They're forced to use communal latrines without doors. When they "bathe" they can do little more than wash themselves with baby wipes or take the rare cold shower. When they sleep, it's outdoors, under the stars in freezing temperatures. These aren't the detainees at Guantanamo Base in Cuba. These are the American soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, scratching out a barebones life in southern Afghanistan while fighting the war on terror. While the international press dedicate excoriating columns to allegedly inhumane treatment of the Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at the U.S. camp in the Caribbean, the 3,700 U.S. troops based at Kandahar airfield are still waiting for the day they can live in tents. But it's the toilets that get some. Until a few days ago, when wood panels were put up in front of the doorless concrete male latrines, men could be seen sitting in rows â up to 10 at a time â with their rifles. Each morning, Afghan workers burn the waste in metal drums. The smell is not for the faint-hearted. Ah, the smell of burning poop. Brings back memories of my younger days in Vietnam. Wonder if they'll try that at The Mirror.
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01/29/2002 ||
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Pakistan proposed talks with India on a mutual phased withdrawal of troops along the border to be followed by a dialogue on Kashmir and other issues. A foreign ministry statement also said that Pakistan was willing to restore road, air and rail links which were severed last month after the two sides massed troops on their border in wake of the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Maybe they should talk about abolishing the ISI.
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Militants have constructed several bunkers and blown up small bridges in the the Poonch-Rajouri sector in what appeared to be a pre-war Pakistani army plan. Militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed have been active in high altitude areas south of Pir Panjal range, and have built several bunkers in the sector. Radio intercepts indicated officers in the Special Service Group (SSG) of the Pakistan army were directing the militants' activities. 2000 to 3000 jehadis are currently located or operating in this area, the sources said. If that's a true report, it's a stupid move. It makes Musharraf look like Arafat - either a liar, or incapable of controlling his people, or both.
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Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad has been shifted by the police to Lahore where he is being kept at a private hospital, rather than being freed. The Jamaat leader has been under detention since Nov 5. The NWFP government issued four separate orders keeping him under detention, stating that his presence outside was "detrimental to public peace and tranquillity". We hope they're giving him lots of good things to eat, like pies and candy bars and such. And meat loaf and mashed potatoes with extra gravy. And garlic bread, dripping with butter. (Gotta keep those cholesteral levels up.)
What???! As soon as Louise Hay finishes paying a housecall on this sick, suffering man, we're giving her your web address. "I now declare that peace and love surround me at all times. All is well in my world. I release all that is not for my highest good ..." Posted by the_health_nazis 2/4/2002 7:55:06 PM
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Israeli troops backed by tanks raided Artas village arresting three suspected militants. Six Palestinians were hurt in clashes. The troops arrested a senior figure in the Islamic Jihad movement. The wounded Palestinians included four with bullet wounds, but their lives were not in danger. One was a pregnant woman hit in the leg while she was sleeping, but her unborn baby was unharmed. The army said its soldiers opened fire when fired upon.
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Voicing support for a "Palestinian Marshall Plan," Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky urged Western leaders to fund Palestinian infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through organizations and individuals that are independent of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Calling on donors to the PA to reroute funds away from Arafat, Sharansky said such a plan should, at the very least, include the US, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Israel, and could include the European Union's annual $300 million donation as well as $350 million withheld from the PA by Israel since the start of the intifada. Not a bad idea. That'd keep significant portions of the aid money from sticking to the fingers of Arafat and his cronies, and other significant portions from being diverted into arms purchases. D'oh! Shoulda thought of that before!
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A fourth suspected British al-Qa'eda was being questioned by MI6 agents in Afghanistan, as Downing Street said the United States might decide to send them to Britain for trial. Ruhal Ahmed, 20 - who, like two fellow prisoners, comes from Tipton, West Midlands - was detained last week in Kandahar after being tricked to leave a hospital believing he was to be handed over to the International Red Cross. Instead, he was seized by US special forces and passed to MI6 officers, who hoped to establish how extensive British links with al-Qa'eda were. Good idea. Maybe the Mirror could put him up until his trial comes around.
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The State Security Court responded negatively to a request for the release on bail of alleged Islamists. Khreis added that the tribunal rejected his request for the release of his three clients: Bilal and Abdur Razzaq Khreisat and Jamal Mughrabi. The three defendants are part of a 13-member ring called Al Khalaya (the Cells), dismantled early last year. They were referred to court last June. The 13 suspects, including an Egyptian, are charged with belonging to an illegal organisation, manufacturing explosives for illegal purposes and conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks in Jordan. If found guilty, the defendants could face the death penalty.
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One of the Britons being held at the Camp X-Ray detention centre at the US naval base in Cuba must have been brainwashed, or the victim of a wrongful arrest, relatives of the man claimed. Britons Shafiq Rasul, 24, and Asif Iqbal, 20 - both from central England - are being held at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay after being seized in Afghanistan. Two of Shafiq Rasul's four brothers, speaking in front of the family home in Tipton described their younger brother as "very Westernised" and said he had condemned the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the WTC. "Yeah. He was just standin' around at Mazar-e-Sharif, just hangin' out with his buds, y'know, and these guys, they come up and start hasslin' him, y'know?"
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TWO of the Britons being held by US forces have criminal convictions for violence. Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed were convicted after a 16-year-old Asian was attacked with hammers and bottles. Ahmed and Iqbal were fined £500 at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 1998 and had to do 150 hours community service after Rahim Rashid, now 19, of Dudley, was scarred for life in an attack in which he was kicked in the head and beaten. His fellow suspect, Rasul, had tried to recruit friends to fight with him in Afghanistan. One neighbour was quoted: âIt is ridiculous to suggest that he was brainwashed after going to Pakistan. He was preaching jihad while still in the West.â Ahmed lived a few hundred yards from Rasul, 24, and Iqbal, 20. All three went to Alexandra High School in Tipton and played in a local football team. Ahmedâs mother, Shalehah Begum, speaking to the local newspaper from her home in Tipton, said that her son was visiting relatives in Bangladesh. Wonder how many of the Arabians, Paks, Chechens and other sweepings have the same kind of Clockwork Orange background?
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#1
Oh man. The 'One-Eyed' propaganda again. Imagine this.... the guys who celebrate 'Hannukah' (weird name though) are the same one-eyed evil thugs (read Jewish) who call Jesus a b*stard. What's common between Jewism and Christianity?
Hassan Butt, spokesman for the fundamentalist group al-Muhajiroun, said that the men from Tipton had gone to Afghanistan as aid workers and described them as heroes. We really like the way Ahmed was aiding the staff at the hospital in Kandahar. It was very heroic.
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Six men were arrested in the northeast of England in connection with alleged terrorism. The men, aged between 29 and 46, were detained during raids by more than 150 officers from the Durham and Cleveland forces, some of them armed. They are suspected of raising funds and providing logistical support for international Islamic terrorism. But they are not being directly linked to the events of September 11 and are not thought to be members of al-Qaeda. Not active terrorists. Just the guys who raise money for widows and orphans and funnel it to terrorists.
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The woman who locked her severely malnourished 8-year-old daughter in a filthy mobile home closet suffers from borderline personality disorder and depression, a psychiatrist for the defense testified. Barbara Atkinson pleaded guilty last week to serious bodily injury to a child and faces five years to life in prison. Dr. J. Douglas Crowder said Atkinson, who was adopted as a 3-year-old, felt unloved and angry as a child. "We have here a miserable person that didn't know how to cope," he said. Whaddya mean, "borderline"? We have it on good authority that not all "miserable persons" are arseholes. Why should she get a pass?
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The Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, which distributes broadcast programming to American military personnel worldwide, is considering whether to broadcast greetings to the troops from the pornography industry. Several purveyors of adult entertainment want to use the AFRTS to deliver their messages to the troops. Several thousand years ago, when I was a young fellow in Vietnam, we had some very happy times waiting for somebody's Playboy to arrive. One fellow was lucky enough to get on somebody's hardcore list, and that occasioned even more gleeful anticipation. It won't hurt today's young fellows' morals to get the occasional radio greeting from Mandy Doublejoint or Lisa Largebosom. AFRTS has a responsibility for its content, but I'd hate to see the Professionally Virtuous, whether Jerry Falwell or NOW, succeed in keeping young men with normal hormone levels from the Perils of Sin. At their average age, they're worried about not getting enough sin.
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Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler is giving white supremacists a bad name, his successors say. So Aryan Nations leaders in Pennsylvania and Ohio yesterday announced they have booted Butler from the 25-year-old racist group. Too bad they have nothing better to do that spend their time in-fighting and giving each other bad names (I thought each brought one, kinda like pot luck). If this keeps up they might have to, ah, ummm, get jobs.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
