Bombs hit Istanbul synagogues: Why ???

[Guest guest]

 

 

Why ???What is the reason for such an atrocity ???

-------

 

Bombs hit Istanbul synagogues

 

 

The blast struck worshippers at prayer

At least 20 people have been killed by explosions outside two synagogues in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

Turkish officials said car bombs rocked Istanbul's largest synagogue, the Neve Shalom, and another synagogue nearby.

 

A radical Turkish Islamist group, known as the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, said it was responsible, but the claim is being treated with scepticism.

 

The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, said he believed suicide bombers were behind the blasts.

 

"It is clear that this is a terrorist event with international links," he said.

 

Israel has denounced the blasts as "criminal terror attacks".

 

'Huge panic'

 

The car bombs exploded outside the synagogues at about 1000 (0700 GMT) as worshippers were holding Sabbath morning prayers.

 

TURKISH JEWISH COMMUNITY

About 20,000 Jews, mainly in Istanbul

Influx after expulsion from Spain in 1492

17 synagogues in Istanbul

 

 

In pictures: car bombings

Turkey attacks: your reaction

The facade of Neve Shalom collapsed and the second synagogue, the Beth Israel, about five kilometres (3 miles) away in Sisli district, was also severely damaged.

 

"The blast went off in the middle of the prayer," Turkish Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Haleva said of the explosion at Neve Shalom.

 

"All the windows were shattered and I suddenly found myself surrounded by thick smoke."

 

Eyewitness Enver Eker, who was near Neve Shalom went the bomb went off, said: "There was huge panic, glass exploding and metal pieces all over the place.

 

 

Istanbul health officials said 20 people had been killed and 257 people wounded.

 

Television footage showed wounded people staggering in the street, some with bloodied or charred faces.

 

The BBC's Steve Bryant in Istanbul says weeping people were searching for missing relatives, having found no news of them in hospitals across the city.

 

He says many of the dead were passers-by or local shopkeepers.

 

The powerful blasts turned cars into mangled wrecks and shattered windows across a wide area.

 

"It was like a war zone," said eyewitness Sadettin Gul.

 

Police and forensic teams are combing through the rubble at the centre of the blast for evidence about who carried out the attacks.

 

Film from security cameras at Neve Shalom showed someone park a car and walk away before it blew up, police told the Turkish Anatolia news agency.

 

The Neve Shalom synagogue, where most of the deaths reportedly occurred, was the scene of an earlier attack in 1986, when Palestinian gunmen killed 22 worshippers and wounded six others during a Sabbath service.

 

It was also bombed by the Hezbollah militant group in 1992, but no-one was injured.

 

Foreign forces?

 

A caller claiming to be from a radical Turkish group, Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front - also known as IBDA/C - said it carried out the attack, Anatolia reported.

 

 

The blast left a crater outside the Neve Shalom synagogue

The caller was quoted as saying: "The reason [for the attacks] is to stop the oppression of the Muslims... Our acts will continue."

 

The IBDA/C carried out a series of attacks around Istanbul in the 1990s, but has since been largely dismantled by Turkish security forces.

 

Turkish officials are sceptical about the claim and are examining whether foreign groups were behind the attack.

 

"An incident of such a scale might not be just the work of a domestic organisation," said Turkish Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu.

 

Our correspondent says there had been no warning of any attacks against Jewish targets in the city.

 

He says Istanbul has a small Jewish community that generally has very good relationships with other Turks.

 

 

[Guest guest]

`Life has to go on,' Jewish leader says

Istanbul attacks on synagogues linked to Al Qaeda

 

Funerals begin for some of 23 killed by truck bombs

 

 

YIGAL SCHLEIFER

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

 

ISTANBUL—Standing near the entrance to the glass- and rubble-strewn street that leads to Istanbul's bombed Neve Shalom synagogue, one of the Turkish Jewish community's leaders looked out on the scene of destruction in front of her, the street illuminated by the emergency lights of investigators and the spotlights of several television crews.

 

"We patch our wounds and go on," said a shaken Lina Filiba, executive vice-president of Turkey's Jewish community. "We want life to continue like before. The synagogues have to stay open. Life has to go on."

 

Yesterday, two London-based Arabic-language newspapers received separate statements claiming that Al Qaeda had carried out the truck bomb attacks on two Istanbul synagogues that killed 23 people and injured more than 300 on Saturday.

 

A statement received by the daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said a unit of Al Qaeda executed Saturday's attacks because it learned agents of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad were in the synagogues. The London weekly Al-Majalla said the claim they received yesterday was signed by an Al Qaeda operative identified as Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj.

 

Although directed at synagogues, the attacks killed and injured mostly Muslims who were working near the buildings or passing by. Six Jews are known to have died in the blasts.

 

Analysts said it may be difficult for Turkey to return to life as it was before the attacks.

 

"People in Turkey thought that this could happen to Americans or Israelis, but not to us," said Ali Carkoglu, a professor of political science at Istanbul's Sabanci University.

 

"From that perspective, this could help sustain a tougher policy against terror with Islamic origins," Carkoglu added.

 

Sami Kohen, a political analyst and columnist with the Turkish daily Milliyet, said the attacks could push Turkey towards closer co-operation with the U.S., and Israel, in the anti-terrorism fight.

 

"Turkey is now included in the war-on-terror front," Kohen said. "If the bombers had in mind to force Turkey to change course, to take a cooler attitude towards Israel or the West, that's not going to happen."

 

Israeli intelligence and explosives experts joined Turkish officials yesterday in the investigation of the bombings. Also yesterday, Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, paid a visit to the two devastated synagogues, laying wreaths of chrysanthemums in the rubble. Shalom later met with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul.

 

"I think that the operation here shows both Turkey and other countries in the world that no place is immune to terrorism," Shalom said.

 

Turkey's interior minister, Abdulkadir Aksu, told the Associated Press he is "more than 95 per cent" confident the attacks were the work of suicide bombers.

 

According to Turkish police officials, the attacks were carried out by an identical pair of Isuzu delivery trucks, each packed with some 400 kilograms of explosives, a mix of ammonium sulphate, nitrate and compressed fuel. The explosives had been put into containers wrapped in sacks and hidden among containers of detergent.

 

Funerals were held today for many of the Muslims killed. The Jewish community will hold funerals tomorrow for five of its members who died in the blasts.

 

As investigators continue to sift through the rubble for clues, Turkish analysts said the attacks could have serious implications.

 

Turkey is currently ruled by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a new political party that traces its roots to Turkey's political Islam movement. While the party's leaders have distanced themselves from their Islamist past, the country's entrenched secular establishment has remained suspicious.

 

If any Turkish Islamist groups are found to have participated in the attacks, that could heat up the simmering conflict between the AKP government and the secularists, Carkoglu says.

 

"If the secularists can show that there has been a linkage with a domestic pro-Islamist group that hasn't been properly followed or acted against, then the domestic implications could be very severe," he says.

 

"I have no expectations that (the AKP government) will try to protect these groups — that would be foolish — and I don't think they have sympathy for them. But the way this country works, people will ask inflammatory questions and that will cause headaches," he adds.

 

Milliyet's Kohen said if Turkey finds out that foreign terrorist organizations have been able to make inroads in the country and find local recruits, the reaction would most likely be swift. "The Turkish government, any Turkish government, is not going to yield to pressure when it comes to terrorism. If anything, it would strengthen its resolve."

 

 

--

Yigal Schleifer is a journalist based in Turkey.

[Tarun]

And still they cannot. "U can't stop war yet go on killing animals. IMPOSSIBLE!

These so-called Christians, Jews, Muslims... have misinterpreted their own scriptures.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" - only 2 words in Hebrew = "Lo Tirtzach"

My dear jewish brother/sister:

Which part of Lo Tirtzach do u NOT understand?

No, but my rabbi said that if the (dead) meat is blessed...

Then find another rabbi who can at least understand these 2 Hebrew words!!

 

[Guest guest]

Thank you for your straight preaching on this quintessential point.

[Guest guest]

Many die in Istanbul blasts

 

 

The HSBC bank building towers over a busy shopping area

Bomb attacks on the British consulate and the HSBC bank headquarters in Istanbul have left at least 15 dead and more than 300 injured.

The explosions come just days after 23 people died in suicide bombings on two synagogues in the city.

 

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw condemned what he described as an "appalling act of terrorism" saying it had all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda and associated organisations.

 

Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek said the attacks were carried out by suicide car bombers.

 

It's total chaos... civilians are carrying people away from the scene

 

Chris Kitrinos, bystander near British consulate

 

 

Carnage returns to Istanbul

The 15-storey headquarters of the London-based bank towers over a busy shopping area, which correspondents say would have been crowded when the explosion occurred at 1110 Turkish time.

 

The consulate bomb occurred two minutes later.

 

A White House spokesman said Washington was monitoring the situation.

 

Extensive damage

 

Turkish Foreign Minister Abullah Gul said Turkey would not bow to terror.

 

An AFP reporter on the scene said two annexes fronting the consulate had been destroyed.

 

"It's total chaos, ambulances cannot get to the scene," said an English teacher at a school next to the consulate, Chris Kitrinos.

 

"The damage is very extensive. I've been told that there are people lying around... Civilians are carrying people away from the scene."

 

Trading on the Istanbul stock exchange was suspended after the explosions and the lira dived on foreign exchange markets.

 

A group claiming to be linked to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the synagogue attacks last Saturday.

 

It warned that new attacks against the US and its allies were being planned.

 

 

[Guest guest]

'Blood and tears everywhere'

 

 

There were scenes of shock and anger

Many people thought an earthquake had hit tremor-prone Istanbul when two powerful explosions rocked the city on Thursday morning.

"The immediate reaction was people shouting 'earthquake'. But after a few seconds we realised it was not an earthquake but something else," Rakesh Jobanputra told the BBC.

 

"People knew it was an attack or a bomb", Mr Jobanputra said, not least because the area is "full of modern buildings, symbols of capitalism".

 

All the windows in the 15-storey HSBC building - the target of the first attack - were blown out by the explosion, sending shards of glass crashing to the ground.

 

HAVE YOUR SAY

There was total chaos around the place where the terror attack happened

 

Erdem Esder, Istanbul

 

 

Send us your comments

Pools of blood were visible in the street, which had been packed with shoppers at the time of the blast.

 

Murat Emre Duman was working in a building near the bank.

 

"I saw yellow smoke" coming out of the tower, he said, and "shattered glass from cars and windows everywhere".

 

He called a friend whose 28-year-old wife worked in the building, he said, but soon learned she had been killed in the explosion.

 

"I saw her body," Mr Duman told BBC News Online. "My friend doesn't even recognise me. He's in a state of shock."

 

Anger

 

For Ozhan Orge, who was also working nearby, the reaction was "definitely anger towards the terrorist attacks.

 

"Everybody ran to the windows, shouting 'God damn it, God damn it.' Our friends were working in that building," he said.

 

Everybody ran to the windows, shouting 'God damn it, God damn it.' Our friends were working in that building

 

Ozhan Orge

Kerem Gunay had just driven past the bank when the explosion took place.

 

"There was total chaos, a horrible scene," he told BBC News Online. "You just want to get away from it."

 

Television footage showed the wrecked facade of the HSBC bank, water gushing from a burst mains onto mangled cars and debris littering the street below.

 

Shocked people, caked in dust, milled around, some shouting, others helping blood-soaked victims to safety.

 

Mehmet Susakli was working on the eighth floor of a building close to HSBC when the bomb went off.

 

"I ran to the hospital to give blood but couldn't because of the crowds," he told BBC News Online.

 

As ambulances raced to the scene, bystanders began digging with their bare hands, trying to reach people apparently trapped under tons of wreckage.

 

"People are helping however they can," Damla Ozluer told BBC News Online.

 

"We're surprised and confused. We weren't expecting another explosion so soon," she said, referring to the bombing of two synagogues at the weekend.

 

Consulate

 

Outside the UK consulate - Thursday's second target - confused and wounded people staggered over rubble and twisted metal as smoke and dust blotted out the sunlight.

 

A plume of thick, black smoke billowed from the consulate grounds, while outside the gates cars lay crushed by mounds of debris flung across the street by the force of the blast.

 

"The cloud is like a 50 or 60-storey building," Mr Gunay said.

 

 

The UK consulate was badly damaged

 

Eyewitness Fabrizio Mambrini told BBC News Online: "The scene is surreal. Half of the city is empty, no traffic, the other half is packed with traffic, tens of ambulances wailing over the streets.

 

"There are people under the concrete, and in the streets people crying everywhere."

 

Rakesh Jobanputra spoke of a city in chaos.

 

"Blood and tears [are] everywhere," he told BBC News Online.

 

"People are shocked, angry and mourning loved ones, like they were five days ago".

 

 

[Guest guest]

European press review

on the Istanbul attacks

 

The images of death, destruction and suffering relayed from Istanbul provoke horror, shock and condemnation in Friday's European press.

 

The comment pages and editorials attempt to analyse the reasons for the latest attacks and suggest the reaction needed by governments across the world.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is at a loss to explain why Turkey has become a major target of terrorism.

 

"Sick brains, too, follow a logic, however perverse it may be," the paper says.

 

It argues it is necessary to understand the thinking behind terrorism in order to fight it effectively but fails to see "any political logic" in the choice of Turkey.

 

Regardless of what happens in Iraq or Palestine, Bin Laden's infernal machines will one of these days target Berlin or Paris, just as they targeted New York and Istanbul. In this war, neutrality is not an option

 

Liberation

The paper adds that a united response is required after the terrorists proved they can strike anywhere in the world.

 

"Now the community of civilized states must show that it is able to react unanimously to this challenge."

 

The French Liberation believes it has an answer for the attackers' choice.

 

Turkey, it points out, is a secular democracy, a member of Nato and a candidate to join the European Union. "In short," the paper adds, "a country that shares the values we uphold, the very same values abhorred by Islamic fanaticism".

 

In the paper's opinion, the attacks "bear Osama Bin Laden's hallmark", and it sees the successive choice in Istanbul of synagogues last Saturday and now the British targets, as "following the implacable logic of the racial and religious war he has declared on 'Jews and Crusaders'".

 

"Regardless of what happens in Iraq or Palestine," the paper warns, "Bin Laden's infernal machines will one of these days target Berlin or Paris, just as they targeted New York and Istanbul. In this war, neutrality is not an option," it concludes.

 

A commentary in the Hungarian Nepszabadsag sees "a message to Tony Blair" in the Istanbul attacks. There were, it says, "a few targets on offer in London", but "police focus on the British capital was exceptionally strong... so the terrorists chose a soft target in far-away Istanbul".

 

"The content of the message", the paper believes, "lay in its timing" to coincide with President Bush's visit to London. However, it adds, "as is usually the case with terrorist messages" it has proved "counterproductive" for it has "strengthened the resolve" of the US-British coalition to "go to the end of the road it has mapped out in Iraq".

 

The Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano says Thursday's attacks "leave no doubts as to the existence of a clear strategy of death, implemented with characteristic cynicism in a nation which has historically stood as a bridge between East and West".

 

While he [Mr Shevardnadze] remains in power, there is hardly likely to be any rapprochement between the two countries

 

Izvestia

But the response to what the paper calls "this cold-blooded criminal project" must be, it stresses, "a strategy of justice and peace" upholding "the values of respect for life, observance of the law, and solidarity among all men".

 

And Russia's Rossiskaya Gazeta describes events in Istanbul as a "nightmare", adding that the ongoing Muslim festival of Ramadan is "stained with blood".

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

Turkish PM vows to defeat bombers

 

 

Hospitals have been treating hundreds of injured people

The Turkish prime minister has vowed to defeat those who bombed the UK consulate and a British bank in Istanbul, killing at least 27 people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the bombers - thought linked to al-Qaeda - had "bloodied" the Muslim month of Ramadan.

 

At least 450 were injured in the attacks on Thursday morning.

 

As UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw toured the bomb sites, his department issued a travel warning, saying there was a risk of further attack.

 

The Foreign Office warned British citizens against travel not only to Istanbul, but to all of the country's other major cities, including capital Ankara.

 

They [the bombers] will be damned until eternity

 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkish Prime Minister

 

The first blast targeted the HSBC headquarters. A van is believed to have exploded near the building, devastating its facade.

 

Minutes later, another van crashed through the gates of the British consulate and blew up.

 

The second bomb was so big that buildings hundreds of metres away had their windows smashed.

 

"Cars were flying, there was blood everywhere," said an eyewitness.

 

Resolve

 

The top UK diplomat in the city, Consul-General Roger Short, was among at least 16 people killed in the attack on the consulate.

 

 

 

Click below to see a satellite image of the British Consulate

 

 

Enlarge Image

 

 

The two blasts follow last Saturday's suicide bomb attacks against two synagogues in Istanbul that killed 25 people.

 

Late on Thursday, the United Nations Security Council in New York approved a resolution condemning both Saturday's and Thursday's attacks.

 

The Turkish authorities say the attacks were all carried out by suicide bombers, reportedly linked to al-Qaeda.

 

After Thursday's bombings Mr Erdogan expressed outrage.

 

"Those who bloodied this holy day and massacred innocent people will account for it in both worlds," he said.

 

"They will be damned until eternity."

 

In a telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Erdogan promised to "continue our fight against terrorism with more fervour".

 

Investigation

 

Mr Straw, after picking his way through the rubble of the British consulate, said: "These people are full of hatred, they are fanatics.

 

 

Click below for a more detailed map of the blast sites

 

 

Enlarge Map

 

"These attacks are attacks on the whole of humanity," he added.

 

Sixteen members of London's anti-terrorist police branch are to join the investigation into the bombings.

 

They coincided with a visit by President George W Bush to London.

 

Mr Bush said the bombers had shown "utter contempt" for human life.

 

A man who called the semi-official Anatolia news agency said al-Qaeda and the Turkish Islamic militant group IBDA-C had jointly carried out the attacks.

 

US solidarity

 

Istanbul governor Muamer Guler said four of the dead at the consulate were British.

 

He also said the death toll was likely to rise. Hours after the explosions, injured people were still being taken to Istanbul hospitals.

 

Who are IBDA-C?

Islamic Great Eastern Raiders' Front

Armed, underground Islamist network

Claim latest bomb attacks

Linked to bomb attacks on two synagogues

Leader is in prison facing death penalty

 

In Washington, US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said this kind of attack would encourage unity between the US and its allies, rather than drive them apart.

 

 

[Kulapavana]

the threat of terrorism is much overstated. while such bombings may look very horrific, the loss of life in them is insignificant compared with other risks, like smoking, drinking, illicit sex etc. ruling elites in countries like US use the scarecrow of terrorism to shamelessly advance their agenda and extract tremendous profits for their circle.

[theist]

People in general and unfortunately so-called leaders are hiding their heads in the sand hoping the terrorists will either die out or get bored and go away.

 

Neither will happen.

[Kulapavana]

your view of this situation is very idealistic, mine very cynical. we will never agree on this subject /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[theist]

idealistic???

 

realistic

[Kulapavana]

the reality is that after collapse of Soviet Union US has no REAL enemies, only the ones it CREATES. You should read more about the role US played in creating monsters like Saddam, Binladen and many more brutal dictators, than talk about "brave leaders" who "stand up to evil terrorists". The industrial/military complex was slowly suffocating after we have won the cold war so "enemy" was created for their profit. Most of the "brave leaders" in the world are cold, calculating asuras. It is a pity so many are brainwashed by their clever propaganda machine.

[theist]

You take out a thorn with a thorn Kulapavana.

 

Another great saying: My enemies enemy is my friend. The US had to support the Mujahadeen (including Bin Laden) against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After Afghanistan there was Pakistan which included Karachi. The Soviets needed a warm water port in the area.

 

The support to Saddam was really an attempt to stop the Mullahs in Iran from spreading their Islamic revolution.

 

I am no blind patriot. But I am also not blind to the threat of Islamic terrorism. Do some more research on bio-terrorism and see how these people think.

 

They teach their young in their madras schools that they have three enemies in the world. The USA, Israel and India.

 

The idea has been discussed of using their "martyrs" in a slightly different way then strapping suicide belts around their waists. They want to first infect them with small pox and send them around to the populated areas in these three countries to spread the infection.

 

They would not set off any alarms at airports and for days they would just mingle and spread the disease to others who would then become carriers and so on and on. They would kill millions and set off a world wide panic of proportions we can't imagine.

 

They could easily have a hundred or more of these insane fanatics roaming around kumbha-mela infecting people who would then take small pox back to their cities and villages all over India.

 

Think about it and then tell me it is an overrated threat.

 

Once this happens its too late for a response against them. It is premptive strikes to crush them or nothing, and now or never. That is the reality presently on this plane. Just face it.

 

As far as I can see Bush and Blair with the help of a few other leaders are the only ones willing to take them on.

 

I could not care less if they make money on oil or not or if Bush had a wild life as a college student or any of the other stupid arguments the left wing comes out with.

 

The situation is far too urgent for that.

 

Take out the thorn with a thorn. So true.

 

This will never be fully corrected in this age. Time to leave, or better yet spread the kirtan.

 

Hare Krsna

[Kulapavana]

I know a lot about potential bio-disasters (I'm a scientist working in an analytical laboratory), and again - in my opinion - the threat is much overblown. You may not agree with that, but look how quickly SARDS was brought under control. SARDS can spread a lot faster than smallpox and there is no vaccine so far (and we do have very effective smallpox vaccine). I have contacts with professionals in this field, and privately none of them are very concerned about bio-terrorism, but they will support the official scare tactics because they get plenty of money for research, etc.

[Kulapavana]

as to taking out thorns: you should study Bhishma's instructions on leadership and governing (spoken from the bed of arrows) before you conclude that pre-emptive aggression is best policy. and btw: do you truly believe Sadam was a threat to US? LOL! At best, he might have been a threat to our "ally" (read: parasite) Israel and to US plans of meddling in the Middle East, but NOT A THREAT TO US. Like I said: US is CREATING it's enemies.

 

and finally: you cant fight terrorists by outdoing them in killing. you have to remove the CAUSES of terrorism. If we were spending 3 millions of dollars (current low estimate of the cost of war in Iraq) a day HELPING poor Muslims we would have been loved all over the world! Don't pee on people's back and tell them it's raining.... these people are not stupid, give them a bit more credit. Hare Krishna!

[Kulapavana]

here one more example of US govt short sighted policy of supporting "strong rulers" (read: big time asuras) when convenient - the CONSEQUENCES (see post below)

 

 

 

[Kulapavana]

Missing Chileans 'dumped in ocean'

 

Monday 24 November 2003, 8:53 Makka Time, 5:53 GMT

 

Families of the disappeared have demanded justice

 

At least 400 Chileans who "disappeared" under ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet's bloody rule were dumped into the ocean strapped to pieces of railroad track to make them sink.

 

 

This is according to new court testimonies published on Sunday in the Chilean newspaper La Nacion.

 

The paper cited 12 retired helicopter mechanics who, breaking decades of silence, recounted macabre details of the operation to Judge Juan Guzman, who is investigating charges of human rights abuses under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.

 

La Nacion's report was based on leaks of confidential testimonies provided to Guzman and his team of detectives.

 

The mechanics, who all admitted to participating in some of the body-dumping flights over the Pacific Ocean between 1974 and 1978, said the scheme was planned and carried out by the Army Aviation Command in conjunction with Pinochet's secret police, DINA, as a way of hiding evidence of massive human rights violations.

 

"There were at least 40 trips. In each one, they loaded eight to 15 bundles (corpses) aboard the Puma helicopters," the paper said.

 

"Some of them did not have the shape of a body but were smaller, just the remains," it paraphrased from the testimonies.

 

Thirteen years after Chile's return to democracy, the country is still struggling to piece together its recent history amid almost total silence from military personnel who played a role in the deaths of some 3500 people in Pinochet's witch hunt of leftists.

 

Mass graves

 

The newspaper report builds on eye-witness accounts that have gradually surfaced in the media and courts, revealing exhumations of mass graves and secret flights over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Army helicopter pilots and higher-ranking army officials have denied throwing corpses into the ocean.

 

But an official army report in 2001 said some 200 leftists who had been taken to secret torture camps by Pinochet's security forces were killed and "hidden" in the ocean.

 

"There were at least 40 trips. In each one, they loaded eight to 15 bundles (corpses) aboard the Puma helicopters"

 

Report in La Nacion

Chilean newspaper

 

La Nacion reported that the men tied a piece of railroad track to the corpses with wire, stuck them in a canvas bag and unloaded them over water.

 

But one victim's body, a communist activist called Marta Ugarte, washed up onto a Chilean beach in 1976, providing the first clue about the operation.

 

Guzman's investigation into that case led to the helicopter mechanics' testimony.

 

Guzman recently charged six former members of Pinochet's military, including his notorious former spy chief, Manuel Contreras, in connection with the murder.

 

The identities of the other bodies, which the mechanics numbered at between 400 and 500, are not known.

 

 

[theist]

address the scenario I illustrated.

 

 

[Kulapavana]

if terrorists infect a lot of people at a huge congregation like Kumbha-Mela with an agent like smallpox many thousands will die... but it will not lead to a world-wide epidemic, and within a month all affected areas will be brought under control. Still, it will be a tremendous tragedy. However, I doubt that the steps Bush&Co. are taking do much to reduce such risks. and btw: how many Iraqi children died due to US imposed sanctions on that country? these are NOT hypothetical deaths - that has already happened! how many people died in this current war? all that to PREVENT possible loss of life... this is not a "scenario" theist prabhu, these are cold facts...

[theist]

I don't want to rehash the whole Iraq war. But I ask you to consider how many were tortured and killed during Saddam's reign of terror.

 

As far as small pox goes, yes the US has restocked vaccines levels for our population if it comes to that. How about the rest of the world?

 

Now consider the fact that a terrorist organization could do similar attacks in waves, simultaneously across the world.

 

Let your imagination do the walking, the terrorists already have.

[Kulapavana]

"I don't want to rehash the whole Iraq war. But I ask you to consider how many were tortured and killed during Saddam's reign of terror."

 

1. US govt. helped Saddam on many occasions in the past, even when they knew he was a brutal dictator engaged in horrible crimes (same goes for Pinochet and Binladen). You may actually say they have created these monsters.

 

2. When millions of people were butchered in Africa (Congo, Burundi, etc.) US did absolutely nothing, claiming to have "no interests" in these internal wars.

 

So get of your high horse!

 

We all get what we deserve. The people in general are lazy and stupid, so they elect demons for their leaders. Incompetent leadership leads to chaos in the world. You judge by the result.

[Kulapavana]

just to show you that I'm not alone in my criticism of this failed policy of our Chief Asura (note the source):

 

Synopsis: Scarmongering as a campaign strategy

Source: New York Times

Published: November 23, 2003 Author: Maureen Dowd

 

First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy.

 

Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today.

 

"It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known," Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip.

 

Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey? The latest illustration of the low-tech ingenuity of Iraqi foes impervious to our latest cascade of high-tech missiles: a hapless, singed donkey that carted rockets to a Baghdad hotel.

 

Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more.

 

Flashing the words "terrorists" and "self-defense" in crimson, the Republican National Committee spot urges Americans "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense" — a policy Colin Powell claimed was overblown by the press.

 

"Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?" Mr. Bush says.

 

With this ad, Republicans have announced their intention: to scare us stupid, hoping we won't remember that this was the same State of the Union in which Mr. Bush made a misleading statement about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection, or remark that the imperial idyll in Iraq has created more terrorists.

 

Richard Clarke, the former U.S. counterterrorism chief, told Ted Koppel that Mr. Bush's habit of putting X's through the pictures of arrested or killed Qaeda managers was very reminiscent of a scene in the movie "The Battle of Algiers," in which the French authorities did the same to the Algerian terrorists: "Unfortunately, after all the known Algerian terrorists were arrested or killed, the French lost. And that could be the thing that's happening here, that even though we're getting all the known Al Qaeda leaders, we're breeding new ones. Ones we don't know about and will be harder to find."

 

This view of Al Qaeda was echoed by a European counterterrorism official in The Times: "There are fewer leaders but more followers."

 

The president is trying to make the campaign about guts: he has the guts to persevere in the war on terror.

 

But the real issue is trust: should we trust leaders who cynically manipulated intelligence, diverted 9/11 anger and lost focus on Osama so they could pursue an old cause near to neocon hearts: sacking Saddam?

 

The Bush war left our chief villains operating, revved up the terrorist threat, ravaged our international alliances and sparked the resentment of a world that ached for us after 9/11.

 

Now Mr. Bush says that poor Turkey, a critical ally in the Muslim world, is the newest front in the war on terror. "Iraq is a front," he said. "Turkey is a front. Anywhere the terrorists think they can strike is a front." Here a front, there a front, everywhere a terror front.

 

In his Hobbesian gloom — "Fear and I were born twins," Hobbes said — Dick Cheney thought an Iraq whupping would make surly young anti-American Arab men scuttle away. Instead, it stoked their ire.

 

James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode wrote in The Financial Times last week that the Bush crew has snuffed the optimism of F.D.R., Ronald Reagan and Bush père: "Fear has been used as a basis for curtailing freedom of expression and for questioning legal rights long taken for granted. It has crept into political discourse and been used to discredit patriotic public servants. Ronald Reagan's favorite image, borrowed from an earlier visionary, of America as `a shining city on a hill' has been unnecessarily dimmed by another image: a nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat."

 

Instead of a shining city, we have a dark bunker.

 

But the only thing we really have to fear is fearmongering itself

[theist]

Hare Krsna

[Guest guest]

These politicians create the messes and then profess to clean 'em up… like creating the parking mess and then giving tickets and stealing cars to extort money. Why can't they just provide parking for people?

 

The Europeans have been trying to do business all over the world for many years… and businesses want monopolies… more control equals more profit… there is more leverage to cheat.

 

Such a foolish society that can easily be played at both ends. The truth for today is…