US TO HELP YEMEN GO NUCLEAR?
By Charles Johnson
If this report is true, it’s one of the stupidest ideas of the last hundred years: US to help Yemen go nuclear: Saleh.
Yemen will go nuclear to make up for the shortcomings in the electricity supply in the country, said President Ali Abdullah Saleh Monday evening, at his annual Iftar reception held at the Republican Palace. Necessary studies and research are well underway for the adoption of such a technology.
“We will generate power through nuclear energy in cooperation with the United States and Canada,” Saleh said. “In the first stage, we plan to generate 20,000 megawatts,” he said to his guests, who included senior government officials, religious scholars, members of the business community, tribal sheikhs, social figures, media, and civil society organizations. “This is no longer an campaign promise. It is a serious and new speech.”
RAMADAN RIOTS IN SWEDEN
By Charles Johnson
LGF reader Enlil from Gothenburg, Sweden, sent the following disturbing note:
Tonight there were power shortages all over Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg. “Youth gangs” took the opportunity, spreading the European tradition of “Ramadan Riots.” Within an hour most schools and commercial centers in the north eastern suburbs were vandalized.
- It’s complete chaos in north eastern Gothenburg. “We’ve sent all available police units but there’s no way we can stop the vandalisation,” police spokesman Frank Karlsson tells gp.se.
- Several youth gangs are wandering about smashing windows and breaking into schools, malls, banks and a retirement center.
Not a word about this on the wires...
UPDATE: It’s on the front page of Aftonbladet, and here’s the linked story in Swedish: Vag av skadegörelse i Göteborg.
UK UNIVERSITY HONORS KHATAMI
By Charles Johnson
I thought the sycophantic behavior of US Muslim groups like CAIR and ISNA was bad enough when Iranian mullah Ayatollah Khatami visited the United States—but Britain’s St. Andrews University is taking it a step further and giving the mass murderer an honorary degree: Fury as St Andrews honours Hezbollah backer.
STUDENT leaders are organising a mass protest over St Andrews University’s decision to award an honorary degree to a former Iranian president who praised Hezbollah.
Muhammad Khatami is to be made an honorary doctor of laws by Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader who is also the university’s chancellor.
Khatami will open the university’s Institute for Iranian Studies, which will house 12,000 books donated by Sadegh Kharazi, Iran’s former ambassador to France. The collection of Iranian texts, the largest of its kind in Europe, is estimated to be worth more than £100,000.
The decision to confer the honour on Khatami has provoked criticism from human rights groups who claim thousands of Iranian citizens were jailed and tortured for their political beliefs during his eight-year term that ended last year with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The National Union of Students wants his invitation withdrawn unless Ahmad Batebi, a student jailed in 1999 during a pro-democracy protest, is freed. “There will definitely be a protest,” said Sofie Buckland of the students’ national executive. “We have a duty of solidarity with the democratic opposition in Iran.”
Stephen Brown, the union’s national secretary, said: “We are appalled that Batebi continues to suffer imprisonment for his role in the student movement. We hope that academics and students at that institution will urge Khatami to use his influence to have Batebi released.” Sunday, October 8, 2006
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
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PICTURE OF THE DAY: IS THIS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA?
By Academic Elephant
With exactly two months to go to the presidential election in Venezuela, things are getting interesting.
Aleksander Boyd has pictures and first-hand accounts of the massive rallies for opposition candidate Manuel Rosales that have taken place in Caracas and Cantaura over the past few days. It looks like recent polls suggesting a surge in support for Mr. Rosales were accurate, and his message is resonating. Venezuela does not need to abandon a free market system to take care of its disadvantaged citizens. It does not need to bully and threaten to gain international respect. And it is time for the country to get its own house in order before embarking on foreign adventures. Furthermore, voters are no longer afraid to express support for Mr. Rosales, who is finally providing them with a viable alternative to "president" Hugo Chavez.
If you had told me two months ago that there was a snowball's chance in h*** of any opposition candidate running a coherent campaign that so much as got Mr. Chavez' attention, I would have laughed (grimly). But Mr. Rosales has done that and much more. As unlikely as it still is that Mr. Chavez will allow himself to be defeated, it is no longer a foregone conclusion that he will be re-elected. At the very least, it seems he will not be able to credibly claim the mandate of another landslide victory. But all may not be lost for Mr. Chavez--should Mr. Rosales achieve the apparently-impossible and actually win on December 8th, he might find there's a job opening in Havana... Sunday, October 8, 2006
www.redstate.com
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RICE'S DIPLOMACY IN MIDDLE EAST STARTING TO PAY OFF
By Ed Morrissey
Herb Keinon sheds some light on the murky efforts by Condoleezza Rice in confronting the radicalism in the Middle East, especially as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian mess. His length analysis points out the progress Rice has made in the past several weeks in convincing the existing regimes that democratization presents a far less significant threat, especially in the long term, than Iranian- and Syrian-backed radical Islamists. This slow realization has begun paying dividends as the Arab states now see organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas as threats to their own survival as well as Israel's:
Remember, as well, that unlike the days when Colin Powell led the State Department, now there is largely one source of foreign policy power in Washington, and it rests with Rice. She needs some kind of achievement. Forming a coalition of moderate Arab states to counterbalance Iran, Hizbullah, Syria and Hamas would fit the bill, and here she is showing some nascent signs of success.
Last November, Rice traveled to the Persian Gulf before coming here, as she did this time as well. But then, in Bahrain, a high-profile, US-backed summit meant to promote political freedom and economic change in the region ended without an agreement, delivering a severe blow to US President George W. Bush's democratization program for the Middle East. ...
This time, however, Rice was greeted warmly in Saudi Arabia, as well as at a meeting of the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and the Persian Gulf countries in Cairo. It is not that the leaders she met with suddenly saw the wisdom of Bush's democratization plan, but rather that the rulers of these moderate Arab regimes realize that ,although democracy may theoretically challenge their positions somewhere down the line, the more immediate threat is right around the corner, in the form of a nuclear Iran and Islamic extremism. The radical mullahs, in other words, are now more dangerous than the democracy-minded NGOs.
Ironically, the concerns of the moderate Arab regimes - generally believed to be Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Kuwait - have given birth to yet another "diplomatic window of opportunity," as some diplomatic officials now term this post-Lebanon-war period. ...
The IDF turned over a huge boulder during the war in Lebanon, and unearthed all types of nasties crawling around underneath. These nasties, now apparent to all, threaten not only Israel, but also the moderate Arab regimes. Now that the boulder has been overturned, it is impossible for them to claim not to see.
The Hezbollah power play and the Hamas hardline positions in the territories may have awoken the neighboring states to Iranian and Syrian intentions. It comes in the context of Iran's singleminded pursuit of nuclear weapons and the inability of the global community to stop it. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan all understand the consequences of Iranian success in this regard: the Persians will achieve ascendancy over the Arabs in an attempt to wrest control of Islam and their people away from them. Iran wants to rekindle the Persian Empire in a 21st-century guise of influence and control, and the Arabs have yet to find a way to stop it.
In this cause, they find themselves with a very strange bedfellow. Israel not only faces the same kind of threat from Iran, but they have the weapons to counterbalance Teheran, or at least everyone assumes they do. Israel has the willingness to fight open wars against the Iranian proxies that they lack, and neither one of them really has made a dent against Israel militarily. Hassan Nasrallah can brag about his epic victory over Israel all he wants, but no one believe that a man who has to get Israeli assurances of non-assassination before appearing at his own celebratory rally. All Hamas has managed to do is to get Israel to re-invade Gaza and destroy its infrastructure again. Neither have been able to cow Israel into acquiescence.
The key development from Rice's point of view would be to get the moderate states into a diplomatic conference to discuss all of these issues, including the Palestinian question. Rice wants to return to the road map, and now Israel's more moderate neighbors want a resolution more than ever. They do not want groups like Hamas and Hezbollah gaining strength through Iranian support and would like to undercut their entire raison d'etre. Israel has long avoided such conferences as inimical to their interests, preferring to negotiate one-on-one with Fatah as the only representative of the Palestinians. Now, however, Rice wants to use the developments from this summer to convince all of the parties that they have much more in common than ever before, and a common enemy that needs to be faced down.
The Arabs and the Israelis could finally find some common ground for security. It would be ironic if after all of the efforts of the West to resolve the standoff over the last sixty years, the Iranians proved to be the real -- if inadvertent -- peacemakers.
A SPLIT IN TEHRAN?
By Ed Morrissey
The visit to the US by former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami had approval from the highest levels of government, the London Telegraph reports, and it served a clandestine American purpose. The US contacted Khatami on his trip to carry a message back to Iran's Guardian Council, the real power of the Islamic Republic, in an attempt to manuever around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
The Bush administration made secret overtures to former Iran president Mohammed Khatami during his visit to the United States last month in an attempt to establish a back channel via the ex-leader.
American officials made the approach as part of a strategy to isolate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Khatami's hard-line successor, by using the former president as a conduit to the Iranian people.
They also hoped that Mr Khatami would report his conversations to senior members of Iran's theocratic regime who are wary of the current president. Diplomatic sources said that "third parties" were authorised by Nicholas Burns, the US under-secretary of state responsible for relations with Iran, to talk to Mr Khatami in a step towards "engagement" with senior Iranians.
The clandestine contacts with Mr Khatami reflect a significant shift in American policy, away from preparation for military action and towards increased diplomatic pressure on Iran, which is defying United Nations demands to suspend its nuclear programme.
The Telegraph reports this as a change in policy from a war footing, which seems a bit unlikely to me. The Bush administration has never prepared the country for war against Iran, and for good reason. Iran presents a much more difficult target for military action, even for limited strikes on its military and industrial infrastructure. It has little open territory, unlike Iraq, and Iran has dispersed its nuclear development assets specifically to resist such an attack. The White House has constantly resisted the temptation to escalate the Iranian standoff into a military crisis, preferring to allow the Europeans to drive the diplomatic efforts instead of taking charge ourselves.
It does represent another change in direction, however. The Bush administration has often tried to speak directly to the Iranian people and encourage them to remove the theocracy that controls them. In order to maintain support for democracy activists in Iran, the US has carefully tried to stay clear of engagement with the current regime. This back-channel opening to the mullahs through the supposed reformer Khatami looks like an abandonment of that principle to a more realpolitik approach of arm's-length engagement with a distasteful regime that we know to oppress its people.
Did the Axis of Evil suddenly get kindler and gentler, or did all of the other options fail? It seems like the latter more than the former, especially since -- as the Telegraph reports -- it looks like the mullahs don't trust Ahmadinejad, either. This does provide some opportunity to see if the Guardian Council wants to step back from the brink and minimize the threat posed by its hand-picked populist president. If the rumors are true, it's possible that the mullahs seriously underestimated Ahmadinejad's ability to grow his own power base, and now see a threat from the formerly obscure radical they placed into the presidency.
Also, the White House may simply be keeping all of its options open. Khatami's invitation may have provided an unforeseen opportunity that they grasped. Nothing in a simple behind-the-scenes contact requires the US to back away from democratization in Iran, and we have no assurance that Khatami even delivered the message. The bad publicity that resulted from his temporary visa may convince the White House that further engagement with the Iranian mullahcracy may not be politically possible at the moment, and they can easily drop that course at any time.
I'm skeptical of the Khatami mission. The mullahs may have some problems keeping Ahmadinejad from eclipsing their power, or they may not, but the main source of anti-American fervor still resides on the Guardian Council. It would be nice to believe that they have a rational outlook on governance and foreign policy, but so far they have done little to demonstrate it.
UPDATE: Michael Ledeen remains very skeptical. In the comments on this thread, Michael says:
[T]he idea of "the mullahs" trying to work around, limit, or oust Ahmadi-Nezhad is as fanciful as the older idea that "the mullahs" were being challenged by Khatami "the reformer." They are all members of the same cult. There's a person in that country whose job description is "supreme leader." And it's not Ahmadi-Nezhad. It's Khamene'i.
That doesn't appear to have changed much since 1979. Sunday, October 8, 2006
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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CLERIC ADVOCATING SEPARATION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS ARRESTED IN IRAN
By Robert Spencer
Bad news for the Iranian authorities, who tried to dodge the issues Borujerdi addressed by accusing him of claiming to represent the Mahdi: This cleric seems to have a fairly significant following, and his arrest won't end the discussion about the separation of clerical and civil authority. "Iran arrests controversial cleric and followers," from AFP:
TEHERAN - Iran has arrested a controversial cleric and some of his followers who advocate separating religion and poitics, a taboo in Islamic Iran, after clashes with police, the student ISNA agency said on Sunday.
Hundreds of supporters of Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeini Borujerdi had gathered on Saturday around his house in Teheran to protest the arrest of a number of the Shiite cleric’s followers and restrictions imposed on him, press reports said.
"The ones behind Saturday’s unrest were arrested. All including, Mr Borujerdi, have been handed over to judiciary officials," said a security official in Teheran governor’s office, identified only by his last name, Roshan.
Roshan said the police had previously sought to contain these "sectarian elements" but yesterday "they were carrying Molotov cocktails, knives, swords and clubs to confront the police."
"They even (for a time) took members of the force hostage and threw acid on policemen and vandalized public property," he said, adding "calm has been restored" in the crowded neighborhood in downtown Teheran.
A report in reformist Hambastegi daily said the Special Court for Clergy had recently tried to arrest Borujerdi but faced by resistance by his supporters.
Questioning a pillar of the Islamic republic, the ayatollah has said "we believe people have grown tired of political religion and they want to return to traditional religion. "The objective of my followers and me is in defending traditional religion," the semi-official ILNA news agency quoted the ayatollah as saying.
But the deputy head of Teheran police, Commander Nasser Shabani, accused the ayatollah of claiming to be the representative of the Shiites’ "hidden" twelfth Imam, Mahdi, and misinterpreting religion.
"A person has gathered some naive people around to pledge donations and have their wishes come true, which is a sheer lie and distortion of religion," he told ILNA.
The protesters were reportedly shouting slogans such as "religious freedom is our right" and "freedom is our undeniable right", and carried banners that said "we are ready to be martyred to defend traditional religion".
His aims breach a taboo in Islamic Iran -- a theocracy in which the all-powerful supreme leader is a cleric chosen by a top Shiite clerical assembly. Sunday, October 8, 2006
http://jihadwatch.org
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NORTH KOREAN NUKES
By Patrick Chappatte
-The International Herald Tribune
www.caglecartoons.com
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OPERATIONS IN KIRKUK, DIYALA AND DIWANIYAH
By Bill Roggio
Three large counterinsurgency operations are occurring across Iraq
Iraqi and U.S. forces are on the offensive against the insurgency and al-Qaeda outside of Operation Together Forward in Baghdad. Three large scale counterinsurgency operations are under way in Diwaniyah, Diyala and Kirkuk. In Diwaniyah, the target continues to be Sadr's Madhi Army. In Kirkuk and Diyala, al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency are the focus of operations.
Diwaniyah
Over thirty “terrorists” were killed after a joint Iraqi and U.S. team raided the home of Kifah al-Greiti, “a Mahdi Army commander in the city”, according to Iraqi Army Capt. Fatiq Ayed. Multinational Forces Iraq states the forces “detained a high-value target” (likely al-Greiti) after a major clash with the Madhi Army. “An M1A2 Abrams Tank was struck by multiple RPG rounds and was severely damaged,” reports MNF-Iraq, indicating the seriousness of the fighting. No Iraqi or Coalition forces casualties were reported. This was another one-sided battle that will give Sadr's Madhi Army a black eye in the region.
The clash in Diwaniyah is the latest in a series of operations designed to undercut Sadr's support base outside of Baghdad. Sadr's lieutenants are being intentionally targeted to force Sadr to a decision point – either abandon the militias or confront the government.
Diyala
Last week Iraqi Army units and Coalition forces conducted a major sweep of Diyala province, which is a strong hold of Baathist insurgent groups and Ansar al-Sunnah. Over 250 insurgents and al-Qaeda were detained in last week's sweeps. The operations are still ongoing. Two al-Qaeda were killed and 16 arrested in the latest round of sweeps. Fourty suspected insurgents were also detained. Three more insurgents were detained in Baqubah and a large weapons cache was discovered. The Iraqi Army has recently took control over northern Diyala.
Kirkuk
A major operation is being conducted by Iraqi and U.S. troops in the flashpoint city of Kirkuk. An open ended curfew has been instituted. “These operations are the first of their kind in Kirkuk, with more than 14,000 police and soldiers supported by US helicopters,” said Captain Emad Jassim Khidr of the Kirkuk police. This is a major commitment of resources, given that Coalition commanders have called for over 3,000 additional Iraqi troops in Baghdad, and an Iraqi National Police brigade was pulled off the line in the city. Sadr has sent two companies of the Madhi Army in Kirkuk over the spring. Sunday, October 8, 2006
http://billroggio.com
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SUNDAY'S HIT PIECE
By Paul Mirengoff
I guess no big anti-administration books are coming out this week, and no one has leaked any secret reports for the Washington Post to cherry pick. So this week's obligatory Sunday front-page hit piece consists of the headline story "U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply." The piece, by Ann Scott Tyson, is about wound statistics for our troops, not deaths. This, I'm confident, is because the wound stats serve the Post's purposes -- they are near an all-time high for the conflict -- while the death statistics don't.
In every previous war, the focus has been on deaths. Most informed Americans of a certain age know roughly how many Americans died in the Vietnam war, few have any idea how many were wounded. But then, until the Bush administration, the media always focused on the unemployment rate as the "jobs" statistic of choice. It was only when that statistic turned favorable under President Bush before the job creation numbers did that the latter stat came into prominence.
Tyson justifies her focus on wound statistics by pointing out that "advances in armor and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars." One can't help but wonder whether some administration critics think that this constitutes cheating on Bush's part. Tyson's point, though, is that wound stats represent the best way to measure the intensity of the fighting. But her article purports to describe a trend for the worse in this conflict. It's doubtful that there have been major technological and medical breakthroughs in the past year. So deaths remain a fair measure of battle intensity in a given conflict and, of course, they constitute the best measure of the human cost of the war.
This is not to deny that the fighting has become more intense as the U.S. attempts to reduce the violence in Baghdad. The natural question that any fair and competent reporter would ask in this regard is whether (or to what extent) the U.S. has succeeded in this mission. It's a question Tyson does not address.
Is the poor and one-sided reporting of this conflict down to the fact that a Republican president started it or is it due to non-partisan anti-war sentiment? Since the Dems are becoming a semi-pacificist party, the answer probably doesn't matter. Sunday, October 8, 2006
www.powerlineblog.com
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MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INCITING THE FAITHFUL
By Charles Johnson
The Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood sees another chance to flex their muscles in the latest Danish cartoon brouhaha, demanding apologies and calling for boycotts and days of rage: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood denounces what it calls ‘new Danish insults’ to Islam. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
This sort of madness is becoming more commonplace because it clearly gets results. Each time they scream and threaten, a few more Westerners are scared into silence—and the Western media takes the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt’s largest Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, on Saturday denounced what it called “new Danish insults” to Islam and urged the world to boycott countries that allow offenses to all religions.
The Brotherhood’s condemnation came a day after word spread about a Web video showing young members of a populist Danish political party mocking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The video showed people in their 20s and 30s participating in a drawing contest at a summer camp for the Danish People’s Party Youth last August. They appeared to have been drinking alcohol.
The footage shows a woman presenting a drawing of a camel and saying it has “the head of Muhammad” and beer bottles as humps. The group laughs as the woman, who was not identified, explained the drawing.
“Muslims are shocked by this new Danish insult,” the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement issued Saturday. It described the drawing as “the ugliest for God’s most honorable human being, peace be upon him.”
Kenneth Christensen, chairman of the Danish People’s Party Youth — known for its anti-immigration stance — refused to apologize Friday for the actions of its members, but acknowledged they were problematic. “It is bad style because it overshadows our political line,” Christensen said. But he added that he believed it was “OK to poke fun at Muhammad, Jesus or Bill Clinton.”
The Brotherhood, which enjoys wide popularity in Egypt and across the Arab World, urged Muslims on Saturday to boycott products from Denmark and any other country that would allow such an “insult.” It also called on Muslims to “express denouncement through peaceful means, by demonstrations and protests.”
The drawings depicted in the video, like the pope’s comments about Islam earlier this month and Danish cartoons mocking Muhammad last year, were likely to provoke Muslims and could trigger a new round of angry demonstrations all around the world.
“The repetition of such actions is evidence of the depth of enmity carried by certain sectors in the West toward Islam and the prophet,” the Brotherhood statement said. Saturday, October 7, 2006
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
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PAKISTAN ADMITS AIDING JIHAD IN JAMMU AND KASHMIR
By Robert Spencer
Question for the ISI: Which fronts of the jihad haven't you helped? From Rediff: "Pak admits having helped insurgency in J&K"
Pakistan has admitted that it might have helped insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir at "some time" but claimed it is now "trying our best" to prevent infiltration of militants into India.
"Jihad, insurgency or whatever you want to call it in Kashmir...Yes, Pakistan may have helped the jihad at some time but it was not started by us and now we are trying our best to stop people from crossing," Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Mahmud Ali Durrani said.
He was delivering a lecture at the South Asia Programme of the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. When asked what Pakistan was doing to stop terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiyba from crossing into Kashmir, he said, "To the best of my knowledge Lakshar-e-Taiba [sic] is a banned organisation. They are no more in Pakistan," Durrani said.
However, even two years ago, the LeT had money collection boxes in the markets of Rawalpindi, he said. "There were these hundreds and thousands of these boxes. That is finished and Lashkar-e-Taiba does not have the luxury of those funds... and the organisation has been banned," the Pakistani envoy claimed.
"We are trying our best. We have put military as well as intelligence assets in areas from where people went. There is no serious cross border movement today in Kashmir," Durrani claimed.
He said there were "vast areas" in which both India and Pakistan had responsibilities. "Both parties have responsibilities. If we can't hypothetically stop every guy from crossing over, the other side has responsibility too. So it is a joint issue. It has been addressed," he said. Sunday, October 8, 2006
http://jihadwatch.org
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PAKISTAN UNDER PRESSURE
By Bill Roggio
Bombing, rockets found near Musharraf residences a harbinger of things to come in Pakistan
The bombing near President Pervez Musharraf's official residence in Rawalpindi, coupled with “two rockets rigged with mobile phones and primed to fire toward Pakistan's parliament” in Islamabad have sparked speculation about the stability of the Musharraf regime. As Syed Saleem Shahzad postulates, someone has issued “two quick warning signals to Islamabad.” The targets are not the only concern. The parties who detonated the bomb and planted the rockets were able to penetrate Musharraf's inner security zone.
Syed Saleem Shahzad states that the Taliban are the perpetrators, possibly in conjunction with the ISI. The Musharraf regime is being warned about violating the Waziristan Accord by failing to release al-Qaeda prisoners and arresting other suspects. This is also a warning from the pro-Taliban elements of the ISI (or Inter Services Agency, Pakistan's intelligence agency), both active and retired, as they fear Musharraf act against them based on pressures from the West. Hamid Gul, the former director of the ISI, recently warned Musharraf that he risked opening "Pandora's box" by taking action against him and the ISI. Gul is the architect of Pakistan's 'strategic depth' strategy that led to the rise of the Taliban.
B. Raman reports the Pakistani police are looking elsewhere. “The present suspicion is that the conspiracy might have been hatched either by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in retaliation for the murder of the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti by the Army in August, 2006, or by the Jundullah (Army of Allah), a jihadi terrorist organisation which is associated with Al Qaeda,” reports Raman. However, the fact that Musharraf's inner security cordon was breached leads to suspicion of police and military involvement.
The Islamabad/Rawalpindi plot came just before NATO issues a report directly implicating the ISI in Taliban operations in Afghanistan. “Nato's report on Operation Medusa.... demonstrates the extent of the Taliban's military capability and states clearly that Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is involved in supplying it,” reports the Telegraph. Pakistan is serving as a command, control and logistical base for the Taliban, as well as a recruiting and training ground. Quetta is the base of operations for the Taliban launching attacks in southern Afghanistan.
Nato officials now say they killed 1,100 Taliban fighters, not the 500 originally claimed. Hundreds of Taliban reinforcements in pick-up trucks who crossed over from Quetta – waved on by Pakistani border guards – were destroyed by Nato air and artillery strikes.
Nato captured 160 Taliban, many of them Pakistanis who described in detail the ISI's support to the Taliban. Nato is now mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, from ISI- run training camps near Quetta to huge ammunition dumps, arrival points for Taliban's new weapons and meeting places of the shura, or leadership council, in Quetta, which is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the group's leader since its creation a dozen years ago.
Nato and Afghan officers say two training camps for the Taliban are located just outside Quetta, while the group is using hundreds of madrassas where the fighters are housed and fired up ideologically before being sent to the front. Many madrassas now being listed are run by the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam, a political party that governs Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. The party helped spawn the Taliban in 1994.
Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam is the same political party in control of the Balochistan and North West Frontier Provinces, and the only political party in operation in Waziristan. Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam was behind the Waziristan Accord, and is essentially the polical party for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in western Pakistan.
Musharraf's delicate balancing act between the ISI, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist groups, Balochi rebels and Afghan and Western pressure is showing signs of strain. Friday, October 6, 2006
http://billroggio.com
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DAY BY DAY
By Chris Muir
www.daybydaycartoon.com
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DNC STILL CAN'T FIND AN AMERICAN SOLDIER TO SUPPORT
By Ed Morrissey
The Democratic Party website has been changed since the discovery that they used a picture of a Canadian soldier on the page that proclaimed their support for "our troops". Apparently, though, they still can't find a picture of an American soldier to support:
Does anyone at the DNC know what an American soldier looks like? They accuse the Republicans of hiding behind the flag all too often. This appears to be a much more blatant example than anything I've seen from the GOP. Sunday, October 8, 2006
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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"HOLY WAR (JIHAD) IS ONLY A MEANS TO PROPAGATE TRUTH AND MERCY AMONG PEOPLE"
By Robert Spencer
In "Islam and domestic affairs," Abdul Rahman bin Hammad al-Omar says that "Holy war (Jihad) is only a means to propagate truth and mercy among people." He explains that that truth and mercy is to be spread by war, offering three choices to non-Muslims: conversion, subjugation, or warfare. I have outlined these three choices many, many times in print and on radio, and have often been called "ignorant" and "Islamophobic" for doing so. So watch for Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR, Salam al-Maryati of MPAC, and a host of others to denounce Abdul Rahman bin Hammad al-Omar for being ignorant and Islamophobic.
From Gulf Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Muslims and Muslim rulers are ordained to call people to Islam to deliver them from the darkness of atheism to the light of faith in Allah, and to rescue them from being immersed in the illusions of the materialistic life wherein they suffer deprivation of spiritual happiness.
One of the grave defects of man-made doctrines is that they preach man to be a good citizen and a useful member only of his own society, whereas, Islam ordains man to be good and useful to all mankind. This difference proves that Islam is perfect, magnanimous and superior to all man-made doctrines.
Islam has its own regulations of war. It demands from Muslims to prepare whatever force they can to protect themselves and their faith and to dismay the enemies of Allah and their enemies.
However, Allah authorised Muslims to conclude treaties with non-Muslim nations, on condition that these treaties should be in conformity with Islamic law.
Muslims are strictly prohibited to break the treaties which they conclude with their enemies, but they are authorised to abrogate them if the enemy violates these treaties or commits an act contrary to the conditions laid therein.
Muslims are ordained to call their enemies to Islam before fighting against them. If they refuse, Muslims should call them again to pay the tribute and submit to the laws of Allah. If the enemy refuses again, Muslims should fight them so that there may be no persecution and religion should be for Allah alone.
Muslims are strictly commanded not to kill women, children, old men, and monks who do not participate in war against Muslims. They are commanded to treat prisoners of war kindly.
All these commandments prove that the desire for exploitation and domination is not the goal of holy war (Jihad) in Islam, but its sole aim is to deliver people from man-made-object-service to the service of Allah, the Creator. Holy war (Jihad) is only a means to propagate truth and mercy among people.
INDONESIAN MUSLIMS ANGERED BY DANISH BROADCAST
By Robert Spencer
Cartoon Rage II heating up. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
JAKARTA - A video lampooning the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) broadcast in Denmark has angered groups in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
Denmark’s national TV2 channel on Friday broadcast excerpts from the video showing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a beer-drinking camel and as a drunken terrorist attacking Copenhagen.
The video, filmed in August, was made by members of the far-right Danish People’s Party.
It shows the Prophet being mocked during a summer party, with some portraying Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as dressed in a turban and wearing a belt with explosives, as others look on and laugh.
‘In Islam, death is the penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), visually through a caricature or verbally, except if the doer regrets his deed and promises not to repeat it,’ said Fausan Al Ansori, a spokesman for the hardline Indonesian Muhajehdin Council.
He added: ‘Danish authorities should think seriously, are they going to defend, in the name of human rights, one or two of its citizens who clearly insulted the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and sacrifice its relations with the Islamic world?’...
‘I remind the Danish government, do not provoke (us). If the government of Denmark cannot maintain harmony, it will have to bear the risks,’ said Tifatul Sembiring, the head of the Prosperous Justice Party, in a Detikcom online report.
‘A state system should be able to control its citizens. It is very regretful that provocation is repeating itself without the (Danish) government doing anything,’ Sembiring said.
Amidhan, the chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, the country’s highest authority on Islam, criticised the caricature of the Prophet.
‘I cannot accept this. Denmark should give attention to this because no matter what, the country also bears responsibility over the actions of its citizens,’ he told ElShinta radio.
In other words, pass blasphemy laws and enforce them, or else.
AMEER ALI: "AUSTRALIA IS A MUSLIM NATION"
By Robert Spencer
Ameer Ali seems to be trying to make up for his remarks here, and get back into the good graces of Australia's Muslim community. But the implications of his latest statements are ominous for Australian non-Muslims. For as long as the "cultural individuality" of Muslims is preserved, there will be Muslims in Australia looking for a chance to impose Sharia. One day their numbers may give them that chance.
"Australia a Muslim nation: advisor," from AAP, with thanks to Rosie:
AUSTRALIA is a Muslim nation, the head of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim advisory board says.
Dr Ameer Ali says most Australians practise Muslim values but the Muslim community is being alienated and disadvantaged by Islamophobia.
Dr Ali said multiculturalism was Australia's destiny but Muslims, as latecomers, were being disadvantaged.
"We would like to remain in this country as citizens like anybody else, but with cultural individuality preserved," he said.
"We want an Australia which is like a fruit salad with a nice juice in it, not a mega fruit juice."
Before addressing a conference on national identity today, Dr Ali said Muslim values were practised in Australia.
"When I go abroad, they ask me where do I come from? I say I come from a Muslim country," he said.
"Which country, they say. Australia.
"That's not a Muslim country. Yes it's Muslim country.
"For the value that my religion preaches, these people practise.
"So I see Islam here but (the people) may not be Muslims, but in (other) countries I see Muslims but not Islam.
"So when I come back to Australia, I've been told to respect Australian values and now I am confused, because I see no contradiction at all.
"Values are universal. Human values - there is no such thing as Australian values."
Dr Ali has denied a report in The Australian newspaper last week which quoted him as saying that Muslims should not blindly follow the Koran and that Mohammed was not the perfect model and had human flaws.
But Dr Ali said the comments and a caption underneath a photograph saying "Muslim minds closed" were deeply offensive to all Muslims.
Federal parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Andrew Robb, said Dr Ali should be congratulated for the comments.
But Dr Ali has been inundated with complaints from angry Muslims since the story appeared and Australia's most senior Islamic cleric called for him to be ostracised.
"I have received a number of emails from my fellow Muslims who have taken this opportunity to ridicule me and I do not deny their right to do so," Dr Ali said.
"The description projected by the article in The Australian totally misrepresents the noble character of the Holy Prophet who was sent as a model to humanity.
"Any part that I may have unwittingly played in this depiction is deeply regretted." Sunday, October 8, 2006
UK POLICE TO TOUGHEN APPROACH TO JIHADISTS
By Robert Spencer
Don't everyone start laughing at once. They're going to have to get tougher on jihadists sometime, or just quietly acquiesce to their subjugation as dhimmis. "Police to toughen approach to Islamic extremists," by Jason Bennetto in The Independent, with thanks to DP:
Scotland Yard are to clamp down on Islamist extremists demonstrating in London following a series of complaints that radicals are being allowed to break the law, and are misrepresenting the views of the Muslim community.
The police are to use tactics deployed against crime bosses and suspected terrorists to target individuals who have called for the execution of critics of Islam and have been accused of stirring up racial hatred.
A team of specialist lawyers is also to be created to help the police prosecute radicals, under a proposal by the country's most senior Muslim police chief.
The new zero-tolerance approach follows a series of demonstrations in which Islamic extremists were accused of inciting racial hatred. Last month a well-known Islamist radical reportedly said during a protest outside Westminster Cathedral that Pope Benedict XVI should face "capital punishment" for insulting Islam.
The tough stance is likely to be criticised by some as being heavy-handed and an attempt to stifle free speech. But Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, Britain's most senior Asian officer, who is in charge of policing demonstrations in London, said: "I'm getting frustrated that these people are using public demonstrations to express their extremist views - and that causes a huge amount of concern among Muslims and other communities.
"I am entirely against the kind of rhetoric these people put out. Just as the BNP [the far right British National Party] is not representative of the white British public, neither are these views representative of the British Muslim community, who want to be law-abiding citizens.
"The mainstream Muslim community's view is that these people are doing this for their own ends - and because of the platform the media is giving these individuals, the level of hatred is increasing."
I trust that soon Tarique Ghaffur will be presenting a comprehensive Islamic refutation of the jihad ideology, and I very much look forward to seeing it. Saturday, October 7, 2006
http://jihadwatch.org
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U.S.-TURKISH RELATIONS ON THE BRINK?
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
For many years, Turkey -- a secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim population -- has been a staunch U.S. ally. Since Turkey has served as a bulwark of stability in the Middle East, it's important that the U.S. recognize the disturbing manner in which Turkish public opinion has been turning against the country's alliance with the United States and ties with the West -- and how recent events may further widen the rift between the U.S. and Turkey.
The change in Turkish public opinion is reflected in the annual survey of public opinion released by the German Marshall Fund in early September. The New York Times noted this survey in a September 10 editorial:
The survey's most striking finding is the degree to which Turks now question their ties to the United States and Europe, and have warmed to Iran, their neighbor to the east. The discontent appears anchored in Turks' overwhelming disapproval of President Bush's handling of international affairs and growing disapproval of European Union leadership. Both are manifest in waning Turkish support for the institutions that have bound Turkey to the West. Though Turkey has been a staunch NATO member since 1952, only 44 percent of Turks in this year's survey agreed that NATO was essential for Turkey's security, versus 52 percent in 2005. Even though Turkey opened official membership talks with the European Union last year -- after strenuous efforts to meet the union's criteria -- only 54 percent of Turks now view membership as a good thing, versus 73 percent in 2004.
Beyond that, both Turkey and the U.S. have recently made moves that damage the countries' bilateral relationship. In late September, the Senate Banking Committee blocked U.S. Export-Import Bank funding for a proposed railway project that would connect Turkey with Azerbaijan through Georgia, bypassing Armenian territory. This measure was backed by the Armenian lobby, which argued that the railway amounted to "an economic embargo against Armenia." For its own part, the Turkish government did itself no favors with respect to its relations with the U.S. when it decided not to freeze the assets of Yasin el-Kadi, who appears on the UN's list of terrorism financiers. Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan said of El-Kadi: "I believe in him as I believe in myself." One source opined that these actions by the U.S. and Turkey are "a textbook example of the failure of diplomacy and foreign policy: get nothing and pay a dear price for it."
All this is occurring against the backdrop of Turkey's battle against Kurdish separatist terrorism. As I have previously discussed on this blog, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) have both launched a series of attacks that serve to undermine the Turkish economy, with the PKK targeting oil and gas pipelines while the TAK targets the tourist industry. These attacks have further damaged U.S.-Turkish relations, as Turkish popular perception holds that the U.S. isn't doing enough to help Turkey combat Kurdish separatist terror. There are even allegations -- fed by a recent interview with the brother of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan -- that the U.S. has been funding and supporting the PKK.
Turkey is a significant ally in the war on terror for a number of reasons. The direction of Turkish public opinion coupled with recent events provides cause for concern about the state of U.S.-Turkish relations. Ultimately, the New York Times was correct when it editorialized: "The United States must not ever take Turkey for granted."
Kyle Dabruzzi contributed research for this analysis. Friday, October 6, 2006
http://counterterrorismblog.org
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FOLEY '06 FALLOUT AND THE NEW YORK TIMES
By John McIntyre
The New York Times has a front page story on the GOP fallout from the Foley scandal with a sub headline: "In Wake of Page Scandal Party's Religious Wing Appears Dispirited." Adam Nagourney goes on to write:
More immediately -- and more alarmingly for Republican strategists who have looked to the party's powerful voter turnout operation to save the party this year -- there are signs that the furor is sapping the enthusiasm of a group essential to Republican victories in 2002 and 2004: religious conservatives.
One little problem with this assertion, is it really true? From the evidence we have seen, to date, it is not.
There is no question that the scandal destroyed the momentum that President Bush and the White House had built with the refocus on terrorism and national security issues, culminating with the vote in Congress on detainees and interrogations. And I should be clear to say, this is not meant to be an argument that the Foley scandal has not hurt Republicans significantly, there is a real possibility that it has put the GOP in a hole so deep they can not get out of it over the next four weeks. But I think the damage, so far, has been more with moderates, Independents and libertarians rather than with religious conservatives.
As far as the extent to which it has ultimately hurt GOP '06 election prospects, I think we will have to wait and see more polling, and more importantly, see whether this story can sustain itself with the same intensity next week. Where Republicans have definitely been hurt are races like Rick Santorum and Michael Steele for the Senate. Both Santorum and Steele were facing an uphill climb (pre-Foley), but they had a hope that if Republicans could sustain some of the momentum President Bush had built, and had their campaigns executed well, they had a chance at puling out wins. With the Foley explosion likely to have destroyed two crucial weeks on the calendar and with it not only halting GOP momentum but throwing Republicans back even further, I think is safe to say the Foley scandal has put these races out of reach.
But Pennsylvania and Maryland were Senate races the GOP was likely to lose anyway. The real question is does this scandal provide the margin for the Democrats in Missouri, Tennessee and Ohio in the Senate, as well as 15-20 more House races than Democrats otherwise would have won? Saturday, October 7, 2006
www.time-blog.com/real_clear_politics
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THE AHMADINEJAD CODE
The winners have yet to be announced, but the 200-plus finalists in Iran's "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest" were recently exhibited in Tehran and posted online.
And though not among the finalists, the above image was part of a cartoon accepted into the contest, one of over a thousand entries accepted. The cartoonist's name, Hugh Bradley, can be seen on the contest's list of participants under USA.
Obviously a cartoon featuring Adolf Hitler could be appropriate for such a contest, but there's more to the image than meets the eye. It also contains a hidden message critical of the Iranian regime.
We know this because "Hugh Bradley" is really Cox & Forkum.
I had higher hopes for this covert cartoon, but our efforts have become a "one that got away" story. In this unusually long post, I will reveal the hidden message, show the full cartoon as entered in the contest, recap the contest's history, and explain my intentions, all of which is in the "Continue Reading" link below.
SPOILER WARNING: Readers who want to try to discover what is hidden in the image should do so before clicking the link. The answer is revealed in "The Hidden Message" section of this post.
Continue reading "The Ahmadinejad Code" Sunday, October 8, 2006
www.coxandforkum.com
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