Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Congress, Please Don't Throw My Son's Sacrifice Away!!!
Mood:
sad
Topic: Martyred for Freedom
Just over two years ago, my son died with eight other soldiers when their Bradley fighting vehicle drove over a large land mine, which threw their vehicle into the air and onto its back.
I will pass over describing what happened after that except to say that the Bradley burned down and its hatches jammed, trapping everyone inside. Everyone died. Luke had a closed casket funeral.
I want to thank everyone who reached out and are still reaching out to my wife and me and Luke's widow in our time of pain. You know who you are, and we might not have gotten through losing Luke without you.
Senators Landrieu and Vitter of Louisiana, where Luke lived and in whose National Guard he served when he died, and Senators Allard and Salazar of Colorado, my chosen home, have all very solicitously asked if there was anything they could do for my wife and me.
Yes, there is something.
Please don't throw my son's sacrifice and the sacrifices of well over a thousand other Americans who died in Iraq away.
Please don't succumb to the urge to retreat from Iraq before it is a working, stable democracy, and before it is strong enough not to collapse as Afghanistan did, becoming a base of operations for terror.
Don't slink away from our obligation to destroy the cancer of terror and expanding tyranny, the way a previous Congress did in Vietnam.
Don't throw what my son died for away. Please.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 11:13 AM MST
Iran behind deaths of five American soldiers in Iraq
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: ...Those Who Will Not See
From the "Captain's Quarters" blog. More news that the "mainstream media" is soft-pedaling. Why?
"http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/009050.php
January 31, 2007
Did Iran Attack American Troops In Iraq?
CNN reports that American military investigators believe the January 20th attack on a military compound that killed five US soldiers may have either been conducted by Iran or by Iranian-run insurgents. The level of sophistication in the attack, conducted by terrorists in American military uniforms, showed too much sophistication to have originated from one of the native insurgencies:
The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said.
"People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said.
That official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed five soldiers.
The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."
Five U.S. soldiers were killed in the sophisticated attack by men wearing U.S.-style uniforms, according to U.S. military reports.
The investigation just started, and the Pentagon will probably look at a number of possibilities for the attack. However, given the description of the attack and its effectiveness, it seems a little over the pay grade of even the Ba'athist remnants. Since this occurred in Karbala, a predominantly Shi'ite area, Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda also seem unlikely suspects.
Earlier on Tuesday, Time Magazine reported that Iran has a motive to attack Americans in Iraq. The Revolutionary Guard wants some measure of revenge for the capture of five Iranians in Irbil, at least some of whom belong to the IRGC. Time speculates that the IRGC wanted to send a message, and that the number of casualties were specifically selected to make sure that no one misunderstood it.
What happens if the US concludes that Iran did indeed conduct this
mission against American servicemen? It would be an act of war, although the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers in support of insurgents also qualifies. The Bush administration might be tempted to retaliate with some air strikes, perhaps selected especially for the nuclear program Iran seems keen to pursue at all costs. However, one can imagine the outcry that would cause, not just among our European allies but also leading Democrats in Congress. It would not take long for at least a few of them -- Maurice Hinchey springs to mind -- to accuse the Bush administration of manufacturing the evidence pointing to Iran in order to justify an attack on that nation.
If the evidence points in that direction, there will be no big rush to
respond. It might do some good to make the Iranians sweat for a short period. However, Bush will have to confer with the Democrats and make it clear what happened, and impress upon them the need for serious action to deter the Iranians from attacking Americans in the future. We've let too many of these incidents pass without consequence to the mullahs, and every unanswered insult begets more of the same."
As if the Democrat leadership or the people in charge of Big Media give a big....
I doubt that it will be possible either to impress the gravity of this act on Clinton, Reid, Pelosi and Comrades, or to get them to admit that there is now a cause of war between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
There'd have to be something stronger in the china cream pitcher with a ribbon on the handle than the usual Irish Cream for Bush to get the Congressional leadership to start acting in the interests of the American people.
In fact, the President would have to start hitting the sauce again himself before his behavior changed to the point that effectual steps get taken in Iraq. 22,000 new troops are literally a drop in a bucket - not that we have much more to spare in the cupboard without endangering our ability to respond effectively elsewhere in the world.
Hate to say it, but Rangel is right, though certainly for all the wrong reasons. We need to re-institute the military draft and build up a credible conventional deterrent to the trouble-makers of the world.
We need to convince everyone that all the spiffy hardware and "shock and awe" theatrics for which US DoD is known are backed up by men who are going to stick around and kill our nation's enemies until our nation is out of enemies.
With 300,000,000 people in the country, it's absurd that we can't maintain ten or twenty million of them under arms.
It's time to stop taking unfair advantage of our volunteers in the Guard and Reserve because we don't have the guts to raise a regular Army, Navy and Marine Corps large enough to do the jobs that need doing.
If the President and Congress had pulled their thumbs out long enough to re-institute the draft and fund DoD at adequate levels to fight and win this war, my son Sergeant Armand Luke Frickey, Louisiana Army National Guard and his squad mates might still be around instead of having died in an explosion - because our mainstream media has spent so much time destroying the public's resolve to see this thing through. Doing Al-Qaeda's work for them.
Of course, the President should have realized that making the hard choices when they would have helped would at least have trashed his political career for a purpose. Now, his career is garbage even though he flipped and flopped trying to work with people whose only priority was getting into power. Luke's blood and that of his squad mates are on the hands of a President and Congress too irresolute to act as needed to defend the nation. They can't blame the Democrats for that.
In fact, if the Democrats really want to cement their last Congressional victory, they'd show resolve where the Republicans failed to and prosecute this war to its end.
Right. That's really going to happen. We can hang ordnance on the wings of the pigs which will be flying by then and send them on bombing runs on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz and Bushehr.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 10:21 AM MST
Updated: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 11:00 AM MST
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
Mood:
mischievious
Topic: minor chuckles....
Gleaned from Macworld (byline is "Macworld staff"):
"Microsoft's new Zune player may generate smutty laughter in Quebec.
A report explains that in French-speaking Canada, the word 'Zune' is a euphemism for male or female genitalia.
"The French word "zoune'' and the variant "bizoune'' typically serve as a less jolting way of referring to male or female genitalia when addressing children," the report explains.
Microsoft spokesperson Nathalie Bergeron told Canada.com that the word isn't in the dictionary, adding that the name "posed no risk of becoming known as an embarrassing double entendre," the report explains.
A Quebec resident reportedly disagreed, saying: "All of Quebec has been giggling for the last couple of days at the thought of Mr. Gates swearing that there was an 80 per cent chance that he'd whip out his little zoune before the holiday season."
Mais, what do we expect from a guy who names his company "Micro-soft," eh, Maurice? "The Yankees, they are a funny race... "
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:33 PM MST
Updated: Monday, 29 January 2007 1:45 PM MST
Saturday, 13 January 2007
More Bundles for Ahmadinejad....
Mood:
happy
Topic: Take THAT, you...
More news about the ass-whupping Iran is talking itself into:
The Sunday Times January 07, 2007
Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian
facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters", according to
several Israeli military sources.
The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open
"tunnels" into the targets. "Mini-nukes" would then immediately
be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
"As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one
strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished," said one
of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad's assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment
facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70 ft. of concrete
and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States
declined to intervene, senior sources said.
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider
military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans
could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could
range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks
against Jewish targets around the world.
Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are
believed to be involved in Iran's nuclear programme:
* Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for
uranium enrichment
* A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a
statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for
the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels
* A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough
plutonium for a bomb
Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay
Iran's nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a "second Holocaust".
The Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never allow
nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, has declared that "Israel must be wiped off the map".
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, has described military
action against Iran as a "last resort", leading Israeli officials to conclude that it will be left to them to strike.
Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the
2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes
have been mapped out, including one over Turkey.
Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel's tactical nuclear
weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.
Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly
unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One
source said Israel would have to seek approval "after the event",
as it did when it crippled Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak with
airstrikes in 1981.
Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the
bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.
The Israelis believe that Iran's retaliation would be constrained by
fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic
missiles at Israel.
However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West.
Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close
the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world's oil.
Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: "The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:52 AM MST
Let's Drop The Big One... and Pulverize 'em!
Mood:
celebratory
Topic: Take THAT, you...
Israeli Military Air Forces plan nuclear strike on Iran 08 January 2007 [13:19] - Today.Az Israel plans strike on Natanz uranium enrichment center, heavy water reactor at Arak and uranium conversion facility near Isfahan.  As APA reports, according to Israeli military sources' claim, two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters". Air strikes will be realized if the United States declines to intervene. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously last month to slap sanctions on Iran to try to stop uranium enrichment, but official Tehran ignores it. Iranian president Ahmadinejad said those who signed the resolution will soon regret. He said that their plans are peaceful and they will continue enrichment. |
URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/34616.html |
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:33 AM MST
Ahmadinejad Impeached? We can only hope....
Mood:
happy
Topic: Take THAT, you...
Just saw this today. I have absolutely no idea whether democracy in Iran works well enough for this to be more than a pathetic footnote, but it's something.
We can only hope. How interesting that Iran's opposition lawmakers manifestly have more courage than Washington's Democrats. From the Italian news agency AKI, Jan. 9:
TEHRAN - Iranian reformist lawmakers have started collecting signatures in Parliament to demand the impeachment of the country's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So far, 38 signatures have been collected out of the 72 required to formally summon Ahmadinejad and request his impeachment. Noureddin Pirmouzen, a deputy with the reformist minority, says it is nonetheless "positive to question" the head of the executive branch.
"Many actions of the current government and of president Ahmadinejad have led the country to an extremely worrying political and economic situation," Pirmouzen told the Iranian news website Aftab.
Referring to a resolution of the UN Security Council unanimously approved on 23 December which imposes sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme, the MP said "it is the last straw which has made Iranians loose their patience." The international community fears Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and has repeatedly asked the government to halt sensitive nuclear work - a demand ignored by Tehran which claims its programme is solely for civilian use.
"Parliament cannot sit still in front of the current situation and watch as the economy worsens because of the government's inability," he added.
Issa Saharkhiz, editor and political analyst, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that "Ahmadinejad's golden era is over."
"I don't think Ahmadinejad will leave the presidency before his mandate expires but I am also convinced he will not succeed in winning a second term," added Saharkhiz. "Many factions and personalities who supported Ahmadinejad's candidature at the 2005 presidential elections have already abandoned him and don't spare criticism, even harsh and direct, of the president and his government."
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president after an overwhelming victory in June 2005 but his then contender, Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, and moderate conservative rivals of the president did far better than Ahmadinejad's allies in December polls to elect local councils and the powerful watchdog, the Assembly of Experts.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 12:45 AM MST
Updated: Saturday, 13 January 2007 2:34 AM MST
Monday, 8 January 2007
It takes a village to smear an innocent man....
Mood:
irritated
Topic: Unintentional truths
Today's entry began after I researched something completely unrelated in one of the "urban legends" Web sites which I hadn't used before.
There was a link entitled "Al Gore vs. Christianity" which, I have to admit, I clicked on expecting to see pictures of Algore slow-roasting Pope Benedict on a spit. Instead, it was an indignant rebuttal of remarks Gore's supposed to have made along the "patronizing condemnation of you stupid right-wing Christians" line:
"Subject: AL Gore re: Christianity
THE NOTORIOUS QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Refusing to accept the earth as our sacred mother, these Christians have become a dangerous threat to the survival of humanity. They are the blight on the environment and to believe in Bible prophecy is unforgivable."
--VP Al Gore, in his book
EARTH IN BALANCE, p.342"
Fair enough, so far. Crap like that deserves to be debunked hard enough to bounce.
But it wasn't enough to expose the ur-source of that particular myth as garbage.
One of the Web site's associates dug up what was probably got twisted around (a very, very little) to create the bogus Gore quote:
"For some Christians, the prophetic vision of the apocalypse is used — in my view, unforgivably — as an excuse for abdicating their responsibility to be good stewards of God's creation. Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who deserved his reputation as an anti-environmentalist, was once quoted as belittling concerns about environmental protection in part because it would all be destroyed by God in the apocalypse. Not only is this idea heretical in terms of Christian teachings, it is an appallingly self-fulfilling prophesy of doom. ("Earth in the Balance," p. 263)"
Wellll... that was actually the sort of patronizing crap I was expecting to see when I clicked on the link. Worse, Gore used the convenient "(victim of slander) was once quoted as" to weasel-word something into James Watt's mouth that he did not say. I can recognize this sort of thing pretty quickly, having had over a decade of Gore-isms to compare it against.
Does it seem weird to anyone else that the lady who went to all the trouble to find this paragraph in Gore's first bore-fest of a book reproduces an urban legend (and worse, a probable slander) about someone else while rushing to Al Gore's defense? It sure pegged my weird-stuff-o-meter off scale.
I decided to look into the matter and sure enough, someone else on the Web thought it was weird, too, that James Watt would suddenly start foaming at the mouth during a Congressional hearing.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009475.php pointed out the probable provenance of the "James Watt is a millenialist weirdo" urban legend. Like so much other pernicious crap, it traveled through Bill Moyers' poison pen to the op-ed page of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. But before that, it appeared in a spottily-researched and sporadically-accurate article in grist.org, in an embellished quote from an anti-Christian tract:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html
Soooo... having covered my backside with some Internet research of my own (ask.com - don't ever leave home page without it!), I wrote the urban legend page in question with the following suggestion:
"In your debunking of the "Al Gore vs. Christianity" net myth, you perpetuate another vicious, politically-motivated myth, this one about James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior.
You have Karen Eiler quoting (from Gore's "Earth in the Balance"):
"For some Christians, the prophetic vision of the apocalypse is used — in my view, unforgivably — as an excuse for abdicating their responsibility to be good stewards of God's creation. Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who deserved his reputation as an anti-environmentalist, was once quoted as belittling concerns about environmental protection in part because it would all be destroyed by God in the apocalypse. Not only is this idea heretical in terms of Christian teachings, it is an appallingly self-fulfilling prophesy of doom. ("Earth in the Balance," p. 263)"
It's no better for Gore to weasel-word a piece of diaphanous slander such as this by saying "James Watt (skip over ad hominem attack)... was once quoted as saying... " without supplying the source of the quote, its context, time, place, et cetera than to tell the lie direct.
The source of the quote was a speech given by Bill Moyers at Harvard Medical School (in acceptance of an environmental award) which was later picked up as an op-ed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, based on erroneous information - a quote from the anti-Christian tract Setting the Captives Free by Austin Miles - in grist.org.
In fact, Glenn Scherer, author of the article in grist.org which Moyers quoted, added to the confusion by embellishing Miles's account of what Watt was supposed to have said - adding the spurious detail that Watt was supposed to have said it before Congress.
Watt actually did testify to the need to conserve natural resources before Congress before the House Interior Committee in February 1981 - the only time he ever alluded to the Second Coming of Christ in Congressional testimony - in an interlocution with Rep. Weaver of Oregon:
"Mr. Weaver: I am very pleased to hear that. Then I will make one final statement... I believe very strongly that we should not, for example, use up all the oil that took nature a billion years to make in one century.
We ought to leave a few drops of it for our children, their children. They are going to need it... I wonder if you agree, also, in the general statement that we should leave some of our resources--I am now talking about scenic areas or preservation, but scenic resources for our children? Not just gobble them up all at once?
Secretary Watt: Absolutely. That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have, to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations.
I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations."
This is the complete opposite of what grist.org reported in the article from which Moyers quoted, "The Godly Must Be Crazy - Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment,"
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html
which originally contained this alleged quote from Watt and a sententious gloss afterward:
'But a scripture-based justification for anti-environmentalism -- when was the last time you heard a conservative politician talk about that?
Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.
Today's Christian fundamentalist politicians are more politically savvy than Reagan's interior secretary was; you're unlikely to catch them overtly attributing public-policy decisions to private religious views. But their words and actions suggest that many share Watt's beliefs. Like him, many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future.'
This text was redacted from the body of the article as it now appears after grist.org had their attention called to its factual errors. It's now carried at the bottom of the Web page in insurance policy-small type, with the following comments:
" *[Correction, 04 Feb 2005: The asterisked section of the article, above, originally read:"
(text quoted above)
"In fact, Watt did not make such a statement to Congress. The quotation is attributed to Watt in the book "Setting the Captives Free" by Austin Miles, but Miles does not write that it was made before Congress. Grist regrets this reporting error and is aggressively looking into the accuracy of this quotation.]"
and then apparently later, after they looked into the quote's accuracy aggressively:
"[Update, 11 Feb 2005: Grist has been unable to substantiate that Watt made this statement. We would like to extend our sincere apologies to Watt and to our readers for this error.] "
I have to give the people at grist.org credit for acknowledging their mistake, although I have to say that it would have meant more if the acknowledgement had been carried in the same font and size as the article above it.
But even that verbal equivalent of a muttered apology is more than either Austin Miles, Al Gore or Bill Moyers ever did after slandering James Watt.
My point in writing this letter is that it's more than a little ironic to let the air out of one urban legend and then follow it up immediately by repeating an even more vicious piece of slander as though it were the truth.
I'd say that Gore's comment, "Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who deserved his reputation as an anti-environmentalist, was once quoted as belittling concerns about environmental protection in part because it would all be destroyed by God in the apocalypse," is a more profound indictment of Gore's character than the original urban legend which you demolished. Good guys don't repeat vicious slams on other people without trying to find out if what they're saying is true or not."
I felt like being much more definite in my comments, but people usually don't respond well to rants in their in-boxes, so I toned my remarks down a bit.
But this urban legend really had legs - a staff writer with the Washington Post repeated the substance of Gore's/Moyers's/Scherer's/Mills's lies about James Watt nearly verbatim - no fact-checking, apparently not even the casual Internet Google-check that anyone who can work a keyboard can do. More "James Watt was quoted as... " with not a bit of fact afterwards.
In fact, the only published remarks of Watt's which deal with the Second Coming and the environment directly contradict what the ecolo-slander squad say Watt said. Watt, in testimony before a House committee, basically said that since we have no idea how long we have until the return of Christ, we'd better be good stewards of the environment. No "what the heck, let's use it all up because the Rapture is coming," no "Jesus will come after the last tree falls... " - none of that nonsense.
It may take a village to raise a child, but it apparently just takes four or five thoughtless fools to tarnish someone's reputation. Maybe someday the press will repent of what it's done to James Watt's good name, in the same way it reversed its stand on his old boss - but it won't happen very soon if the past is any indication. Even after the blogosphere has shot this lie full of holes, it still reverberates down the Internet.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:15 PM MST
Updated: Saturday, 13 January 2007 1:06 AM MST
Thursday, 4 January 2007
The Iraqis shoot their own dog.
Mood:
happy
Topic: Dead War Criminals
Defiant Saddam refuses hood in quick execution
By Agence France-Presse
BAGHDAD, Dec 30, 2006 (AFP) - A defiant Saddam Hussein refused to wear a hood over his head before the noose was wrapped around his neck and a trap door dropped beneath his feet, eyewitnesses to his hanging said.
The ousted leader mounted the gallows inside a former torture center in Kadhimiyah in northern Baghdad and was hanged just before 6:00 am (0300 GMT) Saturday, said National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, who was among those present.
Iraqi state television showed a brief film of Saddam being placed in a noose by masked hangmen, cutting away just before his execution.
The 69-year-old leader appeared calm, chatting to his burly, leather-jacketed executioners as they wrapped his neck first in black cloth then a thick hemp rope and steered him forward on a metal platform.
The gallows was constructed in red-painted metal and was fixed inside a dim room with blue-grey walls. The guards wore black balaclava-style hoods.
Saddam was manoeuvred forward firmly but not aggressively by the guards, the grey-bearded prisoner looking thin inside a smart, dark overcoat over a pressed white shirt but no tie.
Members of a small group of dignitaries who formally witnessed the execution said Saddam showed no sign of remorse in the final moments before being hanged for crimes against humanity.
Rubaie said in a series of televised interviews that the former strongman did not attempt to resist his executioners.
"He did not try to resist... He was holding a Koran in his hands that he wanted to have sent to someone, so the name of the person was taken down," Rubaie said.
"Saddam mounted the gallows calmly, without saying a word. He was resolute and courageous ... At one point, he turned his head toward me as if to say 'don't be afraid'," Rubaie said. "It was a very strange feeling."
Once on the gallows, Saddam "refused to allow a guard to place a hood over his head. They stared at each other briefly" before the guard stepped away, granting Saddam's wish to leave his face uncovered, said Rubaie.
Saddam had an opportunity to speak his final words.
"He said 'I hope you will be united, and I warn you not to trust the Iranian coalition, because they are dangerous'," Judge Moneer Haddad, who witnessed Saddam's execution for crimes against humanity, told AFP.
"He said he was not afraid of anyone," Haddad said.
The taunt was a last stab at Maliki's Shiite-led ruling coalition, which many Iraqi Sunnis accuse of being a front for Iranian influence.
"He was asked for his last words," said Shiite lawmaker Sami al-Askari. "The rope was then wrapped around his neck, his hands were tied, and he was immediately executed."
Rubaie said death came rapidly.
"It went like a blink of an eye. He died very, very quickly. It couldn't have been quicker."
State television prepared the ground for Saddam's execution by showing gruesome footage of his soldiers mutilating and beating prisoners, throwing a detainee from a roof and filling mass graves.
A 36-year-old engineer told AFP that he was given the opportunity view the body because members of his family had fallen victim to Saddam's brutal regime.
"I saw him after the execution," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz Al-Zubaidi. "He was inside an ambulance. His neck was broken. He was wearing black coat and a white shirt without a tie. His beard was long and his hair was long."
Zubaidi, who testified in the case that saw Saddam condemned for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite villagers from Dujail in 1982, said he had viewed the body along with some Iraqi officials.
It was a moment of "happiness for all Iraqis", he said, adding that Saddam, had "executed three of my brothers and my father".
Saddam's American jailers had handed him over to Iraqi officials and there were no US personnel in the building as the trapdoor dropped and Saddam's life was ended.
"This was a 100 percent Iraqi process," said Rubaie. "There were only Iraqis present, no foreigners. The Americans were not present at the execution."
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 10:08 PM MST
Updated: Thursday, 4 January 2007 11:26 PM MST
He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice... The 12th Imam is coming... to town...
Mood:
not sure
Topic: No Truce with Terror!
ABC News has sent Ted Koppel over to Iran to interview a bunch of ordinary folks who don't have a particular problem with America.
Unfortunately, the ordinary folks aren't in the command-and-control loop which will eventually authorize a nuclear strike or transfer of special weapons to Al-Qaeda.
I just read an indication of what the guys who'll be in charge of the big toys either believe or profess to believe in Yahoo's open source intelligence (OSI) group.
Here it is:
Posted: December 31, 2006
6:04 p.m. Eastern
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53577
C 2006 WorldNetDaily.
com
An official state media website in
<
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53577> Iran has posted a message heralding the coming of the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Mahdi, noting he could arrive with Jesus by the spring equinox.
"Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance) will appear all of a sudden on the world scene with a voice from the skies announcing his reappearance at the holy Ka'ba in Mecca," the message says.
The Islamic Republic of Iran broadcasting website said in a program called
<http://www.wnd.com/redir/r.asp?http://english.irib.ir/IRAN/Leader/Illumination.htm>
"The World toward Illumination," that the Mahdi will form an army
to defeat the enemies of Islam in a series of apocalyptic battles, in which
the Mahdi will overcome his archvillain in
Jerusalem.
The Mahdi's far sightedness and firmness in the face of mischievous elements will strike awe. After his uprising from Mecca all of Arabia will be submit to him and then other parts of the world as he marches upon Iraq and established his seat of global government in the city of Kufa.
Then the Imam will send 10 thousand of his forces to the east and west to
uproot the oppressors. At this time God will facilitate things for him and
lands will come under his control one after the other. ...
After his appearance the Imam would remain in Mecca for some time, and then go to Medina. ... a descendant of the Prophet's archenemy Abu Sofyan will seize Syria and attack Iraq and the Hejaz with the ferocity of a beast ...
finally Imam Mahdi sends troops who kill the Sofyani in Beit ol-Moqaddas
(Jerusalem), the Islamic holy city in Palestine that is currently under
occupation of the Zionists.
The Iranian series also claims the Mahdi will reappear on Earth with Jesus:
"We read in the book Tazkarat ol-Olia, 'the Mahdi will come with Jesus son
of Mary accompanying him.' ... Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet
Jesus will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and
establishment of justice in the world. Jesus had himself given the tidings
of the coming of God's last messenger and will see Mohammad's ideals
materialize in the time of the Mahdi."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appearing at "The World Without Zionism" conference Oct. 26, 2005
As WND reported
<
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53430> this
month, in a greeting to the world's Christians for the coming new year,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects both Jesus and the Mahdi, to return and "wipe away oppression."
"I wish all the Christians a very happy new year and I wish to ask them a
question as well," said Ahmadinejad, according to an Iranian Student News
Agency report cited by YnetNews.com <
http://www.ynetnews.com/>
"My one question from the Christians is: What would Jesus do if he were
present in the world today? What would he do before some of the oppressive powers of the world who are in fact residing in Christian countries? Which powers would he revive and which of them would he destroy?" asked the Iranian leader.
"If Jesus were present today, who would be facing him and who would be
following him?"
(BLOGGER NOTE: is this the beginning of a new ad campaign? "Which Terrorists Would Jesus Support?)
Ahmadinejad's
mystical pre-occupation with the coming of the Mahdi is raising concerns that a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could trigger the kind of global
conflagration he envisions will set the stage for the end of the world.
In a videotaped meeting with Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli in Tehran, Ahmadinejad discussed candidly a strange, paranormal experience he had while addressing the United Nations in New York last September.
He recounts how he found himself bathed in light throughout the speech. But this wasn't the light directed at the podium by the U.N. and television cameras. It was, he said, a light from heaven.
According to a transcript of his comments, obtained and translated by Joseph Farah's G2 <
http://www.g2bulletin.com/> Bulletin, Ahmadinejad wasn't the only one who noticed the unearthly light. One of his aides brought it to his attention.
(BLOGGER NOTE: "Hey, Boss - I just saw this incredible heavenly light all around you - Oh, you saw it, too? Fantastic!" Come on, I know an butt-smoocher when I read about one.... )
The Iranian president recalled being told about it by one of his delegation:
"When you began with the words 'in the name of Allah,' I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end."
(BLOGGER NOTE: What did I tell you?)
Ahmadinejad agreed that he sensed the same thing.
(BLOGGER NOTE: And he fell for it. Of course, it wouldn't be the first boss I've heard of who thought he was at least a close relative of God.)
"On the last day when I was speaking, one of our group told me that when I started to say 'Bismillah Muhammad,' he saw a green light come from around me, and I was placed inside this aura," he says. "I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they didn't move an eyelid, I'm not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes - Alhamdulillah!"
Ahmadinejad's "vision" at the U.N. is strangely reminiscent and alarmingly similar to statements he has made about his personal role in ushering in the return of the Shiite Muslim messiah.
He sees his main mission, as he recounted in a Nov. 16 speech in Tehran, as to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance."
According to Shiites, the 12th imam disappeared as a child in the year 941.
When he returns, they believe, he will reign on earth for seven years,
before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world.
(BLOGGER NOTE: Does anyone else hear the opening bars of the James Bond movie theme playing? You know, crazed madman gets his hands on weapons of mass destruction and first thing that comes to his mind is - "Oh, yeah, END OF THE WORLD!")
Ahmadinejad is urging Iranians to prepare for the coming of the Mahdi by
turning the country into a mighty and advanced Islamic society and by
avoiding the corruption and excesses of the West.
All Iran is buzzing about the Mahdi, the 12th imam and the role Iran and
Ahmadinejad are playing in his anticipated return. There's a new messiah
hotline. There are news agencies especially devoted to the latest
developments.
"People are anxious to know when and how will He rise; what they must do to receive this worldwide salvation," says Ali Lari, a cleric at the Bright
Future Institute in Iran's religious center of Qom. "The timing is not
clear, but the conditions are more specific," he adds. "There is a saying:
'When the students are ready, the teacher will come.'"
BLOGGER NOTE: What a great time for us to have signed up to unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. I really, really hope that instead of being as good as our word this time, we behaved like the Russians always have when confronted with an arms control treaty - systematically violate that sucker.
We may be confronted with a unique and for-a-limited-time opportunity for a time-on-target counterforce strike. History teaches us that some despots ramp up the rhetoric about being able to take out any attacker when they are most vulnerable.
Read Herman Kahn's chapter on the immediate pre-World War II period in On Thermonuclear War (Princeton University Press, 1960, may also be available from the RAND Corporation) to learn just how inexpensively and with what little loss of life we could have shut Hitler down - just after he rolled into the Rhineland. Just think - if we could have done it by turning two keys on a launch console....
Regardless of whether the powers that be think we'd be "sending a message" or whether they think it's imperative to break the Persian bomb factory before it goes into high gear, shutting them down is something we needed to do eight years ago.
I hope that we are ready to put certain foreign national leaders down like the mad dogs they are. And I hope that if it hasn't happened by 2008 that the people teach the power in charge the penalty for failing to protect the American people - something that should have been done just after September 11th, 2001, for my money.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 8:32 PM MST
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
We ARE at war with Saudi Arabia - we just don't know it yet.
Topic: Taking back our Culture
I feel that it's my duty - most of all to the memory of my son, who died fighting Islamist terror in Iraq - to point out and keep on pointing out what is obvious when you see the evidence - we are at war with the leadership, and probably most of the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
A poll of adult men conducted by the Saudi security service shows that at least 90 percent of them approve of and support the Al-Qaeda terrorist group that killed 3000 Americans on September 11th, 2001. Several of their leaders, the Saudi royal family, supported the September 11th attack with money - personal checks from the wife of Prince Sultan (former Saudi ambassador to the US) were found in the personal effects of one of the 9/11 hijackers, and the paper trail extends much farther than that.
This post quotes extensive excerpts from an article published on January 31, 2005, "Report Links Brooklyn Mosque to Saudi Hate Material," in the New York Sun by Meghan Clyne. Read it and judge for yourself. Ms. Clyne's article is available at: http://www.nysun.com/article/8445 According to Ms. Clyne: "Just three miles from the site of the World Trade Center, the government of Saudi Arabia is distributing hate materials expounding an extremist Wahhabi ideology, according to a new report by the Center for Religious Freedom.... " "While this group typically monitors the state of religious freedom under oppressive regimes abroad, the center has just concluded a year-long study of 200 documents that it said were collected in more than a dozen mosques across America, bear the seal of the Saudi government, and spread hateful indoctrination. The group called the propaganda a violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
"According to a press release and to the center's director, Nina Shea, the 89-page report, which was issued Friday, finds that the materials incite violence, inform Muslims that it is their religious duty to hate Jews and Christians, and even give specific instructions on how properly to express that hatred to one's infidel neighbors." "The Saudi-produced and - distributed materials denounce democracy - and democratic America - as un-Islamic.
Ms. Shea said the materials are directed toward recent immigrants. According to the report, Muslim newcomers are told that, while in America, they should think of themselves as operating behind enemy lines and should use their time in America either to acquire information and resources for jihad or to convert the infidels to Islam."
"The literature also promotes Wahhabism, the version of Islam officially embraced by the Saudi kingdom and adhered to by several of the September 11 hijackers, as the only true Islam, and it denounces more moderate Muslims who advocate tolerance as apostates. In Saudi Arabia, Ms. Shea said, apostasy is a capital crime. "If you're a Muslim and you become an infidel," she said, "you're put to death."
"According to the report, one of the strongest denunciations of so-called apostasy was issued in Brooklyn's Al-Farooq mosque, on Atlantic Avenue." A book published by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs which was obtained from the Al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn, New York (written by a former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the late Bin Baz), authorizes Muslims to kill converts to Islam who violate their sexual mores, according to the report."
"According to the report's translation, Al-Farooq worshipers are told: "If a person said: I believe in Allah alone and confirm the truth of everything from Muhammed, except in his forbidding fornication, he becomes a disbeliever. For that, it would be lawful for Muslims to spill his blood and to take his money." The report emphasizes that this isn't the first time the Al-Farooq mosque has been cited in conjunction with terrorism and terrorist ideology. On Friday, the trial in Brooklyn federal court of a Yemeni sheik, Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad, who stands accused of conspiring to raise millions of dollars for Hamas and Al Qaeda began. Some of this alleged fund-raising activity was allegedly undertaken at the Al-Farooq Mosque.
"A senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Andrew McCarthy, who led the prosecution of the ringleader of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Omar Abdel Rahman, spoke yesterday of Al-Farooq's other alleged connections to terrorism."
"The mosque, Mr. McCarthy said, was a regular stop for the blind sheik on his fund-raising tours in the late 1980s, and in 1989, the former prosecutor said, several conspirators in the Landmark Bomb Plot - which aimed to blow up the United Nations and New York City's tunnels - met at Al-Farooq before heading out to Long Island to conduct jihadist training activities."
"This latest revelation about Al-Farooq, Mr. McCarthy said, was 'just another drop in the barrel.'" "'What the Saudis do is very disturbing,' Mr. McCarthy said.
'We turn a blind eye to the really bad things the Saudis do ... to not appear as if we're being, God forbid, judgmental about Wahhabism and Saudi proselytizing of a particular brand of Islam that is very alarming to most people,'"
"Mr. McCarthy said the purported Saudi propaganda was further evidence that conducting a war on terrorism is 'a bad idea' when America is really engaged in 'a war against militant Islam.'"
"Saudi representatives in America, however, have denied spreading hateful materials to mosques, Ms. Shea said in her report. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy, Adel al-Jubeir, says the Saudis 'don't approve of hate ideology in any way.'
She continued, 'But he's lying, they do promote this.'" "Several of the documents obtained by the center read, "Greetings from the Cultural Attache of the Saudi Embassy in Washington," Ms. Shea said." When the New York Sun's reporter Clyne asked Saudi officials in Washington about the hate literature bearing his country's seal, she was told that the officials were out of the country on the yearly hajj pilgrimage.
"While saying the Saudis may be 'lying low,' Ms. Shea emphasized that the report's focus was not on the activity of the mosques cited, but on what she said was an attempt by the Saudi government, over a period of decades, to create 'a fifth column within the American Muslim community."
"'It's political propaganda as much as it is religious,' Ms. Shea explained. 'We have to confront it in our bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia - at the highest levels of government, we have to tell the Saudis, 'No more.''"
--
I agree. America is in the same state of blind denial toward Saudi Arabia's reign of hate that she was in toward Germany before 1941. If no American serviceman had set a boot inside of Iraq by now, the Saudis' hate literature against us would still be just as virulent, just as present, and used just as much to promote terrorism on our own soil and against Americans overseas.
When we kill Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq, it means that there are that many less of them to attack us at home and abroad. There are already beginning to be public complaints about precisely this depletion of the "dumb Saudi" pool of potential terrorists from within Al-Qaeda. I'll say more about that in another post.
It's time to show the Saudis that they cannot conquer the world with their "missionaries" who spread hate and terror around the world. If we have to use strategic nuclear weapons to sterilize the source of this infection, well, why not? It is better to risk dying as men than to live as slaves to those swine.
Before we do that, though, we should give the Muslims who are not part of the Saudis' campaign to spread hatred and terror the opportunity to defend and reclaim their holy places. I personally have no problem with Muslims as such. I don't agree with their theology, but I can say the same of many Christians. I actually got along well with most of the Muslims I met in college and had two Muslim roommates, one of whom was a Shiite from Iran, and the other a supporter of the Shah (this was back before the Islamic Revolution in Iran).
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What I have a real problem with is the Saudis and their violent, hate mongering sect of Islam. I would bet that most Muslims who are not part of that sect also have a real problem with the Saudis. Again, we should give the free Muslim world an opportunity to wrest control of their holy places back from the Saudis before taking the risk of making the desert to their east (and parts of the Persian Gulf) radioactive.
We have no quarrel with them. Saudi control of Mecca and Medina is actually a new thing, historically speaking. The Hashemites - basically just the King of Jordan now, unless the former Iraqi royal family wish to re-assert their claim to the Iraqi throne, which would probably just get them killed - have a better claim to the surrounding area and specifically to the stewardship of the Holy Places.
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But an even better claim rests with Islam worldwide - Muslims throughout the world who do not want to be remade in the Saudi mold. Worldwide, Muslims have some legitimate gripes with the rest of the world and with Christianity specifically. But the Saudis are doing what we are simply being falsely accused of - they take Qur'ans away from other Muslims visiting to make the hajj, often destroying what they don't simply steal, they rush around Mecca and Medina with demolition crews and concrete to flatten and pave over holy sites - things the vast majority of Christians have absolutely no interest in doing. We simply don't care about interfering in Muslim worship. And when this crucial fact gets better known, perhaps the vast majority of Muslims will recognize their real enemy and act to stop them. God willing.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 7:19 PM MST
Updated: Saturday, 13 January 2007 12:50 AM MST
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