14 posts tagged “terror”

CNN -- A gunman attacked worshippers at a Colorado Springs, Colorado, megachurch Sunday afternoon, killing one person and wounding four others before being killed by a security staff member, the city's police chief said.

NYTIMES -- A gunman and three people were killed and five others wounded yesterday in two apparently unprovoked shootings that unfolded about 12 hours and 70 miles apart at a missionary training center and a church in Colorado, law-enforcement authorities reported.

[..] in Colorado Springs, an hour’s drive to the south of Arvada, a gunman also clad in dark clothing invaded the grounds of the New Life Church, a 14,000-member institution founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who resigned in disgrace last year after acknowledging a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute.

Wearing combat boots and carrying an assault rifle and at least one pistol, the gunman, apparently without provocation, opened fire in a parking lot and shot four people, one of them fatally, as bystanders dashed for cover. There were about 7,000 worshipers inside the church when the shooting erupted, a church official said.

Terrible news about more violence in the United Free States of America.

A gunman (or gunmen), disgruntled at the world no doubt, vents his anger on folks who seem to have it together. Is this home-grown terrorism? Well, we need to know if the gunman did a stint in Iraq, in which case we can safely say he was home brewed, then grown to maturity in Iraq. My comments (uneducated and rude as usual) is that this represents total breakdown of a normal and humane social fabric due, in no small part, to the US war raging foreign and domestic policies, poor social services and general mayhem.

America should really take out the log from it's own eye, before exporting violence to the rest of the world in its so called "war on terror". It's time to define that concept "terror". A long overdue task.

Full article:
Gunman killed (cnn)
2 fatal shootings (nytimes)

By lying to the federal court (in the Mossaoui case) as well as to the the September 11 commission, the CIA effectively broke the law and obstructed justice. According to the New York Times (Dec. 6)

"The C.I.A. in 2005 destroyed at least two video tapes documenting the interrogation of two [alledged] Al Qaeda operatives [...] Current and former government officials said [the destruction of the tapes] had been approved at the highest levels of the agency. (NYT)

In 2003 and 2005, the C.I.A., then headed by Porter J. Goss

"told federal prosecutors in 2003 and 2005, who relayed the information to a federal court in the Moussaoui case, that the C.I.A. did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge in the case (NYT)

The C.I.A. said [Dec 6, 2007] that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers had hoped that records of the interrogations might provide exculpatory evidence for Mr. Moussaoui — showing that the Al Qaeda detainees did not know Mr. Moussaoui and clearing him of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

Porter J. Goss, replying through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

What remains in question is, how is the term "safety of undercover officers" defined? Of course, the agency wished the public to understand this term in the sense that phantom operatives would use the tapes to identiffy then attack officers. In fact, the destruction of the tapes was to protect the officers from legal scrutiny. The decisioon to videotape the interrogations in the first place, was to prevent teh use of coercion and torture.

I am no legal expert, but it would seem that the agency can no longer be seen as reliable in any case. The claims that many defendants are using, that they are being coerced into illegal confessions, appears to be valid in at least some of the cases. If the Hollywood blockbusters are anything to go by, then any testimony or even involvement by the C.I.A. should cause the exoneration of any alledged "terrorists". This particularly when the agency beings to emply the  secrecy clauses in its defense when placed under scrutiny or cross examination about people in their custody.

This is genuine madness. God forbid that any of the readers ever find themselves in an American court room. A  house full of rats. A shameful abuse of power.

Iranian lawmakers called on the UN to deal with American torture and illegal holding facilities at Guantanamo Bay and other secret locations. They labelled the US troops and the CIA as terrorists.

"They (the U.S. army and the CIA) support Israel's state terrorism in its crackdown on Palestinian and Lebanese people, trained Al-Qaida and Taliban and established secret prisons in Europe, torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib,"

Sept 29, China View

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA, or the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday visited a sensitive Iranian heavy water nuclear reactor in Arak, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran has blocked inspections from the IAEA to its nuclear sites since January this year after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions over the country's controversial nuclear program.

July 31st, People's Daily Online

Related Sites:

• Torture in the USA (a posting on this blog)
• IAEA - Iran in Focus
• IRCR - Guantanamo
• IRCT - Guantanamo
  

It is interesting to see what different results reporters end up with, starting from a different perspective.

The lady here of course, is dear Zelda Herzl who in her zenith, like lady luck, received a gift from the thief who had no right to be the giver in the first place. And that, her father, the mean Theodor, who punted the foul idea that a God in whom he had less than little faith, on the contrary, whom he denied the very existence of, had promised the land be given the lady by the thief who had stolen it. No wonder then, he had no friend who scholarly at that time in 1917 would stand with him, the podium to uphold by scriptures leaned against it so as to support thereupon the speaker, Theo our dear father of Zelda. Now the harlot protests much. "I knowest enough" sayeth she, "and want not more to hurt my delicate frame, with cold hard memory". Of course, she knows a lot, and we forget less than she.

Such argument, made by pimp intellectual de Columbia Universal Scientiae, of late. So eloquently unconvincing an argument to those who had ears to hear, if any there had been there, by Earl of Bollocks Bollinger in his treatise de character suicide. "'is the most researched thing in all history" or something of this kind, now how my weak and ghastly severed mind serveth me feebly, most inaccurately, I'd ask of my readers that ye do me the kindness of granting me pardon. And for his conclusion then, "no more needs to be said nor observed by any other". Again, most inaccurately volleyed he, yet caught i the gist of yon pale line of reason, most tangengial findeth the one who seeks to wander in a forest or maze on sunny afternoon, with parasol to as succour from unkindly sunlight [mp3]. Is it Denmark this time of year, for hear I the geese. Is it so, pray tell me. It reeks foul. Perchance the inhabitors of more eastern regions that seek out the foul this mid-autumn festival to annoint their tables, and make sacrifices to the elders, ancestors? Nay, surely, it be Denmark's fate as well? Nay, ye are the learned ones. The relative of the Hun hath a tradition to impart to all humanity. One of subtle depth, and refin'ed tact. When employee is about to be dismissed, at dinner table, in audience of the entire workforce, he is presented a foul, whose head faceth the benefactor (not so much the benefactor as the foul, for he is most least held so by the employer). In fact, he that receives the foul, glaring squint at him, is the one who next receives the chop, most ungraciously not from the chef, but from the host of such a banquet. It stares at him, his own pageant, such as Bollinger did prepare, and laughs him all the way out of town. Does what the dear Zelda received, this equate: intellecual wanton revelry? For her earlier setting up of the, cause, the terror and the solution most bizarre, the billions in profits that came in coffers galore, and the blood in coffers most macabre. Cry foul! Foul! Yes, foul for sure, we all are in the know. You cry foul and so did we.

Related:
Ahmadinejad Interview on CBS - 60 minutes (location: Tehran Sept 2007)

The entity known as israel exists as a result of racial discrimination. It's continued disregard for human rights is a blemish on all humanity. The Durban conference of 2001 (now over shadowed by the zionist-driven events of September 2001), clearly demonstrated that the world is strongly opposed to the new apartheid in the Holy Land. The implications of the actions of this terror state can be seen in the sad global conflict which threatens to continue spreading like a cancer. Of all the nations on God's beautiful earth, why does South Africa still cozy up to this terrorist state occupying Jerusalem?

The Iranian president, Ahmadi Nejad speaking to the Washington Press Corps on Monday Sept 24th 2007, made these wise comments:

"We do not recognize that regime because it is based on discrimination" and, "It consistently threatens its neighbors."

Christian Science Monitor

Good for you President Ahmadi Nejad. Of course, many of his statements continue to be misquoted and ridiculed as deceptive by those who try to conceal the truth about the zionist terrorists and their plans for global domination. Anyone who needs proof for what may seem strange and unbelievable, only needs to look at the wars being fought in order to dominate the oil rich region. Surely South Africa's leaders realise that when Africa stands up against this mighty force of evil, she will be attacked by the kind of military force we see in Iraq and Somalia. What cowards they are to continue to lie to us. We should be putting our voice more firmly behind the downtrodden instead of accepting bribes silently. This kind of dishonesty attracts politicians of low morality and in the end, greed leads to a spiral of moral corruption, and eventual social and political decay. Domestically and internationally, South Africa will lose ground until the truth becomes painfully obvious. Of course, economically South Africa will continue to grow from strength to strength as we did under Apartheid. But in the end, the pack of cards will come tumbling down.

My question remains, why does South Africa support this terror driven state calling itself Israel? I hazard to make two guesses: 1) my question will be ignored or largely countered by unreasonable responses 2) the reason South Africa supports Israel is because Israel supports South Africa i.e. nothing has changed since Apartheid was abolished. A new Apartheid has emerged since the ANC was unbanned. It is an economic apartheid and the country is still dominated by the same kind of selfish criminals as before.

Our prayers are that the Iranian people continue to protect the truth and oppose evil. And for the people of Azania and Palestine, may they also one day be free.

Related Sites:
In minds - Durban Conference against Racism 2001
The Azanian
The Lessons of the Rocks
You Tube channel

This report by Frank Gardner (BBC Security Correspondent) seems to suggest that the Chef is a moderate, at least in comparison to other "adherents" of the phantom culinary organisation which is based on a data base of names of cooks who competed and achieved international fame (and later infamy) for their success at out-cooking their Russian counterparts during a lengthy culinary fest - even lengthier than this sentence - in the land of poppies, a few years ago. The cooks were then funded by hotel tycoons in the U.S. who had it in their interests to out-cook the serviette chefs. Gardner writes:

Unlike some of the more psychopathic adherents of [The Base Ingredients], [the chef] has often tried to sway the opinions of the Western public in the hopes of driving a wedge between them and their leaders, and between European countries and his most hated enemy, the US [culinary experts].

Frank Gardner, one of the western media's expert culinary pundits, does an analysis of the latest video on the BBC News website (one of the unrelated links below). The complete cooking video (available only through CNA outlets) is almost thirty minutes in duration. In a leaked copy of the cooking video (which remains unverified and in analysis by Yahya & Bene & Dicere), there is only the few minutes of moving images now already seen by most readers. The remainder has moving images but the focus in this particular release was not on accuracy regarding the chef's lip movements, but on the captions which translate the eastern recipe into English. The chef in fact remains motionless for the better part of the cooking lesson, apparently "refrigerated", leaving demonstrations which he alludes to (such as pouring ingredients into vessels, kneading, mixing sauces, and other expert methods in the kitchen), to the imagination of the viewer.

The chef makes reference, as you are already aware, to the mysterious two numbers, now famous in culinary circles and which remain embedded in the minds of viewers and followers of these culinary tales. The numbers being the date of release of the first recipe, and the second being the number of herbs and spices in the colonel's famous fried chicken: viz. the eleventh and nineteen. Given the controversy concerning these numbers and the genuine cooks involved, it is hard to figure out exactly what the chef is saying, if anything. The first being apparently obvious, but without the usual number "nine" associated with "eleventh". Also, there is no clear declaration that "the eleventh" marks a recipe by "The Base Ingredient", neither are the "nineteen spices" named as coming from the training facilities of "The Base Ingredient". There is also the serious question being asked, as to how seven of the nineteen spices have subsequently turned up as less than rare ingredients, making them something of a publicly held secret. Is  it possible that the chef doesn't know about the seven spices, now identified as "less than rare and very easily located spices"? With inconsistencies like these, who is the chef's publisher, and is he the expert he is promoted as being? In any case, as Gardner points out, the chef has an amazingly generous following of psychopaths, something he lacked prior to the eleventh and the day the CNA first fingered he and The Base Ingredient to be the inventors and main cooks of the recipe of "the eleventh". Ironically, as a chef and teacher in the desert areas where culinary experts abound, the chef had little influence. But after the past six years of chaos and mass murder, the phantom chef and his training school, have become almost more popular than Harry Potter, sparking the imagination of readers and causing a springing up of popular support of psychopathic proportions. Is this a result of the chef's few minutes of fame via such cooking videos, or the constant bombardment of terribly disastrous recipes in kitchens across the world, prepared by what we are led to believe is the chef's arch rivals?

Much like Forest Gump's momma, mine said something similar to "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get". My momma's words went: "If you tell lies, they are bound to turn around and bite you in the backside".

This whole video affair is still something of a mystery, as it is possible that more accurate recipe measures AND demonstration are out there. Furthermore, it is also likely that this chef, a tactician of some other hoteliers, is less than animated in a real sense. This, the recipe being incomplete and of questionable origins, we are hesitant  to risk a "kitchen disaster". For the time being we are "in the process of analysis", both technical, in terms of the actual ingredients that make up the recipe, and the overall principles that emerge from the oven and make it on the banquet table.

Here are some totally UNRELATED articles:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6985086.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,265160,00.html

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/09/WTC_Odigo.html

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/11/WTC_DeathRoll2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Legality_of_invasion

http://www.mideastweb.org/iraq.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6917.htm

http://www.liveleak.com/

Comments from others (Reuters)

"Attacks will never solve any problem; they will only make them worse," said Mohammad Hasan, an Egyptian civil engineer. "He attacked before. What was the result? Wars and suffering for Muslims all over the world."

Al Qaeda leaders say their "holy war" against Western powers is chiefly in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel at the expense of Arabs over the past six decades, and more recently over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hilal, a Palestinian living in the UAE, commented on bin Laden's video: "It is very difficult to say anything about him. He talks about issues that are very important and true but the way he wants to fix them is not right

In closing, don't we all share culpability in the tragic events of the eleventh? Though one may not have planned such a shameful act, and some will not even condemn it, though anyone should. Even the one who stood triual, admitted that it is sad that so many were killed. But we all if we are honest, should share the blame, for remaining silent for so long, while the major corporations continue to wage economic war on the poor and defenseless. And don't people like the chef, who have taken up cooking utensils and used them to work for one cause in this decade and another in another decade, also share some of the blame? Of course they do. Bt what about those who have never asked forgiveness and those who still deny culpability for deceit? And those who share the lions' portion of blame for inaction, when their actions by ordering fighter planes to intercept, could have saved the three thousand? Or by giving  orders from the head kitchen their voices can still stop the carnage as the counter ticks close to the two million lives lost since the eleventh. And those who have the portion of deceit, and the use of pretexts to go and cook so many others, to spill red blood for black oil. In Christ's words, "who is without blame, let him cast the first stone".

For those who listen carefully, the lesson is easy to understand that ignorance, not listening to advice, will spoil the meal and the guests may even turn up ill the next day. Following the best recipe, and not giving in to self-serving arrogance, will lead to a great victory at the menu and at the banquet. Otherwise, there will be a great fall and manyh will suffer because of it. But if you have no ears, then don't listen.

As we near the six year mark, let us cause ourselves to remember those lost since that fateful day, not only on homeland soil, but also afar, and of different descendants too. Let us pray that we do not repeat the mistakes of arrogance, that we search within ourselves and start to make a change so that we can truly interpret the evangelical task in this modern day. Faced as we  are by so many things that are confusing, how do we preach the Gospel of good news and be the channel of peace in a world of cookery and crookery?

The moto of this blog is respice prospice, which means to look to our past so we can know the future. Knowledge is truly a saving grace. On the 12th of September it is thirty years since the brutal killing of Biko. Yet today, torture and murder continue with the silence of ourselves and the participation of the most intelligent among us. Have we learned anything?

This post refers to an article by John Yeld of the Cape Argus covering a paper in the Medical Journal "The Lancet".
The authors of the paper (subsequently signed by 260 medical professionals worldwide) conclude that the stance of the American medical establishment seems to be one of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
The "Lancet Letter" is entitled
Biko to Guantanamo: 30 years of medical involvement in torture
David J Nicholl, Trefor Jenkins, Steven H Miles, William Hopkins, Adnan Siddiqui, Frank Boulton, on behalf of 260 other signatories
The Lancet - Vol. 370, Issue 9590, 8 September 2007, Page 823

The news report below, appears in full at the allAfrica.com website
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200709070644.html

theREALsituation

There are strong parallels between the treatment meted out to murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and detainees held in the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the so called "war on terror", says a group of more than 260 doctors from around the world.

The group, which includes South Africans, has called for the US doctors involved in treating these prisoners especially those helping to force feed detainees on hunger strike by inserting tubes into their noses to be reported to their professional medical bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

The doctors express their outrage in a letter that appears in today's edition of The Lancet, the prestigious independent medical journal published in Britain.

The 30th anniversary of Biko's death from severe head injuries is next week.

1359116008_l

Biko was savagely beaten by Port Elizabeth security police while being held in solitary confinement and driven naked in the back of a police Land Rover to Pretoria, where he died a lonely death in a police cell.

Related Articles:
Durban Conference on Racism (Sept 2001)
Medical News Today
Accra Mail Tribute  to Biko - Thirty Years (by Dida Halake)
SA History.org

Hastings Ndlovu: first martyr in 1976 SOWETO uprising

I think the question should be easily answered. No major scientific breakthroughs in investigative science are required, so we should have an answer once they clear the rubble from the four houses that were destroyed. A battle with militia turned into an air raid. So the battle must have been a heavy one. The funniest thing is that residents (according to my sources) were not aware of any BATTLE, NO EXCHANGE OF GUNFIRE, NO SMOKING GUN, NO MILITIA SMOKING MUSHROOM CLOUDS. But then this could be because the sound of gunfire no longer wakes these residents from their early morning sleep. It happened before the Fajr prayer (pre-dawn). My sources say the 14 killed were ALL women and children, and that none of them were sleeping with weapons in their pajamas or even under their beds.

But we will have to wait for the full report if it ever sees the light of day.

Here is an extract from the famous and reliable sources most people who also watch CNN and FOX will be familiar/comfortable with:

David Rising of Associated Press reporting from BAGHDAD on Sept 6th, 2007 --American and Iraqi Special Forces clashed with suspected Shiite militiamen Thursday in western Baghdad before calling in airstrikes, the U.S. military said. Residents and police said at least 14 people were killed.

As the troops entered the area, they came under fire from more than a dozen militiamen firing from the rooftops.

"Iraqi and U.S. forces then responded with well-aimed and suppressive fire," the military said. "Forces also directed proportional aerial fire onto targeted buildings against positively identified armed gunmen directing small arms fires onto the assault force."

The military reported that four buildings were damaged, "including two enemy strongholds that sustained major damage and two surrounding buildings that sustained moderate damage."

My guess is that the US terrorists are engaged in a campaign to soften the community into ejecting the militia who now control this area. Watch the press for further details about this incident. Search term for your own follow-up:

Fallujah_111404_m November 2004

60km west of Baghdad, there is peace. But residents describe it as the peace of the dead. Resistance to the invasion is still common however. Unemployment is at 80%. Car movement is banned. There is no longer freedom of the press. People often go missing and then turn up as unidentified bodies in the streets. Medical supplies are denied to the residents. It is a slow death that residents are being subjected to.

The city sees no more of the kind of resistance attacks of old, and no more of the 2004 kind of crackdown. "We are so happy that our city is peaceful and quiet after all the battling that killed thousands of our citizens," a captain in the local police force of Fallujah, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We can patrol the streets without fear now, and arrest any person that we suspect to be a terrorist." ...

... Several of those found dead had been arrested earlier, eyewitnesses and families of several of the men killed have said.

"This is fascist behaviour that shows the brutality of the Americans and the so-called Iraqi government," a former member of the Fallujah city council who asked to be referred to as Mahmood told IPS. "Those young guys were executed without any trial. This brutality was not known in our city before this occupation began." ...

... Journalists inside the city are also quiet after a few of them were arrested and held for several days.

One of the detained journalists spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity. Visibly shaken, he said that a major in the Fallujah police force had told him that freedom of the media had been misused and that the police would not allow it any more. He said the major told him that "the news you transmit to the world will be what we tell you, not what you pick up from the street". ...

... Medical services also continue to suffer under the vehicle ban. Doctors at Fallujah General Hospital told IPS that the government in Baghdad is not supplying them with medicines and medical equipment.

"The officials of the Ministry of Health tell us we are terrorists, and so we do not deserve their support," a doctor said. "As if they own Iraqi money and it is up to them whether to give it or not."

The Ministry of Health was headed by Ali al-Shemari from the group of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr until Sadr withdrew from the government Apr. 16.

Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily (August 28th, 2007)