Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Damned If You Do (Vote), Damned If You Don’t

    I’ve blogged many times about the attempts to block the pending elections by the terrorists in Iraq. Election officials have been offed, polling places threatened, potential voters warned of death or religious condemnation. The USA Today has a story of some campaign literature meant to add to the intimidation.

    It’s just a scrap of white paper, a piece of a poor-quality photocopy slipped under the gates of homes in the al-Salam area of western Baghdad. But it and thousands of others like it could have a profound effect on Sunday’s elections.

    “God’s curse on this comedy named elections, this dirty game that serves the occupier and his bastards,” the note says, echoing the threats of the Sunni Muslim militants who lead the anti-American insurgency. “Be away from them and save your life. Being part in the dirty elections is considered a crime against religion, Iraq and the Iraqi people. Don’t participate in elections. All polls will be hit.”

    Okay, we already knew where the terrorists, Saddamists and many Sunnis, who fear the loss of decades-long power because of their status as a minority, stand on the election. Well, there’s a little twist to this story.

    The notes slipped under doors and threats scrawled on walls send a chilling message. Most are intended to scare people away from the polls, which is the aim of the Sunni-led insurgency. But Shiites may have also entered the fray. A note that was distributed in a Baghdad neighborhood recently threatens people if they don’t vote.

    “In order for you to avoid doomed death and the hell for a while, we have decided to give you the last chance for forgiveness for your children’s sake,” the note says. “You must raise a white flag on the roof of your houses and must go on polling day to the polling center to vote for anybody.”

    And you thought the Americans had a problem with negative campaigning.

  • Suspected Islamists held in Paris

    The French have detained several apparent Islamist terrorist wannabes before they could make their way to Iraq.

    A total of 11 suspected Islamic militants have been detained in Paris this week by intelligence agents who believe they have foiled an operation to send volunteers to fight against the US army in Iraq, officials said.

    Four young men arrested early yesterday were being held at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service DST, along with six of the seven people detained on Monday in an high-immigration neighborhood in the northeast of the capital.

    One of two women detained on Monday was released yesterday morning, police said.

    The identities of the detainees were not disclosed, but officials said that eight of the nine men — all aged between 20 and 24 — were of north African, mainly Algerian, origin with French nationality and all born in Paris. The other was a French convert to Islam.

    They were arrested as part of an anti-terrorist investigation launched last September after evidence emerged of a so-called “Iraqi network” recruiting Islamic militants to fight US forces there.

    One of those held is considered by police to be a recruiter of young men willing to fight in Iraq. He was described as the brother-in-law of a a member of a terrorist group which was dismantled on the eve of the 1998 football World Cup which France hosted.

    Two of his charges were said to be on the point of leaving for Iraq.

    […]

    “At the moment it would be wrong to speak of organised networks like there were with Afghanistan,” said a senior official.

    “But we are determined to stop young people going to make jihad in Iraq because if they come back they will have greatly enhanced prestige, and be in a position to recruit more people to the cause — or even mount terrorist operations,” he said on condition of anonymity.

    Couple this with the recent bust in Germany of two suspected al-Qaida members and tell me Europe doesn’t have a problem. It seems, however, that the Euros are only willing to treat the symptoms rather than actually tackling the disease.

  • Bloody Day for Military Helicopters

    Weather Suspected in Deadly Marines Crash

    A top U.S. general said Wednesday there was severe weather at the site of a U.S. Marine helicopter crash in of western Iraq and that he had no reports of enemy fire in the area. President Bush expressed sorrow at the loss of life and said he knew Americans would find the new deaths discouraging.

    […]

    Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the top Marine commander in Iraq, said in a videotaped statement from his headquarters in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, that 30 Marines and one Navy sailor were killed. He made no mention of a possible cause and said a recovery team was at the crash site.

    Sattler identified the aircraft as a CH-53E Super Stallion, which is the largest helicopter in the American military. He provided no details about the circumstances of the crash; he said the victims were members of the 3rd Marine Aircract Wing and 1st Marine Division but was not more specific.

    Vietnamese Helicopter Crashes; 16 Dead

    A Vietnamese military helicopter crashed in northern Vietnam shortly after takeoff, killing all 16 people aboard, officials said Thursday.

    A loud explosion was heard just minutes after the Russian-made helicopter took off from Me Island off the coast of Thanh Hoa province Wednesday afternoon, officials of Nghe An province said.

    The bodies of three crew members and 13 military officers, including the commander of Military Zone 4 based in Nghe An and his deputy, have been recovered.

    The military is investigating the cause of the crash.

    The military is a dangerous business, even when bullets aren’t flying. My best wishes to the families.

  • Activists Gather for World Social Forum

    I wonder how one says “pepper spray” in Portuguese.

    Tens of thousands of anti-globalization activists converged on southern Brazil Wednesday for what has become an annual ritual of opposition to corporate-sponsored capitalism and the divide between the rich and poor nations.

    The annual World Social Forum – a lively gathering of protesters where many sleep in tents or modest guest houses – is held simultaneously with the World Economic Forum, a staid gathering of finance ministers and CEOs of major corporations in the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Davos.

    In Brazil, nearly 6,000 groups will plug their causes at the six-day protest, ranging from debt relief for developing countries to distribution of idle land for impoverished Latin American farmers.

    In a new rallying cry this year, some protesters compared unfettered capitalism and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to the tsunami that struck Indian Ocean shores last month, saying the deaths caused in poor countries by First World greed are uncountable.

    “It is even more than the numbers killed by the tsunami,” said forum organizer Meena Menon, an activist from India.

  • Reciprocity IX

    Just wanted to thank two fine blogs for adding Target Centermass to their blogrolls:

    Argghhh!!! — I’m honored.
    The Fire Ant Gazette — Love the many moods of Abbye.

    Also, to update a recent Reciprocity, John at TexasBestGrok has moved Target Centermass from his “The Green Hills of Earth” category to his “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” listing. Unfortunately, I haven’t read Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress [hanging head in shame], so I don’t know how to interpret this. Rather than pester John, however, I have instead resolved to read it next and harass then, if necessary. FYI, John has a new SFBabe Poll up, so go vote on the hottest Dr. Who companions.

    As always, if you’ve linked or blogrolled Target Centermass and I haven’t found you, please send an email or post a comment. No good deed should go unrewarded.

  • Is Afghan Poppy Crackdown Working?

    It looks for now like it is, as the President Hamid Karzai’s hardline stance against the drug crop may be having a significant effect.

    The top U.N. drug official is heading to Afghanistan to check out reports that farmers are heeding government calls for a “holy war” on the rampant drug trade by slashing opium cultivation.

    Foreign and Afghan officials are forecasting a drop of between 30 percent and 70 percent in this year’s crop, as once verdant expanses of poppies are being sown with wheat instead.

    In eastern Nangarhar province and southern Helmand, poppy production could be down by more than three-quarters this year, the officials said, though reliable statistics are not yet available.

    The reports suggest at least an initial response to President Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-sponsored campaign against the illegal Afghan narcotics industry, which last year supplied an estimated 87 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for heroin.

    […]

    Skeptics say drought, disease and falling opium prices — not Karzai’s eradication program — are responsible for the drop in cultivation.

    […]

    The United Nations said that although bad weather and plant disease significantly reduced the opium yield last year, the total output was about 4,200 tons. It valued the trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60 percent of the country’s 2003 gross domestic product, and warned that Afghanistan was turning into a “narco-state.”

    Under pressure from the United States and Europe, Karzai has called for “jihad,” or holy war, against the drug industry, which is believed to benefit guerrillas, warlords and corrupt officials.

    Foreign diplomats give some of the credit to Mohammed Daoud, a former militia commander and the government’s top anti-narcotics cop. Daoud, a deputy interior minister, summoned provincial police chiefs to Kabul and told them they would be fired if they didn’t halt poppy cultivation.

    Daoud said in an interview he expected cultivation to fall by 50 percent to 70 percent this year.

    A Western official involved in counternarcotics was more cautious, saying the decrease could be 30 percent or more.

    Even worst case, this is a vast improvement. So what’s the pocketbook hit for Uncle Sam right now?

    The U.S. government is paying thousands of people in Helmand and Nangarhar $3 a day to clean irrigation ditches and repair roads instead of planting poppy.

    Really, just a pittance. Is it worth it, along with the continued military efforts for stability?

    Farmers in two traditional growing areas of Nangarhar told an AP reporter they stopped planting poppies because they were told to by powerful local landowners and security officials.

    “It was good business, but they said we should stop, and wait and see,” said Abdul Wahid, a bearded sharecropper resting under a stand of mulberry trees next to his fields.

    “If we get help, maybe it’s gone for good. If not, we’ll plant again.”

    Yes. Yes. Yes.

  • Democracy a Chance to Divide Iraq’s Insurgency

    Holy crap, it appears the USA Today pretty much agrees with my interpretation of the latest alleged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tape — that it is a statement of fear of democracy. To go one further, they spell out their idea of a way to use democracy as a wedge between foreign terrorists like al-Zarqawi and the Iraqis working with them.

    A week before Sunday’s scheduled elections, perhaps inadvertently, al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi revealed one weakness the United States can exploit. A taped audio message attributed to Zarqawi declared a “fierce war” on “this evil principle of democracy,” threatening everyone associated with the elections, from voters to poll workers to candidates.

    A group of Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq soon provided an equally revealing response. They said they would get involved in politics and in shaping a future constitution — despite encouraging Sunnis to boycott the elections.

    The Sunni leaders aren’t, of course, insurgents. But they helped expose a divide between foreign and Iraqi insurgents. Zarqawi and Iraq’s Sunni insurgents have joined forces to fight a common enemy: the U.S. occupiers. Over the long term, however, they have very different goals.

    Zarqawi has natural appeal to bin Laden fundamentalists who want to bring Taliban-style rule to the Middle East. The idea of democracy — man’s law against Allah’s — has long been an abomination to them.

    But that path is not one that would appeal to most Sunnis in Iraq. In polls last year, most favored some kind of representative government, with just an Islamic flavor.

    That distinction is useful in finding ways to fight the insurgency. Most Iraqi Sunnis, as the politicians’ statements showed, are mainly worried about losing the political clout they enjoyed for decades under fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein and his predecessors, despite making up less than 20% of Iraq’s population.

    But enough to opt for the kind of Dark Ages followers of Osama bin Laden aspire to? Not likely, given the kind of middle-class secular lives most have lived.

    No insurgency — Maoist guerrillas, Algerians fighting French rule or Vietnamese trying to rout Americans — can parlay military inferiority into advantage without maintaining support among local populations.

    Go give it a read.

  • Attention, Lone Star Bloggers 2

    There’s a new group blog started for Texas bloggers named, surprisingly enough, Texas Bloggers. From the founder, Bunker at Bunker Mulligan:

    This site will become, I hope, a forum for all bloggers in Texas. It is blog-oriented. It is not a political site. I would like to see it become somewhere for bloggers from around the State to offer advice and assistance to others, and as a way to publicize Texas bloggers and the things they are doing in regard to media, traditional and digital.

    Feel free to drop by and say hello to the Lone Star State.

  • Attention, Lone Star Bloggers

    TexasBlogfest 2005

    Some folks are trying to rustle up a gathering of Texas bloggers. The festivities (few details decided as of yet, though they’ve apparently managed group hotel rates) are planned for Mar. 18-20 in the Addison/North Dallas area. As I currently reside in that vicinity, I’m probably good for some degree of participation. In the hopes that that doesn’t dissuade anyone, more information can be found here. (hat tip to TexasBug, queen of the Aggie Webring)

  • Gitmo Prisoners Attempted Mass Hanging

    Ah, missed opportunities.

    Twenty-three terror suspects tried to hang or strangle themselves at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay during a mass protest in 2003, the military confirmed Monday.

    The incidents came during the same year the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command of the prison with a mandate to get more information from prisoners accused of links to Al Qaeda or the ousted Afghan Taliban regime that sheltered it.

    Between Aug. 18 and Aug. 26, the 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves with pieces of clothing and other items in their cells, demonstrating “self-injurious behavior,” the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on Aug. 22 alone.

    U.S. Southern Command described it as “a coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards from the just-completed unit rotation.”

    Guantanamo officials classified two of the incidents as attempted suicides and informed reporters. But they but did not previously release information about the mass hangings and stranglings during that period.

    […]

    Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International’s office in Washington, was critical Monday of the delay in reporting the incident.

    “When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo,” he said.

    Amnesty International and the International Red Cross should immediately conduct investigations and rapidly condemn the prisoners for torturing themselves.

    Officials said Monday they differentiated between a suicide attempt in which a detainee could have died without intervention and a “gesture” they considered aimed only at getting attention.

    Army Gen. Jay Hood, who succeeded Miller as the detention mission’s commander last year, has said the number of incidents has decreased since 2003, when the military set up a psychiatric ward.

    In 2003, there were 350 “self-harm” incidents, including 120 “hanging gestures,” according to Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission.

    Last year, there were 110 self-harm incidents, he said.

    […]

    The military has reported 34 suicide attempts since the camp opened in 2002, including one prisoner going into a coma and sustaining memory loss from brain damage.

    Of the 23 men who tried to hang or strangle themselves during the 2003 protest, two required hospital treatment and then were transferred to the psychiatric ward, the military statement said.

    Sixteen remain at Guantanamo Bay, while seven were transferred to other countries, the statement said without giving details. Some transferred detainees have been released while others continue to be detained in their native or other countries.

    The problem here is a matter of effort. Either the detainees don’t really have their hearts in it, or we’re putting too much energy into saving them from themselves.

    C’mon, ya terrorist bastards, step up and take one for the team.