Do you want to know the truth about the failure to take bin Laden from Sudan? Mansoor Ijaz has first-hand knowledge. Will his testimony be made public?
April 15, 2004
Here’s an Italian Hero
Kidnapping has been revived as the weapon of choice for those in the Middle East who want to poke sticks at the tiger.
But Italy is standing firm. The kidnappers killed one of their Italian hostages, but he didn’t go quietly:
“This boy, as the assassins were pointing the gun at him, tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘Now I’ll show you how an Italian dies,'” Frattini said, adding, “He died as a hero.”
If you know you are about to be killed, wouldn’t you do what this young man did? Why would anyone prefer to cry and beg for mercy? There is none in the Middle East.
April 14, 2004
Altruism
I ran across Spirit of America at InstaPundit.
Americans have always been eager to help. This one may help more than most.
Some years ago I worked on a mobile radio/television studio for use in just such a situation. The whole thing was transportable by C-130, with transmission and editing studios mounted inside Humvee shelters. The antenna was something else, and required several 2-1/2 ton trucks to drag the tower structure pieces around. Anyway, it was an expensive project, supposed to be used for this type situation.
Did it all go down the drain?
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April 13, 2004
The Kurdish Solution
The Kurds, who number 20-25 million, are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation. They were first mentioned in Sumerian writings in 3000 BC. What has been known as Kurdistan for more than 2500 years is spread across the northern portion of Iraq, and includes about one-third of eastern Turkey, and parts of Syria and Iran. Saddam Hussein was not the first to try to eliminate them. Every power broker in the area since the days of Darius have done so. The Kurds continue to survive. They have no friends but the mountains.
The Kurdish language has managed to survive despite efforts by Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and every conqueror who came through the area. Likewise, their culture has unbroken links to the past. They are mostly Muslim, yet view their religion in a way most Americans view our own. It does not define their way of life or politics. Their brand of Islam retains some characteristics of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrians were led by the Magi, and some of these “wise men” visited Jesus in Bethlehem.
Saladin is most familiar historical name of all Kurds. He was born in Tikrit, Saddam’s home town. Kurdish home town. Sunnis fight with Shiites, and everyone fights the Kurds. Yet the Kurds survive. And even when the US has treated them badly or ignored them, they have retained a sense of kinship with Americans. They have little use for Europeans who agreed to the Treaty of S?vres, which outlined an autonomous Kurdistan, then rescinded it with the Treaty of Lausanne (both in 1923) to divide them among other nation-states.
Oil fields in Iraq are located in the southern, Shia area, and in the northern, Kurdish area. Much of the Sunni part of Iraq is wasteland. The Kurdish area contains oil, many minerals, and excellent farm land. It is landlocked, but a superbly viable region for autonomy.
With all the problems in Iraq, I would love to be Emperor for a Day. I would do only two things: Disband the United Nations, and hand over the northern portion of Iraq to the Kurds as an independent Kurdistan. Let the Sunni and Shia fight among themselves, as they apparently like to do, to decide who controls the southern oil fields and port of Basra. I would even give them Tikrit, and put up a strong border checkpoint which leads out of the north of the city. I would simply request a military base in Kirkuk or Mosul to station US troops and aircraft in a location convenient to trouble areas.
The Kurds have never shown any inclination to expand their territory in their entire history. They fight hard, but don’t go looking for fights. I cannot imagine a more stable democracy ever being established in the Middle East.
And you can bet it would make the French mad.
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Really?
Do you think the chain of custody will be maintained to prove this?
The body count in Fallujah till now is 518 Iraqis dead (160 of them women, and about 50 children) and 1250 badly injured. Doctors from Fallujah mentioned that a large number of the dead women and children were shot in the head and that they were saving the extracted bullets to prove that they were being targetted by Marines snipers in the city.
Zeyad is usually not taken in by things like this. Once the “popular uprising” is done, I’ll be listening to the reporters as they condemn the account for lack of any evidence.
Of course, I could be wrong. You know those Marines…baby killers, all. Right, Son?
April 12, 2004
Foreign Fighters
NPR News this morning had a report from one of their reporters in Baghdad. He told Bob Edwards that the Marines found a building filled with weapons, bomb-making supplies, and letters home. Edwards wanted to focus on this, and the reporter seemed hesitant to commit to a conclusion.
“Yes, Bob. It appears that in this particular town, in this particular building, there were indications that some of the fighters came from other countries. I can’t say with any certainty that’s the case in other areas where fighting is going on, but in this particular location, it appears there may have been foreigners involved.”
Does the word “Duh” mean anything to you? We would certainly hate to let it leak out that the Iraqis aren’t involved in a mass uprising after all, wouldn’t we? I guess they were really just “alleged” fighters.
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April 10, 2004
Spain’s Royal Pain in the Ass
Sorry. Welcome to the United States. We have no royalty here (except maybe the Kennedys and a movie star or two), so we really aren’t up on all the kiss-your-feet protocol. Maybe if you gave us the requisite three day notice, you wouldn’t have been subjected to the misery the rest of us endure when going through airport security.
On the other hand, maybe the future king could get his own airplane.