Boston

Video of the bombs. Reporting the news.

Hope for the future by how we've behaved today.  How we should handle it.

The sign of the times

FBI giving cops critical info: How to spot an IED

BLYTHE, Ga. – If police officers find grainy white powder at a makeshift lab and assume they've made a drug bust, they could be making an explosive mistake.

The FBI has been training thousands of law enforcement officials across the nation to identify, disrupt and dismantle improvised explosive devices, including bombs made out of ordinary household products.

The need was underlined this week when federal authorities said they disrupted a suspected plot by a Christian militia to kill police officers with homemade bombs. That follows last year's alleged plot to make bombs out of beauty supplies and an airline passenger's alleged attempt on Christmas Day to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear.

Such devices have been around for years, but they've become a greater concern recently not only because of terrorism, but because of the growing availability of dangerous recipes on the Internet.

Local-level bomb experts have been getting three-day courses designed to supplement their training with the latest techniques and strategies. First responders are invited on the third day to learn how to spot an improvised explosives lab.

Now if this guy had a Muslim name....

As David Neiwert points out, he'd be all over the news. But because he's just a homegrown white domestic terrorist, we can ignore him.

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio – Following a pipe bomb explosion Monday night, police and federal law enforcement officials are trying to figure why a Center Avenue man turned his apartment into a bomb factory.

Police said no charges have been filed against Mark Campano, 56. Police found 30 completed pipe bombs in his apartment along with components to make more, plus 17 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Campano is in an Akron hospital with injuries received when one of the bombs exploded.

Thank god no one got hurt by this idiot.... except him.

What's wrong with these stories?

Seattle bank teller chases robber, loses job

US Marshals seize sanitizer for bacteria problems

Obviously what will win the 'war on terror' is bigger bombs.... which is what we've said ever since we dropped the A bomb on Hiroshima:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.

If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp's radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman.

Crazy Landlord Fights Heat Wave With Air Conditioning Ban

An Oregon landlord refuses to let his tenants install air conditioners because he thinks they "look tacky." Tenants of the Arbor Creek complex in Aloha who choose to sacrifice aesthetics for comfort have ten days to correct their mistake before facing eviction. One tenant's kid already landed in the hospital thanks to heat stroke.

China wants perfect astronauts:

Would-be astronauts competing for China's next space programme must comply with 100 rules - excluding those with bad breath or a runny nose.

The list, intended to recruit "super human beings", also prohibits those with body odours, tooth cavities or scars which may "burst open" in space.

Dammit! Americans have ruined the British class system by making people not buy fish forks!!

Cute: Why one should not draw faces in public.

I guess the question should be: Are people actually still evolving? Or are we now going backwards, sinking into primordial stupidity?

Don't answer that!

Quick! Before Bush leaves office!

Israel makes millions more terrorists in a series of bombing raids because a President Barack Obama clearly won't support such heavy-handed actions without diplomatic efforts first.



And blowing up shit and killing people always creates peaceful neighbors. Ask Bush.

Winning hearts and minds

And making more terrorists by the minute:

US-led coalition forces killed 76 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan today, most of them children, the country's Interior Ministry said.

The coalition denied killing civilians. Civilian deaths in military operations have become an emotive issue among Afghans, many of whom feel international forces take too little care when launching air strikes, undermining support for their presence.

"Seventy-six civilians, most of them women and children, were martyred today in a coalition forces operation in Herat province," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Coalition forces bombarded the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province this afternoon, the ministry said. Nineteen of the victims were women, seven of them men and the rest children under the age of 15, it said.

US-led coalition forces denied killing any civilians. They said 30 militants had been killed in an air strike in Shindand district in the early hours of this morning and no further air strikes had been launched in the area later in the day.

You mean, you thought at one time it was?

Bush tells troops Iraq no longer 'hopeless':

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska—President Bush said Monday that U.S. troops going to Iraq soon will find a country dramatically different from the one that was "hopeless" before his troop buildup.

Beginning a weeklong Asian tour with a refueling stop in Alaska, the president offered thanks to units from this base near Fairbanks and nearby Fort Wainwright that have done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also noted an Army Stryker brigade from Wainwright is about to deploy to Iraq, saying it will be "heading into a different situation."

"About a year ago people thought Iraq was lost and hopeless. People were saying let's get out of there, it doesn't matter to our national security. Iraq's changed -- a lot," Bush said. "The terrorists are on the run."

And he again asserted that fighting them was not a law enforcement problem. "If it's a law enforcement matter, that means you react after the crime. I think it's important ... to stop the crime from happening in the first place."

Love the pic the Boston Globe posted for this article:



And about that statement about law enforcement.... the law enforcement idea works, you know. You don't have to bomb everything flat to 'win'.

Bomb bomb bomb....

Update 8/20:

Sen. John McCain has seized on the Russian invasion of Georgia as a chance to demonstrate to the American people what kind of president he would be on foreign policy matters.

For better or worse, I think he’s succeeded. McCain has clearly been more confrontational and aggressive than the Bush White House, going so far as to announce that in the wake of the invasion, “We are all Georgians,” a statement that implies a degree of commitment that the United States is not in a position to honor.

Even more startling was McCain’s decision, as a mere candidate for president, to send personal envoys to confer with Georgia’s leadership. Such a step is the prerogative only of a president, and is an act of dangerous presumption at an extremely delicate time.

To some Americans, McCain’s rhetoric has nonetheless communicated an image of authority that they find reassuring in a president. It also confirms him as an instinctive type of leader, someone whose response to a crisis is driven more by his own character than by the specifics of a challenge.

Echoes of WWII still can be heard

Neo-nazis rising up to create fear and chaos:

"Right-wing extremism is part of everyday life and only attracts attention when the crimes are especially horrific," says Wolfgang Thierse, the Social Democrat vice-president of the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag.

The statistics are alarming. In 2007, the number of reported arson attacks committed by right-wing extremists climbed to 24 from 18 in the previous year. The targets are foreigners, including immigrants' mosques, cars and cafés.

"These are crimes that pose a threat to public safety and that could lead to people getting killed," warns Heinz Fromm, president of Germany's domestic intelligence service. The upward trend (more...) seems to be continuing this year. The numbers in March were higher than they had been in years. Throughout Germany, the police documented a total of 1,311 right-wing extremist and racist crimes, an increase of 458 over the year-earlier month. The incidents included 72 acts of violence, the government said in response to an inquiry from the Left Party vice president of the Bundestag, Petra Pau.

New Trend of "Anarchist Nationalists"

Intelligence agents have identified a new, right-wing extremist phenomenon: so-called anarchist nationalists who are "significantly more likely to commit acts of violence against political rivals and the police." After the May riots in Hamburg, the police are keenly aware of the threat posed by this new group of extremist thugs. In Hamburg, they joined in the fray wearing the same black outfits and showing a similar level of aggression as leftist anarchists. It took a massive police effort to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. What happened in Hamburg, says Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a Christian Democrat, attests to a "new quality."

And talk about ticking time-bombs:

Barely a week goes by in Germany without wartime bombs and weapons being found during construction work.

On Monday, much of the city of Potsdam near Berlin was brought to a standstill after an unexploded 250 kilogram British bomb was found at the site where a tram bridge is being built.

Some 3,000 people were evacuated from nearby homes and a hotel, and the main train station was closed along with key streets and tram lines.

The detonator was still live and the bomb could easily have gone off when it was accidentally touched, a spokeswoman for the city said. A bomb disposal expert gingerly unscrewed the detonator and the all clear was given nine hours after it was found.

Even kids find them:

A 10-year-old boy in the German city of Kassel is lucky to be alive after playing with a new "toy" that turned out to be a high-explosive shell from World War II.

[snip]

Gossens said that in the state of Hesse alone, 230 tons of World War II-era weapons and munitions were found in 2007 -- over 60 years after the end of the war.

Not to activate Godwin's Law, but how many unexploded bunker busters and cluster bombs will be in Iraq for decades to come? (I'm not even addressing the depleted uranium that we've released into the Iraqi environment to poison all forms of life for centuries.)

I read the news today, Oh boy...

Just today.

Iraq:

Karbala, Iraq (AHN) - At least 40 people were killed and 65 others were injured when a female suicide bomber struck Shiite worshipers in the holy city of Karbala on Monday, the Interior Ministry official said Tuesday.

According to military officials, the incident happened on the street leading to the Imam Hussein shrine of Karbala, one of Islam's holiest sites. The shrine is where Hussein bin Ali was buried, Prophet Mohammed's grandson.

No further details were available in the suicide attack as authorities were still investigating the incident.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb exploded Monday killing two U.S. troopers, it was reported

Ministry official said another bomb exploded a few minutes later near an Iraqi police vehicle on eastern Baghdad, capital city, injuring four people.

Afghanistan:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide car bomber attacked a group of international troops at a bazaar in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing three NATO soldiers and four Afghans, officials said.

Two Danish troops, a Czech Special Forces soldier, and an Afghan translator were killed in the attack in the Gereshk district of Helmand Province.

Provincial police Chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said the suicide car bomb killed three Afghan civilians and wounded seven others.

Four soldiers also were wounded in the attack, a NATO spokesman said.

The Philippines:

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - The number of people injured in an explosion near the Philippine Presidential Palace Tuesday afternoon, climbs to 18, authorities said as more victims were rushed to nearby hospitals for various injuries.

Reports said that 13 victims were rushed to the Mary Chiles Hospital while another two were brought to the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Early reports said four victims were injured when a grenade was said to have exploded in front of the gate of the Presidential Security Group's sentry gate.

The PSG is responsible for providing security to the Philippine president and key government officials. The site of the explosion is also between two exclusive schools in the capital Manila.

Authorities said most of the victims were students. Some of those injured were taken to nearby hospitals, including the University of Santo Tomas and the Manila Doctors Hospital.

Yemen:

A Yemeni guard has been killed in an explosion near the US embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, an official has said, quoted by AP news agency.

A mortar was fired at a school next to the embassy in the central district of Sawan, reports say.

Other guards and some children were said to be wounded. It is not clear whether the embassy was the target.

Gaza:

Israeli aircraft have attacked the northern Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel.

The violence follows several days of relative calm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket-firing team. There is no word on casualties.

crossposted at American Street

Doing just what the White House has done

Go after terrorists with no thought as to consequences:

Turkish warplanes have bombed suspected Kurdish rebel bases deep inside northern Iraq - in what appears the first time fighter jets have been used.

They targeted the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in areas near the border, officials said. The Turkish media said up to 50 planes were used.

Iraqi officials say bombs hit 10 villages, killing one woman, while the PKK reported seven deaths.

There is nothing we can complain about, is there?

Could it be we dropped a bomb on the wrong people?

Again?:

At least 12 Afghan road construction workers have been killed in an air strike by the US-led forces in Afghanistan, a provincial governor has said.

Another local official said that up to 25 men were killed in the attack late on Tuesday in the province of Nuristan, northeast of Kabul.

"We had reports that rebels were there," Tamimi Nuristani, the governor of Nuristan, told the AFP news agency.

"There was an air strike by coalition forces but later we found out that 12 people, all local road workers, were killed. The road workers were in a tent which was hit by one bomb. All died," he said.

[snip]

The media office of the US-led coalition forces said it was trying to find out what happened.

"Something happened but we are not sure exactly what," Chris Belcher, a spokesman, said.

Well, Mr. Belcher... we dropped a bomb. On 12 innocent people. Who died. Oooops.

Another front opens up

Turkish warplanes have bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets along the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, the country's semi-official Anatolia news agency has said.

The agency said fighter jets from an air force base at Diyarbakir, the main city in the mainly Kurdish southeast, bombed and destroyed several PKK positions on Wednesday.

It said the bombings particularly targeted PKK routes in high mountainous areas.

The raids were said to have been conducted in four provinces, Sirnak and Hakkari, which border Iraq and neighbouring Siirt and Van, which abut the Iranian border.

Update: And Iraq acknowledges that al-Maliki is weak and cannot control the Kurds:

In Baghdad, politicians acknowledged that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki lacked the political and military muscle needed to fulfill his pledge to crack down on rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who last week killed 12 Turkish soldiers and captured eight in an ambush in Turkey.

Iraqi Kurdish officials indicated that they were unlikely to help in any crackdown, with the regional government's spokesman denying that there are PKK bases in northern Iraq.

"We believe that the statements of Mr. Maliki about closing the centers of the PKK don't apply to us because we do not have any centers," the spokesman, Jamal Abdullah, said.

Century old shock and awe

And it didn't work then either, just created the set up for WWII.

Via Eli of Multi Medium, the New York Times story about a man who makes keepsakes from WWI weaponry:

A half-million Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Germans were killed or wounded, fighting among villages and farms over five miles of muddy Belgian terrain. Drawn out over five months from June to October of 1917, Passchendaele became a symbol of senseless killing.

[snip]

Few battlefields in the world still yield so many bombs, guns and bones — 200 tons a year around Ypres….

”You never know what my husband brings home; you can bet it’s not a bunch of flowers,” farmer Charlotte Cardoen-Descamps says, chuckling as she shows a fresh crop of shells, gas shells, grenades, and an unexploded basketball-size aerial bomb her husband Dirk plowed up.

Farmers have to use extra care, because some shells still leak toxic gases. However explosions are rare because the farmers have become experienced at handling the iron harvest.

”We got 17 pieces this plowing season, but we can expect even more later this year,” said Cardoen-Descamps. The ammunition is neatly stacked around the farmyard ready to be collected by bomb disposal experts.

200 tons a year a century later. How much will they find in Iraq a century from now?

Ah! The reason the intelligence report about Iran's weapons was anonymous

Was truly because nobody wanted to be Colin Powelled. It was a lowly unnamed intelligence briefer's fault!

Last Sunday, the Bush administration finally presented its long-delayed intelligence briefing on Iranian arms shipments into Iraq. Prior to the presentation, a U.S. official told the New York Times that it had been delayed because they were “trying to scrub” the intelligence, adding “the last thing we want to be accused of is cherry-picking.”

While much of the information had previously been known, the highlight of the presentation — as reported by ABC World News — was that it was “the first time military officials…made the link to the highest level of Iran’s government.” But the briefing “offered no evidence” to substantiate that claim. After coming under intense scrutiny for an intelligence presentation that was approved by the highest levels of the administration, the White House has slowly backed off its claims of Iranian government involvement.

Today, CNN reported that the White House is now blaming the anonymous intelligence briefer who presented the information. According to CNN’s Ed Henry, the White House says the anonymous intelligence briefer went “a little too far” in stating the evidence. But, as Henry said, “that begs the question why the administration has taken so long to clarify those comments.”

I think the staff saw what happened to Colin Powell and nobody is going to stand up and lie this time around.

Blizzard: Fast snow fall hampering visibility

Over at First Draft, Holden captures Tony Snow in action over the anonymous governmental briefing about the Iranian bombs:

Q Do you think that the off-the-record, low-level Iran briefing has backfired? The reason I ask that is because on the one hand you avoid the comparison with Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations, but at the same time, what you've ended up with is the sense that no one senior in the administration seems to be willing to go on the record. And I understand that one of the people -- not all of the people, but one of the people would have been unable to brief; the other people wouldn't have been unable to brief.

MR. SNOW: No, look, again, I think what's happening is that everybody is trying to create a narrative here of something that's -- look, the problem before, nobody found weapons of mass destruction. You cannot say that nobody didn't -- nobody found explosively formed penetrators. You've got pictures of the things. You know where they came from. There is no doubt about the central fact here: that you have an explosive device that's being used to kill Americans.

So what everybody is trying to figure out now is what General Pace meant -- it's now being devolved into a process argument that overlooks the key fact, which is that weaponry made its way from Iran into Iraq and it's killing Americans, and we're going to try to stop the killing of Americans.

About those Iranian bombs....

stolen from NewsHog

Cernig over at the NewsHog has an amazing set of updates taking apart the lettering and type of 'Iranian' bombs and what is being said about them.

Bryan goes into detail about the way the Iranians would print their dates in Farsi. Update 2/14: Bryan recognizes that Iranians do use English.

Update 2/13: Global Research notices.

Update: More photos of the Iranian bombs submitted by the US government. And FAIR discusses the reporting.

Juan Cole's take on the US blaming Iran for the Iraqi bombs

(At the bottom of the post):

My own take on the issue: isn't it much more likely that most shaped charges are smuggled in or made by Sunni Arab guerrillas, and that the DoD is leaping to the conclusion from a handful of Iranian ones that all are Iranian supplied? It isn't plausible that something could be made in Tehran but not in a workshop in Baghdad; Iraq is an advanced society. And, how much is left from one of those charges afterwards, that you could tell where it came from? This is the same US military that mistakenly attacked a Shiite Husayniya (mourning hall for the martyred grandson of the Prophet) as a death squad safe house, and then announced that they did not know if it was a Sunni or Shiite edifice. They also apparently don't necessarily know whether they are in Sunni or Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, or how to judge the likelihood that a shaped charge was set by a Sunni Arab guerrilla as opposed to the Shiite militias. I.e. it isn't necessary to deny that some Iranian weapons are getting in to conclude that they are a tiny proportion of the problem.

Wait a minute! Before we invaded Iraq, the Iraqis were soooo clever that they had hidden WMDs driving about in trucks, but now the Iraqis are soooo stupid, they must have the help of the sooooo clever Iranians!

The U.S. stance on the military capabilities of Iraqis today is the exact opposite of its position four years ago. Then, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed Iraqis were technically advanced enough to produce long-range missiles and to be close to producing a nuclear device.

Washington is now saying Iraqis are too backward to produce an effective roadside bomb and must seek Iranian help.

The White House may have decided that, in the runup to the 2008 presidential election, it would be to its political advantage in the U.S. to divert attention from its failure in Iraq by blaming Iran for being the hidden hand supporting its opponents.

It is likely that Shiite militias have received weapons and money from Iran and possible the Sunni insurgents have received some aid, but most Iraqi men possess weapons. Many millions of them received military training under Saddam Hussein. His well supplied arsenals were all looted after his fall. No specialist on Iraq believes that Iran has ever been a serious promoter of the Sunni insurgency.

The evidence against Iran is even more insubstantial than the faked or mistaken evidence for Iraqi WMDs disseminated by the United States and Britain in 2002 and 2003. The allegations appear to be full of exaggerations. Few Abrams tanks have been destroyed. It implies the Shiites have been at war with the U.S., when in fact they are controlled by parties which make up the Iraqi government.