Frightened villagers, whose farms cling to the sides of the deep valleys below Kandil mountain, ran for their lives as Iran opened fire on Iraqi territory for the first time since the US invasion in 2003. Local officials said about 2,000 shells were fired in four hours.
Unfortunately, the article is long on weepy eyed local flavour and short on meaningful information. All we’re told is that it’s a “complicated game being played between the US, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Kurds.”
I doubt it’s really that complicated. As much as the Turks despise the idea of a Kurdish territory on their border, an unstable Iraq isn’t in their interest, either. One cannot say the same for the Mad Mullahs.
If anyone spots better analysis of this development elsewhere, be sure to drop it in the comments.
Jimmy Carter makes a hell of a lot more sense these days than you and the rest of the brainwashed Bushbots. Following is an extremely logical and factually accurate assessment of the Palestine issue from Jimmy “I have an confirmed IQ of 170” Carter:
“The Olmert plan would leave the remnant of the Palestinian West Bank with the same unacceptable characteristics. Deep intrusions would effectively divide it into three portions. The prime minister has also announced that Israeli soldiers will likely remain in the Palestinian territory, which will be completely encapsulated by Israel’s control of its eastern border in the Jordan River valley.
It is inconceivable that any Palestinian, Arab leader, or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a permanent solution to the continuing altercation in the Middle East. This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians, and in direct contravention of the “road map for peace,” which President Bush helped to initiate and has strongly supported.
Although former prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government rejected the key provisions of the road map by the Quartet of negotiators — the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia — it has been endorsed unequivocally by the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel’s government had adopted carefully negotiated agreements at Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993. Israeli leaders Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received Nobel Peace Prizes for these major steps toward peace, along with their Arab counterparts. The basic terms of both of these historic accords would also be violated by Olmert’s plan, as would all of the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions on which the agreements were predicated and the nation of Israel was founded.”
and:
“With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this “can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate.” Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.
Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians.”
You’re on the side of the devil on this one, Kate; pulling funding from Hamas means that Canada is, immorally, taking Israel’s side and that Canada condones the ethnic cleansing, terrorism, human trafficking, and warmongering of the Israelis. Canada has historically joined the rest of the world in condemning Israeli human rights violation and this new policy shift absolutely harms our national security. Perhaps more fundamentally, it now means we support a rogue state that is viewed by most citizens of the world in poll after poll as the #1 threat to world peace.
“pulling funding from Hamas means that Canada is, immorally, taking Israel’s side and that Canada condones the ethnic cleansing, terrorism, human trafficking, and warmongering of the Israelis.”
dude . . if you are trying to compare Israel & Hamas on terrorism or ethnic cleansing, then there are no meds strong enough to fix what’s wrong in your “mind”.
Been drinking from to much from the moonbat well.
Anyone who thinks financial support for Hamas should be upheld by our government has their moral compass pointing at mecca.
“rogue state”? … snort!
Bob, what the f..k?
Without Israel, there would be no “threat to world peace”.
now who does that sound like?
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/05/01/iran_denies_its_troops_entered_iraq_to_attack_kurds/
“The Turkish Kurd rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has bases on and around Qandil Mountain in the far northeast of Iraq, said the assault was in retaliation for a rebel ambush that killed five Iranian soldiers.
The claim could not be independently verified.”
Frankly, the water seems fairly muddy on the whys and wherefores of what’s happening. And Iran has generally remained in a state of denial as far as I can find. Odd …
Bob states that changing our foreign policy “threatens our national security”. wow. If we condmen Isreal, that is safe. If we condemn Hamas, our national security is put at risk. I agree with Bob on this point, and it has always been this way with evil regimes: the safer thing to do (at least in the short term) is to ignore them or capitulate.
Here’s a closer look at the state you creeps blindly support. On behalf of the thousands of Christians sold into slavery in Israel every year, I personally sh*t on each and every one of you.
We’ve established that the Bush supporters are pro-torture, pro-domestic spying and pro-ethnic cleansing; what’s surprising is how accepting you pigs are of the burgeoning Christian slave trade in Israel:
Israel a Human Trafficking Haven
TEL AVIV, Israel — Human trafficking (search) is turning into a real problem in Israel, where law enforcement officials say women are bought and sold into the indentured servitude of the sex industry.
The women in question are usually from the former Soviet Union (search) and are traded by the Russian mob (search). The same Bedouins who smuggle weapons into Israel bring the women up through the Egyptian desert, oftentimes with a load of weapons.
“It’s a kind of meat market. It’s very brutal — most of this kind of auction,” said Gadi Eshed of the Israel Police.
Thinking they are escaping the harsh conditions of home, a reported 3,000 prostitutes each year come to Israel. Their fist experience in the Holy Land is a forced march across the Egyptian desert, crossing the Israeli border through routes used to smuggle weapons and drugs.
“They have a big gun. If you not go like everybody, then maybe they kill you,” said one woman.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129157,00.html
Israel women trafficking soars
Between 3,000 and 5,000 women have been smuggled into Israel in the past four years to work as prostitutes, according to a parliamentary inquiry.
The report described how the women are sold at public auctions for as much as $10,000 and forced to work up to 18 hours a day.
…
Zehava Galon, of the opposition Yahad Party, presented the report to the speaker of the Knesset on Wednesday.
“We began this inquiry to investigate the extent of this phenomenon and raise political awareness of their plight and the brutal nature of the trafficking of women in this time of globalisation,” said Ms Galon.
She said the biggest challenge in addressing the plight of women in the sex trade was changing the attitudes of the Israeli public and police.
The inquiry also criticised judges for passing light sentences, sometimes only community service, for men running prostitution rings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4380067.stm
The Interior Minnistry is planning to expel some 15 women who were brought here to work as prostitutes and agreed to testify against the men who imported and sold them. The Justice Ministry, however, is planning to help them fight expulsion, through its department for legal assistance to the needy.
…
Yasmin Keshet, the lawyer who is representing the victims, last week applied to the Interior Ministry on behalf of a 19-year-old from the Ukraine, who infiltrated into Israel via Egypt. She grew up with an alcoholic mother and a stepfather who abused her and agreed to come to Israel as a prostitute. According to the charge sheet against her procurers, she was sold at a Tel Aviv parking lot to the owner of an escort agency, where she worked without being paid, ostensibly to pay for her travel expenses to Israel.
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Sholkin_Grig.html#Interior
Although official statistics are not available, it is widely believed that in the past few years thousands of women, including some girls, from FSU countries have been trafficked to Israel to work in the sex industry.
…
Tatiana arrived in Israel from Belarus in April 1998 on a tourist visa. She had been promised a job working 12 hours a day as a cleaner in a hotel in the resort of Eilat. She was told the job would pay her enough to support her mother and her six-year-old son.
Tatiana was met in Eilat by a man pretending to be from the hotel where she was to be employed. He took her to a brothel, where she was forced to work in the sex industry against her will and told that she would have to repay her ”sale price” and the travel costs.
Tatiana made various plans to escape. She was finally released from the brothel after a police raid — a friend of hers had contacted the Belarus Consulate who contacted the police. Tatiana was taken into custody as an illegal immigrant and detained in Neve Tirza Prison awaiting deportation.
Three days after her arrest, Tatiana found an anonymous note on her prison bunk threatening to kill her and punish her family if she spoke out about what had happened to her. Tatiana wanted to testify against her captors in Eilat, but she was terrified that if she did so and was returned to Belarus the traffickers would meet her at the airport or come to her home, since they knew all her passport details and the address of her family.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE150172000
CAPITOL HILL, Washington D.C., April 25 (IslamOnline) – Witnesses testifying before the Congressional Committee on International Relations’ subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights Wednesday slammed the U.S., United Nations, and Israeli officials for directly participating in trafficking human beings, specifically women and young girls, for the sex industry in Bosnia and Israel and involvement in what witnesses and congress members classified as “the rapes of women and children.”
http://www.islam-online.net/english/News/2002-04/25/article67.shtml
Study shows women trafficking convicts receive light jail terms
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
During the course of 2005, human traffickers who forced women to engage in prostitution have received an average prison sentence of five to six years despite the 16-year maximum sentence afforded by the law, a new report reveals Thursday.
The authors also criticize the fact that women’s claims against the traffickers need to be submitted to labor courts.
“Prostitution which takes place within the framework of human trafficking is not work, but slavery,” the report said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/715013.html
Human Trafficking in the Construction Sector in Israel
Speech presented at the OSCE conference on trafficking for labor exploitation
For more then a decade, Israel allows the entry of thousands of migrant workers for work in the construction sector. These workers come from countries such as China, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. In many cases, these workers experience work conditions which amount to “practices similar to slavery”.
…
The highest recruitment fees are being collected from Chinese workers. What’s even more alarming is that these fees are being collected with the blessing of the Chinese government. In a discussion which took place at the Knesset Committee on Migrant Workers on June 1, 2003, a representative of the Chinese Embassy in Israel admitted that the Chinese authorities allow local manpower agencies to collect over 3,000$ for arranging visas abroad (supposedly because they are responsible for keeping the worker’s rights in Israel). In practice, Chinese Migrant workers pay these days up to 12,000$ for the “privilege” of working in Israel. Hence, Kav LaOved has recently appealed to Israeli authorities in demand that no Chinese workers would be allowed into Israel.
…
There are also documented cases, in which employers and manpower agencies coercively took employees to the airport and put them on planes back to their home countries, so that they could bring substitute workers to Israel, and collect additional Recruitment Fees.
http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava_main.asp?news_id=1609&sivug_id=3
We are lucky to have the enemies that we do. It’s an honour to be hated by Serb ethnic cleansers, neo-nazis and Bin Laden alike.
If we anger the world by supporting Israel, than good on us. If we anger the world by supporting the multi-party popular democracies of Afghanistan and Iraq, then double good on us. If we anger the world by spitting on the Hamas regime and their plans to ensnare Palestinian Christians into a Dhimmi system – and push the Jews into the sea, if we piss off the whole world by calling Castro on his abuse of free speech, his murder of 18,000 people, his hundreds of millions in looted cash and his active persecution of gays – then bloody well, double plus good and hoorah for us.
Have a little moral courage Bob and stand up for what’s right, not what makes you popular on Al Jazeera.
Bob,
If you knew anything of history you would understand that one could take every word you put down, replace Carter with Stalin, Bush with Churchill, Israel with Great Britain and Hamas with the Nazis.
It’s 1939 all over again. Where was Canada?
Go move to Syria, terrorist enabler, dictator lover and UN ass-kisser. It’s a much better place than what you’ve got by your own description.
“Sometimes when I look at my children I say to myself, “Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.”
Quote from Lillian Carter, mother of Jimmy and Billy.
I’m sure Bob’s comment was tongue in cheek. If not I have two cures for what ails him. Firstly he needs to gaze upon this map of the middle east.
http://zioneocon.blogspot.com/map-middle-east.gif
Bob, that tiny green sliver of land you see is home to nearly six million Jews. It is a speck of dust in the desert, turned into an oasis by hard work which is surrounded on three sides by Egypt, Jordan (home to Palestinians interested in living in peace) Syria and Lebanon -and beyond those lands all of Arabia.
These six million deserve to live in peace. We -the world owe them that. And if you don’t know that then this non-Jew says you know nothing.
The Arabs who surround them- sitting upon all that unearned and unappreciated wealth- oh how lucky and ungenerous they are- need to get a life.
And IMHO in order to get a life they need to get a new religion rather than this failed religion which was, at the outset spread by conquest, and is now being spread through fear and intimidation-aided and abetted by a world of cowardly ignorant multiculturist dhimmwits.
The second thing you need to do Bob is visit this website daily:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Bob, cut the insults. You can post nonsense if you wish, but keep it civil.
thnak god we have a PM with the moral courage to hammer Hamas and the Tamils). Meanwhile courageous citizens like Bob love Hamas, the PLO and probably Fidel “Na na I’m a rich man” Castro and Che “lets blow some brains out today’ Guevera.
from elsewhere . . .
“Unknown assailants killed a senior Hamas activist [sic] in Gaza on Tuesday,” Reuters reports:
Unidentified Palestinian gunmen shot dead Mohammed Tatar, a senior member of Hamas’s military wing, as he drove his car in Gaza city, Palestinian medics and a security source said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hundreds of Hamas supporters took to the streets later on Tuesday calling for revenge.
Separately, masked gunmen shot and critically wounded another senior member of Hamas’s military wing and injured a second Hamas member in Gaza’s Khan Younis area, witnesses said.
Remember a couple of years ago when Israel killed some Hamas honchos in an effort to prevent suicide bombings? That prompted world-wide outrage. This time, however, it was Arab terrorists killing other Arab terrorists. If any Jewish lives were saved in the process, it was purely incidental. Thus there is no cause for world-wide outrage.”
MoM violence is like BoB violence we see in Toronto, politically incorrect to talk about, let alone point out.
Wonder what the number for ‘slaves’ imported by the saudis would be?
Most of Bob’s information comes from Israelis dealing with a problem that has become almost endemic in the Western world as a result of the poverty expierienced in the former “Workers Paradise”. Did he forget about a former Librano and the Romanian strippers?
Yo Bob —
Check out this map. According to this, Canada has a slavery problem, too, with an estimated 5K to 25K slaves. What are you doing about that? Oh, right, I forgot — singling out Israel. Which, by the looks of the map, is estimated to have 5K or fewer slaves.
The whole article is not online at National Geo’s site, but you can probably find the backissue at your local library.
Put the kool-aid down Bob, time to de-tox.
Of course, the organized people-traffickers exploit their victims all over the world, and not just in Isreal. the fact is that Isreal is a small oasis of prosperity and democracy in a sea of poverty and backwardness and oppressive regimes. Who would want to smuggle or be smuggled into Cuba or Syria? But Turkey, Isreal, Western Europe, Canada or the US, it happens all the time. Tragic, yes, but unfair to single out Isreal. And totally unfair (even insane) to try to spin it as some anti-Christian plot. And pro-torture, ethnic cleansing, dom. spying etc… that’s just crazy talk!
The Kurd problem.
There are kurds in Turkey, in Nothern Iraq and Iran. The Turkish and Iranian ones would like to break away. Those nations have basically said F-you, no.
The ones in Northern Iraq, defacto independent, are serving as bases for Turkish and Iranian kurds to raise hell. The US, with it’s hands full further south isn’t really in a great position to lean on the Iraqi kurds.
Both Turkey and Iran are pissed off, but also don’t want to raise the stakes with punitive missions into Northern Iraq. (Duh) Artillery is a diplomatic way to express their annoyance and force the Americans to lean on the Kurds a little, and to remind the Kurds to keep their horns in.
“Here’s a closer look at the state you creeps blindly support. On behalf of the thousands of Christians sold into slavery in Israel every year, I personally sh*t on each and every one of you.”
One notes they are being smuggled into Israel. Through which countries? Which countries that are doing bugger all to help stop things?
Sure, blame Israel for it. How many eastern Europeans are in Western Europe under dubious circumstance I’ll bet is FAR more than 5K per year.
So, let me get this straight: the russian mob is smuggling prostitutes through Egypt into Israel. And Bob blames it on the Israeli’s? The article even talks about the problems the Israeli police are having trying to stop it! You’re obviously an anti-semite Bob. To try and make a stance on this issue is just pathetic. There are children being sold into the sex trade all over south-east asia, and we’re talking WAY more than 5000 a year. Go to any “massage parlour” in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, and Vancouver, and witness Canada’s bustling sex-slave business. In fact, go to any major city in the world and you can find yourself some girls that have been sold into sex-slavery.
Ignore Bob’s thinly disguised rant about Israel.
There are few Western countries, including Canada, likely to meet his pristeen demands of moral purity.
More to the point, the fundamental “issues” in the Middle East are intractable and, in the final analysis, might simply be insoluble.
Not a thought that sits well with the “fixit” mentality of Western do-gooders.
Whoa, Bob, buddy, you’re supposed to set up the trampoline OUTSIDE. Setting it up indoors only causes you to hit your head, and as we all can see, lose a few marbles in the process.
An unstable Iraq isn’t actually in anyone’s interest except the more militant Kurd nationalists, AQ and the insurgents.
The US and most Middle East states have a vested interest in a united Iraq – or at least one that is superficially “federated.” Turkey would great any independent “Kurdistan” with horror.
Even the “Mad Mullahs” of Iran know that the collapse of Iraq would be the signal for problems on the home front – particularly if Iranian Kurds suddenly have a sovereign “Kurdistan” next door to look up to.
It’s one thing for Iran to play merry hell with the situation in Iraq; it’s another to deal with the unintended consequences.
It rips me when people like “Bob” who live in a democracy view the world as if he were living in a despotic state. This flaming anti-semite cannot bring himself to see that Israel is simply fighting for its very life when they flex their muscles with their agressive neighbors. Israel is the only democracy in the region. Israel, in stark contrast to its neighbors, is a model of a peaceful society with a vibrant economy and hardworking citizens. They promote and encourage the advancement of anyone who wants to work hard and achieve financial success. Again, I say in sharp contrast to their neighbors who so obsessed with doing away with the Jews.
Bob, you probably have a picture of Hitler at the foot of your bed.
People like Bob are impossible to reason with because they’re blinded by their hatred and anti-Semitism.
Logic and any semblance of perspective are absent in their thinking as they see their targets and warp all information to suit their hate. The fact that Canada had it’s own (Liberal government) immigration scandal involving foreign (usually eastern European) strippers who are often forced into servitude is irrelevant to Bob. That there have been lacklustre attempts to stop the illegal importation of Asian sex-slaves into Canada is also irrelevant. These facts are discarded in favour of a view that the Jews are out to get him and enslave the “Christian” peoples. He believes in Blood Libels and is not interested in truth.
You may as well try to teach a monkey to recite Shakespeare than talk sense to a person like Bob.
Kate: “Bob, cut the insults. You can post nonsense if you wish, but keep it civil.”
OK, fine, no more potty mouth. But I’d like to point out I’ve never seen such a vigorous defense of slavery, anywhere, as I have in this thread. And as for the hysterical and false racism/Nazi claims, i.e.:
“Bob, you probably have a picture of Hitler at the foot of your bed.”
…when did SDA become Rabble?
Anyone who equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism should be disqualified from discussion on the issue. It’s a weak tactic, it’s a Liberal tactic, and it’s not going to work. It’s also illogical and dishonest. No nation is above criticism.
Nice to know that the Bush supporters brains are so out of whack that I can get them to act like Peggy Nash and defend slavery, all at my whim 😉
Simple question, Bob. Take a stand. Does Israel have a right to exist? Yes or no?
Congratulations Kate you have successfully attracted a cadre of complete idiots who are desperately in need of medication…..