Target Centermass

Day: November 17, 2004

  • North Korea Drops Use of Most Laudatory Kim Title

    Kim Jong-il, doomed to be a nut from day one, has either chosen or been forced to have his public image presented in a more subdued manner.

    North Korean media have dropped most laudatory references to leader Kim Jong-il, just days after reports that his portrait had been removed from some public places, an analyst at Radiopress, a Japanese news agency that monitors North Korean media, said on Wednesday.

    Instead of being referred to as “dear leader of our party and our people” as had been customary, Kim has been merely called by his job titles, said Noriyuki Suzuki, chief analyst at Radiopress.

    The omission, in both radio and print media, was especially glaring in a report on Wednesday by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Kim’s visit to a military unit.

    Kim was referred to by his three main job titles — Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and Chairman of the National Defense Commission.

    The change comes amid reports that portraits of Kim Jong-il, ubiquitous in homes, offices and public buildings across North Korea, had been removed from some public meeting halls.

    “It’s still hard to say, but taken in context with the reports about the portraits, this dropping of the most laudatory title may be an attempt by Kim to play down his cult of personality,” Suzuki said.

    He added, however, that the apparent curtailment of Kim’s personality cult did not suggest anything major had changed in the power structure of the reclusive communist state.

    Hmmm. Laying low for diplomatic reasons or fear of becoming a non-person? I think he’s just ronery and blame Team America.

  • Probe of Marine’s Disappearance Re-opened

    I refrained from posting on the swarm of allegations around the disappearance and subsequent resurfacing of US Marine Hassoun when the story originally was made known. Now, in the wake of the Fallujah campaign, there’s this news.

    Military investigators have re-opened the case of U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Wassef Hassoun after several personal items — including his military ID and civilian passport — were found in Falluja, the city where he disappeared in June.

    Hassoun reappeared July 7 in Lebanon, where he was born and has relatives.

    What happened to Hassoun during that time has been a mystery to military investigators who recently closed two separate investigations into the disappearance.

    Because of the new evidence, the case of Hassoun’s disappearance is unexpectedly open again. Investigators are assessing the evidence found in Falluja.

    After the initial report that Hassoun was missing, military officials assumed he had walked away from camp. He was listed as a deserter.

    His status was changed to captured after the release of a videotape that showed him blindfolded with a sword suspended over his head. A few days later, a posting to three Islamist Web sites claimed Hassoun had been beheaded.

    Hassoun denied being a deserter and staging his own kidnapping.

    A Marine Corps official said representatives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services did not interview Hassoun until after he completed his 30-day home leave, following his repatriation back to the United States.

    Hassoun may now be interviewed again, the official said.

    Hassoun’s civilian passport, military identification card and his military uniform were all found, sources said.

    The uniform was described by those familiar with the case as being in “remarkably good shape.”

    Other items with Hassoun’s name on them, but which the sources declined to describe, were also found. It appeared that some items of identification were altered, the sources said.

    Hassoun’s personal weapon disappeared from the camp just outside Falluja at the same time he did. It was never recovered.

    Also, an amount of cash he had has not been found, sources said.

    Two weeks ago, the NCIS presented its findings on two ongoing investigations into Hassoun’s disappearance.

    One investigation was a missing-person case. The other was a criminal probe into whether there was a breach of national security or classified information.

    Marine Corps officials would not say what those findings were. The findings were presented to the top commander of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune, Hassoun’s unit.

    While not restraining from posting it, I will continue to refrain from commenting on it and will advise others to do the same. There is so little publicly known at this time that an innocent Marine may be harmed or an Islamist investigation may be impaired. No prediction. No guessing. No opinion. At this time.

  • Japan’s LDP to Propose Self-Defense Force

    Japan, having long paid its penance and then some, is about to consider strengthening its national role in its own defense.

    Japan’s ruling party is considering constitutional revisions for setting up a self-defense military force and also making the emperor the head of the state.

    The Liberal Democratic Party agreed Wednesday to start full discussions on revising the constitution based on a draft outline calling for these measures, the Kyodo news service reported.

    Under the revisions, Japan will be able to exercise the right to collective self-defense and the Self-Defense Forces will be allowed to take charge of domestic security when mobilized by the premier and use force as part of international peacekeeping efforts.

    Under its present constitution, Japan is forbidden from exercising the right to collective self-defense.

    Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said efforts to realize the preliminary proposals will start in the fall of next year. But the proposal may have a tough time in parliament because of opposition from other parties.

    The draft also proposes allowing a female member of the imperial family to take the throne. Koizumi told reporters at his office, “I think the Japanese public mostly accepts it.”

    This is long beyond due, and needed to match the country’s economic and diplomatic importance in the Pacific Rim region and worldwide.

  • UK: Got Lard?

    If not, Brits, you can apparently blame the E.U.

    Bakers of mince pies, Christmas puddings and other traditional British treats have been warned that they might be facing a lard-free Christmas this year.

    Supermarkets say stocks of the shortening, made from rendered pig fat, were running low due to surging demand from pork-loving new members of the European Union.

    Jamie Sitzia, spokeswoman for the Somerfield supermarket chain, said this week that the admission of 10 new EU countries in May had been followed by “unprecedented demand from Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary for the cheapest cuts of pork to meet their demand for sausages, salamis and pies.”

    The countries are buying EU-bred pork to avoid tariffs on imports from outside the union. The result, Sitzia said, was “a serious shortfall in lard production throughout the European Union.”

    A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s, another large supermarket chain, said the company had seen a reduced supply of lard in stores and was advising customers to switch to butter or margarine where possible.

    Despite Britain’s reputation for stodgy food, lard is increasingly shunned by health-conscious cooks. Consumption fell from 2 ounces per person per week in 1971 to 0.3 ounces per person per week in 1998, according to government statistics.

    But many still swear by it as the secret to light, flaky pie crust and delicious roast potatoes.

    Somerfield spokeswoman Sitzia advised lard lovers not to panic.

    “We are now getting more volume through from suppliers and if customers do not panic buy we should have enough for everyone,” she said.

    I’m dreaming of a rendered-pig-fat Christmas….

  • Iraq Insurgents on the Run but Not Gone

    Almost as if dismayed that the terrorist activity in Iraq did not cease immediately with the commencement of the Fallujah operation, the Associated Press is taking an oft-dubious look at the American and Iraqi efforts against the radicals.

    U.S. commanders in Iraq say the insurgents are on the run. The problem is that when the insurgents are chased from one place, such as Fallujah, they pop up elsewhere, to deadly effect.

    It happened in Mosul this week and in Baqubah — with car bombings and attacks on police stations — as well as in Ramadi, a provincial capital just west of Fallujah. The scope of violence in those places is far smaller than in Fallujah. It also shows that the overwhelming technology and firepower of the U.S. military have not broken the back of the insurgency.

    It appears unlikely that the Pentagon will send substantially more troops to Iraq than the 140,000 already there. U.S. commanders believe a bigger force would just give the insurgents more targets.

    The Pentagon seems likely to stick to its current approach: confront the insurgents wherever they appear, building up the number of U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers and other security forces, and hoping the political footings of a democratic Iraq take hold quickly.

    In the meantime, the U.S. death toll continues to grow. It now exceeds 1,200 since the war began in March 2003. At midmonth, November ranked as the second deadliest month for U.S. forces, with more than 90 dead.

    The central question, many believe, is more political than military. Will support for the resistance grow or shrink as a result of what happened in Fallujah, which was the insurgents’ main base? More broadly, will enough Iraqis accept the Americans’ lead to form a viable government?

    I know it’d be extremely difficult to gather and is rather ghoulish of me, but I’d like to see some reasonable estimates of bad guys bagged. I’ll wager it would go far into putting the American deaths into perspective.

    I feel it would behoove our efforts to at least publish more information on the prisoners taken to date, information such as breakdowns of nationalities and, among the Iraqi nationals held captive, data on their backgrounds (e.g. prior criminals, Saddamists). This could crush any notion both home and abroad that we’re opposing a popular movement of the Iraqi people fighting occupation and are, in fact, facing the brutal, desperate efforts of thugs and radicals with either selfish or Islamist motivations.

    “Whether the sparks (from Fallujah) light other fires all over Iraq or burn out” is still a question, said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    The signs so far appear unfavorable.

    On Wednesday a suicide car bomb killed 10 Iraqis in the northern city of Beiji, U.S. forces fought insurgents for three hours in Ramadi. In Fallujah, there was sporadic fighting. On Tuesday a prominent Iraqi insurgent claimed the battle for Fallujah was only the start of an uprising.

    Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a senior Central Command officer, said in an AP Radio interview Tuesday that once the Fallujah offensive began, the insurgents attacked in other parts of the country to show “they still were a potent force.” In his view, they lost more than they gained.

    To hear him and other American officers tell it, the U.S. plan is working. They do not expect to end the insurgency. Rather, they aim to suppress it enough to permit people throughout the country to elect a national assembly, which would draft a new permanent Iraqi constitution.

    Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, said during a visit to Iraq this week that the Fallujah offensive was a major blow to the insurgents. He said the only way the U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies can be defeated is if they lose their will.

    “But we are also under no illusions. We know that the enemy will continue to fight,” he told the Pentagon’s internal news service.

    Unlike the traditional guerrilla warfare scenario where the insurgents win by not losing and those in power lose by not winning, today’s Iraq stands as an exact reversal of that military rule. The closer the government and the Iraqi people get to representative democracy, the more they grasp self-rule and freedom, the greater the chance of failure for the terrorists. Just as the Americans and the interim government is on the clock to pull off elections, so too are the terrorists up against the wall to prevent public belief in the democratic concept and acceptance of any election results. An elected government that the Iraqi people feel they have a vested interest in would be greatly detrimental to the efforts of the so-called insurgency.

    Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says the outcome ultimately rests in the hands of the Iraqi people rather than the U.S. military. He predicted that a “tipping point” will be reached that changes the momentum in favor of those who want democracy to succeed in Iraq.

    “More and more of the Iraqis will be angry about the fact that their innocent people are being killed by the extremists … and they won’t like it,” he said recently. “They’ll want elections, and the more they see the extremists acting against that possibility of elections, I think they’ll turn on those people.”

    The Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, made a similar point Wednesday in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

    “This ultimately is not going to be won in the kinetic sense — in battle. It’s going to be won in having Iraqis taking ownership and investing their own personal sweat and blood,” he said.

    However the AP tries to balance (read spin negatively) the news, progress is being made. We are killing the insurgents. By the freakin’ bushel. The effects of anger in the Arab world over the filmed shooting of a wounded bastard by a US Marine will be tempered by anger within Iraq at the execution of humanitarian worker Margaret Hassan. There is no more reporting of no-go zones for the US military. Every day is a day that the Iraqi national army grows in size and proficiency. Each Iraqi civilian death caused by the terrorists will become a sign of the terrorists’ impotence against those they actually wish to fight.

    In short, we are not losing the peace and, because of that, we are winning it.