The Observer's Mary Riddell sets her word processor on Autostupid and lets 'er fly. Gary Farber at Amygdala pokes through the rubble with one hand, while holding his nose with the other. Goin' for the Lileks Award, are ya, buddy?
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03/03/2002 ||
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"As we noted a couple months ago, Croatia got help laying the groundwork for this rampage from a DC PR and lobbying shop called Jefferson Waterman International. JWI agreed to help the Croatians deal with whatever bad press might ensue from reasserting their ethnic rights in the region."
He lays out a scenario in which the perfidious Croats chucked the helpful UN out and then proceeded to gobble up Krajina with what he calls "some quite ugly consequences," one of which, it turns out, is that Natalija and her family were allowed to go home. Read her response. The dissolution of Yugoslavia should be an object lesson to the "issue indictments and try them before the International Criminal Court" crowd. Somehow all the ethnic groups making up Yugoslavia except for Macedonia and Montenegro, one after the other, picked fights with the Serbs. The Serb response was to beat the hell out of everyone in sight, with attendant raping, looting, and mass homicide.
The Euros and the Americans dithered and "saw both sides," thereby managing to do nothing. Enormous amounts of vapor were emitted at talks, while the one-sided fighting went on. This was a conflict, we were warned by both the europress and the American media, that was unresolvable, with passions stretching back to the 14th century, or maybe even into prehistoric times. And arms were embargoed on the Slovenians, Croats and Bosnians in turn. This was "even-handed," even though the Serbs had the resources of the Yugoslav Army at their disposal. The Serbs, somehow, seemed unbeatable - a modern European army with state of the art weapons. We certainly didn't want to mess with them!
I'm not too sure how Slovenia managed to establish its independence. The war only lasted ten days, but since the Slovenes had stockpiled weapons ahead of time the Yugoslav government agreed to a truce brokered by the European Community. In Croatia, in contrast, they bombarded the hell out of Vukovar. In Ravno they made a desolation and called it peace. 12,000 were killed and 35,000 were wounded. It wasn't until the Croats had managed to arm themselves - mostly through back channels - that the Serbs ceased being "invincible" and were sent packing, to turn their attention on Bosnia. The war on Bosnia actually made the vicious handling of Croatia look tame, with ten times the casualties in a smaller country. And then there was Kosovo. Eventually the stench was so overwhelming that even the Clinton administration had to "Do Something."
Throughout all this, the Serbs had the government-funded and staffed Yugoslav propaganda machine to tell its side of the story. It simply showed common sense on the part of the Croats to try and counter it with a "PR firm." What's the beef?
Oh, and my original point? All the talk-talk, hand-wringing, Dayton conferences and UN resolutions were useless until the Croats started shooting back and, in Kosovo, until the Merkin bombs actually started falling on the Serbs. (And we won't even mention how military operations work under a Eurocommand. Pfui.)
From what I read the Slovenes merely stopped answering the telephone from Belgrade. There wasn't much of a war as the Yugoslav army didn't have much of a presence up there. When the Serb dominated Yugo Army mobilized to get Slovenia into line, they had to transit Croatia, which the Croats took as a causus belli, and the Croat insurrection started as you indicated. The ten day period was roughly correct, as that was the time that it took the Slovenes to eject the rump end of the Yugoslav administration and seize the local reserve arms depots. One more item to consider concerning US inaction: it took years for the US to recognize Slovenia as independent. This can be considered as another victory of wishes and fantasy over the reality that Yugoslavia was a shattered de jure shell. Natalija is correct in addressing Marshall's snivelling here. Serbians may have been the victims of some portions of this Last Balkan War [the 4th, I believe], but its not like they sought to prevent this conflict from occurring. Quite the opposite, and to blame the Croats, Bosnians, and Slovenes for "ugly consequences" ignores the fact that the antagonist in each case was the Serbian dominated Yugoslav confederation. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/4/2002 8:58:29 AM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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There may be as many as five American Taliban soldiers in U.S. custody in addition to accused traitor John Walker Lindh, according to a new report out of Pakistan. The five men had U.S. passports and had been fighting for al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they were caught fleeing with 300 other soldiers into Pakistan, the Boston Globe reported, citing Pakistani lawyer Javed Ibrahim Paracha, an advocate for the prisoners.
Some prisoners were flown to the military jail in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or were being held at U.S. bases in Afghanistan, the report said. Pentagon officials said they were unaware of any Americans, other than Lindh, captured during the war on terror. There were rumors of additional Americans captured back around the time they nabbed Johnny Jihad. Nothing ever came of them. No telling if the passports were genuine.
Even money all five have Islamic immigrant roots. With the number of South Asian Brits seen with the Taliban, it wouldn't be surprising to see a few Arab or Pak-Americans changing allegiances.
What would be a bit surprising is a American-rooted black Muslim among the five. Even more surprising would be a second Euro-American Talib. Posted by Mark Byron [markbyron.blogspot.com] 3/3/2002 10:53:46 AM
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"Fresh U.S. combat casualties show the continuing danger five months into the anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan even as the Pentagon prepares to expand it to other countries." Ummm... Guys? We're talking about combat here. Combat is, y'know, dangerous by definition. What's you think was gonna happen? They were all gonna go out for ice cream?
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Around 1,500 Georgian troops will be trained by US military advisors under a joint agreement on combatting terrorism, Georgian Deputy Defence Minister Guela Bejuashvili said. Their training will begin in late March. The Georgian army currently has 20,000 troops, but a reform package aims to reduce that number to 12,000. He said the training will be for frontier troops, mountain infantry, special forces and anti-terrorist forces.
Wednesday's announcement of the training deal and the US's donation of helicopters to Georgia continued to provoke strong reactions among some Russian politicians and newspapers, as Georgia attempted to sooth Russian concerns. Georgia is ready "to cooperate with Russia on all questions concerning the fight against terrorism," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze told Russian security council chief Vladimir Rushaylo. I'm wondering how they're going to communicate. As far as I know, there's not a single Georgian-speaker in the US Army, unless it's the stray immigrant-enlistee. Relying on translators doesn't seem the best way to go - simultaneous translation is pretty hard, especially when possibly unfamiliar technical terminology's involved. I'd guess that most of the instruction will be given in Russian.
The lingua franca will be Russian. The US Army has scores of Russian translators from the "good ole days" [as Mary Riddell would put matters] of our listening into Warsaw Pact radio communications. The Georgian military was certainly not talking behind their massa's backs in Georgian before 1992, so I'm sure they know to gavorit po russi.... Posted by Tom Roberts 3/4/2002 9:12:23 AM
Authorities intervened medically for the first time in a two-day-old hunger strike by Afghan war detainees at a US Navy base in Cuba, putting four dehydrated inmates on intravenous liquids. 73 detainees refused breakfast Friday morning, a sharp decline from Thursday but still a significant proportion of the population at "Camp X-Ray," the detention facility at the base. The number refusing food went up to 75 at lunch.
"A total of four today received just basic IV treatment for being dehydrated," said Marine Major Steve Cox. Dull IV needles can really hurt, especially when the tech can't (for some reason) find the vein first or second... or twelfth try.
"Smithers!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Number 48's not getting enough nutrition. Drop another burger into his IV bag!"
"Yessir!"
"No pickles this time, though!"
Don't forget the Foley catheters and rectal tubes, put in by women, of course. Posted by Anonymous 3/10/2002 3:37:35 PM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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India sent additional troops to Gujarat state to help mop up remaining pockets of sectarian violence after days of fearsome Hindu-Muslim bloodletting left nearly 500 dead. There were no immediate reports of any overnight unrest in the state which had witnessed India's worst communal riots in nearly a decade. Defence Minister George Fernandes, who has been overseeing the deployment of around 3,000 troops in four cities since Friday, said Sunday that another full brigade was being brought in to secure other parts of the state after violence spread to rural areas.
Officials in the police control room in Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad said 427 people had been killed across the state since the train massacre, 225 of them in Ahmedabad alone. Of the total, 73 were killed by police, who were given shoot-on-sight orders following the imposition of curfews in the worst-hit areas from Thursday.
The radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - World Hindu Council), which is spearheading the temple construction campaign at Ayodhya, has indicated it might consider some sort of delay, but a face-saving compromise will prove difficult to broker. Muslim leaders met Vajpayee on Saturday and urged him to to ban the VHP and dismiss the Gujarat state government. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the aftermath. For startsies, the VHP would seem like a good candidate for a ban - what's good for the Pak goose should be good for the Indian gander.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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The prime suspect in the Godhra train violence case, Mohammad Hussain Kolota, local Congress Party leader and President of Godhra Municipality, was on Sunday arrested bringing the total number of arrests in connection with the attack to 27. Kolota, 45, had been evading arrest since the attack on the Sabarmati Express last Wednesday killing 58 people. Police have already arrested two municipal councillors and were looking for another two. Earlier, police had arrested 22, including two councillors. Good move - and good cop work. Now they should be searching out somewhere around 450 Hindu murderers.
Where did you get that Kolota was a Congress Party member? The article didn't mention it, but when the rest of the mess seems to be motivated by extremist Hindus and Moslems, tarring the "centrist" Congress with the same brush would be a smooth political move by Advani. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/4/2002 9:31:26 AM
Well, that's interesting. Apparently the original article has been edited since I scanned it to drop the Congress reference. Don't know if it was dropped because it was inaccurate or for political reasons. The original read (from my saved copy):
"The prime suspect in the Godhra train violence case, Mohammad Hussain Kolota, local Congress leader and President of Godhra Municipality, was on Sunday arrested bringing the total number of arrests in connection with the attack to 27." Posted by Fred 3/4/2002 9:55:07 AM
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Israeli forces pushed deeper into two Palestinian refugee camps yesterday as the toll from the two-day raid reached 19 dead and more than 200 injured. At least five Palestinians were killed yesterday, said Palestinian officials - including a 9-year-old girl they said was hit by fire from an Israeli helicopter. But the Israeli commander of the operation, Brig. Gen. Gershon Itzhak, said most of the Palestinian casualties were gunmen "exchanging fire with our forces." Itzhak put no time limit on the sweep that began Thursday morning, saying only that it would continue "until we fulfill our mission - to get terrorist suspects, their weapons and arsenals." Itzhak said the goal of the sweep, the largest since the Palestinian uprising began 17 months ago, is to let terrorists "know they have no safe house anywhere."
During house-to-house searches, Israeli forces destroyed or damaged several houses, including the home of Nasser Awais, local commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group linked to Arafat's Fatah movement that claimed responsibility for many recent attacks on Israelis. Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen were reported trapped in the Jenin camp, vowing to fight to the death. One of them told a reporter by telephone that his comrades had mined alleyways with bombs and strapped on explosive belts to make a last stand. "We want to die together," he said.
The Palestinians said all planned talks with Israel were suspended - and urged international intervention to end the escalation. "I call upon the whole world to act quickly before a state of chaos engulfs the whole Middle East region," PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat told reporters in Ramallah. You knew this was coming. As soon as they sit down for "security talks" people start exploding and the Israelis fire up the helis. It's predictable as drool on a baby. And the other predictable part is that Yasser hollers for "the whole world" to act quickly before something terrible happens...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/03/2002 ||
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The organizational capability of the Maoists in terms of propaganda, recruiting, training and deploying cadres for military, ideological, propaganda and intelligence work â floating around the villages as a "fish in the ocean" â appears to be effective. The Royal Nepalese Army's failure to find and destroy guerrilla hideouts or arrest the main leaders of the movement testifies to this. As a result, the central government has lost its tenuous hold on the rural areas.
The Maoist insurgency did not emerge in a vacuum. The government's crackdown on the rebels does not address the root of the problem â the fact that in the past 10 years, Nepal has become a country of endemic corruption, ruled by public-money embezzlers, foreign-aid cheaters, drug traffickers, organized crime and thugs. One suspects that proximity to China might also have something to do with the Maoists' successes. There aren't an awful lot of Maoist rebellions popping up in other places, and none as successful as Nepal's is increasingly appearing. It's a valid point, though, that the Nepali government has a lot of act to clean up, which they'll have to do while pursuing the war. That's not something that's been successfully done too many other places. In fact, I can't think of any offhand...
It's worth pointing out that Peru isn't near China, but had severe problems with the Maoist rebels of the Shining Path until Fujimori finally broke their back. Mao's political/economic philosophies were horrific, but he demonstrably knew how to win a guerrilla war, and any guerrilla is wise to at least study his military tactics. Posted by Gary Farber [www.amygdalagf.blogspot.com] 3/3/2002 12:44:32 PM
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Macedonian police said the shootout with seven Pakistani gunnies yesterday was linked to the previously unannounced arrest in late February of two Jordanians and two Bosnians. Some of the attackers were Pakistani citizens, they said, adding that they appeared to be linked to the four arrested last month, all of whom did their studies in Jordan. The police revealed that, after those arrests, a compact disc was sezied containing what they said was "10,000 pages of documents on various operations in the region, already or to be carried out." Yeah, buddy! Those boys have some 'splainin' to do. And the first question's going to be "What the hell are you doing in our country? Your own ain't good enough for you?" By the time the Makedonskis let them out of the clink they're gonna be fossilized.
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A Palestinian sniper opened fire on Israeli soldiers and civilian cars at an army checkpoint in the West Bank, killing 10 people. Israel responded with a series of strikes against Palestinian security installations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that killed at least four policemen. The Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for both Saturday's bombing in Jerusalem and Sunday's shooting in the West Bank. In the Balata camp, where a man died Sunday of wounds suffered in last week's clashes, a crowd of about 3,000 people marched, chanting "Revenge, revenge!" Exchanges of fire were also reported around the Jenin camp.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
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Eleven people, including eight snuffies, were killed while BSF smashed two hideouts of militants in Jammu and Kashmir. Three hard boys, including a self-styled district commander of Hizbul Mujaheedin were killed in a gunfight with security forces at in Jammu. Security forces killed a "section commander" of Hizbul in a separate encounter in Jammu. Two Pakistanis belonging to Lashker-e-Taiba were killed in an shootout which lasted for nearly 16 hours in Anantnag district on Sunday. G'bye, boys. And don't worry. Your replacements are already back-ordered.
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The United States will supply Yemen with coast guard boats and help build a training facility to bolster security along its coastline, a security official said Saturday. U.S. forces will train 2,000 Yemeni military personnel at a coast guard training center to be built in Aden. Yemen needs 250 boats to protect military and commercial ships, including oil tankers, along its 1,490-mile coastline on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. I'm still flabbergasted. I thought Yemen would be the last place on earth to cozy up to the USA.
I think the State Department sent them copies of "Blackhawk Down" and told them that there wasn't going to be any realistic reruns of that original. State then asked, "Do you want to be the next Oman or the next Somalia?" Posted by Tom Roberts 3/4/2002 9:36:09 AM
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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.
