'm hopeful that there's real change taking place in moral attitudes, which isn't to do with saving a penny here and there. The moral drive is there," he said.
"It can only be done by changing the moral and intellectual climate."
--- I suggest some reeducation camps and the murder of all dissenters. Anything is justified in order to save our planet from evil SUVs. Bring back stonings for people who waste electricity.
UPDATE: Al-Qaeda Threatens to Waste Electricity, Burn Fossil Fuels, and Drive SUVs Until All Infidels Turn to the True Religion.
December 13, 2006
KKK's David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews
Fox News
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference questioning the Holocaust came to an end Tuesday, but not before hearing former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke say that gas chambers were not used to kill Jews.
"The Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and cover up the crimes of Israel," Duke told a gathering of nearly 70 "researchers" in Tehran at Ahmadinejad's invitation...
"The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder," Duke told The Associated Press...
--- You thought Ahmadinejad was a nut, but he's got plenty of company. No, many many people believe this. David Duke must be running for... no, that can't be it, is he doing this simply out of conviction?
Ok Israel, it's time to use those nukes. You can knock out a whole bunch of dirtbags in one shot!
Tuesday's speeches included Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a former interior minister and one of the founders of Lebanese militia Hezbollah, who labeled the Holocaust as a "tale."
"All the studies and research carried out so far have proven that there is no reason to believe that the Holocaust ever occurred and that it is only a tale," he stated...
--- What research, founder of Hezbollah?!
Nabil Soleiman, an adviser to the ministry of religious affairs in Syria, said, "If the Holocaust ever occurred, it was a conspiracy against the Arab-Islamic world as today the Middle East is still paying the consequences."...
--- There's the key word, "conspiracy." It's a Jewish conspiracy.
I like a David Duke very much!
December 11, 2006
Iran hosts Holocaust doubters at conference
AFP
TEHRAN - Iran has defied an international outcry as it held a conference that questioned the truth of the Holocaust and was attended by number of controversial Western "revisionist" historians...
Some of the most notorious Westerners who have downplayed the scale of the Holocaust were attending the event, including French professor Robert Faurisson and German-born Australian Fredrick Toeben...
--- Overeducated imbeciles.
David Duke, a US white supremacist and former Klu Klux Klan member, said he believed it was "scandalous" that Europeans could be sent to prison for expressing opinions about the Holocaust.
"I think that Ahmadinejad is a very courageous man to talk about some of these issues," he said...
--- Courageous? Jew-hatred makes for strange bedfellows. David Duke praising Uncle Mahmoud. I mean really.
Khaled Kasab Mahameed, an Israeli Arab who wanted to speak out against Holocaust denial at the conference, meanwhile said in Nazareth he had been denied a visa to enter Iran...
--- Oh that's courageous, denying any dissent on this ship of fools.
Historians of the Third Reich, basing their figures on original Nazi documents, generally believe around six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, although some estimates are slightly lower or higher. Hitler's regime also killed millions of non-Jews.
--- But let's not let facts speak for themselves!
December 8, 2006
Leaders defy Iraq Study Group
The Australian
US President George W. Bush gave a chilly response to the Iraq Study Group's proposals for reshaping his policy yesterday, objecting to talks with Iran and Syria, refusing to endorse a major troop withdrawal and defiantly insisting that the US would still achieve victory in the violence-racked country...
--- What makes the ISG think it's omniscient anyway?
But what are you going to do Mr. President? You can still pull it off and I'll change my mind about you.
...the leaders of the Iraq Study Group -- Republican former secretary of state James Baker and former representative Lee Hamilton, a Democrat -- called on Congress to exert pressure on Mr Bush to accept the report in its entirety.
Mr Baker told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the White House should not treat the report "like a fruit salad", while Mr Hamilton complained that Congress had been "extremely timid" in overseeing the war.
--- I didn't realize how craven James Baker is.
The administration agreed with the commission's recommendation for a new round of Middle East diplomacy to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
--- This really does not compute. "Realism" is a euphemism for appeasement. James Baker didn't bring peace to the Middle East when he tried before. Jimmy Carter didn't either for that matter. They just make noise.
Both were sceptical of the commission's call for engagement with Iran and Syria. Mr Bush ruled out talks with Iran unless it suspended uranium enrichment.
He said a proposed international conference to help Iraq was interesting, but Iran and Syria "shouldn't bother to show up" unless they stopped financing terrorism.
--- Up next, the ISG transforms into the MSG (Miami Study Group) to make "realist" recommendations to the New England Patriots on how to lose to the hapless Miami Dolphins this Sunday in order to prevent injuries. This is in sharp contrast to the idealist neocon school, led by coach Bill Belichick, that wants the Patriots to win.
And Jimmy Carter writes a new book urging the Patriots not to hit too hard because Miami deserves a championship.
December 7, 2006
Expelled Muslim boy's father blames school
The Australian
THE father of a Muslim boy expelled for urinating on the Bible, burning pages from it then spitting on it has lashed out at the school, saying it failed to protect and control his son.
--- This is just funny. Can you see the entire Christian world protesting and burning effigies of Osama bin Laden!?
This is good material for satire.
And the accused boy, 13-year-old Ibrahim Cukovic, has spoken out for the first time, saying he regretted his involvement in the incident, although he claimed it was another boy who urinated on the Bible.
"It was a real bad thing that happened," he said in an interview with The Australian at his house in Fawkner, in Melbourne's north. "My parents always teach me to respect other religions."
--- I was there your Honor, but I didn't pee on it! Heehee!
Ibrahim, who has remained at his home since being expelled last week, appeared sullen and withdrawn as he spoke about the incident, which has shocked the nation's Muslim community.
--- Shocked I tell you!
Another student has been expelled and a third suspended from the East Preston Islamic College over the incident...
--- East Preston Islamic College. Hmmmm.
When asked why the boys chose to desecrate the Bible, Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know.
--- Some kids smoke, some kids drink, some turn to drugs. Others follow a darker path, and choose urinating on sacred texts. Are these kids the equivalent of Goths?
But his father, Omar, was angry at the school, which he said had failed to properly supervise the boys on a rural school camp last week where the incident occurred.
In disgust, he has withdrawn all of his five children who attend the college and says they will no longer go to an Islamic school.
"I do blame the school because they should have looked after them better and supervised them more - they let those boys run amok," he said...
--- I think it's debatable whether it's completely the school's fault; and it sounds like the father is either very sincerely embarrassed or he's lying well.
Besides, 13-year old boys can go a little crazy, but they have to be encouraged to do something like this. Kids don't just go crazy and decide to burn Bibles.
I wonder, did they burn it and then urinate on it? Because the other way around sounds like it could have been difficult.
EPIC principal Shaheem Doutie said the school community was shocked by the desecration and said the college placed great emphasis on religious tolerance.
--- Perhaps.
However, as revealed in The Australian yesterday, the school's library contained a video of a banned cleric calling Australian Christians "evil" and non-Muslim schools "sewers".
--- Perhaps not.
Although the radical tape, of Abdur Raheem Green, has been shown to some students at the school, Ibrahim said he had not seen it.
--- Does any of this make any sense? No. But I'm having fun.
Students Cry Out for Freedom in Large Demonstration at Tehran University
Fox News
TEHRAN, Iran — "What do we want? Freedom!"
That was one of the banners a large crowd waved on Wednesday at a demonstration at Tehran University.
As many as 2,000 students turned out to demand personal freedom in the Islamic state, which has cracked down on political activity on campus this year in what some have called the Second Cultural Revolution...
--- You, my friends, are the future of the Middle East! You can put an end to your mullahs' madness! You understand freedom better than us Westerners. James Baker wants to deal with your dictators, but you know better.
You cheered me up.
One banner, in Persian, read: "If I rise up and you rise up, everyone will rise up."...
--- Seriously inspiring.
The student protest was openly defiant of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who at the beginning of the school year asked students to speak out against the secularization of the education system.
The students apparently didn't, but an unknown number of professors who had been critical of the regime were forced into early retirement.
At the same time, students returning to the university were given "star" ratings by the administration. Students with borderline political leanings were assigned one or two stars. Students deemed to be vocally anti-regime were assigned three or four stars.
In many cases, three- and four-star students — regardless of their academic performance — were barred from returning to campuses this fall.
--- Damn, you get rated for political correctness. Sort of like our universities, but much worse!
December 6, 2006
Somalia Town Threatens to Behead People Who Don't Pray 5 Times Daily
AP
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be implemented in three days.
Shops, tea houses and other public places in Bulo Burto, about 124 miles northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, should be closed during prayer time and no one should be on the streets, said Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, the chairman of the town's Islamic court. His court is part of a network backed by armed militiamen that has taken control of much of southern Somalia in recent months, bringing a strict interpretation of Islam that is alien to many Somalis.
--- I'd say that's pretty strict.
Those who do not follow the prayer edict after three days have elapsed, "will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law," Rage told The Associated Press by phone. "As Muslims we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do."
--- Wonder what Rosie O'Donnell thinks of this.
Somalia's Islamic courts have made varying interpretations of Koranic law, some applying a more strict and radical version of Islam than others. Some of the courts have introduced public executions, floggings of convicts, bans on women swimming in Mogadishu's public beaches and on the sale and chewing of khat, a leafy stimulant consumed across the Horn of Africa and in the Middle East.
--- Ahhh. I have nothing more to say that would be of any use.
Iraq report sees "grave and deteriorating" crisis
Reuters
WASHINGTON - The United States should begin to withdraw forces from combat and launch a diplomatic push, including Iran and Syria, to prevent "a slide toward chaos" in Iraq, an elite panel recommended on Wednesday.
--- Diplomacy, the solution to every problem. If the President went in with overwhelming force, declared martial law, sealed the borders, and installed a pseudo-democracy, it might have worked. Maybe if he partitioned the country. I mean the borders are kind of artificial anyway. Instead he pussyfooted around. And I think he's already thinking about retirement and can't wait to get out. He's failed the country by mismanagement in Iraq, and failed his own party with his odd obsession with Mexican immigrants that has made the party base angry. He supported Congress when they spent like drunken Democrats. He defended Rumsfeld and then did a 180 and fired him, which is politically stupid. He won't even fight for John Bolton. Is he getting bad advice from advisors? Or is he incompetent? Or a little of both? The left hates him, the right is embarrassed by him, and its starting to feel like the Carter years again (don't even get me started on that numbskull).
Bush was near greatness until he declared Iraq a victory on that ship... that was the beginning of the end. I always thought he was a good man, but he's turned into a buffoon. And that's the real disappointment I have, the "what happened to him?" question.
The best thing he did... Justice Roberts. And his moral clarity after 9/11. And Alito, but only after conservatives screamed at him for choosing that cheerleader first.
But then look at our likely choices for 2008. From either party. There's got to be a real leader somewhere.
Iran to hold Holocaust conference next week
TEHRAN - Iran's Foreign Ministry will hold a conference next week at which scholars from 30 countries will discuss the scale of the Holocaust -- dismissed as a myth by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and whether the Nazis really used gas chambers to kill Jews.
--- Scholars from 30 countries are going to participate in Holocaust denial?!
Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi said 67 researchers from countries including Britain, Germany and France would take part in the two-day meeting starting on Monday, according to Wednesday's Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper.
"The conference will focus on the Holocaust without getting involved in political issues or propaganda," Mohammadi said. .".. various issues will be examined, including whether the gas chambers were actually used by Nazis."
--- There are people who really believe that the Holocaust was manufactured propaganda? There's video! Who do you think those people were, actors?
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited Iran in September, told Iranians the Holocaust was "an undeniable historical fact."
--- I guess Kofi's good for something after all.
Somali government appeals for help to fight Islamist 'terror'
AFP
MOGADISHU - Somalia's weak government has pleaded for international help to fight alleged Islamist terrorism that it warned would have dire global consequences...
In a statement on Wednesday, the Council of Ministers said "all indications" pointed to Islamist involvement in two suicide car bombings that have rocked the government seat of Baidoa since September.
"The government draws the attention of the international community to these despicable acts of aggression and terrorism and calls upon it to condemn and act against this new wave of terror in the Horn," it said.
"If unchecked, it could plunge Somalia and the region into a devastating conflict that will have serious repercussions in the world," said the statement, issued in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu...
--- I feel your pain! No one's coming though. It's up to Ethiopia.
The Islamists deny any terror links and disavow both the November 30 attack that killed nine people, and a failed September 18 attempt to assassinate Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed with a car bomb that killed 11...
--- Must have been those damn Ethiopians!
Peace talks between the two sides collapsed last month largely over the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia protecting the government against whom the Islamists have declared holy war.
--- When one side declares holy war, it's kind of hard to find compromise.
December 1, 2006
Hundreds of Thousands of Hezbollah Supporters Protest in Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving protesters from Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies descended on downtown Beirut on Friday in a peaceful but noisy protest to force the resignation of Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who was holed up in his office ringed by hundreds of police and combat troops.
The protesters, which police estimated at 800,000, created a sea of Lebanese flags that blanketed downtown. Hezbollah officials put the number at least 1 million — one-fourth of Lebanon's population.
--- Remember our goal of democracy in the Middle East? All talk.
Hezbollah runs the Middle East. Who's gonna stop them?
Nobody.
Who's gonna whine when Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda control half the world and most of the oil supply?
Every one of you Bush-hating latte-drinking turds, because even your hybrids need gas.
Actually I like latte, but I couldn't think of anything else.
November 29, 2006
Highlights from the Letter from Uncle Mahmoud
...Were the American people not God-fearing, truth loving, and justice seeking, while the US administration actively conceals the truth and impedes any objective portrayal of current realities;
And if we did not share a common responsibility to promote and protect freedom and human dignity and integrity;
Then, there would have been little urgency to have a dialogue with you...
--- Iran, protector and promoter of freedom. Uncle Mahmoud, I'm so glad you tell the truth to the infidels.
Both our nations are God-fearing, truth loving and justice seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection.
Both greatly value and readily embrace the promotion of human ideals such as compassion, empathy, respect for the rights of human beings...
--- These Americans, they are suckers for this stuff!
We all detest darkness, deceit, lies and distortion, and seek and admire salvation, enlightenment, sincerity and honesty...
--- Get on with it!
For 60 years, the Zionist regime has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes...You know well that the US administration has persistently provided blind and blanket support to the Zionist regime, has emboldened it to continue its crimes, and has prevented the UN Security Council from condemning it...
--- After all that fluff, let's get to the point... The Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwssssssss.
Let's take a look at Iraq . Since the commencement of the US military presence in Iraq , hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, maimed or displaced. Terrorism in Iraq has grown exponentially. With the presence of the US military in Iraq , nothing has been done to rebuild the ruins, to restore the infrastructure or to alleviate poverty. The US Government used the pretext of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq , but later it became clear that that was just a lie and a deception...
--- I've never ever ever heard anything like this before. No, not ever.
You have heard that the US administration is kidnapping its presumed opponents from across the globe and arbitrarily holding them without trial or any international supervision in horrendous prisons that it has established in various parts of the world. God knows who these detainees actually are, and what terrible fate awaits them...
--- Oh Christ, we don't need to reread Amnesty International press releases. What are you trying to say Uncle?
The US administration does not accept accountability before any organization, institution or council. The US administration has undermined the credibility of international organizations, particularly the United Nations and its Security Council...
My questions are the following:
Is there not a better approach to governance?
Yeah, democracy! You rent-a-president mouthpiece of theocratic tyranny.
We all condemn terrorism, because its victims are the innocent...
--- He is pure comedy, self-satire at its finest.
To sum up:
It is possible to govern based on an approach that is distinctly different from one of coercion, force and injustice.
It is possible to sincerely serve and promote common human values, and honesty and compassion.
It is possible to provide welfare and prosperity without tension, threats, imposition or war.
It is possible to lead the world towards the aspired perfection by adhering to unity, monotheism, morality and spirituality and drawing upon the teachings of the Divine Prophets.
Then, the American people, who are God-fearing and followers of Divine religions, will overcome every difficulty...
--- Oh, how boring and unoriginal.
I am confident that you, the American people, will play an instrumental role in the establishment of justice and spirituality throughout the world. The promises of the Almighty and His prophets will certainly be realized; Justice and Truth will prevail and all nations will live a true life in a climate replete with love, compassion and fraternity...
We should all heed the Divine Word of the Holy Qur'an:
" But those who repent, have faith and do good may receive Salvation. Your Lord, alone, creates and chooses as He will, and others have no part in His choice; Glorified is God and Exalted above any partners they ascribe to Him. " (28:67-68)
I pray to the Almighty to bless the Iranian and American nations and indeed all nations of the world with dignity and success.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
29 November 2006
--- It's so sweeeeeet. He'll win the Nobel Peace Prize!
I love him so.
Paper: Iran leader writes to Americans
AP
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to the American people that will be released at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday, a state newspaper reported.
The newspaper gave no details of the letter, an apparent attempt by the firebrand president to reach out to Americans over the head of their government.
The state-run newspaper Iran reported the letter in bold type on its front page, saying "the five-page letter to the American people will be released by Iran's representative at the United Nations today."
--- Oh I'm gonna have lots of fun with this!
November 28, 2006
Pope's fence-mending trip
Christian Science Monitor
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - It most likely isn't the welcome Pope Benedict XVI was expecting when his trip to Turkey was first planned. The pontiff's arrival Tuesday has been met not with open arms, but by angry demonstrators, an exodus of elected officials leaving the country for other engagements in order not to be seen with him, and a security detail even larger than that provided for George W. Bush's 2004 visit.
--- Even larger than the devil's visit??!!
The period leading up to the visit has been tense. On Sunday, some 25,000 turned out for a large nonviolent protest against the pope organized by the Islamist Saadet party...
--- Interesting how it's called a nonviolent protest.
"You are the representative of evil," said Recai Kutan, Saadet's leader, referring to the pope. "We don't want to see you here unless you apologize."...
--- No, no, no! Bush is evil, the Pope is, sort of, well, if Bush is Hitler, then the Pope is Mussolini. Something like that. I guess.
Mustafa Akyol, an Istanbul-based commentator on Islamic affairs, agrees that the visit could bridge the Christian-Muslim divide. "If he gives positive message about Islam and established a good dialogue with the Muslim leaders he meets here, that would be a very good move toward mending the relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds," Mr. Akyol says...
--- Just don't mention the Armenians, or we'll kill you.
What may ultimately become obscured during the visit is its original focus on the Orthodox patriarchate and the condition of Turkey's small Christian community. Some 3,000 Orthodox Christians today remain in Turkey with another 70,000 Armenians.
"I don't think he has any room now to talk about the situation of Christians in Turkey," says [Rifat] Bali [an Istanbul-based historian who writes about Turkey's minorities].
--- I suspected that all this noise about the Pope's comments is a ruse so the Turks wouldn't have to discuss the way they treat Christians in Turkey. Who really needs to apologize here?
Furking Tucks.
November 27, 2006
Turkey braces for pope visit
AP
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkish security teams took up positions around the cities of Ankara and Istanbul on Monday, a day before Pope Benedict XVI begins his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country.
Small protests broke out in both cities, but authorities say security measures for the pope — who angered Muslims worldwide with comments in September on Islam and violence — will be tighter than they were for the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Pope Benedict XVI as a snake?
In a sign of goodwill, a protester encourages fostering a conversation.
--- I admire the Pope's courage. I'm braced for the worst. He'd be even more courageous if he would mention the Armenian genocide.
The visit will also be a test of the Turkish public's willingness to tolerate criticism of Islam and their ability to coordinate a massive and potentially problematic visit.
--- And this is one of the most secular of Muslim societies. One that made 1.5 million Armenians walk in circles until they starved to death. And they're upset about a freaking remark taken out of context.
November 21, 2006
10 die, 60 injured in train blast in east India
AFP
KOLKATA, India - At least 10 people were killed and 60 injured when a blast ripped through a passenger train in the east Indian state of West Bengal, an official and a doctor said.
The train was travelling from Haldibari to New Jalpaiguri when the explosion hit one of the carriages at Belakoba station, 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the state capital Kolkata, said Prasad Ranjan Roy, the state's home secretary...
Separatist rebels of the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) -- fighting for a separate homeland -- are known to be active in the region, police said.
The KLO is known to maintain close links with the banned United Liberation Front of Asom, one of the most powerful insurgent groups operating in India's restive northeast.
--- Separatist rebels means Muslim terrorists, for those who don't speak journalese.
November 20, 2006
Palestinian human shields give Israel pause
Christian Science Monitor
By Joshua Mitnick, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
TEL AVIV - In perhaps the most effective act of nonviolent protest in the six-year Palestinian uprising, hundreds of Gazans forced Israel over the weekend to call off airstrikes on the residence of a militant leader by swarming the house as human shields.
--- Where do I start? Wow, interesting news day!
A Palestinian terrorist coward uses human shields to protect himself, and a Jewish correspondent from the Christian Science Monitor hails this as an "effective act of nonviolent protest."
I just don't have the time to unravel this one. I leave it to the reader to ponder such a mixture of cowardice on the one hand and self-loathing on the other.
Bush faces storm of protest in Indonesia
AFP
BOGOR, Indonesia - US President George W. Bush has arrived in Indonesia to a storm of angry protests, looking to highlight growing strategic ties with the world's most populous Muslim nation in a lightning trip.
Bush held talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the summer palace in the town of Bogor and was to meet with civic leaders during his seven-hour visit, before heading to Hawaii and from there to Washington.
--- How nice, a trip to Indonesia, a.k.a. the Country That Practices a Moderate Form of Islam.
...the US president faced intense opposition and even calls for his blood from Indonesian Muslims angry over the Iraq war and the US military presence in Afghanistan.
The US president was also expected to emphasize that the war on terrorism is not a war on Islam, and seek an update on US efforts to help reconstruction in Indonesia's Aceh province two years after a devastating tsunami.
--- The Indonesian people are very open-minded, thoughtful, and thankful for such kindness as evidenced by the pictures to follow.
But such public diplomacy efforts seemed to fall on deaf ears here as about 2,000 protestors including Islamic activists and students crowded near the palace, waving posters decrying him and his aides "the real terrorists"...
--- These are just a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny little minority of troublemakers. Indonesia is a tolerant nation.
Moderate Muslims express their opinions and thank America for aiding reconstruction after a tsunami in Aceh.
Leaders of the Alliance of United Muslim Mass Organisations, which groups scores of Islamic groups, called for Bush to be put to death and denounced him as a "war criminal" and a "terrorist" at a rally of some 2,000 people.
"Kill him, kill him," said one protest leader through a loudspeaker, adding that "The blood of George Bush is halal" -- meaning that it was not a sin under Islam to harm him...
Indonesians, who practice a moderate form of Islam, come out to greet the American President.
Yudhoyono has said he could understand people's wish to show their opposition to the visit, but warned against "excessive protests" that could tarnish Indonesia's image.
--- Don't worry, your people are very sensible, because they are not fanatics.
Large numbers of Indonesian Muslims greet President Bush. Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam.
"If something bad happens, the world will blame us. We certainly do not want to be regarded as a country that cannot respect its guests," he said according to the Jakarta Post daily.
Anti-Bush protests were staged in at least eight cities across the Indonesian archipelago Monday.
--- But they're verrrrrrrrrrry small.
German police probe several over plane bomb plot
Reuters
BERLIN - German authorities are investigating a number of people in connection with what they suspect was a plot to smuggle a bomb on to a passenger plane, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said on Monday.
German security sources said on condition of anonymity that the plane would have been at Frankfurt International Airport, one of the world's busiest. It was unclear which airline the suspects were thought to have targeted.
--- This is all thanks to that dictator Bush.
Prosecutors in Karlsruhe said they were investigating six suspects whom they had identified and a number of unidentified suspects. None of the names have been made public...
The men are suspected of being members of a terrorist organization, the office said. It did not explain why the suspects, who remain under investigation, had been released...
It gave no details about the nationality of the suspects.
--- Could be anyone from aaaaaaany country in the world, but I bet I could narrow it down! Hmmmm. Let me see. Somewhere between Iraq and Spain?
November 14, 2006
A Lot at Stake in Iraq
National Review Online
You thought that I sounded pessimistic; today's thought from Victor David Hanson:
If we lost in Iraq and fled, it would not be the perception at all, but the reality of power that would be gone, in the sense the United States would never in our lifetime intervene successfully again on the ground abroad—convinced it would inevitably lose.
I think we are also close to seeing the permanent end of any Anglo-American military collaboration. And there would be legitimate questions raised also whether the U.S. military could win any future war—given the knowledge that, barring some instantaneous victory, the American public would not allow it the time or the latitude to destroy its enemies...
When Mr. Bush contemplates what to do about Iran, he knows—and he knows Iran knows—that we are on the verge right now of a tired American public that winces at the very thought of the media storm, political fury, and wild partisan charges that would accompany any more military reactions. But the next step would be the complete loss of public confidence, in the fashion of the French, that we even could win a war if we had to. And then watch out. Great powers, like the largest animals, have a small central nervous system that directs their enormous limbs and sinews. And when it goes—call it public confidence in one's civilization—then armies tremor, enervate, and, Europe-like, wither away.
Ahmadinejad: Iran Willing to Talk If U.S. Changes
Reuters
TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday said Iran would talk to the United States if it behaves correctly...
--- It's come to this now. We're being bitch-slapped by a rent-a-president of an Islamic theocracy with oil and nukes. And our response is elevating Nancy Pelosi.
Ahmadinejad said he will soon send a message to the American people in an apparent attempt to influence the U.S. public opinion over President George W. Bush's policy toward Iran.
"We will issue a message to the American people ... many Americans have asked me to talk to them and offer my opinions to them. This message is being drawn up," he said.
--- And the rent-a-president is now our president. We're as bad as Spain. Not as bad as France though.
I really am pretty optimistic in the long run... it's just been a bad week.
English-speaking Al Jazeera to give Middle East view
Reuters
LONDON - Arabic television station Al Jazeera launches an English-speaking channel on Wednesday to report world news from a Middle East perspective and challenge the dominance of Western media.
The station, which has angered Washington and some Arab governments with its reporting from Iraq, said it wanted to give a fresh voice to under-reported regions round the world...
--- Finally some objective news that filters out all that bloodsucking Zionist propaganda!
That's sarcasm of course.
"The model is the BBC's World Service," Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said...
--- Oh great!! Finally another network for rabid anti-Semites besides the BBC.
"The existing broadcasters do not provide what Al Jazeera is about to provide," said Sue Phillips, London Bureau chief.
--- Also known as the AQSC, Al-Qaeda Sympathizer Channel. Bush is the real terrorist after all.
Peter Preston, former editor of Britain's Guardian newspaper, said it had become increasingly evident new voices with different opinions were needed on English-language networks as one all-encompassing 24-hour news channel was not enough.
"CNN can attempt to do that by running hugely different programs ... to the rest of the world than it does in America. The BBC can attempt to do it by a massive amount of fairness and balance in the traditional BBC way," he told Reuters.
--- Oh boy.
"But actually what you see in the Middle East in the last 10 years is a feeling that the Middle East needs not just one but two of its own 24-hour channels that will tell something of the story of the region from a Middle East perspective."
--- Not just one, but two networks that want to destroy Israel!
Borat approves!
Yeesss! I will like this new Al Jazeera very much!
Barnett said success should not be measured by ratings or advertising they attract but whether they become influential.
"If another situation develops where America wants to get involved in a foreign country like Iraq and tries to use the same propaganda methods, the existence of something like a French channel could be a factor," he said.
"If it is done properly ... it could be a real contribution to global diplomacy."
--- Al Jazeera, finally making it all fair. And contributing to global diplomacy worldwide.
Aussie: U.S. exit may embolden terrorists
AP
SYDNEY, Australia - If the United States and its allies leave Iraq without a clear victory, it will embolden terrorists from the Middle East to Indonesia, and damage international efforts to contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Australia's leader said Tuesday.
Weighing into the debate on new strategies for ending the chaos in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard said the allies should not expect much help from Iran and Syria and that efforts to find a lasting solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict must be revitalized.
Howard ruled out an early withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq, warning that pulling out too soon would severely damage America's influence and standing in the world.
"A strong and engaged America is essential to dealing with all our regional security challenges, not least the nuclear brinkmanship of North Korea," he said in excerpts of a speech to the Australian American Association released by his office...
--- I want to give him a big wet kiss. I mean really, I would. But no farther.
At the same function Tuesday where Howard spoke, Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch said widespread opposition to the Iraq war should not be allowed to damage Australia-U.S. relations.
"Australians must resist and reject the facile, reflexive, unthinking anti-Americanism that has gripped much of Europe," said Murdoch, chief of News Corp., whose Fox television network supported the invasion.
--- Huh? Fox television supported the invasion? Does AP ever say "CNN supports the withdrawal of troops"? Or "Reuters supports all efforts to defeat the Bush administration? Hmph. How about "AP supports Palestinian Freedom Fighters..." I mean this is just silly.
Rewrite it to Fox "television network supported the invasion, but AP is completely neutral in all reporting and has higher journalistic standards than barbaric Rupert Murdoch et. al." Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Ok.
November 10, 2006
Al Qaeda Claims to Have 12,000 Fighters in Iraq
AP
CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda in Iraq's purported leader vowed on Friday that his fighters would never rest until they have reached Jerusalem and destroy the White House.
In the audio tape made available on a militant web site, a man introduced as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir said Al Qaeda has 12,000 fighters at the ready in Iraq.
"We will not rest from our Jihad until we are under the olive trees of Rumieh and we have destroyed the dirty black house -- which is called the White House," al-Muhajir said.
The "olive trees of Rumieh" appeared to be a reference to the Mount of Olive in Jerusalem, or Christendom in general as a continuation of the Roman empire...
Describing George W. Bush as "the most stupid president" in U.S. history, the al-Qaida leader reached out to the Muslim world and said his group was winning faster than expected in Iraq.
--- They didn't hear the talking points; Iraq is completely and totally unrelated to the War on Islamic Expansionism. Well, congratulations Al-Qaida. Go ahead, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, bring them home! Sell out western civilization for your own political power. Do what's really important, raise the minimum wage. That's far more important than STAYING ALIVE.
The U.S. president's policy had enabled the militant group to achieve their goal of fighting more Americans, said the Al Qaeda leader.
"We call the lame duck (Bush) not to hurry up in escaping the same way the defense minister did," he said, referring to the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary following the Democrats' victory in Midterm elections.
"They are getting ready to leave, because they are no longer capable of staying," the Al Qaeda leader said.
"Remain steadfast in the battlefield you coward," he called on the U.S president.
--- Most of America would probably convert to Islam too, to save their sorry asses. Well, I'll be enjoying the years that I have left, as much as possible, till I'm beheaded.
British Intelligence Agency Tracking 1,600 Potential Terror Conspirators
AP
LONDON — British authorities are tracking almost 30 terrorist plots involving 1,600 individuals, the head of Britain's MI5 spy agency said, adding that many of the suspects are homegrown British terrorists plotting homicide attacks.
In a speech released by her agency Friday, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said MI5 had foiled five major plots since the July 2005 transit bomb attacks in London....
--- Now that there will be a withdrawal from Iraq, of course, they'll voluntarily stop plotting!
Oh collective denial!!
Manningham-Buller, who has headed MI5 since 2002, said the plots "often have linked back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and through those links Al Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."...
"It is the youth who are being actively targeted, groomed, radicalized and set on a path that frighteningly quickly could end in their involvement in mass murder of their fellow U.K. citizens," Manningham-Buller said. "Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers.
"Today we see the use of homemade improvised explosive devices, but I suggest tomorrow's threat will include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology," she added.
--- Anybody thinking about visiting England, do it soon, before it turns into New Pakistan.
Israeli: Strike on Iran a possibility
AP
JERUSALEM - The deputy defense minister suggested in comments published Friday that Israel might be forced to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program — the clearest statement yet of such a possibility from a high-ranking official.
"I am not advocating an Israeli pre-emptive military action against Iran and I am aware of its possible repercussions," Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, a former general, told The Jerusalem Post. "I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort."
--- Nobody else will do anything. Our now castrated president was the only one who might have.
Sneh's comments did not necessarily reflect the view of Israel's government or of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said government spokeswoman Miri Eisin.
--- They know how the game works.
November 8, 2006
Dems' wins in U.S. are embraced overseas
AP
MADRID, Spain - The seismic shift that midterm elections brought to Washington's political landscape was welcomed by many Wednesday who oppose the war in Iraq and the harsh methods the Bush administration has employed in fighting terrorism.
--- Who cares.
Thank you, Mr. President, for your administration's inability to fight and win the Iraq front.
Meanwhile, World War IV continues.
Gaza Shelling Prompts Hamas to Call for Attacks Against U.S.
AP
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip — Hamas' supreme leader on Wednesday called off a cease-fire with Israel and the group's military wing threatened to attack Americans after 18 members of a family, including eight children, were killed in an Israeli artillery barrage on a densely populated neighborhood.
--- OK, Hamas is targeting us now. Who isn't?
But I'm sure the new Congress will make the world love us again. Or go back to normal levels of anti-American hatred.
Mr. President, you had such potential.
November 3, 2006
Briton called for "new 9/11" at cartoon protest: lawyer
Reuters
LONDON - A British Muslim on trial for inciting murder at a demonstration outside the Danish embassy in London called for "another 9/11" across Europe, prosecutors said on Friday.
Web designer Mizanur Rahman, 23, denies charges of inciting murder and racial hatred during demonstrations against the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper that many Muslims considered insulting to Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.
Muslims around the world demonstrated against the cartoons. But British prosecutors say speeches at protests in London in February went further and were an incitement to kill...
[insert gratuitous groveling about not being a trial against the whole of Islam]
"The defendant incited, solicited or encouraged killing," he said. "The prosecution say the meaning of those words is clear and unambiguous. Ordinary English words with the ordinary English meaning to kill."
"What he said was this: 'Oh Allah, we want to see another 9/11 in Iraq, another 9/11 in Denmark, another 9/11 in Spain, in France, all over Europe. Oh Allah, destroy all of them, Amen,"' Perry said. The remarks referred to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States that killed 3,000 people, he said.
"Bomb, bomb France. Bomb, bomb France. Nuke, nuke France. Nuke, nuke France'," he quoted Rahman as saying, adding that the reference to France may have been prompted by a French newspaper reprinting the Danish cartoons.
--- I have no doubt that the crowd of angry protesters immediately reprimanded him because Islam is a religion of peace.
Rahman also called for "indiscriminate killing" of British troops in Iraq, Perry said. He quoted from Rahman's speech:
"'We don't want to see them in Baghdad or in Iraq any more. We want to see them coming home in body bags. We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad and Falluja.
"'We want to see the Mujahideen shoot down their planes like the way they shoot down birds. We want to see their tanks burned, just like we burn their flags'.
"'We want to see their freedoms destroyed. We want to see all of them removed from Muslim land. Oh Allah, don't leave any of them alive in Iraq, don't leave any of them alive in Afghanistan, don't leave any of them standing in France,"' Perry quoted the defendant as saying.
--- All this because of a fricking cartoon.
Yeah, he's so misunderstood. Obviously it was a botched joke.
October 31, 2006
Pakistan attack a setback to border peace
Christian Science Monitor
--- The Christian Science Monitor, writing for Al-Qaeda...
...The attack, which reportedly killed about 80 people in a madrassah, or religious school, is the second on Bajaur in less than a year...
When missiles last January destroyed a compound in Damadola, killing 13 civilians, the government of Pakistan was still at war with militants in the tribal zones.
Now, however, they are nominally at peace, having signed a controversial accord in North Waziristan that many, including officials in Afghanistan and NATO, have viewed with skepticism.
Under the deal, tribal elders agreed to remove foreign fighters from tribal areas and to stop militants from entering Afghanistan. In return, the Army released hundreds of Taliban militants and returned their weapons, vehicle and equipment.
Monday, the tribal zone's provincial government had been expected to sign a similar accord - now in doubt - in Bajaur, broadening a peace process with Taliban-linked tribesmen. The timing of the strike raises questions about Pakistan's commitment to such deals, as well as the commitment of its allies across the border. It also threatens to stoke extremism in an area that seemed, somewhat shakily, to be moving toward peace...
--- By attacking Taliban-linked tribesmen, Pakistan's government is stoking extremism?
The peace accord signed in September, and the one scheduled for Tuesday, constituted radical alternatives. Monday's strike, and the calls for violence by protesters, have now cast a shadow over the process.
--- A shadow is cast over the peace process, since they blew up an Al-Qaeda training school.
This is an Al-Qaeda puff piece.
Christian Science Monitor repor..., I mean, activists of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal protest the attack.
Pakistani tribals seethe over airstrike on madrasa
Reuters
KHAR, Pakistan - More than 15,000 armed Pakistani tribesmen protested on Tuesday over a Pakistan Army helicopter attack on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school that killed around 80 suspected militants.
Chants of "Down with America" and "Down with Musharraf" rang out as the tribesmen gathered in Khar, main town in the Bajaur tribal region close to the Afghan border, in anger at the air strike.
--- They're always seething. It sucks when infidels drop bombs on you, doesn't it?
Our jihad (holy war) will continue and Inshallah (God willing), people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces," Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, told the crowd of turbaned tribals, many carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing bandoliers, and a few shouldering rocket launchers.
--- Real tough guys.
While the government claimed the madrasa school at Chenagai was being used to train militants, protesters said the dead, mostly young men aged between 15 and 25, were merely students.
President Pervez Musharraf, speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, said the army had killed militants.
"We were working on them for six or seven days, we know who they were. They were doing military training," Musharraf said.
--- Once again, it's obvious that this was a neocon hit job on innocent peace-loving worshippers who were merely studying how to slit throats.
October 27, 2006
Australian cleric refuses to quit over "meat" sermon
Reuters
--- "Meat" sermon! I like it! I mean the name, not the content.
CANBERRA - Australia's top Muslim cleric, suspended from preaching after describing women who do not dress modestly as "uncovered meat," rejected calls to resign on Friday, saying he would not go until the White House was cleaned out...
--- Oh, that's nice. Just mention the Great Satan to get people off your back.
The Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, which owns Hilaly's Lakemba Mosque, has suspended him from preaching for three months, but other Muslim leaders and politicians have demanded he be sacked.
Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday stronger action needed to be taken against Hilaly, who once described Howard, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the axis of evil.
--- And that Christians and Jews are the "the most evil of God's creation on the face of earth." Am I the only person who thinks that's as bad or worse than other stuff he said?
Howard said Hilaly, who courted controversy two years ago by glorifying martyrdom and calling the September 11 attacks the work of God, was now an Australian citizen and could not be deported.
--- But just remember that Islam is being hijacked by a TEENSY WEENSY TINY minority of extremists. Oh wait, he's "Australia's top Muslim cleric." Uhhhhh...
Hilaly has apologized for his comments, which he said had been misinterpreted and taken out of context. In a Ramadan sermon last month, Hilaly said sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.
--- I'm sure he regrets saying that the 9/11 attacks were the work of God, and Christians and Jews are "the most evil of God's creation on the face of earth," too. And he'll publicly apologize soon. Any day now.
Iran doubles nuke enrichment capacity
AP
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has doubled its capacity to enrich uranium by successfully executing the process with a second network of centrifuges, a semiofficial news agency reported Friday, sending a defiant new message to the U.N. Security Council.
--- If ever such a council has been so inaccurately named. Security Council.
Council members are working on a draft resolution that would impose limited sanctions on the Islamic republic because of its refusal to cease enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or fissile material for a warhead...
--- Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
France's Foreign Ministry called Iran's expansion of its nuclear program a "negative signal" that should be taken to account at U.N. talks over possible sanctions.
A spokesman for the ministry, Jean-Baptiste Mattei, said the Iranian announcement was not a great surprise because the International Atomic Energy Agency had said in August that Iran was developing new nuclear capacities.
"The door to negotiations is always open, but at the same time the priority goes to the negotiations for a U.N. Security Council resolution," Mattei said at a news conference.
--- I know, you ask me, what would you do? I have no idea. But this is pathetic. They're going to wait until Israel is wiped off the map until they decide to actually, what, impose sanctions? Limited of course?
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Iran's action was not a cause for worry.
"I don't share concerns on this account," Ivanov told reporters, adding that a second network of centrifuges launched by Iran was under IAEA supervision. "It's premature to talk of uranium enrichment or of military uranium."
Russia has strong commercial ties to Tehran, with a $1 billion contract to build Iran's first nuclear power station.
--- Oh, Mother Russia. Have you no shame?
Mother Russia? Huh. Don't ask me where that came from.
October 26, 2006
Mufti outrages Muslims over sex comments
The Australian
AUSTRALIA'S Muslims yesterday turned on their leader, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, amid calls for him to be sacked as the nation's mufti for blaming women for inciting rape.
Sheik Hilali was universally condemned by mainstream politicians and Muslim leaders nationwide and could even face a revolt from within his tight-knit community over the Ramadan sermon in which he likened immodestly dressed women to meat and suggested rape victims were as much to blame as their attackers.
Muslim women were devastated by the sermon - revealed in The Australian yesterday - while John Howard described the comments as "appalling and reprehensible".
The Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward demanded that Sheik Hilali be charged with "incitement to rape".
--- Now I am not defending this clown, but it's strange how silent the press is about OTHER things these guys say that are far worse. The problem is that he dared to cross the lines of political correctness.
Here are the offending comments:
"But when it comes to adultery, it's 90 per cent the women's responsibility. Why? Because a woman possesses the weapon of seduction. It is she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It's she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then it's a look, then a smile, then a conversation, a greeting, then a conversation, then a date, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay jail. (laughs).
"Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.
"But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, scholar al-Rafihi says: 'If I came across a rape crime – kidnap and violation of honour – I would discipline the man and order that the woman be arrested and jailed for life.' Why would you do this, Rafihi? He says because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn't have snatched it."
"If you take a kilo of meat, and you don't put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you're crazy. Isn't this true?
"If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.
"If the meat was covered, the cats wouldn't roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won't get it...
The "meat" metaphor is uh, rather tactless. The mentality is medieval, yes. But when these guys talk about the infidels, well, is there the same outrage? There is concern, sure... But read THIS OTHER PART of the same speech:
Those who disbelieve amongst the people of the Book and the polytheists, where will they go? Surfers Paradise? Gold Coast? Where? To the fire of hell. And not part-time, they'll be in it for eternity. What are these people? The most evil of God's creation on the face of earth.
UPDATE: Yesterday (10/26/06) the translation in "The Australian" was slightly different.
"Those atheists, people of the book (Christians and Jews), where will they end up? In Surfers Paradise? On the Gold Coast?
"Where will they end up? In hell. And not part-time. For eternity. They are the worst in God's creation.
The worst in God's creation... Not a peep about that. But defy political correctness, and it's an outrage.
Come on Australia.
Danish court acquits publishers of Prophet Mohammed cartoons
AFP
COPENHAGEN (AFP) - A Danish court has acquitted the bosses of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper who had been sued by Muslim groups for printing 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in September 2005.
The judge at Aarhus district court ruled Thursday the cartoons were neither offensive nor were they intended to denigrate Muslims, according to court papers.
"Even if the text accompanying the pictures could be read as being derogatory and mocking, the cartoons are not offensive," the court said.
--- How did they decide that they were not offensive? Of course they were offensive. That's not the issue. It's about whether the offense carries a legal penalty, which it shouldn't. The cartoons are not offensive, thus sayeth the judge? Can't anybody clearly reason this out?
The plaintifs said the satirical caricatures "attacked believers' honour because they portrayed the prophet as war-like and criminal and made a clear link between Mohammed, war and terrorism."
The groups brought their case citing Denmark's blasphamy and racism laws...
A spokesman for the plaintifs, Kasem Said Ahmad, said the verdict was disappointing.
"The court gave Jyllands-Posten the right to attack Muslims and their feelings and linked us to terrorism," Said Ahmad said...
--- The right to attack Muslims? Come on. It's about the right to express yourself. I don't like "Piss Christ" but the artist has the right... whether it's supported by taxpayers is an issue...
He expected the ruling to "trouble" Muslims in Denmark and abroad, in that it suggested it was now permitted to insult the Muslim faith.
--- If you want to live in democratic Europe, learn to live with it. Protest it peacefully. Tell us it is offensive in Islam. But don't expect sharia.
October 24, 2006
Iran warns Muslim nations about US, Israeli plots
Reuters
Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday urged Arab and Muslim nations to be vigilant and stay united to stave off what he described as the "treacherous plots" of the United States and Israel.
--- Scheming Zionist cannibals, right.
"Today, what is considered a success for the American administration and the Israeli regime is a loss to all Islamic nations," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told worshippers in a televised speech marking the start of the Muslim Eid ul-Fitr holiday...
--- Here's my giggly girl impression... what - everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
"All the nations should be vigilant. Our nation, the Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi nations, the nations in the region, and other Muslim nations should be vigilant," Khamenei said, adding that they should all "retain their national unity".
"They should be cautious not to make a move which is in line with the fulfilment of the new hostile treacherous plots of the Americans and the Zionism," he said.
--- The mullahs read Noam Chomsky too, huh.
Dude, there is some non-Zionist conspiracy going on!!!
Don't you think it's ODD that Ali Khamenei and Noam Chomsky look verrrrrry much alike???
2 militants in 2002 Bali bombing freed
AP
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Two Islamic militants jailed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people were freed Tuesday, and nine others had their sentences reduced to mark the end of the Islamic fasting month.
Indonesia traditionally cuts prison terms for some inmates on national holidays, and the justice ministry said more than 43,000 convicts benefited this time.
But the decision to include convicted terrorists was likely to anger countries that lost citizens in the Oct. 12, 2002, suicide attacks on two crowded nightclubs.
--- A strange foreign relations policy, fur shur.
"After what I've survived, to see these people get rewarded ... it's something we Westerners just don't understand," said Australian Peter Hughes, who suffered burns to 54 percent of his body...
--- This is what they mean by a moderate form of Islam?
Mujarod bin Salim and Sirojul Munir, who were convicted of hiding two of the bomb plotters, had up to 45 days shaved from their five-year sentences.
Bin Salim walked free from the main prison on Bali island on Tuesday afternoon, said Ilham Jaya, the prison warden, and Munir left the jail in East Kalimantan's capital of Balikpapan several hours earlier.
"I'm happy that I'll be able to spend time with my family again," said Munir, adding he had nothing to do with the attacks...
--- Hmmm. It's kind of serious to hide freedom fighters. I mean terrorists.
The government says three militants on death row for the Bali attacks and three others sentenced to life are not eligible for the prison term reductions.
--- Whew! Of course you can't reduce a life sentence... you know, life minus 45 days doesn't make sense anyway.
October 23, 2006
French police face 'permanent intifada'
AP
...On Sunday, a band of about 30 youths, some wearing masks, forced passengers out of a bus in a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight Sunday, set it on fire, then stoned firefighters who came to the rescue, police said. No one was injured. Two people were arrested, one of them a 13-year-old, according to LCI television.
More broadly, worsening violence in France testifies to Europe's growing struggle to integrate its ethnic minorities. Some mainstream European politicians — adopting positions previously confined largely to far-right fringes — are suggesting that the minorities themselves are not doing enough to adapt to European mores...
--- Holy crap, don't say that or you'll start a riot!!
In France, a high school teacher received death threats, forcing him into hiding, after he wrote a newspaper editorial in September saying Muslim fundamentalists are trying to muzzle Europe's democratic liberties...
--- Goodbye France!
No, this isn't a case of schadenfreude. Inside I am crying.
Michel Thooris, head of the small Action Police union, claims that the new violence is taking on an Islamic fundamentalist tinge.
"Many youths, many arsonists, many vandals behind the violence do it to cries of 'Allah Akbar' (God is Great) when our police cars are stoned," he said in an interview...
--- You just figured this out? You are witnessing the rise of the Islamic Republic of France.
But if people don't sit down and discuss their differences, there may be riots.
If the French ever fight back it'll get interesting.
Larger, more mainstream police unions sharply disagree that the suburban unrest has any religious basis. However, they do say that some youth gangs no longer seem content to throw stones or torch cars and instead appear determined to hurt police officers — or worse...
--- Obviously this has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a religion of peace. They're just mad because their welfare checks are tooooo small.
British watchdog warns on veil debate
AP
LONDON - The heated debate over veils that cover the faces of some British Muslim women is growing ugly and could trigger riots, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog warned on Sunday.
--- So now every time a non-Muslim dares to speak out, The Diversity Pimps decree that there shall be riots?
Britons are becoming increasingly polarized along racial and religious lines, and if they don't talk respectfully about their differences, tensions could fuel unrest, Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper.
--- What did you expect Commish?
In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television, he said he didn't want Britain to suffer the kind of violence that exploded in the deprived suburbs of Paris a year ago, when disaffected young people, many from immigrant backgrounds, rioted for three weeks.
He warned there could also be a repeat of the rioting in several northern English towns in 2001 caused by racial tensions between white and mainly Muslim south Asian youths.
"Only this time the conflict would be much worse," Phillips wrote in the Times.
--- I suppose after diversity training they'll all learn to love each other. Yeah.
October 20, 2006
Man charged with stadium bomb threat hoax
AP
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A 20-year-old Wisconsin grocery clerk has been charged by U.S. authorities with making a hoax threat to detonate "dirty bombs" at seven National Football League stadiums across the United States.
Jake Brahm, who lives at home with his parents in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, was accused of spreading a fake message on the Internet that threatened to hit the sites with weapons of mass destruction and radioactive materials.
If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine...
--- Now we have a name and some facts. The facts are that he is incredibly dumb. I hope his parents are proud of their grocery clerk who lives at home.
He'll get slapped pretty hard, but I doubt he'll go to prison.
The threat, posted on www.4chan.org, said the attacks would coincide with the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and would spark civil wars across the world, bring the global economy to a halt and allow "general chaos" to rule.
--- What the hell's wrong with this punk? This was part of a game to him?
It said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would claim responsibility for the attacks, which he would dub "America's Hiroshima."
"Defendant Jake J. Brahm admitted that he knew the above-described message was false when he authored and posted it," the complaint states.
--- Why doesn't he take up vandalism, or something that punks usually do for fun that isn't quite as dangerous or malicious. Or maybe lay off the drugs. Yeah, maybe that's what caused some kind of delusion of grandeur... I'd hate to think the guy did this completely sober.
Taking on the veil: West looks to assimilation
Christian Science Monitor
LONDON - Until recently, Rahmanara Chowdhury turned few heads on the street. Shrouded under a full-face Islamic veil, or niqab, she went about her business untroubled. "Occasionally, you get called 'ninja,' but I got used to that," she says.
But in recent weeks, she has noticed a change. "In public, I'm a lot more self-conscious, even intimidated," the native British Muslim adds. Some of her fellow niqabis, a growing sisterhood in Britain, have been threatened or abused. "All the feedback," she says, "seems to be really negative."
--- 1) You can always count on the Christian Science Monitor for anti-Western propaganda. 2) If Christians, hypothetically, demanded that women be covered up with only their eyes showing, imagine the outrage from the media about oppression. Imagine the National Organization of Women screaming about intolerance and fanaticism! Rosie O'Donnell screaming about theocracy! But not a peep about the oppressed Islamic sisters, for fear of beheading I suppose, and fear of confronting their illusions about multiculturalism.
So let's read on about the "intolerance and Islamophobia" of the West.
That shift has sprung from a broad debate about whether the niqab - and by extension, a multiculturalism that many see as supporting isolation from mainstream culture - fits in modern Britain.
It's a discussion moving to the fore in wealthy nations, from the Netherlands, Denmark, France, and Germany in Europe to Australia and elsewhere. The longer the cultural dissonance generated by 9/11, the "war on terror," and suicide attacks ensues, the harder it is getting to ignore the semidetached status of Muslim communities...
--- "War on Terror" in quotes. Another 9/11 conspiracy nutter apparently. Would you prefer Clash of Civilizations, War on Militant Islam? Those are politically incorrect.
You know, I can't stand goddamn journalists. Well, most of them.
"If you want to get someone involved, don't attack them," says Asghar Bukhari, a leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which campaigns for greater representation of Britain's 1.8 million Muslims in political life. "That's not going to make them feel ... there's a place for them in society."
--- They're being attacked? You maggot. We're the ones under constant attack.
"Multiculturalism and what it means has been caught up in the uncertain environment we live in," says Sharon Ride, director of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia. "People have a fear of terrorism, and multiculturalism has got mixed up in all that."
--- No idiot, you're terrified that multiculturalism might be exposed as a farcical insanity that promotes, rather than reduces, hatred between groups. And Islam won't play along with the illusion, except if it makes them appear as victims.
Last month, the government warned Muslims that, to be accepted, they must denounce terrorism and learn English. Islamist leaders should embrace tolerance and freedom of speech, while men should treat women with greater respect, ministers said. "Fully integrating means accepting Australian values," said [Prime Minister John] Howard.
But Australian Muslims caution that such hauteur could fuel resentment and a repeat of the race riots that broke out in a Sydney suburb last December...
--- If Australians were moving to Islamist countries in large numbers and refused to obey sharia, they'd be hanged. That's some real "hauteur."
The government is considering introducing a tougher citizenship test under which immigrants would have to take an exam assessing their English skills and knowledge of Australian history, values, and culture. Until now, prospective citizens have simply had to memorize a list of rights and responsibilities as citizens.
The proposal has divided Australians, with some welcoming it as a means of filtering out Islamic extremists and others dismissing it as embarrassing jingoism unfairly targeting Muslims...
--- I knew the word "jingoism" would show up somewhere in this crap.
Behind her niqab, Ms. Chowdhury is perplexed at the latest onslaught, sparked by top officials expressing deep reservations about the veil. She feels it is ironic, given that her job as a university development officer working with young Muslim women helps build bridges...
--- I knew the words "build bridges" would show up somewhere in this crap too.
For her, banning the niqab would eviscerate Britain's great traditions of tolerance, freedom, and a cultural glasnost that enriches society. "There are things that are different about us, but there are things that are different about every community," she says. "Until now, it's been respected - and that has made the country what it is."
--- Now it's turned around. She admires Britain's tradition of tolerance, so they should allow the niqab. But Britain is saying that Muslims should embrace tolerance and free speech, and treat women with more respect.
What if a Christian woman in say, Pakistan, carried a Bible around in plain sight, or wore a large pectoral cross? I wonder how long she'd live.
In fact, let's look at the Wikipedia entry for "Blasphemy Law in Pakistan":
Blasphemy law in Pakistan is found in Section 295/C of the Pakistan Penal Code. It imposes death penalty on anyone found to have "by words or visible representation or by an imputation or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiled the name of the Prophet Mohammad of Islam"...
The Pakistani Catholic bishops' Justice and Peace Commission complained in July 2005 that since 1988, some 650 people had been falsely accused and arrested under the blasphemy law. Moreover, over the same period, some 20 people accused of the same offense had been killed. As of July 2005, 80 Christians were in prison accused of blasphemy.
Pakistan's blasphemy laws allow the word of just one witness to incriminate a "heretic".
Maybe Muslim women in Britain should throw off the niqab in appreciation for the fact that they're not in jail or dead!
Iranian leader threatens Israel's allies
AP
TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday threatened any country that supports Israel, and said the United States and its allies had "imposed a group of terrorists" on the region with their support of the Jewish state.
The Iranian leader also called the U.N. Security Council "illegitimate," ahead of the planned circulation of a draft resolution on Iran next week...
--- Yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwn.
Ahmadinejad's comments came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's strongest words to date about Iranian threats. Olmert warned that Iran would have "a price to pay" if it does not back down from its nuclear ambitions — hinting broadly that Israel might be forced to take action...
--- Just don't back down again after it begins, Mr. Prime Minister.
Dozens of rallies were held across Iran for "Al-Quds Day," the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Many became anti-American protests as well, criticizing U.S. support for Israel.
--- I'm trying to wake up here, but this is putting me to sleep.
Ahmadinejad, who has a history of similarly fiery rhetoric, said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear.
"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said.
"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said...
--- And how many millions of Iranians wish their regime would disappear, crushed by the weight of their own hatred and violence?
On Friday, Ahmadinejad said the U.N. Security Council and its decisions would be "illegitimate" as long as it was dominated by the U.S. and Britain.
"What sort of Security Council is this? The whole world knows that the U.S. and Britain are enemies of the Iranian nation," he said...
--- Your thuggish totalitarian regime is illegitimate, a crown stolen through intimidation and murder without consent of the people.
"The time is over for such logic. Under such circumstances, the Security Council is illegitimate and its decisions are illegitimate," Ahmadinejad said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the crowd.
--- Death to the barbaric ignorant mullahs who run your illegitimate dictatorship.
I'm illegitimate!!
October 19, 2006
UK has become target for resurgent Qaeda: Report
Reuters
Britain has become the main target of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which has successfully regrouped and now presents a greater threat than ever before, counter-terrorism officials said.
Intelligence chiefs said the group has substantially recovered its organisation in Pakistan, despite a four-year military campaign to seek out and kill its leaders.
In that time, the organisation has become much more coherent, with a strong core and a regular supply of volunteers, the intelligence chiefs told The Guardian...
--- Sigh. Maybe we should bomb Pakistan into the Stone Age.
Intelligence experts fear the UK is a target as never before, with extremists intent on carrying out a huge spectacular, on the scale of the US atrocities in 2001.
Britain is an easier target, they have concluded, because of its traditional links with Pakistan, which is visited by thousands of people each year.
--- Of course, no names here. It's all from a "report." Who knows? "Intelligence" hasn't been too good as a whole in the past many years.
FBI questions someone in NFL threat
AP
WASHINGTON - The FBI interviewed a Milwaukee resident Thursday who officials believe was involved in posting Internet threats about dirty bomb attacks on NFL football stadiums this weekend. The threats appeared to be phony.
The person, described only as a young adult, did not appear to have any ties to terrorist groups, according to a Washington law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
In Milwaukee, FBI spokesman Richard K. Ruminski said the "individual has come forward and provided information about the posting of the threat against the NFL stadiums. The U.S. government still believes this threat is non-credible."
--- They must be pretty sure if they think it's non-credible. But this is serious. They can hit our cities, our government buildings, our military, but they better not mess with FOOTBALL.
Ok, not very funny.
Homeland Security on Wednesday alerted the NFL and authorities in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland and Cleveland, saying they were acting "out of an abundance of caution."
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke on Wednesday said the threat was viewed "with strong skepticism." Still, the agency contacted the National Football League, local authorities and stadium owners.
--- Probably just a punk who ought to spend time at Gitmo. Just to teach the s**t a lesson.
UPDATE: FBI says it's a hoax.
Time to go to jail punk. Ha! Just kidding!
October 12, 2006
American Al-Qaeda propagandist charged with treason
AFP
WASHINGTON - An American convert to Islam who appears in Al-Qaeda propaganda videos was indicted for treason by a US grand jury, the first person hit with the charge since the World War II era.
Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki and Azzam the American, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Santa Ana, California for treason and supporting a terrorist organization, the US Justice Department announced...
--- Oooooooooh my God, what a jingoistic fascist dictatorship we live in!! I thought, like, dissent was patriotic, or something.
The treason charge brings a minimum five years in prison and a maximum penalty of death.
--- I told you Bush was Hitler. He wants to, like, kill everyone who gets in his way!!!
Gadahn, 28, a native of southern California, has appeared in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004, praising the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States...
--- Was this just some stupid brat with part-time parents who tried to get some attention? I've got to look into his background... I can do that because I've been given permission by evil Bush regime.
[Deputy US Attorney General Paul] McNulty said Gadahn's support for the "propaganda machine" of Al-Qaeda merited the treason charge, which he called "perhaps the most serious offense for which any person can be tried under our constitution."
"Terrorists create fear and intimidation through extreme violence. They want Americans to live and walk in fear. They want to demoralize us. That's why propaganda is so important to them, and why facilitating that propaganda is such an egregious crime," McNulty said.
--- So what about Noam Chomsky? Can't we get an indictment on him?
Gadahn is a native of Orange County in southern California, the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer.
--- Oh, well now I understand!
Relatives said he was a normal teenager, a big fan of heavy metal rock music, before he announced his own conversion at 17 and began attending an Islamic center where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamic radicals.
"I discovered the beliefs and practices of this religion fit my personal theology and intellect as well as basic human logic," he wrote on a website.
--- One messed up kid, obviously. As well as a scapegoat for the Bush-Cheney regime of terror, worse than Hitler's, etc.
October 11, 2006
Witnesses tell Saddam trial of camp rapes
The Daily Telegraph (AU)
KURDISH women have told how they had witnessed savage rapes, murders and other horrors in Saddam Hussein's death camps, as the ousted Iraqi leader's genocide trial continued today.
One woman, speaking from behind a curtain to preserve her anonymity, told of how her family was captured by Iraqi forces in April 1988.
Her grandmother died in the prison camp, while she witnessed terrible atrocities.
A warder called Jaafar al-Hillawi used to grope prisoners' breasts, and one day caught a beautiful young woman from Koi Sanjaq, she said.
"He caught her and told her: 'You are mine'. She spat in his face," she told the court.
"He tore her clothes and raped her in front of her parents. Then he shot her. She remained alive for several minutes and then died."...
--- The good old days, I guess, before American imperialists came. Note the sarcasm.
Prosecutors say 182,000 Kurds were killed in death camps, bombings and poison gas attacks.
Saddam and his co-defendants insist the operation was a legitimate military campaign against separatist guerrillas...
Yesterday, four witnesses described how they lost dozens of relatives to mass graves after being rounded up and driven to Nigrat Salman prison camp in southern Iraq, near the city of Samawa...
Many of the inmates did not survive Saddam's gulag.
During yesterday's testimony prosecutors showed the court the identity cards of many Kurds that had been found in the mass graves which still dot post-war Iraq.
--- Keep things in perspective.
Remember the Rather-Hussein Lovefest
Study: 655,000 Iraqis die because of war
AP
NEW YORK - A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.
The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."
--- Finally someone's challenging the fascist Bush regime!! With honest to goodness objective social science!
In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.
--- Oooooh. Based on interviews. Of course, this could be turned around to calculate how many Iraqis would have died had Saddam stayed in power and killed off anyone he didn't like.
Who funded this mirage?
"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others is to be published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal.
--- I'd like to see this.
An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.
"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election...
--- Fascist!
The work updates an earlier Johns Hopkins study — that one was released just before the November 2004 presidential election. At the time, the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest estimate.
--- *Giggle* They come out and admit it!
A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook "many if not most civilian casualties."...
--- I know it's terrible, it's not that I don't care about civilian casualties. And the war is not being fought well. But inflating numbers like that in an obvious stunt and then pretending it's science...
The major funder of the new study was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
--- Innnnnnnnnteresting...
October 6, 2006
UK minister's veil comments stoke Muslim ire
Reuters
LONDON - A senior British cabinet minister said on Friday it would be better if Muslim women did not wear full veils, inflaming anger among the country's Islamic community and sparking heated debate on social integration.
--- Oh, they're angry again. Here come the Molotov cocktails.
Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw provoked a mixture of anger and derision on Thursday after he said the wearing of veils made community relations "more difficult" as they acted as "a visible statement of separation and difference."
--- Jack Straw must be guilty of some thought crime.
He said he had received a positive response when he asked women to take off the garments when they came to see him about issues in Blackburn, the northern English town with a 30 percent Muslim population which he represents in parliament.
--- Why doesn't he accept the true faith instead!?
Infidel.
While British newspapers and commentators applauded Straw's stance, which he said was designed to provoke a "mature debate," many Muslims reacted with anger.
--- You're kidding!
Local group the Lancashire Council of Mosques described his comments as "ill-judged and misconceived" and said many women found them "offensive and disturbing."
--- Oh, I expected a beheading.
October 5, 2006
Fury at 'moral grounds' cop out
The Sun (UK)
THE decision to excuse a Muslim cop from guarding the Israeli Embassy was last night branded “the beginning of the end for British policing”.
PC Alexander Omar Basha told chiefs he was unable to carry out duties at the London embassy — a top terror target — due to moral grounds after Israeli bombings in Lebanon...
Critics slammed the decision. Ex-Met Flying Squad commander John O’Connor said: “This is the beginning of the end for British policing.
“If they can allow this, surely they’ll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? Where will it end?
--- It doesn't matter, they're all dhimmi! Islam will dominate!
October 4, 2006
Howard attacks left intelligentsia
AAP (Australian Associated Press)
PRIME Minister John Howard has launched a scathing attack on Australia's left-wing intelligentsia, questioning its loyalty to the nation over the past decades.
In a speech delivered last night for the 50th anniversary of the conservative magazine Quadrant, Mr Howard said the left had a history of denigrating the nation and was now doing the same with the war in Iraq, describing Islamic terrorism as the new tyranny.
--- This guy is too good to be true. Sometimes I wish he were president here in the US.
He said Australian universities were still breeding leftists and described pro-communists of decades past as “ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests”, Fairfax reports today.
Mr Howard said the left was wrong in its view that the Cold War was an equal struggle between the ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union.
“It became the height of intellectual sophistication to believe that people in the West were no less oppressed than people under the yoke of communist dictatorship,” Mr Howard said in his speech.
--- Yes!! Yes!!
Mr Howard praised Quadrant for its record of countering “stultifying orthodoxies and dangerous utopias that have, at times, gripped the Western intelligentsia”.
--- If you haven't seen the Venerable John Howard Shrine, do so now. God, this guy's a bonzer!
October 2, 2006
Traitors to the Enlightenment -- Europe turns its back on Socrates, Locke, et al.
National Review Online
Victor David Hanson says it all for me:
The new enemies of Reason are not the enraged democrats who executed Socrates, the Christian zealots who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity, or the Nazis who burned books. No, they are a pampered and scared Western public that caves to barbarism — dwarves who sit on the shoulders of dead giants, and believe that their present exalted position is somehow related to their own cowardly sense of accommodation...
Just think: Put on an opera in today’s Germany, and have it shut down, not by Nazis, Communists, or kings, but by the simple fear of Islamic fanatics.
Write a novel deemed critical of the Prophet Mohammed, as did Salman Rushdie, and face years of ostracism and death threats — in the heart of Europe no less.
Compose a film, as did Theo Van Gogh, and find your throat cut in “liberal” Holland.
Or better yet, sketch a cartoon in postmodern Denmark, and then go into hiding.
Quote an ancient treatise, as did the pope, and learn your entire Church may come under assault, and the magnificent stones of the Vatican offer no refuge...
Note also the constant subtext in this new self-censorship: fear of radical Islam and its gruesome appendages of beheadings, suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, barbaric fatwas, riotous youth, petrodollar-acquired nuclear weapons, oil boycotts and price hikes, and fist-chanting mobs.
In contrast, almost daily in Europe, “brave” artists caricature Christians and Americans with impunity. Why?
For a long list of reasons, among them most surely the assurance that they can do this without being killed. Such cowards puff out their chests when trashing an ill Oriana Fallaci or Ariel Sharon or beleaguered George W. Bush in the most demonic of tones, but prove sunken and sullen when threatened by a Dr Zawahri or a grand mufti of some obscure mosque...
Europe boldly produces films about assassinating an American president, and routinely disparages the Church that gave the world the Sermon of the Mount, but it simply won’t stand up for an artist, a well-meaning Pope, or a ranting filmmaker when the mob closes in. The Europe that believes in everything turns out to believe in nothing.
Chaos as Muslim cabbies refuse to carry booze
The Australian
MUSLIM taxi drivers in Minnesota have declared jihad on duty-free, refusing to carry passengers who are carrying alcohol.
The ban has created chaos at Minneapolis-St Paul international airport, where about three-quarters of the 900 taxi drivers are Somali and mostly Muslim.
Airport officials have begun working with taxi drivers to install colour-coded lights on taxi roofs to indicate which are alcohol friendly and which are not.
The lights are expected to be introduced by the end of the year...
--- Great. Drunk people can't get a cab. Because it offends Ahmed.
Eva Buzek, a flight attendant who grew up in Poland, said that when she asked a driver to be careful with her suitcase because it had wine in it, he dumped her bags and told other drivers not to carry her either. Four more refused her service.
She said the ban went against American values.
"I don't want to impose my beliefs on anyone else," she told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "That's why I'm in this country, because of the freedom.
"What's going to be next? Do I have to cover my head?"
--- Yes, eventually. Wait till America is about 10% Muslim.
Spaniards tone down exploding Mohammed at fiestas
Reuters
MADRID - Spanish villages are toning down traditional fiestas in which revelers blow up dummies representing the Prophet Mohammed for fear of offending Muslims, the newspaper El Pais reported on Monday.
--- I'm glad to see that Spain is giving up its freedoms for fear of Muslims. I mean fear of offending Muslims. No, I mean fear of Muslims. They really long for the good old days?
One eastern Spanish village, Bocairent, decided to abandon the custom of packing the head of a dummy representing Mohammed with fireworks after seeing the angry response by Muslims to a Danish newspaper's publication last year of cartoons of him.
--- Where's the poet E. E. Cummings when you need him.
where climbing was and bright
is darkness and to fall
(now wrong's the only right
since brave are cowards all)
El Pais found that several other villages in the Valencia region had also modified similar fiestas this year. It carried out the investigation after a Berlin opera house decided last week to cancel performances of Mozart's "Idomeneo" because the production included a scene depicting Mohammed's severed head.
Bocairent's mayor, Antonio Valdes, said blowing up the Mohammed dummy was offensive.
"It just wasn't necessary, and, as it could hurt some people's feelings, we decided not to do it," he said.
--- It isn't really necessary, but be honest. You're not afraid of hurt feelings, you're afraid of being beheaded.