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[ntropy]

Did you know Mali has not contributed one red cent to the disaster relief after the California floods? And don't get me started on Canada, which is supposed to be a "neighbour." They can't even spell the dman word right!

[ls650]

Funny. Not.

[Gordon]

I had a good chuckle.

[Sinobear]

It was a Bush conspiracy! The CIA (which employs less than 12,000 (I just made that figure up) controls more than 800 000 000 people! Outlaw natural disasters now! CMM, fire up some links to prove that I'm right!


Cheers!

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Relevant to all Earthlings, on whatever passing pyramid level...

"There's no disaster that can't become a blessing,
and no blessing that can't become a disaster"

Richard Bach quotes (American writer, author of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', b.1936)

[john henry]

Since Bush's war-for-oil machine caused this disaster in the first place, Americans deserve whatever they get. Dirty Capitalists! Why I heard that right this very second, there are businesses trying to make money CLEANING UP THE JOINT!! People are using equipment that companies SOLD FOR A PROFIT to rescue trapped Californian villagers. Why can't everyone just work for free!!??

We all know that it's just a matter of time before Bush sends in a military force to confiscate their natural resuorces, and make room for Hailburton to do their evil deeds. Man I really hate those guys.

Although I am really disappointed that none of the rich Muslim countries have donated any of their vast millions to the cause. Go figure.

[gtidey]

It amazes me how popular quotes are on this board.

It seems that any old thing when written down becomes profound and the gospel truth.

I particularily like it when people use a quote they like to answer a question, as if now, my child, you will surely see.

So let me finish by using a quote which has about as much truth in it as any quote: "There's gold in them there hills."

[ChinaMovieMagic]

RE:
"Although I am really disappointed that none of the rich Muslim countries have donated any of their vast millions to the cause. Go figure."
==============================================

QUOTE:

http://wgntv.trb.com/news/ktla-fg-arabs5jan05-lat,0,5892440.story

From the Los Angeles Times


CATASTROPHE IN SOUTHERN ASIA

Criticism Spurs Boost in Aid From Arab Nations
Despite the increase, many people in Mideast still fret that the region, flush with oil wealth, appears stingy in its tsunami relief efforts.
By Megan K. Stack
Times Staff Writer

January 5, 2005

CAIRO -- Amid a swelling debate in oil-rich Arab countries over their amount of aid to tsunami victims, several Persian Gulf governments have hurriedly fattened their cash pledges.

The increase in aid from countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates came only after a debate over whether governments were damaging their image by failing to dig deeper into their pockets.

A more esoteric discussion on Islamic websites and chat rooms focused on whether the aid effort qualified as an Islamic cause, even though the majority of those who died were Muslims.

Of an estimated 150,000 dead, about 94,000 are from Indonesia, a nation far from the Islamic heartland in the Middle East but nevertheless the world's most-populous Muslim country. Most of the others killed were in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, which have Muslim minorities.

Even after the pledges were increased, many Arabs and Muslims continued to fret that their offerings were not commensurate with the region's growing oil wealth and fed anti-Arab stereotypes. The hand-wringing mirrored American worries that the U.S. damaged its image by responding too slowly.

Analysts in the Persian Gulf said that state-run media responded sluggishly to the disaster, and that some potential contributors were concerned they might unwittingly choose charities that have been accused of funding terrorism.

The Saudi government tripled its offering to $30 million Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates increased its aid tenfold to $20 million and began airlifts of relief supplies. And Kuwait, after being blasted for stinginess on the front page of one of its prominent Sunday newspapers, upped its pledge from $2 million to $10 million.

Newspapers in Kuwait and Lebanon have been among the most outspoken critics of the Arab response.

"Caricatures of white-robed sheiks sailing their luxury yachts on seas of oil and using $100 bills to light their Havana cigars will only be reinforced in the face of collective miserliness in this hour of human need," warned an editorial in Lebanon's Daily Star. "Especially if the petroleum-rich Gulf states do not dig a bit deeper into pockets that have become quite deep indeed over the last few years of high oil prices."

The rumblings came to a head in Kuwait, where Al Qabas, a leading newspaper, published an editorial criticizing the government's offering and reminding Kuwaitis of the close ties that bind the desert nation to southern Asia.

The well-off in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries hire people from southern Asia for menial tasks they are loath to tackle themselves.

"We stepped into the modern world with them, and through them," the editorial said. "Its sons are helping today in building our country and raising our children."

After a debate in parliament, Kuwait boosted its offering, but some Kuwaitis remain mortified.

"If the tragedy was presented as a 'Muslim tragedy' you could have found a stronger response," said Waleed Nusif, editor of the paper. "Some would even go as far as saying what happened was God's wrath on people who deserved it. Unbelievable."

Fahad Kheraiji, a professor of mass communications at King Saud University in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, said he wanted the government to organize a national campaign to collect private donations.

"Everybody wants to participate," he said, "but we don't know how."

"I think the money is not enough," Kheraiji said. "Saudi Arabia has a responsibility as a Muslim country and as the largest oil-producing country."

But the government has been leery of cash contributions, he said, since Saudi charities were shut down after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to stem the flow of money to terrorists. "They're very careful when it comes to cash moving out of the country," he said.

Heba Raouf Ezzat, a political science professor at Cairo University, said these nations had no history of offering aid to non-Muslim countries.

"They are focused on religious solidarity rather than global society," she said, adding that the debate over how much to contribute was an indication that their societies were changing.........

[jpvanderwerf2001]

[Roger]

IT's California's fault, really! The good people of Mali have never heard of it!

[denise]

[ChinaMovieMagic]

RE: Assistance to US from MALI

http://www.circlepoint.org/ncworld0500.html

Cultural Survival carried an article, "Manuscripts for Peace in Mali", by Larry Childs and Issa Mohamed, in its Spring issue, stating that, "Malian democracy now has the potential to lead West Africa, and even all of Africa, in the creation of the pluri-ethnic state. In Mali, cultural diversity is celebrated as an asset rather than opposed as a threat to monolithic national identity. Government officials, traditional leaders and NGOs hold a strong conviction the historic Timbuktu manuscripts from the 12th through 19th centuries could further cultivate a distinctive Malian development paradigm-one rooted in this ancient culture of rapprochement. Scholars during this period, commonly referred to as Ambassadors of Peace, used the written word extensively to guide leaders of Malian empires that once spanned vast areas of West Africa. The writings, influenced by traditional African thought and the Islamic faith, are written in Arabic and languages indigenous to the region. They are relevant today for their treatises on tolerance and peaceful means to resolve conflicts."

[once again]

According to a report I just read on the net ..the US was going to invade the Indian Ocean because it was a "slamb dunk" that there were WMDs there.

When pointed out that the Indian Ocean was actually a place full of water, the US responded that their case for invasion was actually "water tight" and so that would not pose a problem for them.

They later switched the resources back to Iraq when it was pointed out the the WMD had already done a good job of killing a lot of Muslims, and was infact not a weapon but a wave of mass destruction.

Colin Powel was quoted as saying " WWM was the reason I quit the White House"

Powels acronym has so far foxed most at FOX who are trying to work out what it means, but Reuters reports that it means "working with morons"

The Bush adminstration have so far failed to comment on this as it seems that Cheney has the dictionary and is not avaiable for comment as he is, according to reputable reports, on a "fishing boat" in the Indian Ocean wondering how much oil would be available if he did infact invade and bring democracy to the mollucs and assorted marine life that inhabit the area. Unconfirmed reports quote him as saying, "Most people would have thought that having a daughter who was openly free about her sexuality a handicap when dealing with the religious right who elected us who hate the idea of gay marriage, but they forgot to take into account WMD"

When pressed to answer what "WMD" could possibly mean in this context, scholars of the Bush/Cheney administration said " We should look for suggestions from the posters on Daves ESL"

Who would have thought it?

[once again]

Just picked this up..very interesting..






Iraq Survey Group concludes dictator destroyed weapons years before invasion

Julian Borger in Washington and Jonathan Steele
Thursday January 13, 2005
The Guardian

The US investigators searching for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction have given up the hunt and left Iraq with an appeal to the Pentagon for the release of several Iraqi scientists still being questioned, it was reported yesterday.
Charles Duelfer, who led the Iraq Survey Group, has returned to the US and will deliver a final report in the spring that will be almost identical to the interim assessment he delivered to Congress last October.

That assessment found Saddam had destroyed his last weapons of mass destruction more than 10 years ago, and his capacity to build new ones had been dwindling for years by the time of the second Gulf war.

"Charlie has left Iraq," an intelligence official said yesterday. "In terms of the weapons hunt in a proactive sense, it has concluded, and the report is being tweaked a bit but it will be largely unchanged." But he added: "There is a considerable amount of document exploitation to be done that will continue to occur and leads that come out of the exploitation will be followed up."

The Washington Post said the ISG had made "several pleas" to the Pentagon to release the Iraqi scientists, who have been held for nearly two years and who have been interviewed extensively.

The scientists include General Amir al-Saadi, who negotiated with UN inspectors on behalf of the Saddam regime; Rihab Taha, a biologist also known as Dr Germ; her husband, Amir Rashid, a former oil minister; and Huda Amash, a biologist nicknamed Mrs Anthrax by UN inspectors.

Gen Saadi's German-born wife Helma told the Guardian last night that she had heard from US sources that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, had approved her husband's release some weeks after the October report was submitted. He had checked with the Iraqi justice minister who said he had no objection.

"I understand the matter is with the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, now. I don't know why it is taking so long," she said.

By chance, the Red Cross arranged yesterday for Gen Saadi to make a rare phone call to his wife. "He didn't sound optimistic," she said. "He said he's kept in the dark. No one tells him anything. He asked for more books."

Last night the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said there no longer was an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that," he said, "but it has largely concluded." He added: "If they have any reports of [weapons of mass destruction] obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports.

"A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

He said the final Duelfer report "is not going to fundamentally alter" the earlier findings, which said Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either.

Many thousands of pages of Saddam-era documents are still being translated and analysed, but most weapons experts believe they are unlikely to change the fundamental ISG assessment that the former regime had rid itself of weapons of mass destruction many years before the invasion.

After Mr Duelfer's presentation to Congress in October, a senior ISG official said he was only returning to Baghdad "to tie up odds and ends", with no real expectation of further discoveries.

US officials said the operation was being wrapped up because there was little expectation of finding any substantial new evidence and the hunt could no longer be justified in view of the rising danger to the investigators.

Despite the end of the search, President George Bush last night said he remained convinced that he was right to go to war on Saddam.

In an interview with ABC television's Barbara Walters, Mr Bush admitted: "I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction, or like many many here in the United States, many around the world, the United Nations, thought he had weapons of mass destruction."

But asked directly whether the invasion of Iraq was worth the cost of an increasingly violent war, Mr Bush said: "Oh, absolutely."


Special report
Iraq

Chronology
Iraq timeline: Feb 1 2004 - present
Iraq timeline: July 16 1979 - Jan 31 2004

Interactive guides
The siege of Falluja
More click-through graphics on Iraq

Key documents
Full text of speeches and documents

Audio reports
Audio reports on Iraq

More special reports
Politics and Iraq
International aid and development
Iraq and the media
The anti-war movement

Useful links
Provisional authority: rebuilding Iraq
Iraqi-American chamber of commerce
cnn.com: David Kay's evidence to US Senate committee






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[ChinaMovieMagic]

Also interesting are the polls that reveal that gradually more-and-more USAmericans view the invasion/current actions...as a mistake.

Recall the optimistic song:
'We won't be fooled again..."