Posted on 01/01/2006 6:41:58 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
Weapons of Disruption
C 2006 Frederick J. Cowie, Ph.D.
Whereas we have no masses, it certainly would be seriously challenging to deliver a "weapon of mass destruction" in the vast majority of geographical areas in the American West, as well as in many areas in the East and South. For instance, Montana is approximately the size of Germany, yet the population hovers only around a million (we have one representative in the House). There is no "metropolitan" area anywhere around, though Spokane is about three hundred miles away. Wyoming has more sheep than people. Utah has Salt Lake City and a few nearby populous areas. Nevada has two populated regional areas, Las Vegas and Reno. North and South Dakota have, well, a few folks here and there. Idaho folks are few and far between. I swear you can drive from San Antonio to El Paso without seeing a city policeman, because I've done it several times. Then there are Arizona, New Mexico, eastern California, inter alia. The point is we have a few population points, while the rest of the states are empty excepted for isolated small communities.Thus, out West we probably need to talk more about "weapons of disruption." (Some folks say "weapons of mass disruption," but we have no masses!)
You must ask yourself: What would I do if I were a terrorist (or a terrorism preparedness instructor) looking into the ramifications of launching a rural terrorism attack? Personally, I would concentrate on considering the consequences of disruption rather than mass destruction. Here are a few scenarios you might want consider when your local rural emergency management/response group gathers to discuss terrorism exercises.
1) Wildland Fire Incidents: Incendiary (mostly wildland) warfare has been used by military strategists for at least 2500 years, over a thousand years before the use of gunpowder. The western U.S. is disrupted, seriously disrupted, every year by wildland fires. Quite a few are started by humans, accidentally and purposefully. Starting dozens of major fires in a dozen western states could be a brilliant line of attack if militants wished to disrupt America. Thousands of security personnel could do nothing and the perpetrator/s would probably never be implicated, much less captured. Are you prepared?
2) Railroad Chemical Incidents: Many railroad main lines go through tunnels. A few strategically placed armor-piercing shells in a series of chlorine cars, along with appropriately staged derailments leaving the leaking cars in the tunnels, could shut down many main line routes in the West. Spin-off scenarios are numerous. Ready?
3) Flammable Liquid Incidents: Bridges are not easily brought down from below and approaches to bridge support structures are often highly visible and randomly monitored. However, on CNN we all have seen many tanker truck accidents involving burning hydrocarbons which have made bridge structures unusable. How hard would it be to have a few terrorists steal trucks and drive them (as opposed to hijacking planes and flying them) to strategic bridges over wide rivers or narrow gorges, ignite the gasoline (or diesel or crude), block the approaches with other incendiary or chemical releases, and make the structures extremely dangerous and impassible to highway traffic? Gotcha!
There are many variations of these themes. You probably have or can make up many more plausible, novel, and easily implemented rural-specific attack scenarios. Design exercises around them. If you want to stop terrorist events you must think like a terrorist and quit fighting last year's war!
Peace, thanks, Fred
Please check out my website at fredcowie.com
To find recent presentations, Google (with quotation marks) "Fred Cowie"
Frederick J. (Fred) Cowie, Ph.D. E-mail: fredcowie@aol.com Phone: (24 hr cell) 406-431-3531 Website: fredcowie.com
Iran Means What It Says
by Michael Rubin
AEI Online: On the Issues
January 25, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/892
This article is derived from recent articles by AEI resident scholar
and Middle East Quarterly editor Michael Rubin that appeared in
Týžde? (Bratislava), the Wall Street Journal, and his recently
released book, Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005), coauthored with Patrick Clawson.
U.S. and European diplomats need to take seriously the rhetoric used by
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding nuclear programs
and the destruction of Israel. Tehran has proven itself to be an insincere
diplomatic partner. Engagement has backfired. Instead of continuing
failed diplomatic efforts, world leaders should work together to help the
Iranian people create a truly representative government.
On February 2, 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency will meet
in Vienna to discuss the nuclear crisis in Iran and, in all likelihood, refer
Iran to the United Nations Security Council for being in breach of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's safeguards agreement. Such a
referral will mark a turning point in a decade-long saga. Europe's
engagement with Iran has failed. The United States and its European
allies have been resolute in their condemnation of the Iranian
government decision to resume uranium enrichment. In contrast to
previous diplomatic impasses with Tehran, neither Washington nor its
European allies appear willing to make further concessions. On January
23, U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't see much
room for further discussion in any format [with Iran]." At a January 13,
2006, press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel, George
W. Bush condemned Iran. "Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon, poses a
grave threat to the security of the world," Mr. Bush said. "We will not be
intimidated," Ms. Merkel added. Already, though, there has been one
casualty of the diplomatic crisis: the European Union's policy of
engagement.
While Iranian diplomats met with their British, French, and German
counterparts in Vienna and Geneva, Iranian technicians toiled to ready
Iran's uranium enrichment capability. European officials discussed a
China model for Iran, in which they could use trade to catalyze political
liberalization. Between 2000 and 2005, EU trade with the Islamic
Republic almost tripled. But rather than moderate, Iranian authorities
used the hard currency to enhance their military. They built secret
nuclear facilities and blocked inspections. They failed to explain why
there were traces of weapons-grade uranium on Iranian centrifuges, and
they refused to detail what assistance Tehran received from Pakistani
nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan.
Still, diplomats and doves hold out hope. After a January 12 phone
conversation with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Kofi Annan
assured reporters that Tehran was interested in "serious and
constructive negotiations." As Mr. Bush met Ms. Merkel, British foreign
secretary Jack Straw told the BBC that military action was "not on the
agenda" and insisted that the crisis "can only be resolved by peaceful
means." But while Mr. Bush and his European allies may agree to refer
Iran to the UN Security Council, traditional diplomacy will not work for a
simple reason: Iran's quest for nuclear weapons has nothing to do with
the United States or Europe. The crisis with Tehran is ideological, not
political.
Take Ideology Seriously
The destruction of Israel is a pillar of the Islamic Republic's ideology.
Soon after leading the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
declared, "Every Muslim has a duty to prepare himself for battle against
Israel." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped
off the map" may have shocked Europe, but his statements mark only a
change in rhetorical style, not ideological substance. Ahmadinejad is not
unhinged. He knows exactly what he is doing. It takes skill and
sophistication to become mayor of Tehran, a city of more than 12
million, let alone president. When Ahmadinejad threatens to destroy
Israel, he is deadly serious.
When it comes to Israel, there is no difference between hard-liners and
reformers. While Kofi Annan honored Mohammad Khatami for his
"dialogue of civilizations" idea, the reformist president's instructions to
the Iranian people were less high-minded. "We should mobilize the
whole Islamic World for a sharp confrontation with the Zionist regime,"
he told Iranian television on October 24, 2000. "If we abide by the
Qur'an, all of us should mobilize to kill."
Khatami's comments were hardly the exception. Expediency Council
chairman and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is often
described by Western officials as a pragmatist. On December 14, 2001,
he took the podium at Tehran University to deliver the Friday sermon,
the official weekly policy statement of the Iranian government. In what
should have been a wake-up call, Rafsanjani declared, "If one day, the
Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel
possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill
because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy
everything. . . . It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
U.S. and European analysts rationalized Rafsanjani's remarks,
suggesting that he referred to self-defense only. Tellingly, though, many
Iranian parliamentarians understood the Expediency Council chairman to
mean what he said: threatening the offensive use of a nuclear weapon.
Two years later, authorities displayed a Shihab-3 missile during a
military parade draped with a banner reading, "Israel must be uprooted
and erased from history."
Factionalism within Iran's ruling elite is not a reason to discount policy
pronouncements, especially those that receive widespread media
coverage within the Islamic Republic. Iranian media is state-controlled.
Its broadcasts signal the imprimatur of the entire government. Iranian
authorities are precise and sophisticated with messaging. Teachers and
other state workers march at carefully choreographed rallies. At the
October 2005 "World without Zionism" conference, banners calling for
Israel's destruction were in English, not Persian. The intended audience
was not only the masses in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz, but rather
Washington, Jerusalem, and Brussels.
Nor should Western officials dismiss Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial
simply because other Iranian officials are more polished. On December
14, 2005, four years to the day after Rafsanjani threatened a nuclear
first strike against Israel, Ahmadinejad delivered a televised speech in
which he called the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews a fabrication. "They
have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it above
God, religion, and the prophets . . . If someone were to deny the myth of
the Jews' massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments
subservient to the Zionists [would] tear their larynxes and scream
against the person as much as they [could]." In recent days, the Iranian
government has underlined its point by announcing its intention to
sponsor a Holocaust denial conference.
Ahmadinejad does not represent the Iranian public at large. Most
Iranians are tolerant. Iranians pride themselves on being cosmopolitan.
Most Iranians are polyglots, and Iran itself is more an empire than a
nation. The Jewish community has long roots in Iran. Iranian Jews still
make pilgrimages to Hamadan, a city in western Iran, to visit the tombs
of Esther and Mordechai. The prophet Daniel walked through the lion's
den in Susa, the ruins of which lie in the province of Khuzistan, not far
from the Iraqi border. Even today, Iran boasts the second-largest Jewish
community in the Middle East after Israel.
Irrational anti-Semitism has deep roots among Iran's clergy. The Nazi
practice of forcing Jews to wear a yellow star had its origins in Iran,
when in the ninth century an Abbasid caliph forced his Jewish subjects to
wear yellow patches. Various subsequent rulers revived the practice for
short periods of time. Shiite clerics long deemed any food touched by
Jews to be unclean. While blood libel only took root in Iranian society
after the sixteenth-century arrival of European ambassadors, as Iranian
society wrestled with modernity, violent anti-Semitism grew. Pogroms
wiped out the Jewish community in some towns and villages in Iranian
Azerbaijan in the mid-nineteenth century. Serious pogroms also swept
through Mashhad, a Shiite shrine city in northeastern Iran in which the
current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was born and raised. It was also
in Mashhad that, despite the oft-cited mantra that there is no
compulsion in Islam, Shiite clerics forcibly converted the remaining Jews
to Islam under threat of death. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made
anti-Semitic conspiracies a frequent theme of his speeches.
That most Iranians embrace religious and cultural diversity is irrelevant;
the clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps--their ideological
enforcers--wield the power. It is the stranglehold of ideologues over the
Iranian state that makes a nuclear Iran so dangerous. The Revolutionary
Guard Corps consolidated its power in the later years of the Khatami
administration when it managed to scuttle contracts allowing Turkish and
European firms to operate cell phone networks and the new Tehran
airport. It is this ideological and xenophobic core which controls both
Iran's nuclear industry and its missile programs. Ahmadinejad's
Holocaust denial and threats to "wipe Israel off the map" represent the
ingrained ideology of this group. Recent apocalyptic references by
Ahmadinejad--who may just believe that he can hasten the return of the
Hidden Imam, a Messianic Shiite figure, through violence and war--raise
the stakes.
There is ample precedent that the Islamic Republic acts on its ideology,
motivated as much by anti-Semitism as by denial of Israel's right to
exist. Iranian diplomats and intelligence agents coordinated the
devastating 1994 attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos
Aires, Argentina. In 2002, two years after Israel's withdrawal from
southern Lebanon, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah told Lebanon's
Daily Star, "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the
trouble of going after them worldwide." The Islamic Republic remains
Hizbullah's greatest supplier of arms and money.
A Pragmatic People
The ideological venom of their leaders carries little weight among the
Iranian public. While the Iran-Iraq War killed hundreds of thousands,
Iran and Israel have never exchanged a single shot. Many Iranians
express pride that Israeli president Moshe Katsav was born in Iran.
Indeed, the real ire of ordinary Iranians is expressed toward their
government, not the outside world. In a 2002 labor protest, workers
demanding back pay marched through Tehran, chanting, "Forget about
Palestine and think about us."
Iran's youth no more want to live under theocracy than do Americans or
Europeans. Iran Institute for Democracy telephone polls sampling
opinion in every Tehran neighborhood suggest that only 10 percent of
the population believes in Ahmadinejad's vision. These are the true
believers, akin to the die-hard Stalinists who opposed reform to the end.
Another 10 percent see themselves as reformists. These are the Iranian
equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev's followers. They support the system,
but want to fix its implementation. The remaining 80 percent have lost
faith in the Islamic Republic. This vast majority is analogous to those in
the Soviet Union who did not merely want glasnost but rather sought an
end to Communist domination.
But the Iranian people have little say in their leadership. The supreme
leader wields autocratic power and reigns for life. The Guardian Council
selects who can run for office. Before the 2005 elections, this clerical
council disqualified more than 1,000 candidates, allowing the public to
choose from only eight, all of whom endorsed theocracy and opposed
far-reaching reform. Ordinary Iranians ignore the sham: while the
Iranian government claims 50 percent voter turnout, Iranian pilgrims in
Iraq say it was less than 20 percent. Contrast that with Iraq, where 70
percent of the population braves bombs and bullets to vote.
The Iranian religious leadership recognizes that demography is against
them. Reform is a slippery slope, democracy a theocrat's hemlock. For
the ayatollahs, there can be no Orange, Rose, or Cedar Revolutions.
Popular will is irrelevant. Legitimacy comes not from the people, but
from God as channeled through a cabal of religious leaders. While
Western analysts divide Iran's politicians into hard-liners and reformists,
the difference is one of style, not belief. Take Mr. Khatami: viewed by
diplomats as a reformer, he nevertheless demonstrated disdain for
popular sovereignty. "Knowledge of God's commandment must be the
foundation of . . . life," he wrote in the state-run daily Kayhan. "People
are not able to comprehend God's will through the explanations
contained in the Quran and Sunna. Acquiring such comprehension
requires several years of studies and much effort." Democracy is fine,
but only clerics should be able to participate fully. Khomeini's successor
and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called liberal democracy
"the source of all human torment."
Such statements ring hollow among the Iranian people. This year marks
the 100th anniversary of Iran's constitutional revolution. Many people
wonder why they no longer have rights they had a century ago. Since
the 1999 student protests, they have taken to the streets with increasing
frequency to demand real reform. Iranians are losing their fear of the
Islamic authorities. State control is eroding. Televised confessions once
broke dissidents, now they build them. A stint in Tehran's notorious Evin
Prison has become a badge of honor. In the summer of 2005, dissident
author Akbar Ganji shook the Islamic Republic with a two-month hunger
strike that captivated his countrymen. "I have become the symbol of
justice in the face of tyranny," he wrote from prison, "my emaciated
body exposing the contradictions of a government which has reversed
justice and tyranny."
The ideological guardians can suppress wildfires of dissent, but Iran
remains a tinderbox. Demography pours fuel on the fire. The leadership
is following a different China model: only with a nuclear deterrent can
the ayatollahs launch the Cultural Revolution that will ensure their
survival without fear of outside interference. The Revolutionary Guards
are preparing for not one, but dozens of Tiananmen Squares.
As they cleanse their home front, the theocrats may use their nuclear
capability to act upon their ideological imperative to destroy Israel. The
West once ignored Saddam Hussein's threats against Kuwait, but
dictators often mean what they say. Even if Iran does not use its bomb,
a nuclear deterrent will enable it to lash out conventionally without fear
of consequence. With an ideology promoting the export of revolution and
the destruction of a regional state, Iran is not a status quo power.
Diplomacy can only work when both sides are sincere. Like an abused
spouse, Western policymakers blame themselves rather than understand
the fault is not theirs. There is no magic formula waiting to be
discovered. To Tehran, the West is na?ve. More diplomacy will only give
the Islamic Republic time to achieve its nuclear goal. The only solutions
that can rectify the problem are those that deny the Islamic Republic its
nuclear arsenal or those that enable Iranians to cast aside theocracy and
its aggressive ideology and instead embrace freedom.
The Failure of Engagement
Talking softly and wielding a big carrot backfires. Iranian officials exploit
European openness to further revolutionary aims. On June 17, 2002, for
example, European foreign ministers agreed to fast track a new trade
pact with Iran. European Union officials like External Affairs
commissioner Chris Patten lobbied hard for the deal, arguing, "There is
more to be said for trying to engage and to draw these societies into the
international community than to cut them off." Less than a week later,
Denmark's Police Surveillance Agency intercepted Iranian agents
seeking to assassinate several prominent Iranian dissidents and
journalists.
Likewise, former European Commission president Romano Prodi spent
his tenure seeking to bolster economic ties with Iran. His July 1998 visit
to Tehran broke a long-standing taboo; Iran rewarded the Italian
national oil company with a $3.8 billion gas exploitation deal. The
erosion of European pressure on Iran coincided not with the
empowerment, but rather the demise of the reform movement.
The following July, Iranian security forces and vigilantes sacked a Tehran
University student dormitory. The government began shuttering
newspapers and arresting journalists. It reversed civil liberties.
European governments chastised the Iranian government gently; to take
significant action would have endangered commercial contracts. The
Islamic Republic's hierarchy, in turn, dismissed European entreaties and
continued on its anti-democratic course.
The past two years of EU-3 negotiations with Tehran have followed a
similar pattern. European diplomats project desperation. They assume
the sincerity of its partners and constantly strive to find the magic
formula which will enable the Ayatollah's to abandon their nuclear
future. When British foreign minister Jack Straw assures the British
public and the Iranian government that under no circumstances will force
be used in the current dispute, he emboldens his Iranian adversaries to
filibuster. The Iranian government meanwhile associates noncompliance
with reward. Not taking Western resolve seriously, they have an
incentive not to strike a deal, but rather hold out for greater concession.
Advancing Freedom
When President Bush began his second term, he delivered an inaugural
address making freedom the centerpiece of his foreign policy. "For as
long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny . .
. violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the
most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat," he declared. "It is
the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of
democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."
Not only justice, but also national security mandates that the Islamic
Republic's ideologues be neutralized. The military option will have a high
cost. Iranians are fiercely nationalistic and will resent any airstrike. The
Islamic regime exploits Iranian nationalism. Murals in Tehran depict
those killed in 1987 when U.S. forces attacked an Iranian maritime
platform in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for an Iranian attack on a
U.S.-flagged oil tanker.
There is still much that can be done between symbolic sanctions and
military force. The problem in Iran is not the Iranian people, but rather
the ideology and grasp on power of an elite few. Besides rhetorical
outreach, the Bush administration has done little to advance freedom or
liberty in Iran. As the State Department debated how to allocate $3
million to groups advancing freedom in Iran, the Congress funded a $400
million bridge in Alaska. More money is allocated to landscaping around
Washington's Kennedy Center than on programs to support the Iranian
people.
Supporting liberty in Iran need not mean endorsing an external
opposition group. Iranians are capable of governing themselves. Iranian
bureaucrats are among the first to complain of their government's
capriciousness. Nor should U.S. officials undercut the integrity of the
Iranian nation by funding separatist groups. As destabilizing as Iran is
now, it has the potential to anchor democracy in the Middle East.
Short-term gain should not come at the sacrifice of a long-term ally.
The Gdansk model might find fertile ground in Iran. A quarter century
ago, the White House stood firm in its support of an independent labor
union despite calls that such support might derail effervescent d?tente in
the Soviet Union. While the move sparked a military crackdown in the
short-term, it nevertheless inaugurated a process in Poland and the
Warsaw Bloc that led to the collapse of tyranny. Neither the United
States nor the European Union should hesitate to provide support to the
Iranian people. European states played a key role in facilitating real
democratization in the Ukraine and Georgia; the Lebanese benefited
from the cooperation of both Paris and Washington.
Political problems can be resolved through diplomacy, but the ideological
underpinnings of a hostile regime cannot. Pol Pot could not be dissuaded
from genocidal xenophobia. Gamal Abdul Nasser would never abandon
Arab nationalism. Saddam Hussein defiantly upholds the principles of his
rule, even as he faces a tribunal and execution. The Iranian leadership is
no different. No amount of diplomacy will convince Iran's clerical
leadership to abandon tenets and policies they see rooted in their own
interpretation of theology. It is important to base policies upon what Iran
is rather than what the West wishes it to be. At the same time, the
United States and Europe should work together to empower the Iranian
people to create a truly representative government. An Iranian
government reflecting the will and beliefs of the Iranian people is not
one which will endanger liberty at home, or life and security abroad.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.
To allow Iran to fly over America.
leaves me speechless.
Why?
Even my twisty mind can't wrap around that one.
Twenty-five percent of the world's oil production passes through the
Straits of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian
Ocean. If Iran were to carry out such a threat, other big oil producers
in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, would be
unable to export oil.
Raduki also warned that his country might resign its membership in
the International Atomic Energy Agency and withdraw from the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. <<<<<>>>>>
His closing of teh Hormuz, will last 3 days, then one of the
arabs, will talk to him.
He will then open it, or drop dead.
I would think that the IAEA holds no meaning to him, he will do as he wants.
The speakers that I have heard on the radio, say that the leader of Iran is not insane, he only wants you to think so.
I would think that he has taken lessons from the leader of North Korea.
Being crazy works........
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Iran%20North%20Korea%20connection
Wow!
Iran money to N. Korea....
N. Korea helps Pakistan with nuclear program.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Iran+North+Korea+nuclear+connection&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet
I don't think we will like this one:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Iran+North+Korea+nuclear+WMD+biological&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet
Velveeta,
Truman, was talking about a twin engine plane that crashed, he was shocked, to read that the planes "thrusters" kicked
in when it was trying to land.
He said twin engine Cessna, that if he had owned the plane,
he would have been checking it out, so we are back to the
mechanic again.
I am assuming he talked about the crash at Carlsbad, or?
He never gave a town.
The kids killed between the truck and school bus yesterday,
did you hear that the grandfather, also died at the parents
home of a heart attack.
God gives us more than we can bear at times. To adopt 7 kids and loose them and your father, there would not be words to explain the pain of this family.
My neighbor and I were just discussing this a few minutes ago. Netanyahu will be on Cavuto this afternoon, I will listen and report back.
Yes and maybe he doesn't know he's planning his early demise.
What did he have to say?
El Pais
http://www.elpais.es
Spain | J. A. RODRÍGUEZ / J. YOLDI
Madrid
An Islamist terrorist convicted of forming part of a Spanish Al Qa'ida
cell
involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States
was
released from prison last week after serving half of his eight-year
sentence
because the Supreme Court failed to resolve his appeal in time.
© 2006 El Pais
My neighbor and I were just discussing this a few minutes ago. Netanyahu will be
on Cavuto this afternoon, I will listen and report back.
<<<<>>>>
Please do, as I don't get TV.
I have a lot of info, slanted to Israel in the Yahoo mail,
but so far, it is mostly opinions and not real info.
An accidental google:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=My%20neighbor%20and%20I%20were%20just%20discussing%20this%20a%20few%20minutes%20ago.%20Netanyahu%20will%20be%0D%0A%20on%20Cavuto%20this%20afternoon%2C%20I%20will%20listen%20and%20report%20back.
Has good links.
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Iranian%20money%20weapons%20to%20Palestine
New websites?
http://www.google.com/search?q=Iranian+money+weapons+to+hamas&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet
See both spellings:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Iranian+money+weapons+to+al-Qaida&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet
LOL, to me Hagmann says, what has been said on the Threat Matrix.
Having him on, gave noury a chance to rant out his commie
hate of President Bush.
I had to laugh, Noury and Doug did not seem to understand why in 2002, President Bush had OBL at the top of the list.
Today he does not.
They were calling for Bush to explain why OBL is not #1.
Hagmann, allows Noury to vent, then weakly agrees.
My opinion of course.
I tried to listen to the Hagmann part 2 times, never got a lot out of it and went to sleep on the second time around.
http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Article%5El7642&enPage=ViewsPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Views&enScript=PrintVersion.jsp&
Tick-Tock Israel
By Howard Galganov January 26, 2006
Iran is a Theocracy sworn to murder Jews in Israel, and spread its vision of a world dominated by its
particular Shiite belief in Islam.
Iran is also the world's most active TERRORIST supporting state, providing money, training, logistics,
weapons and a safe haven for those eager to murder Jews in Israel and all other Infidels.
That's pretty much all we really have to know about Iran. Everything else is irrelevant to what has to be
done to stop the mad Islamists from realizing their global ambitions.
I can hear the Leftists moaning and groaning at what I just wrote. After-all, isn't there an underground
Iranian movement promoting Democracy in the Shiite State? And aren't many young Iranians pro
American and pro modernity?
Yes. According to much of what we read and hear, there are many pro American and pro modernists
amongst the younger generation in Iran. And an underground pro Democracy movement too.
SO WHAT?
In pre Hitler Germany, Germany was a functioning Democracy. In pre World War Two Nazi Germany,
there was a strong Free Press and opposition movement. And during World War Two, there were many
Germans who hated the Nazis as much as the Allies.
AND WHAT GOOD DID THAT DO?
The fact that all Germans, perhaps even most, weren't Nazis or genocidal Holocaust participants didn't
change what was.
And just like Nazi Germany, the "good-guys" in Iran are virtually irrelevant and won't change what's
happening there either.
Some of Israel's Doves are saying that the threat from Iran has global consequences, and therefore
must be settled by the United Nations through the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the
Security Council.
These Israeli Doves would do well to remember that the IAEA watched helplessly as Pakistan and North
Korea developed their nuclear arsenals. And only a short while ago, the Security Council was chaired by
Syria: of all nations.
The Doves should also remember that had it been up to these useless international institutions, and not
up to Israel's Air Force in 1981, Iraq would have nuclear weapons and this would be a very different
world.
As each day passes, Israel is becoming more and more vulnerable to its own national destruction.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, and all the other groups which represent the Islamic
Brotherhood are on the march.
And unlike yesterday, when Israel was able to launch its magnificent military to do battle and defeat the
armies and air-forces of its enemy nation neighbors, there are no conventional armies with which to do
battle against in this new war.
In this vicious war against TERRORISM, it is hard to target a nation to fight, even though it is no secret
as to which nations are the life-line to the TERRORISTS.
BUT THAT HAS TO CHANGE!
The only thing left for the Islamists and Israel's Arab neighbors to do, to kill Israel and the 5.5 million
Jews who live there, is for the rest of the world and Israeli Doves to do nothing.
The threat is clear. And it is imminent.
Israel is completely surrounded by implacable foes which play by their own rules, who have proven
beyond any doubt whatsoever, that nothing, no matter how despicable it might be, is beneath them in
their quest to destroy modernity, democracy and the Jewish state.
For Israel to survive this crisis, there is only one option: Take out the Iranian and Syrian threats by
wiping out the Iranian and Syrian war machines, their capacity to support TERRORIST groups, and most
of all: Iran's nuclear capability.
For Israel to wait for goodwill from the IAEA and the Security Council, would be the same as when
Germany's Jews hoped for goodwill from Adolf Hitler and those closest to him in 1939.
The clock is ticking and the days are passing.
If Israel wants not to see its time run out. And wants to see another day. Israel should think long and
hard about trusting the goodwill of the anti-Semitic world and the real threat it faces from hundreds of
millions of its hostile Arab neighbors including more than 1 BILLION Moslems worldwide.
And most of all: Iran.
Iran is the new Nazi Germany of the 21st century. The world and the European Jewish community of
1939 might be excused for not believing what Hitler said he would do once he came to power.
Who could have imagined?
But not believing what Iran has to say is inexcusable, since history tells us to believe.
Tick-Tock Israel . . . Tick-Tock.
Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
© 2001-2004 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved.
Bibi on Cavuto.......
Cavuto - What do you think of Hamas position?
B-A very big set back for peace. Not a peace that will be purchased by rise of Hamas. Endemic corruption in PLO as a result of the unilateral withdrawal by Israel seen as weakness emboldening Hamas.
Hamas will put on a lot of makeup knowing they are in the limelight and may get funding eliminated. Remember when it was said if the Taliban comes to power the people will restrain them. Very sad day for peace. We need to give them no more territory and no time of day. They will use additional territory to attack us. Peace through strength is the way to go. They didn't like me, but the strength of our will is the only way to stop them from attacking.
Israel or US facing global terror should NOT negotiate with a terror regime funded and directed by Iran. Hezbolah in Lebanon, Hamas is in Gaza and Hamas in West Bank now surrounding Israel. How would we ever know if they've changed, they would have to stop the kindergarten terror training schools, jail their own people breaking the law. The answer is we are not going to talk to them. I've been predicting this would happen. The Gaza withdrawal was to disengage from the Pali population. They didn't use the proper policy of defensible borders and redraw the lines when they left Gaza. The way we left communicated weakness. First thing to communicate, is not to buy glib lines or maneuvers. We need to tell them they are illegitimate, Hitler got elected in Democratic elections.
He called them a miniature Iran. The revolution you see in Pali society goes toward terror not peace. He tells them Israel is not going to buckle under, they will deter and punish terror. You don't advance talks with a regime that wants your destruction.
Cavuto - Olmert is the favorite to get elected, does this change that?? B - I don't know that, I know you fight terror not by concession but by strength. The question is will the missiles fall in Israel before or after the elections. Mini Iran 1000 yard from Jerusalem now!!
ANNAN CONGRATULATES PALESTINIAN PEOPLE ON PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY
ELECTIONS New
York, Jan 26 2006 1:00PM United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
today
"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10324.doc.htm"
congratulated
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian
people on the
peaceful and orderly conduct of their legislative elections.
"The Secretary-General views these elections as an important step
toward the
achievement of a Palestinian State," a UN spokesman said in a
http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1897
statement. "He looks
forward
to the publication of the results of the elections over the coming days
and to
discussing them with the Quartet."
In Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Annan, responding to press questions about
the
developments in the Palestinian legislative elections, said that "any
group that
wishes to participate in the democratic process should ultimately
disarm."
The Secretary-General, who is attending the World Economic Forum, said
that
there is a "fundamental contradiction" between carrying weapons and
participating in a democratic process and sitting in parliament.
Referring to
Hamas, he added, "I'm sure they are thinking about that too."
The Secretary-General will meet with members of the diplomatic Quartet
- the UN,
European Union, United States and Russian Federation - next week in
London.
During his phone conversation with President Abbas, the
Secretary-General
expressed his appreciation for the work of the UN-supported Central
Election
Commission, according to the statement.
2006-01-26 00:00:00.000
________________
For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
Granny's added note:
As an added note, the nazi are calling KDWN radio, and are in support of Palestine and against Israel.
There is a strong nazi cell in Las Vegas, there was a big billboard a few months ago, for white supremist group there.
Jim Dallas has given the nazi a world history class and he came back that he would not want an Israeli living in his grandmothers house........
It is going to get real bumpety.......
Thank you, good job on Cavuto, the man captures exactly what is going on, in my mind.
I can't take this thought all the way, as it can only go to war, there is no other answer.
Israel, must strike first and not give one inch, the time
for peace is well past........
I did not understand the giving of any land to Palestine.
Be careful, I heard a couple days ago, that N. Korea would
strike first, while we are fighting with words, then once the war starts with N. Korea, we have to join S. Korea.
And that is when the full muslim war will strike, they will
wait until we are busy.
After looking at the N. Korea and Iran connections, I would
think that it is true.
The WMD that will be played now is turning off the oil. Japan buys oil from Iran, so does EU. We are in for a rude awakening. and people still walk around with their heads in the clouds singing Kumbiah.
http://app.bronto.com/x/preview.php?id=102364_4f601c77_21095583_027634b6
PACE SLAMS RUSSIA OVER CHECHNYA
On January 25, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution on the human
rights situation in Chechnya. According to PACE's website (assembly.coe.int), the resolution, which passed by
a vote of 117 to 24, stated that the Strasbourg-based assembly "is deeply concerned that a fair number of
governments, member states and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe have failed to address
the ongoing serious human rights violations in a regular, serious and intensive manner, despite the fact that
such violations still occur on a massive scale in the Chechen Republic and, in some cases, neighboring regions
in a climate of impunity." The assembly also reiterated its "unambiguous condemnation of all acts of terrorism"
and expressed "its understanding of the difficulties the Russian Federation faces in combating terrorism."
The Strasbourg-based assembly said in the resolution that while it welcomes the fact that "a number of
criminal cases were opened and some perpetrators were taken to court," the Russian Prosecutor General's
Office has made "insufficient progress" in "elucidating and achieving successful prosecution of numerous human
rights violations brought to its attention" by previous PACE reports on the human rights situation in Chechnya.
"Impunity fosters more crime," the resolution stated. "Both federal and regional law enforcement authorities
must effectively investigate numerous specific and well-documented allegations of enforced disappearances,
murder and torture brought to the attention of international public opinion and of the assembly in recent
months by non-governmental human rights organizations. Moreover, the authorities should authorize the
publication of the reports of all CPT [European Committee for the Prevention of Torture] visits and publish
plans and steps taken to implement CPT recommendations." The resolution also said that emphasis must be
placed on "crimes against human rights defenders, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, forensic doctors and other
law enforcement officials and against applicants to the European Court of Human Rights and their family
members," adding: "It is intolerable that reprisals against applicants to the Strasbourg Court take place and
remain unpunished."
The PACE resolution welcomed Russia's law on parliamentary investigations that passed last year and urged
Russia's PACE delegation to request the establishment within the State Duma of "a committee of inquiry to
investigate the failure of law enforcement structures to hold responsible perpetrators of serious human rights
violations such as documented by the Assembly." It also said that the Russian authorities "must take practical
steps to address the issue of missing persons and 'disappeared' persons, particularly through introducing
effective systems for identification and recording of bodies found and to make this information public."
PACE declared in its resolution on Chechnya that it is "most dissatisfied" with the replies of the Committee of
Ministers, the Council of Europe's decision-making body, to its recommendations, charging specifically that the
Committee of Ministers monitoring of the human rights situation in Chechnya, "launched by the Secretary
General in June 2000, is now de facto at a standstill since the spring of 2004, despite repeated calls by the
Assembly to intensify monitoring efforts." The assembly, the resolution stated, "fears that the lack of effective
reaction by the Council's executive body in the face of the most serious human rights issue in any of the
Council of Europe's member states undermines the credibility of the Organization."
PACE also expressed concern over the law on non-governmental organizations that President Vladimir Putin
signed on January 10 (see Chechnya Weekly, January 19), which, it said, "falls short of the standards of the
Council of Europe."
The Associated Press on January 25 quoted a PACE deputy, Belgian Socialist Marie-Jose Laloy, as saying that
the "timidity with which the international community has responded to human rights violations in Chechnya has
thrown a cloak of invisibility over them" and that Chechens feel "abandoned and desperate." Another PACE
deputy, Dutch Socialist Erik Jurgens, said: "We are well aware of the problems the Russian authorities have in
restoring law and order in Chechnya. But if you're trying to restore law and order by violating human rights,
the chances that you'll succeed are small." Newsru.com quoted Jurgens as saying that the situation in
Chechnya was characterized by "absolute terror [and] fear," and that "lawlessness" reigns in the republic. The
report prepared last December by Rudolf Bindig of PACE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, which
provided the basis for the organization's resolution on Chechnya, details human rights abuses in Chechnya and
Ingushetia, including numerous kidnapping cases (see Chechnya Weekly, December 15).
Georgia's PACE delegation also severely criticized Russia over its behavior in Chechnya. "One should stop chaos
and call to account those who, under the cover of fighting criminals, keep on violating human rights," said a
member of its delegation, Elena Tevtoradze, during the debate over the resolution on Chechnya prior to its
passage. Interfax on January 25 quoted Tevtoradze, who spoke out in favor of the draft resolution, as
accusing the Russian authorities of manipulating information about the human rights situation in Chechnya "due
to media censorship." Novye izvestia on January 26 quoted Tevtoradze as saying that information from
"international organizations" indicated that 27 people were murdered, 45 (including 8 women) disappeared and
38 were illegally detained in Chechnya in just the past two months.
While the PACE resolution on Chechnya was highly critical of Russia human rights violations, some observers
question whether it will yield concrete results. "Unfortunately, it is difficult to speak of real consequences of
PACE passing the resolution on Chechnya," Kavkazky Uzel on January 24 quoted Aleksandr Cherkasov of
Memorial as saying. Cherkasov noted that the Committee of Ministers is made up of the foreign ministers from
all the Council of Europe's member states, including Russia, and makes decisions on the basis of consensus,
meaning that "the Russian authorities have the possibility of blocking any significant resolution taken by PACE."
Therefore, Cherkasov said, the resolution on Chechnya was probably more for internal rather than external
consumption. "But there's one 'but,'" Cherkasov added. "Russia this year assumes the chairmanship of the
Council of Europe. In that connection it will be difficult for it to make an offended face and leave."
Still, State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev,
who heads Russia's PACE delegation, dismissed the PACE report on Chechnya as
biased, Itar-Tass reported on January 25. "The main factor in human rights violations
in the republic is terrorism," Kosachev said. He noted that 60 percent of Chechnya's
"able-bodied population" remains unemployed and that the federal authorities have
spent 2 billion euros for Chechnya's needs since 2000. "This information was known
to PACE rapporteur on Chechnya Rudolf Bindig, but it was not included in the report
that was prepared in a rush and reflects only one point of view," he said. "The report
ignores efforts taken by Chechen authorities and, in fact, it plays into the hands of
those who are interested in the republic's destabilization." Akhmar Zavgayev, a
member of the Federation Council, the United Russia party and Russia's PACE
delegation, claimed that 582 mercenaries from 42 countries have been detained in
Chechnya. Chechen Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov said on January 24 that 70 gangs
totaling 700 people, around 100 of whom are "mercenaries from foreign states," are
currently operating in Chechnya, Itar-Tass reported.
Another member of Russia's PACE delegation, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) leader Vladimir
Zhirinovsky, called on PACE to come up with a specific prescription for Chechnya and invited PACE deputies to
visit the republic. "You have to thank Russia for what it's done in Chechnya," the Novaya politika Internet
newspaper (novpol.ru) quoted Zhirinovsky as saying on January 25 during the debate over the resolution. "Give
a formula for a settlement! Let us together travel there and we'll resolve it." The ultranationalist leader insisted
that Russia has done everything possible to resolve the situation in Chechnya. "Pull out troops? We pulled
them out. Sit at the negotiating table? We sat," said Zhirinovsky. "You thought the Chechens would handle it?
They didn't handle it." He also claimed that "mercenaries" with foreign passports are in Chechnya. "It's fighters
from Afghanistan, Central Asia…with passports handed out by the embassies of Georgia and Turkey."
Responding to the Georgian delegation's comments about Russian rights violations in Chechnya, Zhirinovsky
said that Georgia should "address itself to the problem of the Meskhetian Turks and solve it."
The pro-Moscow Chechen administration also criticized PACE. Nurdi Nukhazhiev, head of the department for
the upholding of constitutional rights of citizens on the territory of Chechnya, which is part of the Chechen
presidential administration said Chechnya could resolve human rights problems on its own. "We can do it within
the framework of the Chechen and Russian constitutions," he told Itar-Tass on January 23, commenting on the
PACE session's discussion of human rights in Chechnya. "The referendum on the Chechen constitution, the
presidential elections and, finally, the election of the Chechen parliament, which completed the formation of all
branches of power in Chechnya, show that we are quite capable of coping with the human rights problem."
Nukhazhiev described the PACE discussion of the issue as "speculation on temporary difficulties of the Chechen
Republic," adding: "Just tell me: who takes closer to heart the human rights problem—the Chechen president or
PACE?"
Meanwhile, the lower house of Chechnya's parliament, the People's Assembly, announced that it was setting
up a commission to be in charge of searching for abducted and missing people, RIA Novosti reported on
January 24. "More than 2,000 people have gone missing in the Chechen Republic over the course of two
military campaigns," said the parliament's speaker, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, who will chair the commission.
"The authorities are obliged to establish their whereabouts, clarify their fate and identify the burial places of
the dead." The commission, he said, will assist law enforcement agencies to do their work and make this work
more transparent. "Since the first days of the work of the [Chechen] parliament, people began to address us
with letters and statements asking us to find their relatives, so we put this issue on the agenda immediately,"
Abdurakhmanov said. "People should know what is being done to identify the whereabouts of those missing.
People should feel that the authorities protect them."
Part 2:
APPEALING IN STRASBOURG COMES WITH A HEAVY PRICE
Kavkazky Uzel reported on January 24 that Memorial had received information that the relative of a Chechen
who had filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been tortured since his
detention at the end of December. According to Memorial, Metkhi Mukhaev was taken from the home of his
cousin Ilyas Agashev by a group of unidentified armed people in camouflage uniforms on December 29.
Mukhaev's relatives were subsequently able to learn that he had been taken to Chechnya's Urus-Martan
district, where he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for "petty hooliganism." He was then transferred to the
Itum-Kale police department, and then to authorities in Chechnya's Shatoi district. Relatives of Mukhaev
inquired about him at the offices of the inter-district prosecutor but were told nothing was known about his
detention. On January 16, however, they were told he had been transferred five days earlier to the central
Grozny prosecutor's office.
On January 17, Memorial determined that Mukhaev had been transferred on January 13 to the custody of the
Operational-Search Bureau of the North Caucasus Operations Department of the Chief Directorate of the
Russian Interior Ministry in the Southern Federal District (ORB-2) on suspicion of violating part 2 of Article 209
of Russia's Criminal Code, which covers participation in an armed group involved in, inter alia, attacks on
citizens, contract killings, banditry, robbery and illegal weapons possession. Mukhaev was transferred to a
remand prison the following day and was able to see a lawyer on January 20. According to the lawyer,
Mukhaev said that during the 11 days he was incarcerated in Shatoi he was shown photos of people and
asked if he knew them, and beaten when he responded that he did not. He said his interrogators also pointed
guns at him and cocked the weapons. Mukhaev said he was then transferred to Grozny, where he was beaten
and subjected to electric shocks for three days. Mukhaev said he was then taken to see an "investigator
Pastukhov," who again asked him questions he could not answer, after which he was again tortured and told
that the federal authorities wanted him transferred to the Khankala military base, from where he would
disappear for good. Mukhaev said he was subsequently questioned in the presence of some Russians.
According to Memorial, materials from the criminal case against Mukhaev indicate that he was detained on the
testimony of a certain Gamaev, who testified that Mukhaev belonged to his armed group. A lawyer who was
present during one of Gamaev's interrogations said Gamaev was unable to stand up as a result of beatings and
torture.
Memorial has called on the Prosecutor General's Office to take immediate measures to investigate instances of
torture and beating by officers of the ORB-2 and the Shatoi police, to protect Mukhaev and Gamaev from
illegal methods of conducting an investigation and to ensure that the investigation is objective. "We call your
attention to the fact that M.M. Mukhaev is the member of the family of petitioners to the European Court for
Human Rights about the kidnapping of people in the village of Zumskoi on 15-16 January 2005, which gives
grounds for seeing the illegal actions directed against him as an attempt at revenge, or [as] the intimidation of
witnesses by the power structures," Memorial said in its appeal to the Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov.
Meanwhile, a Chechen Interior Ministry source told Interfax on January 23 that a young Russian woman who
had been abducted the previous day was freed as a result of a joint operation conducted by the Chechen
OMON and Grozny's Leninsky district police department. The source said the woman, a student of the Chechen
State University and a Krasnodar Krai resident, was abducted near the Grozny market by four men who
demanded several thousand dollars in ransom. Two of the abductors, apparently Urus-Martan district
residents, were captured when they went to collect the ransom, and led police to where the victim was being
held. The two other kidnappers remain at large.
DAGESTANI RIGHTS ACTIVIST GOES ON TRIAL
The trial of Dagestani human rights activist Osman Boliev will continue on January 30, Kavkazky Uzel reported
on January 25. The previous court session in his trial had to be postponed because of the failure of
prosecution witnesses to appear. Boliev, a resident of Khasavyurt, was detained last November during a traffic
stop and subsequently charged with illegally possessing weapons after a grenade was allegedly found on him.
His lawyer claims police planted the grenade on him.
The organization that Osman heads, "Romashka," filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg over an October 2004 abduction of another Khasavyurt resident (see Chechnya Weekly, December
8). According to Kavkazky Uzel, Boliev had also made public the fact that a six-year-old girl had been killed
during a special operation by Dagestani security forces. The website was apparently referring to a March 2005
security operation that killed two militants suspected of murdering a policeman in Khasavyurt in December
2004. A six-year-old girl—the daughter of the man who owned the house in which the militants were
staying—was reportedly also killed during the security operation (see Chechnya Weekly, March 16, 2005).
According to the Obshchestvenny Verdikt (Public Verdict) foundation, Boliev is being pressured because of his
professional activities. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) sent an open letter to
Dagestan's prosecutor, Rashidhan Magomedov, last December 5 expressing concern about Boliev's arrest. The
Vienna-based group said that case against Boliev was fabricated.
MILITANTS IN DAGESTAN AGAIN TARGET POLICE
A roadside bomb targeting a member of the Dagestani branch of the State Road Safety Inspectorate (GIBDD)
went off in Khasavyurt as the officer was passing by in his police vehicle, but the intended victim was not
hurt, the Dagestani Interior Ministry's press service told Interfax on January 19. The blast left a crater 85
centimeters deep and more than a meter across.
The underground Islamist group that has assassinated dozens of police officers in Dagestan, the Sharia
Jamaat, wrote a letter posted by the Chechen separatist website Chechenpress on January 26 denouncing
Dagestan's Spiritual Board of Muslims, which represents the republic's official Muslim clergy, as hypocrites who
have long been "carrying out a war against the Koran." On January 11, Chechenpress posted a Sharia Jamaat
statement warning "all police and other hypocrites" to "fear Allah and revenge by Muslims" (see Chechnya
Weekly, January 12).
Meanwhile, a Dagestani jury on January 24 acquitted Magomed Salikhov of charges that he organized the
September 4, 1999 bombing of an apartment building housing Russian military officers and their families in
Buinaksk, the Associated Press reported. The jury found Salikhov guilty of illegally crossing into Russia from
Azerbaijan and using forged documents. Several other men were convicted in 2001 on charges of carrying out
the explosion, and two of them, including Salikhov's younger brother, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prosecutors said that Khattab, the Saudi-born Chechen rebel field commander who was killed in 2002, had
promised them $30,000 for carrying out the blast. The Buinaksk bombing, which killed 64 people, was one of
several apartment building bombings across Russia in 1999 that killed hundreds of people and helped trigger the
second military campaign in Chechnya.
VILLAGERS MURDERED IN INGUSHETIA
A group of unidentified gunmen killed two people and seriously wounded a man and a woman during a January
20 attack in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia's Sunzhensky district, which borders Chechnya.
Citing Ingushetia's Interior Ministry, RIA Novosti reported that the gunmen, who were wearing masks and
camouflage and were armed with automatic weapons, burst into one of the village's houses and shot the
residents. Kavkazky Uzel on January 21 quoted an unnamed high-ranking Ingushetian government official as
saying that the attack may have been carried out both as a robbery attempt and an attempt to destabilize
the republic.
Meanwhile, Interfax reported on January 20 that the head of a ten-man rebel group allegedly loyal to Shamil
Basaev and Dokka Umarov had been arrested along with two accomplices at a temporary camp for refugees in
Ingushetia. A law enforcement source identified the arrested rebels as Timur Pereulidze, born in Georgia's
Akhmeta district, Ramzan Umatkhanov from Grozny and Sultan Adamov from Chechnya's Urus-Martan district.
Pereulidze is alleged to have been involved in the murder of a police officer in Ingushetia's Nazran district and
planting bombs to protect rebel hideouts.
BRIEFS
--TREPASHKIN PUT IN PUNISHMENT CELL
Newsru.com reported on January 19 that Mikhail Trepashkin, the former FSB colonel who subsequently charged
that the Russian security services were behind the 1999 apartment building bombings and was convicted on
charges of revealing state secrets, had been placed in a punishment isolator (SHIZO) in the Nizhny Tagil penal
colony settlement for raising his voice. Trepashkin was previously put in a punishment isolator last September.
Trepashkin's lawyer, Elena Liptser, said the colony's punishment isolator was located in a new building that
was not heated and that her client was suffering from bronchial asthma, which was worsening. A cold wave
across Russia sent temperatures to record lows, and the BBC, citing the Regnum news agency, reported on
January 17 that extreme cold in the Sverdlovsk region, which includes Nizhny Tagil, had sparked several bus
fires through short-circuits.
-- CHECHNYA MAKES MSF TOP TEN
The international humanitarian medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF) has included Chechnya among its "Top Ten" most underreported humanitarian stories in 2005, PNNOnline
reports. "Caught in a stranglehold between Russian Federation forces and Chechen armed groups, traumatized
civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict of attrition and find they have nowhere to go to be safe,"
MSF wrote. The Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Somalia and Colombia were also on the MSF list.
--MILITARY SPOKESMAN PRAISES PERFORMANCE OF LANDMINES
A Russian military spokesman has claimed that landmines planted by federal troops in Dagestan and Chechnya
have killed some 800 militants, Interfax reported on January 20. "During the fight against the armed groups
that invaded Dagestan in August 1999 and in the course of the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya,
sappers planted more than 200 kilometers of minefields in which nearly 800 militants have died," said Russian
Land Force spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov. He also said that federal troops have destroyed more than 200
militant defense installations, combed through 500 buildings for mines, carried out mine-sweeping operations on
400 hectares of agricultural lands, and defused nearly 330,000 landmines and other explosive devices. RIA
Novosti, citing the press service of the Interior Ministry's Internal Troops, reported on January 20 that combat
engineers of the Internal Troops defused 182 bombs, including 17 radio-controlled explosive devices, in 2005.
Crescent Under the Cross: Shamil Basaev's Orthodox Enemy
By Andrew McGregor
There is little left of the Orthodox Church establishment in Chechnya. Most of Chechnya's ethnic Russian
Christian minority fled in the early 1990s during the creation of Dzhokar Dudaev's independent Chechen state.
The onset of war in 1994 found only the aged and the impoverished remaining of Grozny's Orthodox population,
most of whom suffered greatly in the Russian bombing raids. Grozny's Church of the Archangel Mikhail, once a
symbol of Orthodoxy's triumph in the Caucasus, is slowly being restored after its destruction by the Russian
military in 1995. Reduced to a shell, its congregation consists today of a few hundred aged and hungry
pensioners.
Yet Chechen warlord Shamyl Basaev announced the intention of the "Majlis of the Caucasian Front" to
eliminate the "extremist activities" of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus until the end of the war. In
an interview conducted January 9, 2006, Basaev described the church's leaders as 'satanists" and accused its
clergy of being eager tools of Russian intelligence services ( Kavkaz Center, January 9, 2006). The Orthodox
Church is finished in Chechnya, but its continuing support for military action in the republic and its efforts at
converting Muslims elsewhere in the Caucasus have brought it into conflict with the leadership of the Chechen
insurgency.
The Church Militant
The very emblem of the Orthodox Church, a cross surmounting an Islamic crescent, is a reminder to Russian
Muslims that the Christians are a people of conquest, brought into the Russian empire by the force of a united
religious and political regime. The renewal of close ties between the church and the post-Soviet Kremlin alarms
many Muslims and has been a source of discontent with Muslim conscripts of the Russian army. The leader of
the Orthodox Church is Patriarch Alexy II "of Moscow and All Russia," who has been vocal in his support of the
war against "international terrorism" in Chechnya. The Church's support of the Kremlin has also come with calls
for state assistance in restraining the activities of foreign missionaries and the growing threat of "un-Russian"
evangelical Protestantism to the Orthodox establishment.
In scenes reminiscent of Tsarist times, long-bearded Russian chaplains hold field services for Russian soldiers,
exhorting them to victory over the Muslims before entering battle. Elaborate ceremonies are held in Moscow in
which the Patriarch and his bishops confer religious medals to Russian officers for their work in Chechnya. A
year into the present Chechen war the Patriarch presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with an icon of
Russia's 13th century hero, Alexander Nevsky, with the hope that the Orthodox saint would become the
protector of the President. Alexy speaks of the "unification of the state and the church, the unity (that was)
forcibly interrupted by the tragic events of the twentieth century" (Prime-Tass, August 1, 2003).
Russia's leading political figures can be found as speakers at Orthodox congresses, praising the growing
integration of church and government. The Church is especially close to the foreign ministry of Igor Ivanov and
supports the reintegration of independent Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and their large Orthodox
populations into the Russian Federation. Ethnic Chechens in Kazakhstan have angrily accused the Orthodox
Church there (which is under the control of the Moscow Patriarch) of recruiting ethnic Russians to fight in
Chechnya.
A certain amount of Orthodox support for the Chechen war has its origins in the chaotic inter-war period of
1996 to 1999, when Orthodox clergy were frequent victims of violence or kidnapping gangs. Orthodox priests
were at the time accused of running a tax-free tobacco and alcohol racket in Chechnya. Russia claims that
the Chechen representative in London, Akhmad Zakaev, was involved in the kidnapping and murder of
Orthodox clergy, although a British court did not find the accusations credible (particularly after one of his
alleged victims was produced alive).
Martyrs of an Orthodox Crusade?
In 2004 the Church bowed to popular pressure and outspoken members of its own clergy by canonizing a
young Russian soldier killed in Chechnya. The new saint was Yevgeny Rodionov, a 19-year-old Russian
foot-soldier who was captured and beheaded by Ruslan Khaikharov in May 1996. The soldier's mother, like so
many others, went to Chechnya to search for her son's remains. According to her, she had several meetings
with Khaikharov, who revealed that he had killed Rodionov because he refused to convert to Islam. With
Khaikharov killed in a Chechen feud soon after, the story remained uncorroborated (and there are many details
that make little sense), but this did not prevent the soldier's grave in Russia from becoming a place of
pilgrimage for Orthodox believers. When the church hierarchy declined to canonize the young "martyr," it came
under immense popular pressure from its membership, many of whom claimed that miracles were commonly
worked at Rodionov's grave or that his icons secreted myrrh. There are now several other "soldier-martyrs"
being considered for canonization.
Basaev has warned in the past that he considered Russian Orthodox churches (with the "defeated Islamic
crescent under their crosses") as legitimate targets of his Riyadus Salihiin Brigade of Martyrs. Two years ago
Basaev identified the church's leadership as members of Russia's two principal intelligence agencies, the FSB
(former KGB) and the GRU (military intelligence), and accused them of taking an active part in "the genocide of
the Chechen people" (Kavkaz Center, April, 2004). In Russia itself, accusations of Church collaboration with
the KGB date back to Soviet times and are a major factor in the growth of alternative forms of Christianity
within Russia.
Since the Beslan massacre the Bishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz has been active in encouraging the
conversion of North Ossetian Muslims to the Orthodox faith. Basaev must take some responsibility for this as
the orchestrator of the terrorist attack that brought repression of those who practice both official and
unofficial Islam in North Ossetia (where Orthodox Christians form the majority). Fear of retaliation for the
Beslan crime has led to acceptance of the Bishop's message by Muslims whose adherence to the faith is not as
strong as fear for themselves and their families.
Conclusion
Despite the threats, Basaev has not yet targeted establishments of the Orthodox Russian church and is
unlikely to do so as long as he adheres to a focus on military rather than terrorist activities currently promoted
by the Chechen rebel leadership. Tied to his remarks in the same interview about a renewed Imamate in the
North Caucasus, Basaev's verbal attacks on the Church seem to represent an attempt to define the Chechen
struggle in religious terms quite different from the parameters used during the presidency of the late Aslan
Maskhadov. The Orthodox Church has acted in a similar fashion, helping to redefine a war against "terrorists"
into a war against Islam.
The new Chechen president, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, is committed to creating an Islamic state in Chechnya.
Basaev suggests that Sadulaev is already "virtually the Imam of the whole Caucasus," and that a congress will
be held this spring to consider the proclamation of Sadulaev as Imam (political/religious leader, in this sense).
With Basaev's encouragement, Abdul-Khalim shows every sign of assuming the mantle of Shaykh Mansur and
Imam Shamyl to unify the Islamic opposition to Russian rule in the Caucasus. Basaev's remarks on the growing
symbiosis of the Orthodox church, the Kremlin and Russian security services are meant to remind Russia's
Muslims that Islam presents the only alternative to permanent subservience in a Christian state.
Dr. McGregor is the director of Aberfoyle International Security Analysis in Toronto, Canada.
icc@persecution.org
wrote: International Christian Concern
2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW #941, Washington DC 20006-1846
www.persecution.org
Email: icc@persecution.org For Immediate Release
Azerbaijani Soldiers Desecrate Armenian Christian Cemetery
You are free to disseminate the following news. We request that you reference ICC (International Christian Concern) and include our web address www.persecution.org.
Contact Jeff King President, 301-989-1708, icc@persecution.org
(January 26, 2006) The Washington, DC-based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org, has recently been informed that the government of Azerbaijan has destroyed an irreplaceable medieval Armenian Christian cemetery in the Djulfa region of Nakhichevan.
This act of cultural “cleansing†continues the spirit of the Armenian Genocide – an attempt by the Muslim countries in the region to erase all memory of a thriving Christian culture that has existed in the Caucasus area since the fourth century AD. Although this atrocity is on the same level as the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in 2001 and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries throughout Europe, the US State Department has remained silent.
"We are profoundly troubled by the Azerbaijani government's desecration of the Armenian Christian cemetery in Djulfa - particularly the destruction of irreplaceable carved stone crosses, many over a thousand years old," said ICC president Jeff King. "The shocking videotape of the systematic demolition of this treasure of world Christian heritage documents for all to see a deliberate act of hatred against a long-persecuted Christian nation and - more broadly - an affront to all Christians around the world.â€
In mid-December of 2005, roughly 200 Azerbaijani soldiers were caught on videotape using sledgehammers to demolish a sacred site of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The cemetery dates back to the 7th Century and was once home to as many as 10,000 khatchkars (intricately carved stone-crosses). Sadly, this attack, which followed previous demolitions in 1998 and 2002, effectively destroyed this site - erasing forever a true treasure of world heritage.
In the years following the 1915 genocide of over 1.5 million Armenian, Hellenic, and Assyrian Christians, Azerbaijan and Turkey have sought to eradicate the historical memory of the thriving Christian presence in the Caucasus and Anatolia. The Christian Armenian legacy in this part of the world dates back to the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew and, later, Armenia's conversion to Christianity as a state religion in 301 AD.
To watch the video of the destruction:
http://www.hairenik.com/HairenikTV/
ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC delivers humanitarian aid, trains and supports persecuted pastors, raises awareness in the US regarding the problem of persecution, and is an advocate for the persecuted on Capitol Hill and the State Department.
For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441. Mailing list: al inquiries to: International Christian Concern 2141 Industrial Parkway, Suite 201 Silver Spring, MD 20904 Powered by
From: ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org
Source: FDA Recall E-mail List [edited]
Vapotherm, Inc., Stevensville, Maryland, is initiating a nationwide recall of all Vapotherm 2000i Respiratory Gas Humidification devices.
Some of these devices have been found to contain the _Ralstonia_ species of bacteria. Ralstonia, as with any Gram-negative organism, may cause infection, sepsis and in most severe cases be life-threatening.
Health care practitioners should seek alternative respiratory gas humidification devices. Any health care facilities that have the Vapotherm 2000i device must return all devices to Vapotherm, Inc.
Instructions for return are listed on our recall information website at
http://www.vtherm.com/recall
or by calling Vapotherm, Inc. at 1-866-827-6843.
The "Vapotherm 2000i" label is located on the front of the device on the lower right-hand corner. If there is a question in identification of the product please contact Vapotherm for assistance.
This device is used in both the home and in health care institutions for warming and humidifying breathing gases, such as oxygen, delivered by nasal cannula.
The firm first learned that patients were colonized by the bacteria from a Pennsylvania hospital on 17 Aug 2005, and subsequently issued a voluntary recall of the Vapotherm 2000i on 13 Oct 2005. FDA has since been apprised of this action.
At this time, the following information is known:
There are numerous reports of _Ralstonia_ colonization, including 3 reports of infection;
One hospital reported a death, but this has not been confirmed by Vapotherm; and 26 hospitals in 16 states have reported positive cultures of _Ralstonia_ species from the Vapotherm 2000i device. Vapotherm's investigation is currently ongoing to identify the source of the Ralstonia contamination. In the meantime, Vapotherm's plans include recalling and performing a disinfection process on the units.
-- ProMED-mail
[This information is from an FDA recall e-list and the formal recall statement is shown below. - Mod.LL]
****** [2]
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006
From: ProMED-mail Source: FDA.gov [edited]
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/recalls/recall-101305.html
Class 1 Recall: Vapotherm, Inc. Vapotherm 2000i and 2000h Respiratory Gas Humidifier
Date Recall Initiated: 13 Oct 2005
Product: Vapotherm 2000i and 2000h Respiratory Gas Humidifier
Use: The Vapotherm 2000i and 2000h Respiratory Gas Administration delivers moisture to and warms breathing gases through a flexible nasal tube for patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The environments of use include home, hospital or sub-acute institutional settings.
Recalling Firm: Vapotherm, Inc, 108 Log Canoe Circle, Stevensville, MD 21666
Reason for Recall: FDA has received reports of Vapotherm units becoming contaminated with _Ralstonia_ spp, and other bacteria. Exposure to these bacteria may cause patients to develop tracheitis (infection of the trachea), sepsis (infection in the bloodstream), pneumonia (lung infection), or other serious infections. There is a reasonable probability that immunocompromised patients or premature newborms could develop pneumonia, sepsis and in the most severe cases, death.
Public Contact: David Lain, Chief Regulatory Officer Vapotherm, Inc, 198 Log Canoe Circle, Stevensville, MD 21012, 410-604-3977 FDA District: Baltimore
FDA Comments: FDA recommends the use of alternative devices until the source of the contamination has been identified. In Oct 2005, Vapotherm issued new procedures for disinfecting the Vapotherm 2000i and 2000h humidifiers, but these procedures have not been effective in eliminating Ralstonia spp. contamination in the devices.
Patients who have been exposed to the Vapotherm system should be monitored for signs and symptoms that may suggest infection, which may include, but are not limited to changes in temperature; poor feeding; irritability; and changes in hematologic indices.
Clinicians may want to consider _Ralstonia_ infection in the differential diagnosis of symptomatic patients even if the organism has not been isolated.
Class I recalls are the most serious type of recall and involve situations in which there is a reasonable probability that use of the product will cause serious injury or death.
For additional information, see the FDA's 20 Dec 2005 Preliminary Public Health Notification at
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/safety/122005-vapotherm.html
(Updated 23 Jan 2006)
-- ProMED-mail
[Whether disease was caused by the _Ralstonia_ bacteria in these individuals is not stated, which suggests that the organism was only colonizing the respiratory tract of those involved. The genus includes some organisms that had previously part of _Pseudomonas_, _Alcaligenes_ and _Cupriavidus_. The genus is also one, like _Burkholderia_, that contains organisms that may cause human disease and others that are related to diseases in plants.
_R. pickettii_ has been associated with nosocomial outbreaks caused by contaminated aqueous solutions as well as "pseudoepidemics" related to contaminated solutions in a diagnostic laboratory. Other _Ralstonia_ species such as _mannitolilytica_ and _insidiosa_ have also been linked to human infection (1, 2).
1. Coenye T, Vandamine P, LiPuma JJ: Infection by Ralstonia species in cystic fibrosis patients: identification of R. pickettii and R. mannitolilytica by polymerase chain reaction. Emerg Infect Dis 2002; 8:692-96.
2. Van der beek D, Magerman K, Bries G, et al: Infection with Ralstonia insidiosa in two patients. Clin Microbiol Newsletter 2005; 27:159-61. - Mod.LL]
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