One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Words are powerful: "A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a “mass murderer.” There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices “suicide bombers” is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.
Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man “customer” because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. "
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Friday, August 19, 2005
Free Iraqi
Free Iraqi: "had Iraq's neighbors been really cooperative it would be very difficult for Al Qaeda to maintain their efforts in the same magnitude or even closer. And it would be naive to think that such police states know nothing about fighters and cars loaded with bombs that travel thousands of miles and cross their lands to reach Iraq. Now most of the totalitarian regimes in the region are not friends with the terrorists and in fact terrorists have attacked those regimes occasionally while using their lands as a passage, but the bigger cause has forced them to cooperate in Iraq and form a sort of an unwritten contract that regulates this cooperation.
I say they know, they're facilitating it but they still want it to be controlled, i.e. they want to make sure that the people they're supporting -or even not doing anything against them- are not going to use this support to attack America because that would bring their end, and very fast."
I say they know, they're facilitating it but they still want it to be controlled, i.e. they want to make sure that the people they're supporting -or even not doing anything against them- are not going to use this support to attack America because that would bring their end, and very fast."
Free Iraqi
Free Iraqi: "if the war in Iraq is not part of the war on terror as some westerns think then why do we have almost all the terrorists in the world racing each other to achieve 'martyrdom' in our land? Why not Afghanistan, Israel or their ultimate enemies; the west and America in particular? Sure they have attacked Europe but is that the best they can do there? I really doubt it. The terrorists have shown us that they have people almost everywhere in the world that are waiting for an order to blow themselves up in a bus, a train or a street crowded with civilians. So why are they putting most of their resources in Iraq instead of the west?
It's amazing how the terrorists themselves keep showing us in words and actions how vital the war in Iraq is for them and at the same time we have westerns and Americans saying that this war has nothing to do with fighting terrorism and that it's only increasing the danger of terrorism!"
It's amazing how the terrorists themselves keep showing us in words and actions how vital the war in Iraq is for them and at the same time we have westerns and Americans saying that this war has nothing to do with fighting terrorism and that it's only increasing the danger of terrorism!"
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
Deaths in Iraq Lower than under Saddam
Deaths in Iraq: "The Iraqi government now believes that at least 12,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the last 18 months. In the last ten months, about 800 Iraqi civilians and police have been killed each month. Adding a bit more to account for unreported deaths (especially in Sunni Arab areas where chaos, not the government, runs things) the death rate is running at the rate of about 45 dead per 100,000 population per year. This is far higher than the usual rate in Middle Eastern countries (under 10). Well, most of the time. During civil wars and insurrections, the rate has spiked to over a hundred per 100,000, sometimes for several years in a row. During Saddam’s long reign, the Iraqi death rate from democide (the government killing its own people) averaged over 100 per 100,000 a year. This does not include the several hundred thousand killed during the war with Iran in the 1980s. There are other parts of the world that are more violent than Iraq. Africa, for example, especially Congo, Sudan and South Africa. Only South Africa has a sufficiently effective government to actually keep track of the death rate, mostly from crime, but it’s over 50 per 100,000. It’s worse in places like Congo and Sudan, but the numbers there are only estimates by peacekeepers and relief workers. In southern Thailand, a terror campaign by Islamic radicals has caused a death rate of over 80 per 100,000. "
Sunday, August 14, 2005
ChronWatch Reader Forum :: View topic - When it comes to Islam, ignorance is lethal:
ChronWatch Reader Forum :: View topic - When it comes to Islam, ignorance is lethal:: "
Mr. Jonathan Petre of Daily Telegraph did not tell the whole story. The truth is that most of those who convert to Islam, within months or a few years, realize they have been duped and leave Islam. Many of them rise with dedication and strive to eradicate his cult of lies and deception. I know hundreds of people who had converted to Islam but now have left it. Many of them started their own websites and weblogs and are exposing the ugly truth of Islam.
There are also millions of those who were born into Islam but now have left it. If Islamic apostasy can be called a movement, it is indeed the fastest growing movement today.
"
Mr. Jonathan Petre of Daily Telegraph did not tell the whole story. The truth is that most of those who convert to Islam, within months or a few years, realize they have been duped and leave Islam. Many of them rise with dedication and strive to eradicate his cult of lies and deception. I know hundreds of people who had converted to Islam but now have left it. Many of them started their own websites and weblogs and are exposing the ugly truth of Islam.
There are also millions of those who were born into Islam but now have left it. If Islamic apostasy can be called a movement, it is indeed the fastest growing movement today.
"
Friday, August 12, 2005
A Bomb?
The Bad Hair Blog: "A final thought,
Consider now what it must have sounded to anyone in 1945 the idea that, sixty years on, all the Axis powers would be true democracies.
Now ponder the possibilities in all the struggling democracies of today."
Consider now what it must have sounded to anyone in 1945 the idea that, sixty years on, all the Axis powers would be true democracies.
Now ponder the possibilities in all the struggling democracies of today."
United Press International�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
United Press International�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "A controversial plan to embed radio frequency identification chips in license plates in the United Kingdom also may be coming to the United States, experts told UPI's Wireless World.
The so-called e-Plate, developed by the British firm Hills Numberplates, is a license plate that also transmits a vehicle's unique identification via encryption that can be read by a small detector, whose output can be used locally or communicated to a distant host. "
The so-called e-Plate, developed by the British firm Hills Numberplates, is a license plate that also transmits a vehicle's unique identification via encryption that can be read by a small detector, whose output can be used locally or communicated to a distant host. "
interesting!!
Chrenkoff: "Aussie jihadi - the story unfolds
Two days ago I reported on the story of a new terror tape aired by a Mid East TV channel, where a masked gunman harangues the West with an Australian accent. The story was true, but the direct quotes I used were not - some readers got the Crocodile Hunter/Crocodile Dundee jokes, some didn't.
Meanwhile, the story is developing:
Former army private Mathew Stewart has emerged as the chief suspect in the hunt for the masked terrorist with an Australian accent.
Stewart left home four years ago to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and has not been seen since.
Australian Federal Police officers immediately identified Stewart as the probable hooded figure who appeared in a terror video aired on Arab TV this week.
I'm eagerly awaiting now how Australian tabloids will christen our latest jihadi. Mat the Rat? Mudjahedin Mat? Al Qaeda Stew? Mooloolaba Muj? (Mooloolaba is a little town on the Sunshine Coast, 100 km north of Brisbane, where Stewart comes from).
The story how he got there is quite bizarre:
Private Mathew Stewart was patrolling the streets of Dili, East Timor, in 2002 when he was confronted with the full horror of live combat.
The quiet soldier and keen surfer from Queensland's Sunshine Coast stumbled upon the almost unrecognisable body of a Dutch journalist killed by militia.
Financial Times reporter Sander Thoenes, 30, had been shot in the chest and badly beaten. According to his comrades, Stewart was deeply traumatised by the discovery, his first encounter with death on the front line.
He was discharged from the army's 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment for psychological reasons a short time later, sending him into a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
While other East Timor veterans looked for a change of lifestyle back home, Stewart began fixing his sights on the war unravelling in Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on New York the previous year.
Furious at his perceived mistreatment in the Australian army, Stewart began making plans to fight for the other side.
It's ironic (in that grim sense of irony) that being traumatized by seeing a dead body would send a person on a sure path of seeing even more dead bodies, but it's doubly ironic that Private Stewart's turning point in life came in East Timor. It was the Australian intervention there in 2000 that guaranteed East Timor's transition to independence after a quarter of a century of a bloody Indonesian occupation costing 200,000 Timorese lives (a staggering one third of the entire population). Coincidentally, Australia's role in wrestling this small Catholic nation from under the domination of Muslim Indonesia has been cited by Osama bin Laden himself as one of the reason why Australia is now in Al Qaeda's sights.
I won't be surprised if there is more to this story, though, than just a traumatized and disgruntled ex-serviceman.
And if true, then it's yet another nail in the coffin of the intelligence community excuse that 'it was impossible to infiltrate Al Qaeda'. If an Australian soldier, with no apparent background in Islam, can walk off the street and sign himself up with the Terror Inc, then so could have any CIA infiltrator. Whether such asset inside Al Qaeda would have proven valuable in practice, particularly considering the risk of the mission, is another matter."
Two days ago I reported on the story of a new terror tape aired by a Mid East TV channel, where a masked gunman harangues the West with an Australian accent. The story was true, but the direct quotes I used were not - some readers got the Crocodile Hunter/Crocodile Dundee jokes, some didn't.
Meanwhile, the story is developing:
Former army private Mathew Stewart has emerged as the chief suspect in the hunt for the masked terrorist with an Australian accent.
Stewart left home four years ago to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and has not been seen since.
Australian Federal Police officers immediately identified Stewart as the probable hooded figure who appeared in a terror video aired on Arab TV this week.
I'm eagerly awaiting now how Australian tabloids will christen our latest jihadi. Mat the Rat? Mudjahedin Mat? Al Qaeda Stew? Mooloolaba Muj? (Mooloolaba is a little town on the Sunshine Coast, 100 km north of Brisbane, where Stewart comes from).
The story how he got there is quite bizarre:
Private Mathew Stewart was patrolling the streets of Dili, East Timor, in 2002 when he was confronted with the full horror of live combat.
The quiet soldier and keen surfer from Queensland's Sunshine Coast stumbled upon the almost unrecognisable body of a Dutch journalist killed by militia.
Financial Times reporter Sander Thoenes, 30, had been shot in the chest and badly beaten. According to his comrades, Stewart was deeply traumatised by the discovery, his first encounter with death on the front line.
He was discharged from the army's 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment for psychological reasons a short time later, sending him into a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
While other East Timor veterans looked for a change of lifestyle back home, Stewart began fixing his sights on the war unravelling in Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on New York the previous year.
Furious at his perceived mistreatment in the Australian army, Stewart began making plans to fight for the other side.
It's ironic (in that grim sense of irony) that being traumatized by seeing a dead body would send a person on a sure path of seeing even more dead bodies, but it's doubly ironic that Private Stewart's turning point in life came in East Timor. It was the Australian intervention there in 2000 that guaranteed East Timor's transition to independence after a quarter of a century of a bloody Indonesian occupation costing 200,000 Timorese lives (a staggering one third of the entire population). Coincidentally, Australia's role in wrestling this small Catholic nation from under the domination of Muslim Indonesia has been cited by Osama bin Laden himself as one of the reason why Australia is now in Al Qaeda's sights.
I won't be surprised if there is more to this story, though, than just a traumatized and disgruntled ex-serviceman.
And if true, then it's yet another nail in the coffin of the intelligence community excuse that 'it was impossible to infiltrate Al Qaeda'. If an Australian soldier, with no apparent background in Islam, can walk off the street and sign himself up with the Terror Inc, then so could have any CIA infiltrator. Whether such asset inside Al Qaeda would have proven valuable in practice, particularly considering the risk of the mission, is another matter."
: Out of Order ( The Saudi Military)
The New Republic Online: Out of Order: "a huge problem: the potential for factionalism within the Saudi military. Because different princes and their sons control various fighting forces, the possibility that armed units could become politicized in the near future looms large. Moreover, the institutional culture within these armed organizations is heavily influenced by Wahhabism--a dangerous situation for a kingdom in a state of political flux."
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
December 2002 Trading Tips Newsletter
December 2002 Trading Tips Newsletter: "Trading Rules 101
Many traders maintain and refine a set of Trading Rules that they attempt to follow. The rules are intended to encourage and remind traders to have some discipline, or to follow a trading system with exactness. A good set of Trading Rules will often prevent greed and plain stupidity from creeping into your trading. Almost any trader can identify a losing trade, and then say, 'If I had only followed my rules I wouldn't have had that losing trade'.
The following list of general Trading Rules is a compilation from many different sources. They are not in any particular order of importance. Many of the rules are common sense and you have heard them before. You may see a rule that you would like to add to your own Trading Rules list.
* Trade with the Trend.
* Cut your losses short, and let your gains run.
* Trade the Chart, not the Money.
* Don't chase the Market. Wait for a 2nd chance.
* Never buy because it seems too low. Never sell because it seems too high.
* Trade only symbols that have sufficient volume and liquidity.
* Never add to a losing position. Just get out and start over.
* When in doubt, get out, or stay out.
* Know where to exit a position before entering a trade.
* Never have an opinion about the market. Lose your opinion, not your money.
* Trade what you see, not what you believe.
* Think for yourself.
* Don't borrow money to invest.
* Don't trade tips.
* Focus on Trading, rather than on making Money.
* Avoid Impatience. You don't always have to be in the market. Wait for good trade opportunities.
* Always place a stop.
* Follow your Rules.
* Never 'Go for Broke'.
* Don't get sloppy after successful trades.
* Control your losses.
* If you wouldn't take the trade now, then don't stay in a current trade. Get Out.
* Don't trade without a plan.
* Lock-in profits.
* Move stops to a break-even (risk free) exit point as soon as possible.
* Focus on not-losing, more than winning.
* The trend is your friend."
Many traders maintain and refine a set of Trading Rules that they attempt to follow. The rules are intended to encourage and remind traders to have some discipline, or to follow a trading system with exactness. A good set of Trading Rules will often prevent greed and plain stupidity from creeping into your trading. Almost any trader can identify a losing trade, and then say, 'If I had only followed my rules I wouldn't have had that losing trade'.
The following list of general Trading Rules is a compilation from many different sources. They are not in any particular order of importance. Many of the rules are common sense and you have heard them before. You may see a rule that you would like to add to your own Trading Rules list.
* Trade with the Trend.
* Cut your losses short, and let your gains run.
* Trade the Chart, not the Money.
* Don't chase the Market. Wait for a 2nd chance.
* Never buy because it seems too low. Never sell because it seems too high.
* Trade only symbols that have sufficient volume and liquidity.
* Never add to a losing position. Just get out and start over.
* When in doubt, get out, or stay out.
* Know where to exit a position before entering a trade.
* Never have an opinion about the market. Lose your opinion, not your money.
* Trade what you see, not what you believe.
* Think for yourself.
* Don't borrow money to invest.
* Don't trade tips.
* Focus on Trading, rather than on making Money.
* Avoid Impatience. You don't always have to be in the market. Wait for good trade opportunities.
* Always place a stop.
* Follow your Rules.
* Never 'Go for Broke'.
* Don't get sloppy after successful trades.
* Control your losses.
* If you wouldn't take the trade now, then don't stay in a current trade. Get Out.
* Don't trade without a plan.
* Lock-in profits.
* Move stops to a break-even (risk free) exit point as soon as possible.
* Focus on not-losing, more than winning.
* The trend is your friend."
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Newsday.com: Insurgency continues targeting civilians
Newsday.com: Insurgency continues targeting civilians: "Even the bloodiest rebellions of modern times did not target civilians the way the insurgents have in Iraq. In Algeria, for example, rebels fighting against French colonial rule in the 1950s and '60s adopted a classic guerrilla tactic: They provoked the occupying troops to use excessive force and kill thousands of civilians. That prompted a public backlash and international condemnation of French actions. The French eventually withdrew from Algeria, after as many as 1 million people had been killed."
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
365 and a Wakeup: Desert Creatures
365 and a Wakeup: Desert Creatures: "The sun has been pitiless these last few days, doubling and redoubling its radiant energy until everything stationary shimmers in its own invisible pyre. The sputtering coughs of wind that limp across the cracked soil lack any real force; it’s as if the temperatures have cowed the air into refusing to stir. In these temperatures nothing moves without purpose. The troops that have to move back and forth across the FOB move along deliberate paths, their heads slightly bowed in unconscious deference to the flashbulb brilliance.
Now that we are several weeks into this withering season our cycles of work and rest have come to mirror the desert creatures that creep and slither through this harsh land. As is so often the case, we’ve had to slowly relearn the lessons nature hardwired into the native wildlife. The biggest key to surviving the temperatures is to (surprise, surprise) avoid the sun. Our barracks serve the same purpose as the desert creatures underground haunts – they both offer reservoirs of chill air. The only difference is our concrete berths hum to the steady whir of overworked air conditioning units.
Soldiers who decide to be infantryman don't join for the luxurious acomodations. That doesn't make it any easier to leave the air conditioned barracks, but it does help muster the will to keep heading out those doors into the atmospheric inferno. The sun isn't the only cruel taskmaster, the sheer weight of our combat equipment more then doubles the misery index. The thick ballistic carapace that we all wear is a life saver, but on days like this it seems to be a karmic bank selling protection in exchange for hour after hour of broiling misery. When you are wearing slabs of ceramic armor evaporative cooling becomes impossible, the sweat just soaks through layer after layer until your uniform is a sodden, salt encrusted mess. It is a pain, but nobody really worries to much about coming away from a mission soaked. We have a lot more to worry about then how to leach salt from a uniform."
Now that we are several weeks into this withering season our cycles of work and rest have come to mirror the desert creatures that creep and slither through this harsh land. As is so often the case, we’ve had to slowly relearn the lessons nature hardwired into the native wildlife. The biggest key to surviving the temperatures is to (surprise, surprise) avoid the sun. Our barracks serve the same purpose as the desert creatures underground haunts – they both offer reservoirs of chill air. The only difference is our concrete berths hum to the steady whir of overworked air conditioning units.
Soldiers who decide to be infantryman don't join for the luxurious acomodations. That doesn't make it any easier to leave the air conditioned barracks, but it does help muster the will to keep heading out those doors into the atmospheric inferno. The sun isn't the only cruel taskmaster, the sheer weight of our combat equipment more then doubles the misery index. The thick ballistic carapace that we all wear is a life saver, but on days like this it seems to be a karmic bank selling protection in exchange for hour after hour of broiling misery. When you are wearing slabs of ceramic armor evaporative cooling becomes impossible, the sweat just soaks through layer after layer until your uniform is a sodden, salt encrusted mess. It is a pain, but nobody really worries to much about coming away from a mission soaked. We have a lot more to worry about then how to leach salt from a uniform."
2Slick's Forum: To Paradise and Back Again
2Slick's Forum: To Paradise and Back Again: "Let's tee up a big screaming match about whether a high official of the White House committed a crime by breaching security in a dust-up over terrorists like Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden.
No, I'm not talking about Karl Rove. I'm talking about Sandy Berger stuffing secrets into his socks so the 9/11 Commission wouldn't be able to see what he and Bill Clinton were really thinking and saying and doing about Usama bin Laden.
Let's see now, what happened when Berger got caught with the secrets in his socks?
Hmmm. Did we hear the Democratic senators and congressmen wailing about breaking national security? No, we did not."
No, I'm not talking about Karl Rove. I'm talking about Sandy Berger stuffing secrets into his socks so the 9/11 Commission wouldn't be able to see what he and Bill Clinton were really thinking and saying and doing about Usama bin Laden.
Let's see now, what happened when Berger got caught with the secrets in his socks?
Hmmm. Did we hear the Democratic senators and congressmen wailing about breaking national security? No, we did not."
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