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DEBKAfile: Washington asks Jerusalem to clarify the Israeli dossier on North Korean-aided Syrian nuclear and missile activity presented by Turkish foreign minister to Assad
October 10, 2007, 9:14 AM (GMT+02:00)
Has Korea helped Syria develop a radiological missile warhead?
Has Korea helped Syria develop a radiological missile warhead?
The New York Times reveals that Turkish officials presented Damascus on Oct. 6, with an “Israeli dossier” on a Syrian nuclear program [which Israeli relayed to Washington before its Sept. 6 air strike]. However Assad “vigorously denied the intelligence and said that what the Israelis had hit was a “storage depot for strategic missiles.”
DEBKAfile’s sources add: Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan, who presented the Israeli dossier to president Bashar Assad, also delivered his reply to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in a one-on-one conversation in Jerusalem Oct. 7. Washington is now demanding Israel’s response to Assad’s claim. The purpose of relaying the “Israeli dossier” to Ankara in the first place was to demonstrate that Syrian nuclear activity aided by North Korea potentially menaced neighboring Turkey as well as US regional interests and Israel.
According to the NYT, the debate in the Bush administration is over whether the Israeli evidence points to a Syrian nuclear program that does indeed pose a significant threat to the Middle East and should therefore lead to critical changes in Bush administration policies for the Middle East and North Korea.
Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials argue Israeli intelligence is credible and should cause the United States to reconsider diplomatic overtures to Syria and North Korea, whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice does not believe the intelligence presented so far merits any change in American diplomatic approach. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was cautious about fully endorsing Israel’s warnings that Syria was on the way to a nuclear weapon.
Cheney’s faction is uneasy about the decision to proceed with the supply to North Korea of economic aid in return for disabling its nuclear reactor. They argue that Israeli intelligence shows that North Korea cannot be trusted.
It has long been known that North Korean scientists have aided Damascus in developing sophisticated ballistic missile technology. There is little debate that North Koreans frequently visited the sit in the Syrian desert that Israel jets attacked Sept. 6.
A CIA veteran Bruce Riedel told the NYT: ”Israel would not have launched the strike in Syria if it believed Damascus was merely developing more sophisticated ballistic missiles or chemical weapons… Those red lines were crossed 20 years ago.”
Another former intelligence official said Syria is trying to develop an airburst capability for its ballistic missiles which would allow warheads to detonate in the air to disperse its contents more widely.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report this type of warhead is capable of damaging much broader areas than the conventional warhead. In particular, any radioactive materials it contained would scatter and contaminate wide, densely populated urban areas. Of late, US sources have voiced strong suspicions that Syria and Iran have acquired “dirty bombs.”
The question is whether North Korea has been helping Syria build missiles packed with radioactive materials and fitted with an airburst capability to boot.
Maureen Dowd on Thomas:
First, let me acknowledge that I've ready maybe three Dowd columns, ever, so if there is some secret to her columns that I just am not privy to, forgive me. (For example, as a lad it was only after reading many months of Russell Baker's columns and finally giving up on them that I learned that the column was supposed to be humorous.) Dowd writes, satirically, in Thomas's voice: "I used to have grave reservations about working at white institutions, subject to the whims of white superiors. But when Poppy's whim was to crown his son — one of those privileged Yale legacy types I always resented — I had to repay The Man for putting me on the court even though I was neither qualified nor honest. ... But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle."
"Repay The Man?" "Carjack the presidency?" Not "qualified"? "X-rated tingle"? I find this about as funny as a David Duke speech, and for the same reasons.
UPDATE: At "Best of the Web," James Taranto writes: "Dowd's joke can be summed up in a few words. Q: What do Clarence Thomas and O.J. Simpson have in common? A: They're both black!"
Gotta luv that labial tolerance
ML,
Excuse my ignorance, but how did the scriptures come to be a physical reality?
How did the word of God become the bible, and wasn't man involved in the process?
Thanks
Well, actually the country of Palestine was a made up creation by the British when they carved up the area to suit their own purposes. IT has no long historical precedent
Zionism sucks.
Many Jews think so...
Message # 296646
Read much?
He said zionism sucks
To be certain, I asked him what his definitin of zionsim is as it's a word that gets thrown around a lot.
His answer:"Today, Zionism supports the existence of the state of Israel and helps to inspire a revival of Jewish national life, "
Try and keep up if you're gonna comment
How many times can you repeat this conversation before you get bored
I see you don't know our little Pegbot
She'll repeat pet phrases for years on end
Simple minds are easily occupied
It's obvious your emotional reaction to a simple question regarding Israel shows that you can't discuss the subject rationally
I won't discuss it with you anymore as I'm scared you'll cut yourself while your stroking your swastika emblem that you honed to a razors edge
And in many cases in the years he graphed, the majority was veto proof
Any tool would realize it's congress that controls the spending
Do the same chart with republican and democratic and rep controlled congresses for a truer perspective
LMAO, I'm too emotionally involved with Israel. All I did was ask you a simple question that you refused to answer and all you do is spout obscenities
It should tell you your on thin ice when the braindead parrot Peg is offering you congratulations.
Trot along and go play with your buddy sortaqueen- admiring his collection of Nazi memorabilia
So, in your mind, the existence of state of Israel sucks??
I just wonder how the libs would react if one of their " chosen " groups or nation states were treated the same way?
Why do they find it ethically OK to wish that the legally constituted state of Israel didn't exist
And how would you define Zionism?
Fred and the Fairness Doctrine
Posted by: McQ
Fred Thompson's blog quotes an American Spectator article:
Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."
"Limbaugh isn't the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio," says a House leadership source. "We don't have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we'll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail."
If true (and with a "House leadership source" as the source, you have to caveat it that way) it is another indication of a Congress more interested in politics than doing their job. Given that most of Congress' tenure has, to this point, provided more heat than light, it really would come as no surprise if this is true. And the recent attacks on O'Reilly and especially Limbaugh (which ended up on the floor of the Senate) indicate that there is some truth to the quote.
Thompson then weighs in with this about the Fairness Doctrine (a slam dunk piece of legislation if there's a Democratic sweep in '08):
Insiders say it was the collapse of the radio station "Air America" that led to this attempt to retool the Fairness Doctrine as a form of de facto censorship. I guess the idea is that, if you can't compete in the world of ideas, you pass a law that forces radio stations to air your views. In effect, it would force a lot of radio stations to drop some talk show hosts - because they would lose money providing equal airtime to people who can't attract a market or advertisers.
The funny thing is that the success of the current crop of radio talk show hosts is due, in part, to a lot of people's perception that broadcast television doesn't give the views of their audience a fair shake. Maybe I shouldn't admit it, since I dabble in radio myself, but this media used to be viewed as a kind of broadcast ghetto. The bicoastal elite had such a grip on the major newspapers and television networks; they pretty much ignored the hinterlands. It was media flyover country.
Now congressional leaders say they want to "level the playing field" there too - meaning they want to diminish the importance of conservative talk radio. In other words, they don't trust the results of freedom and the marketplace. Why am I not surprised?
The fact is the focus of any revival of the Fairness Doctrine would almost be exclusively on the AM radio band. It is there where the left suffers a huge deficit in terms of influence. After trying mightily several times to actually compete and failing miserably, the left had decided that it has no alternative but to legislate 'fairness' through Congress (part of the radical egalitarianism I continue to harp on).
In anticipation of this power to legislate fairness on radio stations by whatever arbitrary standards they will choose to impose, Henry Waxman, et. al, are beginning to compile the "evidence" of the need for such legislation. "Show hearings" will be held, and tightly scripted "evidence" will be presented with the outcome preordained. The "process" will conclude that "fairness" dictates equal time for those who couldn't cut it in the market. And, if all goes well, talk radio will go the way of the dinosaur as stations drop shows rather than lose money or risk going afoul of the regulatory body which will be monitoring them.
If you can't beat it, use the power of government to kill it. And then, of course, wax poetic on the beauty of "freedom of speech" at the next opportunity presented (Cynical? Nah, not me).
The difference between reality and rhetoric
Posted by: McQ
The difference between governing and petulant, partisan political complaining:
Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.
Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval.
As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of the National Security Agency begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats.
Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.
A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months.
Never, ever believe a politician when he or she says that their opposition to something is "principled". The only principle any politician operates under is doing that which maintains their power. This is twice the Democrats will go back on their word to revise the "overbroad powers" of the NSA because of the supposed threat to civil liberties they pose.
Either the threat doesn't really exist or they don't really care that much if opposing this bill would end up threatening their political power. I'll let you decide which is the case.
The "right of full return" as you acknowledged in a previous post is a deluded pipe dream
YOU benefit form the rape of the Native Americans. Would you stand behind their taking back their land by force?
What nation would allow their sworn enemy to live in their borders?
You call it courage- in real terms it's self destructive idiocy. They have to take some responsibility for their plight. It's been decades and their society is till dysfunctional. Of course you say it's all the Jews fault. Every loser has excuses. You and your ilk rationalizing their dysfunction only helps perpetuate it
I read that article when you first posted it and on't want to go point to point to refute it
You have your beliefs and no facts will change them
"What would you do if it were you?"
The blueprint for what NOT to do is what the Pals have chosen.
Start an intifada throwing rocks against a state of the art armed enemy
Refuse to acknowledge that Israel is going to exist and allow themselves to be used as pawns by their Arab "brothers" to act out their Jewish hatred.
Instead of attempting to build a viable nation, create a growing economy engage in wars between factions.
Israel has created a solid economy and a democracy ( where non Jew Arabs have the vote and full rights ) from the same land the Pals are doing nothing with.
You think the '67 war was provoked in a land grab. As long as you accept that false premise as a starting point, your argument follows logically in your perspective but makes no sense in the real world.
Rather that making hatred the motivating force- as it has been shown to be counter productive.
Accept that the reality is not as you would ideally like and try to create a viable nation
Hello, please show any evidence in the last 10 years indicating that Israel has plans to expand it's territory.
All the recent movement ahs been to cede territory back to attempt to buy peace
multiple questions
Sorry if I overloaded your limited capacity. I'll try and use 3 and 4 letter words and only one question at a time.
Such venom- must have touched a nerve
Keep those brown shirts neatly pressed deep inside the closet
British study - 9/10 posture key to winning GWoT
Posted by: McQ
Says a British think tank:
Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.
The Oxford Research Group (ORG) says:
"If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut," said Paul Rogers, the report's author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England.
"Combined with conventional policing and security measures, al Qaeda can be contained and minimized but this will require a change in policy at every level."
He described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "disastrous mistake" which had helped establish a "most valued jihadist combat training zone" for al Qaeda supporters.
Yet AQI is being consistently "rolled up" in Iraq. It hasn't been able to stage much of anything there recently and it has been reduced to raiding outlying villages which previously were unaffected by the war.
As to the roots of its support being understood and systematically undercut, we see developments such as this:
UNKNOWN gunmen murdered Muhammad Gul Aghasi - one of the key "theologians" of al Qaeda - at a mosque in northern Syria last month. Candidates for the fiery preacher's killing include rivals within his own radical group, agents of the Americans - and his Syrian hosts. Whatever the truth, this is bad news for the already ailing al Qaeda.
And this:
Yesterday, on October 1, 2007, Saudi Mufti Sheikh Abd Al-'Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudi youth from engaging in jihad abroad. In his fatwa, he stated that setting forth to wage jihad without authorization by the ruler is a serious transgression, and that young Saudis who do so are being misled by suspicious elements from both the East and the West who are exploiting them in order to accomplish their own aims, and who are actually causing serious damage to Saudi Arabia, Islam, and the Muslims.
And this:
Most notably, the survey finds large and growing number of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere rejecting Islamic extremism. Ten mainly Muslim countries were surveyed along with the Palestinian territories, as well as five African nations with large Muslim populations.
Given that, and more (such as all the plots which have been broken up, the most notable being the latest in Germany), it seems it would be hard to argue that AQ is ascendent or winning the GWoT. But, that's precisely what ORG does.
It also claims that "with conventional policing and security measures, al Qaeda can be contained and minimized...".
Of course, as everyone recognizes, that's the "law enforcement" strategy for fighting terror. It essentially claims terrorism is a law enforcement issue and that law enforcement and good security measures can "minimize" the impact of terror. Or said another way, terrorists are a part of your life, they're going to succeed in blowing you and others up and we'll try to minimize that without actually going after the "root causes" even though we'll give "root causes" and their elimination lip service.
And, of course, that's precisely what ORG did without really meaning it. The nut of their argument is that law enforcement and security are adequate to the job of seeing only an occasional bombing succeeding.
The report — Alternatives to the War on Terror — recommended the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq coupled with intensive diplomatic engagement in the region, including with Iran and Syria.
In Afghanistan, Rogers also called for an immediate scaling down of military activities, an injection of more civil aid and negotiations with militia groups aimed at bringing them into the political process.
If such measures were adopted it would still take "at least 10 years to make up for the mistakes made since 9/11."
"Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades," the report added.
So, the solution is to negotiate with countries who have no desire to negotiate anything to do with terrorism, withdraw the military from Afghanistan and hope the Taliban will allow the "civil aid" to continue while negotiating with the militia groups (an ongoing effort, btw). Obviously the answer to Iraq is similar - withdraw.
Then the final statement, "Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades."
Maybe it's just me, but it seems that making the changes suggested would see the war on terror last centuries instead of decades. In the face of apparent success on all fronts (not just law enforcement and security) this study recommends the strategy be abandoned.
Amazing. Who knew a 'think tank' after much apparent "study", would contend that the solution to terrorism is to revert to our strategic posture on 9/10? It's a solution only John Kerry could love.
I wonder if those who paid for this study can demand their money back?
Please explain how this is the Jews fault also:
Christian Activist Murdered in Gaza
Mon, Oct 8, 2007 at 3:20:06 pm PDT
In the Islamic paradise created by Hamas in Gaza, they’ve begun torturing and murdering Christians: Christian activist killed in Gaza.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A prominent Palestinian Christian activist was found dead on a Gaza City street Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer.
The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.
Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from angry people who accused him of missionary work, a rarity among Gaza’s Christians. His store, which is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April.
“We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith,” said Simon Azazian, a spokesman at the Bible Society’s head office in Jerusalem.
It's all about context, sugar
I could post anecdotal evidence of Pal atrocity after Pal atrocity and your loathing for Israel wouldn't change
The Pals are forever justified in whatever they do because you feel Israel has acted immorally and should be punished forever.
The Pals are immune from any ethics because of the evil of Israel.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran’s nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
There's no evidence because they haven't looked hard enough
They would probably say the same thing about Syria. But I guess you really believe that it was an " abandoned military building " that the Israelis took out 2 weeks ago.
Amazing how Ritter and the lib moonbats will go through linguistic gymnastics to defend Iran and it's leaders who clearly have evil intentions towards Israel
designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory.
So, shooting rockets into a country unprovoked is now called self defense?? Pathetic
Yes, he's made it clear how bigoted he is
Are you calling me a fucking moron Peg??
The height of irony
Can't argue with a parrot....squawk
Can't argue with a parrot....squawk
Can't argue with a parrot....squawk
Again, when has Israel, in it's recent history tried to expand??
The recent history has been exactly the opposite- closing down settlements- by force and ceding back land
The Arab nations will never forget the humiliations, the intrusions, the many lost wars and their casualties.
The only true thing he said
The thing the Arabs don't reaize is that the humiliations are mainly self imposed. Their lack of progress and the inability to create a viable country rests mainly with themselves and the hatred of Israel that consumes them. The working parts of Gaza and the West Bank given back were soon trashed= the successful businesses destroyed
"Israel owns neither piece of territory. Cede implies that they have some legal right to it in the first place. Israel withdrew from occupied Gaza under duress and immediately began attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure in one of their most depicable series of actions to date. Consider cutting off electricity and running water, bombing schools and hospitals and buildings full of people.
Riddle me this then sweetheart, how can Israel leave territory it doesn't own???
See the contradiction there??
Yeah they " immediately starteed attacking "civilians" w/o provocation- you're so delusional it's funny
No mention of the 1,000's of rockets rained down by those goofy fun loving Pals??
Hmmm, you refuse to discuss a topic because you say Brainless and I are too "emotional" and then in response to a simple question you refused to ask you say " fu**ing moron "
Too funny
AL QAEDA IN HADITHA:
THE BATTLE THE
MEDIA IGNORED
© Nathaniel R. Helms 2007
Al Qaeda in Haditha: The battle the media ignored
by Nathaniel R. Helms
October 6, 2007 – Buried in the mountain of exhibits attached to the once secret Haditha, Iraq murder inquiry prepared by US Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell is an obscure Marine Corps intelligence summary (see pdf) that says the deadly encounter was an intentional propaganda ploy planned and paid for by Al Qaeda foreign fighters.
Veteran military defense attorney Gary Meyers said he never understood why the Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents leading the Haditha criminal investigation didn’t “examine the linkage” between Al Qaeda, the local insurgency and the events at Haditha. Meyers was an attorney on the defense team that successfully defended Justin Sharratt, a Marine infantryman accused of multiple murders at Haditha.
The report – apparently overlooked by a Washington press corps awash in leaked Bargewell documents and secret Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports – shows that Marine Corps intelligence operatives were advised of the scheme to demonize the Marines by an informant named Muhannad Hassan Hamadi. The informant was snared by 3/1 Marines on December 11 2005 and decided to cooperate.
Planning a "massacre"
The attack was carried out by multiple cells of local Wahabi extremists and well-paid local gunmen from Al Asa’ib al-Iraq [the Clans of the People of Iraq] that were led by Al Qaeda foreign fighters, the summary claims. Their case was bolstered by Marine signal intercepts revealing that the al Qaeda fighters planned to videotape the attacks and exploit the resulting carnage for propaganda purposes.
Eleven insurgents involved in the attack are identified by name and affiliation in the details of the summary. All of them were killed or captured in the days immediately following the Haditha incident.
During the November Haditha battle, the insurgents secreted themselves among local civilians to guarantee pursuing Marines would catch innocent civilians in the ensuing crossfire. On January 6, 2006 six insurgents who tried to do the same thing at another location in Haditha were turned in to Coalition authorities before they could mount a similar assault, the report says.
On January 18, 2006, almost two months after the infamous Haditha attack, Iraqi insurgents identified as Talal Abdullah Yusif and Omar Ramsey “planned to attack a dismounted C[oalition] F[orces] patrol” along with four brothers named Khalif Muhammad Hassan.
It wasn’t coincidental that brother Sa’ib Khalif Muhammad Hassan lived next to an Al Qaeda “safe house” destroyed on November 19 by Marine jets. Sa‘ib had rented the house to the foreign fighters. That attack was stopped by local Iraqis and Sa’ib Hassan was arrested, the report says.
The summary also details the Marines finding three dead bodies near the Sub Hani Mosque after the November 19 fight was over. The dead men are described as “military-aged males” wearing “chest rigs.” Two of the decedents were “missing parts of lower torso.” The authors opined the victims were foreign fighters killed in one of the Marine bombings during the day-long combat.
Our media, the enemy within
The prosecutors in the case against eight Marines charged with murder and cover up at Haditha still maintain the besieged infantrymen acted solely out of malice and poor judgment when they killed 24 Iraqis there. The prosecution’s investigation was launched after a story by Time magazine reporter Tim McGirk on March 6, 2006 accused the Marines of cold blooded murder in retaliation for the death of a brother Marine.
McGirk received his video “evidence” and contacts from two known Iraqi insurgent operatives already under observation by Marine Corps counter intelligence teams. One of the Iraqi witnesses McGirk relied on had just been released from almost six months captivity for insurgent activities and the other witness was considered a useful intelligence tool by Marines listening to him talk on his cell phone. McGirk never interviewed the Marines, who ironically had prepared a similar intelligence summary in anticipation of his canceled visit.
Captured insurgents revealed plan to detonate IEDs
The summary – labeled "Bargewell Discovery" pages “001083” thru “001108” –- was prepared by 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines using UAV images, statements obtained from the informants, and intelligence gleaned from captured insurgents to explain what happened. The information was detailed in 13 Draft Intelligence Information Reports (DIIR) from a Marine Humint Exploitation Team (HET) operating in the area.
The captured insurgents revealed the attack was planned in Albu Hyatt, a nearby town where numerous Marines have been killed and wounded since the beginning of the war. The two main elements of the attack were the IED-initiated ambush on Route Chestnut and two IED ambushes planned along the so-called River Road that parallels the Euphrates River about 1.5 kilometers north of the Chestnut location.
The prisoners claimed the multi-pronged assault on the Marines was intended to garner local support by discrediting the Marines among the civilian population. If the coordinated attack had gone off as planned all three IED ambushes would have been sprung on the patrolling Marines almost simultaneously, the prisoners said. The insurgents plan depended on the Marines aggressively responding to the assaults to create as much carnage as possible.
Marine patrolling along the River Road spotted two of the IEDs in time to avoid the danger. Marine Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams sent to disarm the devices were then ambushed by insurgents using small arms and rocket propelled grenades.
A US Air Force Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles orbiting the area subsequently launched a Hellfire missile attack on fleeing insurgents running through the palm grove. Other insurgents were tracked for more than four hours as they moved from house to house trying to escape the battlefield.
All of the intelligence data generated by the UAVs – including the mission reports, video, and internet messages between the UAV operators, 3/1, Regimental Combat Team 2, and Multi-National Force headquarters in Baghdad – was later seized by NCIS special agents. A Marine who was there said the NCIS agents told the UAV operators on duty at VMU-2 (the Scan Eagle squadron operating the aircraft over Haditha) that they would be interrogated as well, but it never happened, the operator said.
More than a year after the coordinated attack eight Marines from Kilo Company, 3/1 were charged with multiple murder and covering up the incident. Four Marines have subsequently been cleared on any wrongdoing and four more are still awaiting their fates.
"Anyone who tries to compare this event to My Lai is an absolute fool."
Almost four decades ago Meyers successfully defended a soldier accused of murder at My Lai, South Vietnam while he was a captain in the US Army JAG Corps. After Tim McGirk wrote his specious report claiming a squad of Marines massacred 24 civilians at Haditha the world press immediately compared the incident to the massacre at My Lai. The unwarranted comparisons still anger Meyers.
“From our perspective - from a legal perspective - we knew it was a kinetic event,” said Meyers. “We knew enough to present to the IO (Investigating Officer) that this was not an isolated event; that the entire city was in a kinetic state that day. Anyone who tries to compare this event to My Lai is an absolute fool.”
The 13 DIIRs were prepared by members of a Humint Exploitation Team identified as HET03. Marine HET units investigate and record local intelligence-worthy activities for interpretation and consumption by Intel officers trying to understand the enemy’s Tactics, Techniques & Procedures (TTP) as well as divine their intentions.
One of the DIIRs names five other insurgents involved in setting up the IED that killed LCpl Miguel "T.J." Terrazas. One of their number, Majid Salah Mahdi Farraji, was killed when Marine Corps F-18s bombed the so-called “safe house” were the battle migrated to after the initial IED ambush decimated Wuterich’s squad.
Nathaniel R. Helms
http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/Exclusive/AlQaedaInHaditha-NatHelms.htm
OOOOOOPS
Israel May OK Division of Jerusalem
Email this Story
Oct 8, 7:56 AM (ET)
(AP) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday,...
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JERUSALEM (AP) - A confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that his government would support a division of Jerusalem, which is reportedly a key component of an Israeli-Palestinian declaration to be made at a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference next month.
As part of recent negotiations between the sides, Deputy Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon has proposed turning over many of the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Ramon said the Palestinians could establish the capital of a future state in the sector of the city, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.
In return, Israel would receive the recognition of the international community, including Arab states, of its sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods and the existence of its capital there, Ramon said.
On Monday Ramon said even hawkish elements of Olmert's coalition, like Cabinet Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party, would back such an Israeli concession. The centrist Labor Party would also support the proposal, Ramon said.
"There are two central parties that agree to this," Ramon told Army Radio. "The most important thing is to preserve the state of Israel Jewish and democratic."
Under his proposal, neighborhoods in east Jerusalem where about 170,000 Palestinians live would be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty, Ramon said.
But Israel would not transfer control of the Holy City and neighborhoods around it to the Palestinians, he said. He did not elaborate but media reports have said that he has proposed Israel relinquish some sovereignty in the area that contains the most contentious sites in the 60-year-conflict.
An Iraq War Milestone
By Frank Friday
Reports of success stemming from the U.S. military's surge campaign to finally crush the terrorist violence in Iraq have been numerous, but one little remarked development may be more significant than the press supposes. In late September, convoys of tanker trucks were once again crossing the western desert to deliver crude oil to Jordan's refinery complex at Zarqa.
Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq sent thousands of tanker trucks each day on this important export outlet, but security concerns in Anbar province have until now kept the trucks parked.
Iraq's only reliable shipment point since 2003 for its oil has been south, through the port of Basra. A major export pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan has been continually attacked and only operated sporadically.
Unfortunately, some of the attacks on this pipeline have also been attributed to local truckers not terrorists, hoping to shut down a competitor.
Iraq has also been in discussions to build controversial export pipelines to Iran and Syria. The capacity will be needed if Iraq can start to realize its oil producing potential. Right now it's lucky to export 2 million barrels of crude oil a day, because the security situation has hobbled revitalization of infrastructure. With a fairly minimal investment, however, most energy experts believe Iraq could be exporting 6 million barrels a day and having a major impact on world energy prices -- if only there was some way to ship it all out.
That's where the tanker trucks come in. Oil pipelines are expensive, take years to build and can be knocked off line with one small attack. Truck convoys though, can be assembled quickly in almost limitless sizes, and heavily guarded. A terrorist attack, even if successful, can only destroy a few trucks at a time and not hinder the rest. Also, most of the route itself on Iraq's Highway 10 is across empty desert, with few local villages for attackers to hide in ambush.
If a large scale energy corridor can be developed across Iraq from the Kurdish oil fields west to Jordan and its refineries and ports, the economic benefits would be enormous. The Sunni tribes along this path would have every incentive to want to keep the peace and the resulting trucking and oil patch jobs. A friendly Arab country, Jordan, would also be a significant part of this prosperity. And while Israel has not unfortunately been granted diplomatic or trade recognition with Iraq, it does have excellent commercial relations with Jordan and would greatly benefit indirectly, as well.
Let's wish these new desert convoys Godspeed and Keep on Truckin'.
Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville Ky.
Yeah, imagine them having the nerve to protect themslves by taking out a nuclear facility of a neighboring country that has actively fought for Israels demise
Are you seriously against the action they took against Syria??
Pathetic
1948 repeatedly started wars to grab territory
because Muslims want to kill all Jews.
That's a perfect view into your warped view of the ME
Yeah, Israel started the 1967 war to grab land. Yep, it was completely unprovoked
A Muslim who wants to wipe Israel off the map was just given the opportunity to spew his venom at the UN last week.
And whether you care to believe it, there ARE many Muslims who want to kill all the Jews. One of their representative parties won the election in Gaza.
Speaking of Gaza,how does Israel ceding land there fit in with your expansionist ideas there?? How does ceding land in the Gaza and the West Bank fit your scenario??
Hint: it doesn't but you continually parrot the memes from decades ago despite a changing reality
What about the serious proposal put forth at Oslo that had Israel ceding much land to buy peace??? The Arabs backed out
There will be no peace till the Arabs get over their irrational desire for Israel to go away
How about you, are you a holocaust denier like seabass?
No, I won't call you a self loathing Jew. I think your defining category is macho posturing closet case
LOL, curious you all of a sudden won't answer very simple questions. You've never shown any reluctance before w/ anybody on any subject
Why won't you answer if the holocaust is a myth. A very simple question for any person with any semblance of intelligence
Why won't you answer whether you think Israel has a right to exist?
Your refusal to answer speaks a lot louder than your usual vapid posts
But never mind, just make sure you keep those brown shirts neatly pressed in your closet
PS
Having had contact with several people growing up who had numbers tattoed on their wrists makes me wonder at the stupidity of people who question the holocaust
The Best Police Force in Iraq
Roof Guard Majed 2.jpg
RAMADI, IRAQ – In late July when I visited a police station in the town of Mushadah just north of Baghdad I worried that Iraq was doomed to become the next Gaza. As many as half the police officers, according to most of the American Military Police who worked as their trainers, were Al Qaeda sympathizers or agents. The rest were corrupt lazy cowards, according to every American I talked to but one. No one tried to spin Mushadah into a success story. By itself this doesn't mean the country is doomed. How important is Mushadah, anyway? I hadn't even heard of it until the day before I went there myself. But Military Police Captain Maryanne Naro dismayingly told me the quality of the police and their station was “average.” That means one of two things. Either Mushadah is more or less typical, or roughly half the Iraqi Police force is worse.
I had a much better experience when I embedded, so to speak, with the Iraqi Police in Kirkuk. I trusted the Iraqi Police in that city enough that I was willing to travel with them without any protection from the American military, even though Kirkuk is still a part of the Red Zone. Kirkuk, though, is an outlying case. The Iraqi Police there are Kurds. The Kurds of Iraq are the most pro-American people I have ever met in the world. They are more pro-American than Americans. There is no Kurdish insurgency, and the only Kurdish terrorist group – Ansar Al Islam, which recently changed its name to Al Qaeda in Kurdistan – is based now outside a town called Mariwan in northeastern Iran. The Iraqi Police in Kirkuk may be corrupt, but they aren't terrorists or insurgents.
The Kurds have problems of their own, even so, and not every Arab region of Iraq is the same shade of dysfunctional. Every complaint I heard about the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police in and around Baghdad was balanced with genuine praise for the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police in and just outside Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, which until recently was the most violent war-torn place in all of Iraq. If these Iraqis were typical – and make no mistake, they are not – the American military might have little reason to stay.
Captain Dennison and his men took me to the Al Majed station just outside the city on the banks of the Euphrates River.
Majed Station.jpg
Euphrates Anbar Police Station.jpg
Iraqi Flag Majed Station.jpg
“They recently changed the name,” he said as we parked the Humvees outside. “The station used to have a tribal name, but they're trying to move away from that now.”
The Al Majed station is so much cleaner than the one in Mushadah I could hardly believe what I was looking at.
Order and tidiness aren't everything, but police officers who live and work in a sloppy dump of a station don't inspire much confidence. If they can't clean up their own space, how can they be expected to clean up a neighborhood infested with terrorists, insurgents, and criminals? They can't, at least not in Mushadah, especially since as many as half the police themselves are terrorists, insurgents, and criminals.
The Al Majed station wasn't as clean and orderly as a hotel, but it was at least as clean and orderly as a hostel. I would have been perfectly comfortable staying there for a week. The station in Mushadah was a nasty place I couldn't wait to get out of. Even some of the American outposts in Ramadi were disgusting.
Humvee Anbar.jpg
A Humvee outside the Al Majed station in a lagoon of “moon dust” that will be a lake of deep mud in the winter
Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel Jumaa Abdul Rahman, the man in charge of Al Majed, invited me, Captain Dennison, Sergeant First Class Kitts, and First Sergeant Rodriguez into his office for tea. He sat behind his desk, and the four of us sat on couches that circled the room. A young boy brought us dark brown tea with sugar in small plastic cups.
As usual in the Middle East, the greeting ritual was considerate and elaborate. Hello. Welcome. How are you? Fine, I hope. Did you sleep well last night?
“Our success in this region is because of you,” Captain Dennison said to Lieutenant Colonel Rahman. His statement was completely sincere. He was not being perfunctory or merely polite.
Captain Dennison.jpg
Captain Dennison
“And also because of you,” Lieutenant Colonel Rahman said, also sincerely. “Please don’t leave us.”
Majed Station Colonel.jpg
Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel Jumaa Abdul Rahman
Several minutes of idle chit chat followed, which is typical even when the real point of a meeting is business. But there didn’t appear to be any business to discuss. The lieutenant colonel led us outside after a while to admire the view of the river and the orchard of fruit trees behind the station.
Iraqi Police Trucks and Orchard.jpg
“We see Iraqis smile now,” Sergeant Kitts said to me on our way out. “And seeing Iraqis smile…that’s a big deal. These people haven’t had anything to smile about for a very long time. This is where we are finally earning our money.”
“I agree,” First Sergeant Rodriguez said. “It’s a lot less volatile now, so we can actually move this place forward.”
I walked among the tidy rows of grapes, figs, dates, and olives with Lieutenant Colonel Rahman and an Iraqi interpreter named Jack.
“Now that the fighting is over,” I said, “what kind of work do you focus on?”
“Mainly on gathering intelligence on sleeper cells and support networks,” the colonel said. “It is much easier now. People here are very appreciative and cooperative with what happened and with what is happening now. If Iraqi Police officers or coalition soldiers go to people's houses they are welcomed with open arms for food and for tea. Before the people here were not allowed to even look at coalition forces or they would be murdered by Al Qaeda.”
“What do you think about the possibility of Americans withdrawing their forces?” I said. He had already said please don't leave us to Captain Dennison, but I wanted at least a little elaboration.
Majed Station Colonel 2.jpg
Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel Jumaa Abdul Rahman
“That is not in the best interests of Iraq right now,” he said. “We need some more time. If they pull out there will be a real possibility of serious sectarian warfare. Anbar is secure. Only Baghdad and the surrounding area remains to be secured. As soon as that happens, the fight will be over.” He is right to suggest that most of the violence is in the Baghdad area and its surroundings. But it’s still game-on in Mosul and in parts of Diyala Province. Southern Iraq suffers a lot less violence than the center, but Shia militias still control parts of it.
Jack Picks Fig in Orchard.jpg
Jack, an Iraqi interpreter, picks fruit in the orchard
“Are you optimistic?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” I said.
“I’ll tell you why,” he said. “I could not even dream of seeing what has taken place here in Anbar. Couldn’t even dream of it. If in Anbar, why not in Baghdad?”
“Baghdad is hard,” I said. “It is so much more complicated than here.”
“Yes,” he said and nodded. “Here we are strictly anti-terrorist. In Baghdad the police still favor their sectarian militias.”
I asked Captain Dennison if American troops were still needed in Ramadi, which has not only been cleared of terrorists and insurgents but transformed into one of the most staunchly anti-terrorist communities in the world.
“We still take care of around 80 percent of the logistics for the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police here,” he said. “They're doing great work, but they still need some help getting organized.”
“What are we doing here today, anyway?” I said. “Do you have anything to do here at the station?” So far all the Americans had done is say hi to the Iraqis and show me around.
“We're just checking in,” he said. “The Police Transition Teams are out here are training them to do slower more normal police work, less kicking in doors and beating up bad guys. The Iraqi Police are still in a bit of shock from the hell of a few months ago. They are definitely gung-ho anti-terrorists. If anything, at this point, they need to dial it back.”
Iraqi Police Poster Ramadi.jpg
An Iraqi Police poster
Until recently the Iraqi Police in Ramadi were more like soldiers than police officers. They weren't issuing traffic tickets or doing slow procedural work. They were fighting terrorists in a war zone that was every bit as bad as the one in Fallujah just down the road.
“It's been four months since a single mortar round hit the station,” Captain Dennison said. “None of the Americans or the Iraqis out here have been in a fire fight for several months.” This was in early August.
There wasn't much dramatic to see or do. Counter-insurgency soldiers often go into hostile areas looking for fights that draw combatants into the open where they can be captured or killed. But the Americans and Iraqis couldn't find a fight in Ramadi now if they tried. So they do not try.
What can I say about Iraqis and Americans who cooperate with each other professionally and have their act together while ironing out minor problems? Peace is much harder to cover than war. Not much of note happens. Once again, I understood why war correspondents write off Ramadi as boring and why major networks don't broadcast from there.
The most compelling material I got in that city were war stories several months out of date. Anbar Province may be an ideal location for a historian or reporter who wants to research an oral history of the Iraq war or write human interest stories, but not so much for reporters who need to break news every day. It's no wonder, really, that so many journalists hole up in the Green Zone and rely on local stringers scattered all over the country to keep them apprised of the most recent car bombs and firefights. It is not, or at least not necessarily, because they are lazy or gutless.
The stories I heard about the battle of Ramadi from these soldiers were harrowing. It’s one thing to relate all this to a journalist. How do they explain what they experienced to their families? It isn’t easy, as Sergeant Kitts explained to me over lunch.
Kitts Anbar.jpg
Sergeant First Class Kitts
“I’m outnumbered at home with a wife and two daughters,” he said. “I love going home, but sometimes it’s hard. My littlest girl asks how long is Daddy going to visit. Visit! It’s my family and my house and I only visit. She doesn’t quite understand what I do. I tried to explain. I said Daddy goes after bad guys. She thought about that. Do the bad guys have guns? she said. Yeah, I said.” I could tell it hurt him to say this. “Don’t forget yours, she said.”
*
“We went from having 200 police officers last year to having 8,000 today,” Major Lee Peters said. “And that’s not counting those with the orange bands.” The men who wear orange bands instead of blue uniforms are semi-official community watchmen who were deputized by the tribal authorities. The people of Anbar want another layer of hyper-local security in a province Al Qaeda desperately wants to reconquer after their humiliating eviction.
I attended a brief ceremony where hundreds of newly minted Iraqi Police officers graduated.
Iraqi Police Graduation.jpg
Some finished the training and are still waiting to be formally hired. Each unit marched around the room a little bit awkwardly. They looked a bit like amateurs, but everyone who said anything about them insists they are dedicated and reliable.
Iraqi Police Faraj.jpg
Established Iraqi Police officers. Not much uniform discipline.
Iraqi Policeman Graduation Ramadi.jpg
An Iraqi police officer just outside the graduation ceremony
“We worry about potential future infiltration by AQI,” or Al Qaeda in Iraq, Colonel John Charlton said. “But we’re very certain this is not a problem right now. The tribal influence on IPs [Iraqi Police] is strong. Every single one of the tribal leaders is against AQI. In Anbar Province it is very shameful and dishonorable to be a terrorist or an insurgent.”
Iraqi Police Officer with Weapon and Hat.jpg
Captain Dennison also took me to the Farraj police station just outside Ramadi in an area that was sort of a suburb and sort of the countryside.
Humvees Outside Faraj.jpg
Faraj Staion Door.jpg
Just inside the front door was a large portrait of the much-admired Iraqi Major Quather who was killed by a car bomb during the fighting in early 2007.
Martyred Police Faraj.jpg
The captain handed me over the First Lieutenant Bryan Schnitker who gave me the grand tour.
Iraq Police Officer Farraj Station Anbar.jpg
These Iraqi Police officers insisted I take their picture
No one seemed to think the Iraqi Police had been infiltrated, but I wondered if they were corrupt in other ways. Almost everyone with power in the Middle East is at least financially corrupt to an extent.
Iraqi Police Poster Ramadi 2.jpg
An Iraqi Police poster
“The Farraj station doesn’t skim the money we give them,” Lieutenant Schnitker said, “if that’s what you’re asking. We monitor it closely enough that we know they aren’t corrupt. I can say this with confidence. We use to cut them checks, but there’s no bank in Ramadi anymore. It got robbed twice, and that was it. It literally got robbed out of existence. There is no insurance in Iraq, let alone anything like FDIC. So we give them cash, and we watch how they spend it.”
Iraqi Police Colonel Saidi Saleh Mohammad al Farraji, who long ago was a captain in Saddam’s army, invited me and the American officers for lunch in his office. The usual Iraqi fare was served – chicken and lamp kebabs with bread, fried tomatoes, and salad.
Food Faraj Station.jpg
“What's your biggest challenge,” I said to the colonel, “now that Al Qaeda is gone?”
“It was counter-terrorism,” he said. “Now we just need to make sure the area stays secure so they don't come back. We have sources in the community who will tell us if they come back. Civilians cooperate with us now, but they didn't before we built this station. They didn't feel safe.”
Colonel Faraj Station.jpg
Colonel Saidi Saleh Mohammad al Farraji
“How much longer do you think the Americans need to stay?” I said. “Would it be okay if they left Anbar Province?”
“Within a year?” he said. “No. We don't get enough support from the Iraqi government. If we had the support we need from Baghdad it would be okay here. But the government is too infiltrated with militias. It is very dangerous for us to go there.”
Most of his answers to my questions were stock and uninteresting, but he did say something that surprised me a bit when I asked if he had anything he wanted to add.
“All your reporters are men,” he said. “Every reporter I have seen in Ramadi is a man. You should send American women so they can talk to our women. Someone needs to find out what they think about what's happening here.”
First Lieutenant Schnitker led me to the roof where I could take pictures. It’s hard to photograph the landscape in Iraq because most of it is flatter than Iowa.
Roof Top View Faraj.jpg
The roof was cooler than I expected thanks to the netting that blocked most of the sunlight. A barbecue and a weight set without weights were the extent of the furniture.
Roof Top Faraj w Barbecue 2.jpg
An Iraqi Police officer manned a machine gun and watched the surrounding countryside.
Guard Roof Top Faraj.jpg
We were three stories up. A man bellowing at us in Arabic from ground level.
“What’s he yelling about?” I asked Jack, our Iraqi interpreter.
He laughed.
“He is an IP who got in trouble today,” he said. “I’m not sure what he did, but he was put into detention for an hour. He is saying Let me out! It was supposed to be for one hour, but I’ve been in here for several. It is degrading to be in here with these people.”
“Who is he in the cell with?” I said.
“They locked him up with Al Qaeda.”
I froze.
Al Qaeda was just down the steps? I was suddenly overwhelmed with morbid curiosity. Ever since September 11, 2001, I have wanted to look into the eyes of the kinds of people who would murder thousands of innocents and think their reward would be virgins.
A few years ago a friend of mine – an academic, not a journalist – met Qays Ibrahim up in Kurdistan. Qays is an Al Qaeda member or sympathizer who tried to murder Dr. Barham Salih, who was then the Prime Minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and who is now Deputy Prime Minister in Baghdad’s Maliki government.
Qays missed Barham but shot and killed a handful of bodyguards. He’s in prison now just outside the city of Suleimaniya. Barham refuses to sign Qays’s death warrant even though the caged Al Qaedist stridently insists he will again try to murder the Deputy Prime Minister if he ever gets free.
My friend who met the blunt-speaking and chillingly unrepentant Qays in his cell described the encounter as “very scary,” as though the terrorist were an Iraqi version of Hannibal Lector.
“Can I see the prisoners?” I asked Lieutenant Schnitker.
“I don’t see why not,” he said.
Captain Dennison concurred. It would not be a problem.
“Can I take pictures?” I said.
The answer was yes. Military lawyers later gave me clearance to publish them through the public affairs officer.
Now that I had the chance, though, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to meet them, especially since I had no idea what to expect, had no time to prepare myself, and didn’t know what to say if they would talk to me.
We descended the stairs and approached the freestanding cell.
“All they get is a hard floor, a few blankets, some food, and a fan,” said Jack, our Iraqi interpreter. I wondered from the tone in his voice if he thought they deserved even that much.
Sergeant Kitts joined us.
“Can I interview them?” I said as we approached the door.
“You can, but there is no point,” Sergeant Kitts said. “They won’t tell you shit. Hardly any Al Qaeda guys admit to being Al Qaeda. They’re doomed if they do. All they’ll do is deny it.”
“I at least want to see them,” I said.
“They look just like everyone else,” he said.
Of course they look like everyone else, but I still wanted to see. It’s hard to picture Al Qaeda terrorists looking like me or like some random Arab after all they have done. Even many Iraqis I know think of them as an alien race of monsters. Obviously they are not aliens or Orcs or any other kind of non-human monster. They are as human as I. I don’t have to look to know they don’t have horns or a tail. But they saw off the heads of Iraqi children with kitchen knives. I wanted to look. I still don’t understand why.
One of the soldiers unlocked the door. I let them go inside first. I had no idea what to expect.
We stepped through the door. Six young Arab men groggily stood up and faced us in silence. I almost said “Salam Aleikum,” but then I checked myself, unsure if it's even appropriate to say Peace Be Upon You to the ideological brethren of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
I noticed, after a few awkward moments of silence, that they did not say Salam Aleikum to me.
“Why are you here?” I finally said as politely as possible. “Why have they arrested you?”
“We are accused of being Al Qaeda,” said one.
“We are innocent,” said another. “We ask that our case be heard in court soon so we can go home.”
Sergeant Kitts warned me they would deny being terrorists. Maybe they’re liars. Maybe they really aren’t terrorists. There is no way I can know. I wished I could meet someone who didn’t deny it and who was unrepentant like Qays Ibrahim. We could have an interesting, if disturbing, conversation.
They looked tired and bored, and somewhat like marginal people who had been picked on in school and who could not get a job. None looked remotely threatening. Only weapons in their hands could make them look threatening. I thought they looked more like gas station attendents than head-choppers.
Detainess Faraj Al Qaeda.jpg
Prisoners alleged to belong to Al Qaeda
Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil came to mind. I was almost disappointed that I wasn’t face to face with a handful of Hannibal Lectors. It would have been a clarifying moment. But life is rarely so poetically simple and obvious.
“Are you treated well here?” I said lamely. None appeared to have been beaten or tortured.
“Yes,” one said and shrugged. He clearly wasn’t happy to be there.
Prisoner abuse is strictly prohibited by the American Uniform Code of Military Justice, but it still happens sometimes in war zones. Many American soldiers have told me that the Iraqi Police, especially, have a hard time restraining their officers.
I lifted my camera. None of the prisoners hid their faces, but one crossed the room to get away from the others.
“He isn’t Al Qaeda,” Jack said. “He is just a common criminal. Don’t think he is one of them.”
I decided, then, not to take that man’s picture.
“Those four are Al Qaeda,” Jack said.
I snapped their pictures.
Detainee Faraj 1.jpg
A prisoner alleged to belong to Al Qaeda
“That man was caught firing mortars,” he said.
“Say hello to the camera, Ass Munch!” Sergeant Kitts yelled in disgust.
The accused mortar launcher smirked slightly when I took his picture.
Detainee Faraj - Mortarer.jpg
A prisoner alleged to have been caught firing mortars
The American and Iraqi officers, fairly or not, are sure these men are guilty. But they have not been convicted. They only allegedly belong to Al Qaeda.
I need to be careful here, but I want to put the Americans’ and Iraqis’ words into context:
I have seen dozens of Iraqis arrested and brought blindfolded and hand-cuffed into various stations. Almost all are quickly released. American soldiers have told me the overwhelming majority of Iraqis who are arrested aren’t terrorists or insurgents. I never once detected any presumption of guilt just because someone was arrested.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. An interview with alleged terrorists is useless if they deny it. I don’t want to offend innocent Iraqis and falsely accuse them of terrorism. Nor do I wish to publish lies by people who really are killers.
We briefly returned to the main station said our goodbyes to the Iraqi officers.
“Thank you, sir,” I said to Colonel Mohammad and put my hand on his shoulder.
“You are welcome,” he said and shook my hand firmly.
Then we drove back to the base.
Iraqi Police Anbar Through Humvee Window.jpg
An Iraqi Police checkpoint through the window of a Humvee. Al Qaeda exploded dozens of car bombs at checkpoints like this one during the fighting.
Sergeant Kitts slept in a trailer just around the corner from mine. “That’s where I’ll be,” he said as we walked back, “if you need anything in the middle of the night.”
I took a hot shower – the only kind available in that country in August – and cleansed Iraq from my skin.
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Yeah, so Israelis should just say " never mind and just leave, right??
Maybe YOU were a mistake- should you commit suicide??
Thankfully, the Israelis have no intention of following that ridiculous advice and proved it by acting in self protection to take out the Syrian nuclear installation.
So, do you agree with Ahmadinejad that Israel should be eliminated?
The war persists because the Arabs refuse to acknowledge the reality of the Jewish state and clowns like you feed their self destructive lunacy
PS
How could the decision have fueled a "century of warfare when the decision was made in '48 after the atrocities committed during the war
Do you think the holocaust is a myth also??
Here's a war related trial for ya- Murtha's defamation trial:
Haditha reversal busts the narrative
Posted by: McQ
Apparently Haditha supported the larger anti-war narrative even if the evidence didn't (much like the Duke case).
The "larger narrative?"
Last year, when accounts of the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha by a group of marines came to light, it seemed that the Iraq war had produced its defining atrocity, just as the conflict in Vietnam had spawned the My Lai massacre a generation ago.
Its "defining atrocity"? Is that how we "define" wars now?
But:
But on Thursday, a senior military investigator recommended dropping murder charges against the ranking enlisted marine accused in the 2005 killings, just as he had done earlier in the cases of two other marines charged in the case. The recommendation may well have ended prosecutors' chances of winning any murder convictions in the killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children.
In the recent case, against Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the investigator recommended that he be charged with negligent homicide if the case moved ahead to court-martial. In the other two cases, the investigator recommended dropping all charges.
In the meantime, Rep. John Murtha has been taken to court by SSG Wuterich for slander. Murtha contends that he was acting in his official capacity and is immune. The judge says he may be right but she wants his deposition.
I think he may have a case concerning anything he said on the floor of the House and may even be given the benefit of the doubt concerning an official press conference.
But he'd have a tough time convincing me that an appearance with Chris Matthews "Hardball", where he denounced and slandered the Marines in question, falls under "official duty". Hopefully the judge will see it that way as well.
The Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran thing
Posted by: McQ
This is important for two particular reasons.
First, it appears we still have serious problems with strategic intelligence. That problem came to light concerning Syria, prior to the strike by Israel:
The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States.
In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.
One U.S. official told ABC's Martha Raddatz the material was "jaw dropping" because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.
Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.
"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.
If all that is true, per ABC, why are the Israeli's presenting us with satellite imagery on a nuclear facility in Syria? We don't have satellites monitoring that country (I assume we do, and I further assume that's a pretty safe bet)?
If so, why in the world is some other country telling us what's in Syria?
Note the last paragraph and let's make some further assumptions. Perhaps the facility wasn't obvious as it was configured but, when confirmed or tipped by "several sources", Israel was alerted to its existence and to what the facility was in actuality.
One word: HUMINT (human intelligence)
Conclusion - we still aren't anywhere near where we need to be in the collection of critical human intelligence in the hot spots of the globe. Otherwise, it could be argued, we wouldn't have been surprised by the Israeli revelation.
Second, despite foolishness like that which is being perpetrated by Seumas Milne in The Guardian, there is very little likelihood that the Bush administration is arguing (or planning) for a strike on Iran.
A senior U.S. official said the Israelis planned to strike during the week of July 14 and in secret high-level meetings American officials argued over how to respond to the intelligence.
Some in the administration supported the Israeli action, but others, notably Sect. of State Condoleeza Rice did not. One senior official said the U.S. convinced the Israelis to "confront Syria before attacking."
Officials said they were concerned about the impact an attack on Syria would have on the region. And given the profound consequences of the flawed intelligence in Iraq, the U.S. wanted to be absolutely certain the intelligence was accurate.
Initially, administration officials convinced the Israelis to call off the July strike. But in September the Israelis feared that news of the site was about to leak and went ahead with the strike despite U.S. concerns.
Again, taking the ABC report at face value, if US officials argued strongly against the raid, despite the apparent inarguable evidence that a nuclear facility existed in Syria and were able to delay it in July because they were concerned about the "impact" such an attack would have on "the region" (aka Iraq), it seems that it would be doubly hard to then argue that it would be cavalier about making its own attack on Iran without having the same sorts of concerns. In fact, Iran would be a worse case scenario for the US because it would be the one directly involved in the attack. At least Israel, while an ally, provides the US with a certainly level of removal for the Syrian attack.
LA Times Shills for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Fri, Oct 5, 2007 at 5:08:38 pm PDT
It’s not the first time the Los Angeles Times has published pure, unvarnished propaganda from enemies of the US, and it won’t be the last. This time the article is by “special correspondent” Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran, and staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Beirut; oh yeah, I trust them to give me an unbiased report: Iranian president lashes out at Israel.
TEHRAN — The Iranian president delivered fiery remarks today about Israel and his country’s nuclear program on the occasion of Qods Day, the annual commemoration of the Palestinian fight against the Jewish state.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the annual occasion marking the Palestinian struggle to criticize Israel’s policies and the West’s taboos on questioning the Holocaust. He repeated his suggestion that the West relocate Israel’s Jews to “somewhere in Canada or Alaska.”
“Taboos on questioning the Holocaust.” Take a moment to savor the foul reek of that statement.
It would be shocking to see such blatant mainstreaming of Holocaust denial, previously the domain of neo-Nazis and other lunatics—except that nothing the LA Times does shocks me any more.
And get a load of this complete hogwash, straight from the Juan Cole school of genocide apologetics:
The controversial president and other officials often repeat an old slogan from Khomeini that Israel should be “eliminated from the pages of time,” which has been incorrectly translated as calling for wiping Israel off the map.
Oh well. That’s much better, isn’t it? He just wants Israel “eliminated,” not wiped off the map. He’s a fuzzy teddy bear at heart, quoting that other fuzzy teddy bear, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
And leave it to the LA Times to promote a now-standard leftist line of garbage that even Reuters has debunked: Feedback from Reuters readers:
You continue to report that “Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be ”wiped off the map“” even though many Mideast experts have stated that the interpretation of what Ahmadinejad actually said was that the “Zionist regime will not last.”
In other words, rather than calling for ethnic cleansing, as your news stories imply, Iranian officials are calling for regime change—a common enough phrase these days. Are your reporters and editors deliberately misinforming the public?
Jan
We actually had access to this speech, and heard the president’s words verbatim from our own TV footage. We stand behind our translation. In this case, he used the word “mahv,” which in Farsi means “wiped off”: Editor
Gee, I was certain it was just an abandoned military building
The Syria strike: It was nukes
Posted on October 6th, 2007 at 9:32 am by Meryl Yourish.
Filed under: Israel, Syria
ABC News has an exclusive today that says the Syria strike was a nuclear facility, and that the U.S. stopped Israel from striking earlier.
The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States.
In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.
One U.S. official told ABC’s Martha Raddatz the material was “jaw dropping” because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.
Yeah, that would be the same intelligence that didn’t pick up on al Qaeda and 9/11. Good to know they’re just as crappy now as they were then. I feel so safe. Not.
Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.
“Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources,” said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.
A senior U.S. official said the Israelis planned to strike during the week of July 14 and in secret high-level meetings American officials argued over how to respond to the intelligence.
Some in the administration supported the Israeli action, but others, notably Sect. of State Condoleeza Rice did not. One senior official said the U.S. convinced the Israelis to “confront Syria before attacking.”
Officials said they were concerned about the impact an attack on Syria would have on the region. And given the profound consequences of the flawed intelligence in Iraq, the U.S. wanted to be absolutely certain the intelligence was accurate.
Gee, good idea. Let Syria know you know about their secret nuclear weapons site, so they can move it and hide it somewhere else.
If you want to see the recap of what’s been going on with Syria this year, click here. That’s the last 30 or so posts including a Syria tag. All of the military analysis is predicated on the fact that the Syrians would use conventional weapons, as well as possibly chemical and biological agents. In the meantime, Syria is working with North Korea (doubtless funded by Iran) to hopscotch over the little details of developing scientific knowledge yourself—which takes decades—to simply buy instant Israeli destruction. Thanks so much, effing Pakistan, and France, for helping spread nuclear technology beyond the original five nations. Now Russia is working with Iran to do the same, and Iran is working on an ICBM that can reach the U.S. Europe is already within reach.
And watch: From the left and from the Israel-haters, they will insist that Israel’s intelligence was cooked. This, in spite of North Korea’s reaction, and in spite of the fact that Syria has had nothing to say, and has not demanded a UN investigation, or a Security Council or General Assembly resolution condemning the raid.
That silence speaks volumes.
It was nukes.
How do the libs on the board feel aobut Israel taking out Syrias nuclear site???
The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States.
In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.
One U.S. official told ABC's Martha Raddatz the material was "jaw dropping" because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.
Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.
"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.
U.S. Cautious After Flawed Iraq Intelligence
A senior U.S. official said the Israelis planned to strike during the week of July 14 and in secret high-level meetings American officials argued over how to respond to the intelligence.
Some in the administration supported the Israeli action, but others, notably Sect. of State Condoleeza Rice did not. One senior official said the U.S. convinced the Israelis to "confront Syria before attacking."
Officials said they were concerned about the impact an attack on Syria would have on the region. And given the profound consequences of the flawed intelligence in Iraq, the U.S. wanted to be absolutely certain the intelligence was accurate.
Initially, administration officials convinced the Israelis to call off the July strike. But in September the Israelis feared that news of the site was about to leak and went ahead with the strike despite U.S. concerns.
The airstrike was so highly classified, President Bush refused to acknowledge it publicly even after the bombs fell.
ABC's Martha Raddatz filed this report for "World News With Charles Gibson."