Input: Then, when we moved out, we cleaned the apartment top to bottom, they came back and tried to charge us for two cleaning fees (and we never got our deposit back) and past utilities (that were already paid, we have check numbers and records of this).


Input: Linda is the rudest person you will ever talk to and she sticks up for all of the trashy, rude people that live there, not the nice ones that actually give a crap about respecting others.

Linda


Input: Do not live here, you will regret it!


Input: A very satisfied new customer!


Input: As a very satisfied new customer, I wholeheartedly recommend United Air Duct Cleaning.

United Air Duct Cleaning


Input: They are professional, knowledgeable, and take meticulous care and pride in accomplishing their work.


Input: Not only were my wife and I very pleased, but I also had the air duct quality tested professionally by the home inspector that I regularly use, before and after United Air Duct performed their work.

United Air Duct


Input: Based on the test results, the home inspector stated that the quality of their job was “excellent”.


Input: Dr. Shady

Shady


Input: Kelly hit the nail on the head.

Kelly


Input: " Dr. Shady " is a jerk.

Shady


Input: After the way she spoke to me on my last visit, I will not be returning !!


Input: Good luck keeping business with that stuck up attitude Dr. Shady.

Shady


Input: You have just lost mine.


Input: The next time you feel like being condescending to someone, it is not going to be me !!!!!!


Input: Dr. Shady is inexperienced and prideful.

Shady


Input: She probably does not even have 10% of the knowledge that some of the other EXPERIENCED vets do in this area.


Input: I will be carefully researching vets before I take my dog someplace else.


Input: Beautifully written reviews Doctor, but completely UNTRUE.


Input: A +


Input: I would rate Fran pcs an A + because the price was lower than everyone else, i got my computer back the next day, and the professionalism he showed was great.

Fran pcs


Input: He took the time to explain things to me about my computer, i would recommend you go to him.


Input: David

David


Input: They must have read these reviews and improved!


Input: My husband and I happened in on a whim.


Input: We sat in the front dining area, it was very cozy and pleasant.


Input: Our server was quite attentive and the food was fantastic.


Input: My husband has been a professional chef, so he is a good judge of quality food.


Input: This was a flavorful, enjoyable meal for both of us.


Input: Eulogic


Input: Good place to be on a Sunday Night.


Input: The beers were good, nice choice of beers as well, and as usual the mussels were great, the place upstairs is a nice addition to the bar downstairs.


Input: Filled up on too much beer and hence can not comment on the food.


Input: But the menu had standard stuff that one would get at a Belgian Tavern.


Input: If you are a handcraft beer person, this is a fantastic place to be.


Input: The Best Service Ever !!


Input: I have never had better service.


Input: My car broke down and roadside towed my vehicle to Sussman Kia.

Sussman Kia


Input: They squeezed me in and had me back up and running in no time.


Input: Everyone was pleasant and very helpful.


Input: The service department even gave me a ride home and picked me up when my car was finished.


Input: The advisor kept me up to date and informed on the progress of my vehicle.


Input: I give this dealer an A +!


Input: I will definitely be bringing my car back for service.


Input: When I arrived at Brickell Honda on 6/4/11, I was greeted and attended to by the Sales Manager, Gustavo Guerra, in a very friendly and professional manner.

Brickell Honda

Gustavo Guerra


Input: I explained to him what I wanted and that I previously went to Braman Honda.

Braman Honda


Input: Bramen Honda was a bit of a hassle.

Bramen Honda


Input: He told me " no problem, we will match the offer or do better. "


Input: Mr. Guerra gave me a better deal without any hassles nor any type of problems.

Guerra


Input: Brickell Honda has been the best buying experience in the world.

Brickell Honda


Input: I urge all St. Thomas the Apostle parishioners and all of South Florida residents to come see Gus !!!

St. Thomas the Apostle

South Florida

Gus


Input: Excellent customer service !!!


Input: Never again


Input: Don't go here unless you want to sit, order, eat and be asked to leave all in a matter of 20 minutes.


Input: You won't even have time to read the entire menu before being asked to order and if you ask for more time your server will wait at the table.


Input: This is the only place I have ever eaten and been told to leave because other people were waiting.


Input: I was told to take my coffee to go if I wanted to finish it.


Input: Oh, and their liquor license was expired so no Bloody Mary or Mimosas.


Input: Plus the drinks are self service, have fun trying to negotiate the small cafeteria space to get your coffee, juice or water.


Input: Go next door to the Ball Square Cafe instead.

Ball Square Cafe


Input: Fantastic for kids


Input: If you have children or are just a real animal lover yourself you'll love this zoo.


Input: It's only $10 and in essence just one big petting zoo.


Input: They sell feed and milk bottles at the front and I recommend you buy lots.


Input: We took our 7 month old and she laughed and giggled when (very harshly I might add) grabbing and' kissed' the goats and lambs.


Input: The animals were all very sweet and patient with her.


Input: Among the animals that were available to touch were pony's, camels and EVEN AN OSTRICH !!!


Input: Wonderful, inexpensive and lots of fun!


Input: I've never felt the need to write a review or make a complaint before, but after the way I was spoken to by a member of staff at the kennels (whose name I believe to be Mrs Closs) I would now not recommend this business to anybody.

Closs


Input: If the animals are treated in the same way the customers are treated then this leaves a lot to be desired!


Input: Nobody should be spoken to like that regardless of how bad their day may have been or what may be going on in their private lives!


Input: First trip to Canada

Canada


Input: I recently traveled to Canada on business and had a most excellent experience.

Canada


Input: I work for a large retail company recently expanding our operations into Canada and had to travel to ensure all of our computer network equipment was installed properly and on time.

Canada


Input: This can tend to be a stressful experience in itself let alone adding crossing boarders for the first time.


Input: I was very pleased to find my accommodations and the hotel staff to be a very calming and comforting part of my trip.


Input: I found the hotel to be amazingly clean, not to mention very well adorned with many pleasant surprises.


Input: From my first encounter at check in to my regrettable check out I found the staff and facility to exceed my expectation.


Input: I completely enjoyed my whole check in experience and was impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of the staff as well as the accommodations themselves.


Input: I will be traveling in this area in the future and you can be assured that this experience will be helpful in my choice of hotels and Novotel will be my first selection.

Novotel


Input: Yes the parking can be a challenge but being from NJ I am no stranger to tight corners.

NJ


Input: Please pass my appreciation to the Staff and Management for their excellent hospitality and good spirits as it helped make a stressful trip enjoyable.


Input: I interviewed several contractors for a kitchen remodel.


Input: Liberty construction shows up and it's two guys ... all I get is 100% sales pitch " We're the best ... we're number 50 so we must be doing something right ... look at all these certificates that say we're great ".


Input: Not once did I feel listened to like they actually cared about what I wanted, all they were interested in was me signing a contract right then and there.


Input: Very high pressured sales and with the reviews of many others bad service.


Input: I'm glad I trusted my gut and didn't get sucked into doing business with them.


Input: Find someone you trust that actually hears you and wants to do the job right.


Input: Craft Wonderland with History


Input: My first visit was so fun yesterday.


Input: I could have stayed all day and not seen all the things.


Input: I am doing origami jewelry and found exactly the right things for earrings and got many other ideas there too.


Input: I bought a beginner s quilling set and like making the filigree forms you can make and add to other crafts.


Input: The owner, Jean, has been there 31 years!

Jean


Input: What a history.


Input: She is a super sweet, lovable and well-informed woman with a great sense of humor.


Input: I really enjoyed meeting her and happy to learn she comes from Oklahoma and has the values of a solid no bs country girl.

Oklahoma


Input: This store is a real gem and has much to offer the serious crafter or the occasional crafter.


Input: By the way, Salmagundi (the store name) means something like smorgasbord; potpourri; motley; variety; mixed bag; miscellaneous assortment; mixture, a variety of many kinds of things.

Salmagundi


Input: Great name for a great store!


Input: Shop Local!


Input: Barbara Quimba 1/30/10

Barbara Quimba


Input: Are you kidding me?


Input: I don't get it.


Input: Spongy and sweet bread (microwaved?), heartless salsa, tiny dogs ...


Input: You order at the counter and there is a space for tip on your credit card receipt.


Input: The dude who grills the retarded dogs is rude.


Input: If this is the best that Tucson has to offer, I am out ta here ...

Tucson


Input: FANTASTIC STORE !!!


Input: I came upon this store as the building caught my eye.


Input: It's located in the huge HONKA Log Homes building, by Walmart off of Evergreen Parkway.

HONKA Log Homes building

Walmart


Input: The store was decorated with furnishings & accessories.


Input: The friendly crew working was great & very helpful.


Input: This store is what Colorado is all about.

Colorado


Input: Also, I purchased some furniture last year and all has been great!


Input: It's durability & look was perfect and I will definitely be adding to my collection soon!


Input: Easiest Time I ever had purchasing a car!


Input: Excellent service, Not only did they get the exact car I wanted win in 48 hours but the sales man also took me out to lunch.


Input: Very kind and reliable.


Input: I highly recommend this dealership if you would not like to hassle on price and receive friendly service.


Input: I have since purchased two cars from this dealership, The first one was from Phillip and the second was from Richard.

Phillip

Richard


Input: Both were excellent sales men who put my needs first.


Input: Great first experience.


Input: I'm 22, and my hairdresser was great (and not " old " like one of the reviews says)-she really listened to what I wanted and gave me tons of tips on how to style my hair so I could get it to look the way I wanted it to.


Input: She deep conditioned my hair and took the time to style it properly.


Input: She recommended products but absolutely didn't pressure me to buy.


Input: It's a cute place with a really friendly, laid-back atmosphere.


Input: I would highly recommend it and will be going back for my next haircut.


Input: Oh!


Input: And students get $5 off, can't argue with that.


Input: Worth Every Penny


Input: My girlfriend and I ate at The Grill last night, and our experience was amazing.

The Grill


Input: Everything we ordered was prepared to perfection, and was presented perfectly.


Input: The asparagus, seared tuna, and lobster tail were the best we ever had.


Input: Then the desserts came, and they were hands down the best dessert we ever had.


Input: I will sum it up with, it was worth every penny!


Input: This place has done a great job of taking care of the usual maintenance on my hooptie.


Input: I also never have to wait long for a yearly inspection sticker ... and never get the usual excuses other shops always gave me ... " the inspection guy isn't here today " .... for example.


Input: Today I went into Kwik Kar and there were two cars in front of me for inspection ... but I was still out of there pretty quick ... barely had time to read a chapter in my book.

Kwik Kar


Input: Watch out for your wallet


Input: Watch out for your wallet!


Input: This company is overpriced for their services.


Input: They pride themselves on being an event and team building company for corporate clients but you better believe they are going to mark you up on that feel good premise.


Input: On a recent event quote that I had done, they came in thousands of dollars over their local competition.


Input: The craziest part is that they aren't even based locally at the city I'm in-they just have' teams' in areas through the country.


Input: I've spoken to vendors who are used by them who had nothing good to say about the company as well and in fact were afraid to quote events against them even though they openly admitted that they felt Canadian Outback was pricing their entertainment out of the market and doing more to hurt their business than help them.

Canadian Outback


Input: Be warned-they'll ltake you for everything they can.


Input: this is a good place


Input: I have been here before and the service was absoulutely great.


Input: They had a great selection of colors to choose from and their seats are super comfty.


Input: I enjoy going there although i've only been there once, i will be returning toda to recieve a pair of french tips and i will only go to the best and to me the best is here.


Input: i reccomend you to go and enjoy their wonderful hospitality.


Input: Restored my faith in Mechaincs.


Input: I spent 3 months going from shop to shop trying to get my Ferrari to run and drive the way it should.


Input: I was about to give up when I met Jason and Neal.

Jason

Neal


Input: They took on the challenge of making my Ferrari all I dreamed of and more.


Input: The crew at The Creative Workshop went over and above the call of duty and gave me back a car I can drive anywhere and finally enjoy owning.

The Creative Workshop


Input: I can not say enough about this place.


Input: They have restored my faith in Mechanics.


Input: Do yourself a favor, call these guys first and enjoy driving your car again ..


Input: I guess you get what you pay for.


Input: I tried to stay here for a few nights with my girlfriend, so we asked for a single queen bed.


Input: We got there, and we were treated to the free " upgrade " of a room with two double beds.


Input: Since they consider this an upgrade, they let their other rooms fill up and would not change our room.


Input: Then we got put in a room with a huge gap under the door .... right next to the ice machine.


Input: We could hear every single thing that happened outside like it was inside our room.


Input: When I finally found someone at the desk who could speak English, they moved our room, but we still did not receive the single queen we had " reserved "


Input: Great pet care


Input: I have used Just Like Family several times now and they have provided great care for my two dogs.

Just Like Family


Input: Lynda is professional and has great compassion for animals.

Lynda


Input: The real testament is not in how much she likes your animals but how much they like her.


Input: I highly recommend her.


Input: Con Garage


Input: I brought my car in for a simple emissions test.


Input: I guess they figured me for an easy mark, and tried to explain that my car wouldn't pass unless I replaced a hose.


Input: Ten minutes later, I took my car down the street and it passed the emissions test with flying colors.


Input: If you're a fan of herpes, being ripped off, and child molesters, this is the garage for you.


Input: If not, go somewhere else.


Input: Great work and honest establishment!


Input: I typically have work done on my Jeep at the dealership, but it is 6 years old now and getting charged dealership prices just didn't seem cost effective anymore.


Input: I had tried out few place around the area and had been ripped off a few times.


Input: I had hear great things about Phet and G&G Automotive so I decided to give him a try.

Phet

G&G Automotive


Input: The service was excellent and personable.


Input: He checked out what I needed to have done told me what needed be fixed before he did any work and did great repair work.


Input: The price was actually lower than what I had anticipated and used to compared to other places, plus he showed me the work he did when I came in to pick up the car.


Input: Also, a week after the work, Phet called me up to see how my car was running and to let me know that they had accidentally overcharged me for part of the work and wanted to give me a refund for that amount.

Phet


Input: That is just unheard of these days!


Input: I grew up in a small town where you knew and trusted your mechanic and was really cynical about city auto repair shops since I moved here, but Phet has shown that there really are honest hard working mechanics around.

Phet


Input: He is my mechanic going forward!


Input: Friendly, clean and excellent location


Input: The staff was very helpful, and gave us good advice on day and night time activities.


Input: Common room was comfortable and clean, very good room to read or relax.–


Input: A great breakfast which was included every morning until 9:30 am; yummy fresh Parisian croissants.


Input: Comfortable and clean beds, a bit noisy when people were coming in late from a night out, but we didn't mind too much as we were also just coming in from a night out!


Input: The location is really stellar!


Input: It is next to Gare du Nord and a five minute walk to Sacre Coeur which is excellent for shopping.

Gare du Nord

Sacre Coeur


Input: It is close to bus lines for Opera Plaza, Galleries Lafayette, and the famous flea Market.

Opera Plaza

Galleries Lafayette

flea Market


Input: We really enjoyed our stay and would definitely stay at the Vintage Hostel again.

Vintage Hostel


Input: Ok.


Input: We all know that John Kerry served in Vietnam.

John Kerry

Vietnam


Input: Four whole months, after which he took advantage of a little-known, little-invoked regulation that allowed him to desert his " band of brothers ".


Input: We also know how Dan Rather libeled George Bush and impugned his service in the Texas Air National Guard on a " 60 Minutes II " report based largely on forged documents.

Dan Rather

George Bush

Texas Air National Guard


Input: During his time in the Guard, George Bush flew the F-102 Delta Dagger fighter-interceptor.

Guard

George Bush


Input: The F-102 saw service in the Vietnam theater between March 1962 and December 1969.

Vietnam


Input: During this time, F-102 squadrons were based out of Tan Son Nhut, Da Nang and Bien Hoa in Vietnam, and Udorn and Don Muang in Thailand.

Tan Son Nhut

Da Nang

Bien Hoa

Vietnam

Udorn

Don Muang

Thailand


Input: (Click here for source.)


Input: As far as George Bush knew, he and his unit could have been transferred to Vietnam.

George Bush

Vietnam


Input: In all this so-called controversy, has anyone considered that perhaps George Bush just wanted to fly jets?

George Bush


Input: And, let's remember, flying supersonic fighter jets is dangerous!


Input: They don't let just anybody do it.


Input: Some reporters (you know, the ones with journalistic ethics) have actually uncovered the truth about George Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

George Bush

Texas Air National Guard


Input: For example, did you know that George Bush spent considerably more time in uniform than John Kerry?

George Bush

John Kerry


Input: What follows is the text of an e-mail sent to me by a friend of mine (thanks to Dave Manzano).

Dave Manzano


Input: Read on to learn the facts.


Input: Bush’s National Guard years

Bush

National Guard


Input: Before you fall for Dems’ spin, here are the facts


Input: What do you really know about George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard?

George W. Bush

Air National Guard


Input: That he didn’t show up for duty in Alabama?

Alabama


Input: That he missed a physical?


Input: That his daddy got him in?


Input: News coverage of the president’s years in the Guard has tended to focus on one brief portion of that time—to the exclusion of virtually everything else.

Guard


Input: So just for the record, here, in full, is what Bush did:

Bush


Input: The future president joined the Guard in May 1968.

Guard


Input: Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training.


Input: Six weeks of basic training.


Input: Fifty-three weeks of flight training.


Input: Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.


Input: That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well.


Input: It was full-time work.


Input: By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.

Bush


Input: Not two years of weekends.


Input: Two years.


Input: After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets.

Bush


Input: As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements.

National Guard


Input: At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.


Input: According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).

Bush


Input: Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970.

Bush


Input: [In other words, Bush earned enough points to satisfy the requirements for his entire six year hitch in 1969-1970 alone.

Bush


Input: -acd]


Input: He earned 137 points in 1970-1971.


Input: And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972.


Input: The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot.

Bush


Input: Did you know that?


Input: That brings the story to May 1972—the time that has been the focus of so many news reports—when Bush “deserted” (according to anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore) or went “AWOL” (according to Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee).

Bush

Michael Moore

Terry McAuliffe

Democratic National Committee


Input: Bush asked for permission to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign.

Bush

Alabama


Input: His superior officers said OK.


Input: Requests like that weren’t unusual, says retired Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush in 1970 and 1971.

William Campenni

Bush


Input: “In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots,” Campenni says.

Campenni


Input: “The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs.

Vietnam

Air Force


Input: In’72 or’73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem.

Guard


Input: In fact, you were helping them solve their problem.”


Input: So Bush stopped flying.

Bush


Input: From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points—not much, but enough to meet his requirement.


Input: Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.

Bush

Guard

Harvard Business School


Input: In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.


Input: Then, at his request, he was given permission to go.


Input: Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment.

Bush


Input: By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.


Input: During his service, Bush received high marks as a pilot.

Bush


Input: A 1970 evaluation said Bush “clearly stands out as a top notch fighter interceptor pilot” and was “a natural leader whom his contemporaries look to for leadership.”

Bush


Input: A 1971 evaluation called Bush “an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot” who “continually flies intercept missions with the unit to increase his proficiency even further.”

Bush


Input: And a 1972 evaluation called Bush “an exceptional fighter interceptor pilot and officer.”

Bush


Input: Now, it is only natural that news reports questioning Bush’s service—in The Boston Globe and The New York Times, on CBS and in other outlets—would come out now.

Bush

The Boston Globe

The New York Times

CBS


Input: Democrats are spitting mad over attacks on John Kerry’s record by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

John Kerry

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth


Input: And, as it is with Kerry, it’s reasonable to look at a candidate’s entire record, including his military service—or lack of it.

Kerry


Input: Voters are perfectly able to decide whether it’s important or not in November.


Input: The Kerry camp blames Bush for the Swift boat veterans’ attack, but anyone who has spent much time talking to the Swifties gets the sense that they are doing it entirely for their own reasons.

Kerry

Bush

Swift boat veterans


Input: And it should be noted in passing that Kerry has personally questioned Bush’s service, while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry’s.

Kerry

Bush

Bush

Kerry


Input: In April—before the Swift boat veterans had said a word—Kerry said Bush “has yet to explain to America whether or not, and tell the truth, about whether he showed up for duty.”

Swift boat veterans

Kerry

Bush

America


Input: Earlier, Kerry said, “Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question.”

Kerry


Input: Now, after the Swift boat episode, the spotlight has returned to Bush.

Bush


Input: That’s fine.


Input: We should know as much as we can.


Input: And perhaps someday Kerry will release more of his military records as well.

Kerry


Input: Byron York is a White House correspondent for National Review.

Byron York

White House

National Review


Input: His column appears in The Hill each week.

The Hill


Input: Thanks again to my friend Nick Keck for passing this along via e-mail.

Nick Keck


Input: It is the text of a speech given by an Arab gentleman before the advisory board of a large multi-nation corporation.


Input: It's a long but very worthwhile read.


Input: " A View from the Eye of the Storm "


Input: Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International Advisory Board of a large multi-national corporation, April, 2004:

Haim Harari


Input: " As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological " entertainment " in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of the world from which I come.


Input: I have never been and I will never be a Government official and I have no privileged information.


Input: My perspective is entirely based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my family has lived in this region for almost 200 years.


Input: You may regard my views as those of the proverbial taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you visit a country.


Input: I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some personal thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict.


Input: However, I will touch upon it only in passing.


Input: I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of the region and its place in world events.


Input: I refer to the entire area between Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly Arab, predominantly Moslem, but includes many non-Arab and also significant non-Moslem minorities.

Pakistan

Morocco


Input: Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood?

Israel


Input: Because Israel and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read or hear in the world media, is not the central issue, and has never been the central issue in the upheaval in the region.

Israel


Input: Yes, there is a 100 year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show is.


Input: The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.

Iran

Iraq

Israel


Input: The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.

Sudan

Israel


Input: The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilians in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel.

Algeria

Israel


Input: Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endanger Saudi Arabia and butcher his own people because of Israel.

Saddam Hussein

Kuwait

Saudi Arabia

Israel


Input: Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of Israel.

Yemen

Israel


Input: Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel.

Assad the Father

El Hamma

Syria

Israel


Input: The Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do with Israel.

The Taliban

Afghanistan

Israel


Input: The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do with Israel, and I could go on and on and on.

Israel


Input: The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if Israel had joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine had existed for 100 years.

Israel

Palestine

Arab league


Input: The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 millions, larger than the US and almost as large as the EU before its expansion.

Arab league

Mauritania

US

EU


Input: They have a land area larger than either the US or all of Europe.

US

Europe


Input: These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half of the GDP of California alone.

Netherlands

Belgium

California


Input: Within this meager GDP, the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers.


Input: The social status of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 years ago.


Input: Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in spite of the grotesque fact that Libya was elected Chair of the UN Human Rights commission.

Libya

UN Human Rights commission


Input: According to a report prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books translated by the entire Arab world is much smaller than what little Greece alone translates.

U.N.


Input: The total number of scientific publications of 300 million Arabs is less than that of 6 million Israelis.


Input: Birth rates in the region are very high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline.


Input: And all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in the world.


Input: It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline.


Input: It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves.

United States

Israel


Input: A word about the millions of decent, honest, good people who are either devout Moslems or are not very religious but grew up in Moslem families: They are double victims of an outside world, which now develops Islamophobia, and of their own environment which breaks their heart by being totally dysfunctional.


Input: The problem is that the vast silent majority of these Moslems are not part of the terror and the incitement, but they also do not stand up against it.


Input: They become accomplices, by omission, and this applies to political leaders, intellectuals, business people and many others.


Input: Many of them can certainly tell right from wrong, but are afraid to express their views.


Input: The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in the region.


Input: A few more years may pass before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already well into it.


Input: These are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict, or perhaps we should already refer to it as " the undeclared World War III ":


Input: * 1. The first element is the suicide murder. *


Input: Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if I may use this expression, only lately.


Input: Even after September 11, it seems that most of the Western World does not yet understand this weapon.


Input: It is a very potent psychological weapon.


Input: Its real direct impact is relatively minor.


Input: The total number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders within Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due to car accidents.

Israel


Input: September 11 was quantitatively much less lethal than many earthquakes


Input: More people die from AIDS in one day in Africa than all the Russians who died in the hands of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide murderers since that conflict started.

Africa

Chechnya


Input: Saddam killed every month more people than all those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition occupation of Iraq.

Saddam

Iraq


Input: So what is all the fuss about suicide killings?


Input: It creates headlines.


Input: It is spectacular.


Input: It is frightening.


Input: It is a very cruel death with bodies dismembered and horrible severe lifelong injuries to many of the wounded.


Input: It is always shown on television in great detail.


Input: One such murder, with the help of hysterical media coverage, can destroy the tourism industry of a country for quite a while, as it did in Bali and in Turkey.

Bali

Turkey


Input: But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no defense and no preventive measures can succeed against a determined suicide murderer.


Input: This has not yet penetrated the thinking of the Western World.


Input: The U.S. and Europe are constantly improving their defense against the last murder, not the next one.

U.S.

Europe


Input: We may arrange for the best airport security in the world.


Input: But if you want to murder by suicide, you do not have to board a plane in order to explode yourself and kill many people.


Input: Who could stop a suicide murder in the midst of the crowded line waiting to be checked by the airport metal detector?


Input: How about the lines to the check-in counters in a busy travel period?


Input: Put a metal detector in front of every train station in Spain and the terrorists will get the buses.

Spain


Input: Protect the buses and they will explode in movie theaters, concert halls, supermarkets, shopping malls, schools and hospitals.


Input: Put guards in front of every concert hall and there will always be a line of people to be checked by the guards and this line will be the target, not to speak of killing the guards themselves.


Input: You can somewhat reduce your vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and by strict border controls but not eliminate it and definitely not win the war in a defensive way.


Input: And it is a war!


Input: What is behind the suicide murders?


Input: Money is, money and power and cold-blooded murderous incitement, nothing else.


Input: It has nothing to do with true fanatic religious beliefs.


Input: No Moslem preacher has ever blown himself up.


Input: No son of an Arab politician or religious leader has ever blown himself up.


Input: No relative of anyone influential has done it.


Input: Wouldn't you expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to talk their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious fervor?


Input: Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven?


Input: Instead, they send outcast women, naive children, retarded people and young incited hotheads.


Input: They promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world, and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is performed and enough innocent people are dead.


Input: Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and despair.


Input: The poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa.

Africa


Input: It never happens there.


Input: There are numerous desperate people in the world, in different cultures, countries and continents.


Input: Desperation does not provide anyone with explosives, reconnaissance and transportation.


Input: There was certainly more despair in Saddam's Iraq than in Paul Bremmer's Iraq, and no one exploded himself.

Saddam

Paul Bremmer

Iraq

Iraq


Input: A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman, cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human life, including the life of their fellow countrymen, but with very high regard to their own affluent well-being and their hunger for power.


Input: The only way to fight this new " popular " weapon is identical to the only way in which you fight organized crime or pirates on the high seas: the offensive way.


Input: Like in the case of organized crime, it is crucial that the forces on the offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top of the crime pyramid.


Input: You can not eliminate organized crime by arresting the little drug dealer on the street corner.


Input: You must go after the head of the " Family ".


Input: If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are afraid of it and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a miserable childhood, organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism.


Input: The United States understands this now, after September 11.

United States


Input: Russia is beginning to understand it.

Russia


Input: Turkey understands it well.

Turkey


Input: I am very much afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it.

Europe


Input: Unfortunately, it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide murders arrive in Europe in a big way.

Europe

Europe


Input: In my humble opinion, this will definitely happen.


Input: The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only the beginning.


Input: The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror is absolutely indispensable.


Input: Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be achieved.

Europe


Input: * 2. The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies. *


Input: Words can be lethal.


Input: They kill people.


Input: It is often said that politicians, diplomats and perhaps also lawyers and business people must sometimes lie, as part of their professional life.


Input: But the norms of politics and diplomacy are childish, in comparison with the level of incitement and total absolute deliberate fabrications, which have reached new heights in the region we are talking about.


Input: An incredible number of people in the Arab world believe that September 11 never happened, or was an American provocation or, even better, a Jewish plot.


Input: You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Mouhamad Said al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already inside Baghdad.

Mouhamad Said al-Sahaf

US

Baghdad


Input: Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic.


Input: But to stand, day after day, and to make such preposterous statements, known to everybody to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu, can only happen in this region.


Input: Mr. Sahaf eventually became a popular icon as a court jester, but this did not stop some allegedly respectable newspapers from giving him equal time.

Sahaf


Input: It also does not prevent the Western press from giving credence, every day, even now, to similar liars.


Input: After all, if you want to be an anti-Semite, there are subtle ways of doing it.


Input: You do not have to claim that the holocaust never happened, and that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem never existed.


Input: But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the case.


Input: When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media report them as if they could be true.


Input: It is a daily occurrence that the same people who finance, arm and dispatch suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of western TV cameras, talking to a world audience, which even partly believes them.


Input: It is a daily routine to hear the same leader making opposite statements in Arabic to his people and in English to the rest of the world.


Input: Incitement by Arab TV, accompanied by horror pictures of mutilated bodies, has become a powerful weapon of those who lie, distort and want to destroy everything.


Input: Little children are raised on deep hatred and on admiration of so-called martyrs, and the Western World does not notice it because its own TV sets are mostly tuned to soap operas and game shows.


Input: I recommend to you, even though most of you do not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time to time.

Al Jazeera


Input: You will not believe your own eyes.


Input: But words also work in other ways, more subtle.


Input: A demonstration in Berlin, carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring three-year old babies dressed as suicide murderers, is defined by the press and by political leaders as a " peace demonstration ".

Berlin

Saddam


Input: You may support or oppose the Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat or Bin Laden as peace activists is a bit too much.

Iraq

Saddam

Arafat

Bin Laden


Input: A woman walks into an Israeli restaurant in mid-day, eats, observes families with old people and children eating their lunch in the adjacent tables and pays the bill.


Input: She then blows herself up, killing 20 people, including many children, with heads and arms rolling around in the restaurant.


Input: She is called " martyr " by several Arab leaders and " activist " by the European press.


Input: Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her bereaved family and the money flows.


Input: There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called " the military wing ", the one who pays him, equips him and sends him is now called " the political wing " and the head of the operation is called the " spiritual leader ".


Input: There are numerous other examples of such Orwellian nomenclature, used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by Western media.


Input: These words are much more dangerous than many people realize.


Input: They provide an emotional infrastructure for atrocities.


Input: It was Joseph Goebbels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.

Joseph Goebbels


Input: He is now being outperformed by his successors.


Input: * 3. The third aspect is money. *


Input: Huge amounts of money, which could have solved many social problems in this dysfunctional part of the world, are channeled into three concentric spheres supporting death and murder.


Input: In the inner circle are the terrorists themselves.


Input: The money funds their travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent search for soft vulnerable targets.


Input: The inner circles are primarily financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, until recently also by Iraq and Libya and earlier also by some of the Communist regimes.

Iran

Syria

Iraq

Libya


Input: These states, as well as the Palestinian Authority, are the safe havens of the wholesale murder vendors.

Palestinian Authority


Input: They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct supporters, planners, commanders, preachers, all of whom make a living, usually a very comfortable living, by serving as terror infrastructure.


Input: Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance.


Input: This circle operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments but also through inciting electronic and printed media.


Input: It is this circle that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and that exposure to the outside world is minimal.


Input: It is also that circle that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the miseries of the region.


Input: The outer circle is largely financed by Saudi Arabia, but also by donations from certain Moslem communities in the United States and Europe and, to a smaller extent, by donations of European Governments to various NGO's and by certain United Nations organizations, whose goals may be noble, but they are infested and exploited by agents of the outer circle.

Saudi Arabia

United States

Europe

United Nations


Input: The Saudi regime, of course, will be the next victim of major terror, when the inner circle will explode into the outer circle.


Input: The Saudis are beginning to understand it, but they fight the inner circles, while still financing the infrastructure at the outer circle.


Input: Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which makes sure that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle of terror and incitement, rather than to the world outside.


Input: Some parts of this same outer circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or blackmail by, the inner circles.


Input: The horrifying added factor is the high birth rate.


Input: Half of the population of the Arab world is under the age of 20, the most receptive age to incitement, guaranteeing two more generations of blind hatred.


Input: Some of the leaders of these various circles live very comfortably on their loot.


Input: You meet their children in the best private schools in Europe, not in the training camps of suicide murderers.

Europe


Input: The Jihad " soldiers " join packaged death tours to Iraq and other hotspots, while some of their leaders ski in Switzerland.

Iraq

Switzerland


Input: Mrs. Arafat, who lives in Paris with her daughter, receives tens of thousands of dollars per month from the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian Authority, while a typical local ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade, reporting to Arafat, receives only a cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars, for performing murders at the retail level.

Arafat

Arafat

Paris

Palestinian Authority

Al-Aksa


Input: * 4. The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of all laws. *


Input: The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other liberties.


Input: There are naive old-fashioned habits such as respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human shields or human bombs.


Input: Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total disregard of all of the above as we observe now.


Input: Every student of political science debates how you prevent an anti-democratic force from winning a democratic election and abolishing democracy.


Input: Other aspects of a civilized society must also have limitations.


Input: Can a policeman open fire on someone trying to kill him?


Input: Can a government listen to phone conversations of terrorists and drug dealers?


Input: Does free speech protect you when you shout " fire " in a crowded theater?


Input: Should there be death penalty, for deliberate multiple murders?


Input: These are the old-fashioned dilemmas.


Input: But now we have an entire new set.


Input: Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage?


Input: Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital?


Input: Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages?


Input: Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets?


Input: Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly?


Input: Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children?


Input: Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital?


Input: Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children?


Input: All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas.

Iraq


Input: What do you do?


Input: Well, you do not want to face the dilemma.


Input: But it can not be avoided.


Input: Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would openly stay in a well-known address in Teheran, hosted by the Iranian Government and financed by it, executing one atrocity after another in Spain or in France, killing hundreds of innocent people, accepting responsibility for the crimes, promising in public TV interviews to do more of the same, while the Government of Iran issues public condemnations of his acts but continues to host him, invite him to official functions and treat him as a great dignitary.

Teheran

Spain

France

Iran


Input: I leave it to you as homework to figure out what Spain or France would have done, in such a situation.

Spain

France


Input: The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the rule of law in a totally lawless environment.


Input: It is trying to play ice hockey by sending a ballerina ice-skater into the ring or to knock out a heavyweight boxer by a chess player.


Input: In the same way that no country has a law against cannibals eating its prime minister, because such an act is unthinkable, international law does not address killers shooting from hospitals, mosques and ambulances, while being protected by their Government or society.


Input: International law does not know how to handle someone who sends children to throw stones, stands behind them and shoots with immunity and can not be arrested because he is sheltered by a Government.


Input: International law does not know how to deal with a leader of murderers who is royally and comfortably hosted by a country, which pretends to condemn his acts or just claims to be too weak to arrest him.


Input: The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand protection under international law, and define all those who attack them as " war criminals, " with some Western media repeating the allegations.


Input: The good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of international law has always adapted itself to reality.


Input: The punishment for suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not during and not after.


Input: After every world war, the rules of international law have changed, and the same will happen after the present one.


Input: But during the twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done.


Input: The picture I described here is not pretty.


Input: What can we do about it?


Input: In the short run, only fight and win.


Input: In the long run, only educate the next generation and open it to the world.


Input: The inner circles can and must be destroyed by force.


Input: The outer circle can not be eliminated by force.


Input: Here we need financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to women, more education, counter-propaganda, boycott whenever feasible and access to Western media, internet and the international scene.


Input: Above all, we need a total absolute unity and determination of the civilized world against all three circles of evil.


Input: Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a taxi driver and return to science.


Input: When you have a malignant tumor, you may remove the tumor itself surgically.


Input: You may also starve it by preventing new blood from reaching it from other parts of the body, thereby preventing new " supplies " from expanding the tumor.


Input: If you want to be sure, it is best to do both.


Input: But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you have to realize that you are in a war, and this may take Europe a few more years.

Europe


Input: In order to win, it is necessary to first eliminate the terrorist regimes, so that no Government in the world will serve as a safe haven for these people.


Input: I do not want to comment here on whether the American-led attack on Iraq was justified from the point of view of weapons of mass destruction or any other pre-war argument, but I can look at the post-war map of Western Asia.

Iraq

Western Asia


Input: Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony.

Afghanistan

Iraq

Libya

Iran

Syria

Lebanon


Input: Perhaps Sudan should be added to the list.

Sudan


Input: As a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly to them.

Afghanistan

Iraq

Iran

Syria


Input: Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the Gulf States, Iraq and the Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union.

Iran

Afghanistan

Iraq


Input: Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

Syria

Turkey

Iraq

Jordan

Israel


Input: This is a significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist countries.


Input: It is not surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite uprising in Iraq.

Iran

Iraq


Input: I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.

Iran

Syria


Input: In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is Iran and its regime.

Iran


Input: It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in all directions.


Input: It has an ideology which claims supremacy over Western culture.


Input: It is ruthless.


Input: It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian Embassies.


Input: It is clearly trying to develop nuclear weapons.


Input: Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own virtuoso version of the " good-cop versus bad-cop " game.


Input: Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the Hezbollah and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad; it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America and probably also in Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria, Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq.

Iran

Iraq

Europe

Saudi Arabia

Syria

Lebanon

Iraq

Hezbollah

Hamas


Input: Nevertheless, most European countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the clear signals.

Iran


Input: In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the financial resources of the terror conglomerate.


Input: It is pointless to try to understand the subtle differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaeda and Hamas and the Shiite terror of Hezbollah, Sadr and other Iranian-inspired enterprises.

Al Qaeda

Hamas

Hezbollah


Input: When it serves their business needs, all of them collaborate beautifully.


Input: It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer circle, which is the fertile breeding ground of terror.


Input: It is important to monitor all donations from the Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor the finances of international relief organizations and to react with forceful economic measures to any small sign of financial aid to any of the three circles of terrorism.


Input: It is also important to act decisively against the campaign of lies and fabrications and to monitor those Western media who collaborate with it out of naivety, financial interests or ignorance.


Input: Above all, never surrender to terror.


Input: No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days earlier.

Spain


Input: But it really does not matter.


Input: What matters is that the terrorists believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out of Iraq.

Spain

Iraq


Input: The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to other European countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq.

France

Iraq


Input: In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more.

Spain


Input: Is the solution a democratic Arab world?


Input: If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution.


Input: If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the most inflammatory.


Input: We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain extent, in Turkey.

Algeria

Turkey


Input: It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very carefully.


Input: On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.

Jordan

Russia

China


Input: I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail.


Input: But the longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and painful the victory will be.


Input: Europe, more than any other region, is the key.

Europe


Input: Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn. "


Input: [Karzai also has to deal with the stepped up rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan.

Karzai

India

Pakistan

Afghanistan


Input: Islamabad accuses New Delhi of using its consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad to train Balochi insurgents who are active in Pakistani Balochistan.

Islamabad

New Delhi

Kandahar

Jalalabad

Balochistan


Input: Pakistani officials claim there are as many as 42 RAW agents based in Kandahar and another 12 in Jalalabad.

Kandahar

Jalalabad


Input: “There have no business being there unless they are undermining Pakistan,’’ says a Pakistani official.

Pakistan


Input: Both India and Afghanistan deny the claim.

India

Afghanistan


Input: ‘’ Should Pakistan show us any evidence of an Indian hand using Afghan soil to work against our neighbours we will take it very seriously,” says Amrullah Saleh the head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate.]

Pakistan

us

Afghanistan

Amrullah Saleh

National Security Directorate


Input: Karzai, Musharraf new regional equations

Karzai

Musharraf


Input: KABUL:

KABUL


Input: For the past 25 years landlocked Afghanistan has suffered from constant interference from its neighbours-Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian Republics-and regional powers-Russia and India.

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Iran

Russia

India


Input: The neighbours are still interfering, but there are signs that rather than undermining Afghanistan’s stability they may now be trying to strengthen it.

Afghanistan


Input: “The elections should be a reassurance to all our neighbours that a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan is good for all.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan


Input: Nobody should feel a looser in Afghanistan,’’ President Hamid Karzai told Pakistan’s English daily The Nation.

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Hamid Karzai

The Nation


Input: All the regional countries have publicly backed the Karzai government and supported the electoral process, but serious undercurrents remain as they all have their favourite contenders in Afghanistan.

Karzai

Afghanistan


Input: Since September 11, Pakistan has been repeatedly accused by Afghan and Western leaders of harbouring Taliban extremists who had pledged to disrupt the elections, but at the highest level the US has avoided criticising President Pervaiz Musharraf on the grounds that he is helping the US catch Al Qaeda elements inside Pakistan.

Pakistan

US

US

Pakistan

Taliban

Al Qaeda

Pervaiz Musharraf


Input: That changed on September 22 when President George W. Bush, Musharraf and Karzai held a three way meeting in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

George W. Bush

Musharraf

Karzai

New York

UN General Assembly


Input: The meeting was pushed together by the CIA and the US Defence Department who were desperately anxious to secure a peaceful election in Afghanistan and the non-interference of alleged Pakistani backed Taliban.

CIA

US Defence Department

Taliban

Afghanistan


Input: Western and Afghan diplomats intimately involved with the meeting, said Bush pushed Musharraf hard on reigning in the Taliban so the elections could take place peacefully.

Bush

Musharraf

Taliban


Input: ‘’ Where are Mullah Omar, Mullah Usmani and Gulbuddin Hikmetar?’’

Mullah Omar

Mullah Usmani

Gulbuddin Hikmetar


Input: Bush is reported to have asked a flustered Musharraf.

Bush

Musharraf


Input: All three are extremist Taliban or their allies and known to be living in Pakistan.

Taliban

Pakistan


Input: (Mullah Omar is leader of the Taliban, Usmani is the former corps commander of Kandahar under the Taliban regime and now a commander of Taliban forces while Hikmetyar heads the extremist Hizb-e-Islami.)

Mullah Omar

Usmani

Hikmetyar

Taliban

Taliban

Taliban

Hizb-e-Islami

Kandahar


Input: ‘’ It was the first time that Bush totally focused on the Taliban threat rather than Al Qaeda with the Pakistanis,’’ says a Western diplomat.

Bush

Taliban

Al Qaeda


Input: ‘’ Bush was very well briefed before the meeting,’’ the diplomat said.

Bush


Input: An Afghan official at the meeting added, ‘’ The Americans now realise that the Taliban are a bigger threat to our security than Al Qaeda.’’

Taliban

Al Qaeda


Input: Karzai was clearly pleased at the results.

Karzai


Input: ‘’ President Musharraf promised to help us and cooperate with us on curbing terrorist activity by the Taliban,’’ says Karzai.

Musharraf

Karzai

Taliban


Input: The next day an angry Musharraf categorically said that Pakistan would not send Pakistani troops to Iraq, a clear snub to the Americans.

Musharraf

Pakistan

Iraq


Input: Until then he had said Pakistan’s options were open.

Pakistan


Input: However Pakistani officials insist that the decision was unconnected to the tripartite meeting.


Input: US and NATO military officers in Kabul say it is too early to say whether Bush’s tough message was instrumental in persuading Musharraf and the ISI to pressure the Taliban to restrain from disrupting the elections.

US

Kabul

NATO

ISI

Taliban

Bush

Musharraf


Input: However there were visible signs of a crackdown on the Pakistan side.

Pakistan


Input: ‘’ Pakistan now has a large force deployed in Baluchistan which was not there before,’’ says Lt. General David Barno.

Pakistan

Baluchistan

David Barno


Input: ‘’ There is much better tactical cooperation between our forces on both sides of the border, but the movement of Taliban still goes on both ways,’’ he adds.

Taliban


Input: Also several days before the elections Pakistan closed the border crossing point at Chaman in Baluchistan which is a key entry point for the Taliban into Afghanistan.

Pakistan

Chaman

Baluchistan

Afghanistan

Taliban


Input: However US military officers say regular army officers-many of them Pashtun-leading units of the Frontier Corps who are on the border remain deeply sympathetic to the Taliban and the mullahs of the JUI.

US

Frontier Corps

Taliban

JUI


Input: At the same time the US remains oblivious of the serious problems and political fallout which the army is facing in its operations in Waziristan.

US

Waziristan


Input: Not only is the army facing serious political fallout, growing anti-Americanism and anti-army feeling in the tribal areas but it is also taking heavy casualties-between 400-500 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the region since March.


Input: Musharraf has always maintained that the US has never provided actionable intelligence about Taliban leaders hiding in Baluchistan.

Musharraf

US

Baluchistan

Taliban


Input: That too may change.


Input: US and Afghan intelligence will shortly be presenting the ISI with a list of Taliban extremists and their suspected whereabouts.

US

ISI

Taliban


Input: Moreover there are now major covert attempts under way to try and bring back to Kabul leading Taliban commanders, who have been living quietly in Pakistan and have taken no part in the Taliban insurgency.

Kabul

Pakistan

Taliban

Taliban


Input: With the Taliban failure to disrupt the Afghan elections, the militants are even more isolated from the mainstream Taliban who want to return home.

Taliban

Taliban


Input: Until now Pakistan has not facilitated such a return and clearly it can not happen until there is both a pull from Kabul and a push from Islamabad.

Pakistan

Kabul

Islamabad


Input: With President Karzai certain to win the elections and the demotion of key former Northern Alliance figures such as General Fahim and warlord Ismail Khan, there is now little reason for moderate Taliban leaders to fear reprisals from former Northern Alliance figures if they return home.

Karzai

Fahim

Ismail Khan

Northern Alliance

Taliban

Northern Alliance


Input: Their removal should also provide increased motivation for Pakistan to help the return of moderate Taliban.

Pakistan

Taliban


Input: Afghan officials welcomed the appointment on October 3 of Lt. General Ashfaq Kiyani as the new ISI chief.

Ashfaq Kiyani

ISI


Input: Kayani is well known and liked in Kabul as during the last year he led the Pakistani delegation in the tripartite military meetings with the Afghan and US military on issues related to border issues.

Kayani

Kabul

US


Input: Karzai also has to deal with the stepped up rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan.

Karzai

India

Pakistan

Afghanistan


Input: Islamabad accuses New Delhi of using its consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad to train Balochi insurgents who are active in Pakistani Balochistan.

Islamabad

New Delhi

Kandahar

Jalalabad

Balochistan


Input: Pakistani officials claim there are as many as 42 RAW agents based in Kandahar and another 12 in Jalalabad.

Kandahar

Jalalabad


Input: “There have no business being there unless they are undermining Pakistan,’’ says a Pakistani official.

Pakistan


Input: Both India and Afghanistan deny the claim.

India

Afghanistan


Input: ‘’ Should Pakistan show us any evidence of an Indian hand using Afghan soil to work against our neighbours we will take it very seriously,” says Amrullah Saleh the head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate.

Pakistan

Afghanistan

Amrullah Saleh

National Security Directorate


Input: Karzai categorically said that he has assured Musharraf repeatedly that any adverse action against Pakistan taken by Indian diplomats inside Afghanistan would be acted upon swiftly.

Karzai

Musharraf

Pakistan

Afghanistan


Input: Senior US diplomats and military officials have warned India also.

US

India


Input: In a major regional shift reflecting the newly strengthened position of Karzai, Iran, Russia and India which have traditionally backed the Tajik dominated former Northern Alliance made strenuous efforts to convince presidential candidate Younis Qanooni to strike a deal with Karzai before the elections and not to oppose Karzai.

Karzai

Younis Qanooni

Karzai

Karzai

Iran

Russia

India

Northern Alliance


Input: Iran in particular feared that Qanooni would loose and then be politically isolated from the mainstream.

Iran

Qanooni


Input: Qanooni refused to accept the Iranian advice as his fellow Panjsheri Tajiks urged him to stand against Karzai.

Qanooni

Karzai


Input: However since the elections Iranian influence has proved critical in convincing the Hazara Shia candidate Mohammed Mohaqeq to accept the results of the elections and later convincing Qanooni to do the same.

Mohammed Mohaqeq

Qanooni


Input: With the US military presence posing a threat on their borders in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s moderate leadership is keen to help stabilise Karzai so that the US presence in Afghanistan is reduced.

US

Iraq

Afghanistan

Iran

US

Afghanistan

Karzai


Input: However powerful hardliners in Tehran may be trying to undermine that strategy and a new issue is likely to deepen the rift with the moderates.

Tehran


Input: Iranian officials are deeply concerned about the US occupation of Shindand, a massive Soviet-era airbase just 30 kilometres from Iran’s border.

US

Shindand

Iran


Input: The enhanced US presence in western Afghanistan was only made possible after the ousting of Ismail Khan, the warlord and Governor of Herat province last month, who was a close ally of Iranian hardliners.

US

Afghanistan

Herat province

Ismail Khan


Input: Iranian officials say they made no objections to Khan’s ouster because they want to strengthen Karzai’s campaign against warlords.

Khan

Karzai


Input: At a time of heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear weapons program and calls by neo-conservatives in Washington that a second Bush term should deal with Iran aggressively, the Iranians fear that Shindand could be used as a listening post, spying facility and even a launching pad for any future US actions against Iran.

Tehran

Washington

Iran

Washington

Iran

Shindand

US

Iran

Bush


Input: Afghan officials say the Americans have moved over 100 Special Forces and helicopters to Shindand.

Shindand


Input: However General Barno insists the US presence poses no threat to Iran.

Barno

US

Iran


Input: ‘’ We have a very small number of forces in Shindand with a few helicopters,’’ says Barno.

Shindand

Barno


Input: Nevertheless this places Karzai in a difficult and sensitive situation because he has to maintain excellent relations with both the US and Iran.

Karzai

US

Iran


Input: ‘’ Afghanistan has had the benefit of cooperation from both the US and Iran.

Afghanistan

US

Iran


Input: So far what they have done together has been good for us and that’s how we would like to keep it’’, says Karzai.

us

Karzai


Input: Nobody can claim that the interference of Afghanistan’s neighbours is over, but the elections will do much to strengthen Karzai and deal more firmly with neighbours’ interference.

Afghanistan

Karzai


Input: In the post election scenario it is becoming abundantly clear that the Taliban do not have the support of the Afghan people nor the Afghan Pashtuns.

Taliban


Input: In a highly significant move Afghan Pashtun tribes along the Pakistan border warned the Taliban in Quetta and Chaman that if they try and disrupt the elections, they would be resisted.

Pakistan

Quetta

Chaman

Taliban


Input: Many Taliban living in Afghanistan voted for President Karzai.

Taliban

Afghanistan

Karzai


Input: It is now abundantly clear that with the rapidly changing face of Afghanistan, the demise of key Northern Alliance figures and the fluid political situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan should reconsider its policy of giving unlimited sanctuary to Taliban extremists living on Pakistani soil.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Northern Alliance

Taliban


Input: Pakistan Link 16/10/2004

Pakistan Link


Input: Unreported by the international media, the Valley of Kashmir has seen an ethnic and cultural genocide that has resulted in the fleeing from the valley of almost all the Hindu families who have been living there since human habitation was first recorded.

Valley of Kashmir


Input: Over nine dozen temples that had served the Hindu population have been destroyed, with some used as building material and others as urinals.


Input: Thus far, none of the many " human rights " busybodies across the world have bothered to even notice such a development.


Input: Musharraf calls the bluff

Musharraf


Input: M.D. Nalapat

M.D. Nalapat


Input: While most U.S. secretaries of state -- save perhaps Dean Rusk -- have gobbled up credit for outcomes that they had little to do with, few have been as brazen as Colin Powell.

U.S.

Dean Rusk

Colin Powell


Input: Two years ago, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was surprised when the leader of the main Islamist alliance -- Maulana Fazlur Rahman -- visited India and issued a series of highly conciliatory statements.

Pervez Musharraf

Maulana Fazlur Rahman

India


Input: As Pakistan's president had been telling the United States he was " forced " into taking a hawkish line on India precisely by the likes of Rahman, this was an embarrassment.

Pakistan

United States

India

Rahman


Input: The reality is that India is no longer the enemy of choice for the people of Pakistan.

India

Pakistan


Input: That distinction has now gone to the United States.

United States


Input: Realists, and this even includes members of the U.S. Democratic foreign policy establishment such as Strobe Talbott, who have long sought to divest India of its defensive capability against another nuclear power in Asia, understand the only feasible solution for Kashmir is the acceptance of the status quo.

U.S.

India

Asia

Kashmir

Strobe Talbott


Input: India keeps what it has while Pakistan and China (which was gifted a slice of the territory three decades ago) do likewise.

India

Pakistan

China


Input: Simultaneously, New Delhi would ensure a degree of autonomy for the state that would help cut popular support off from jihadis attempting to convert Kashmir into a second Afghanistan.

New Delhi

Kashmir

Afghanistan


Input: Bill Clinton understood this at the end of his term in office yet, under Colin Powell (who appears to have an affinity for generals active in politics), the pendulum of U.S. policy has once again swung toward a quixotic effort to prize at least the Valley of Kashmir loose from India.

Bill Clinton

Colin Powell

U.S.

Valley of Kashmir

India


Input: This, Pakistan's lobbyist in Washington Christina Rocca has been told, is the " minimum " that the Pakistan army will accept.

Pakistan

Washington

Christina Rocca

Pakistan army


Input: It is also far more than what any administration in New Delhi can deliver.

New Delhi


Input: This writer has for years regarded the best solution to the Kashmir problem as being the trifurcation of the Indian part of the state into a Hindu-majority Jammu, a Buddhist-dominated Ladakh and the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir Valley, with the third state given little of taxpayers' money but substantial autonomy.

Kashmir

Jammu

Ladakh

Kashmir Valley


Input: With luck, the Kashmir Valley can attract investment from the Middle East and other locations where Muslims are dominant and become a tourist, education and services haven within India.

Kashmir Valley

Middle East

India


Input: The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Kashmir would be happy with such an outcome, except for the tiny jihadi segment patronized by the U.S. State Department and the Pakistan Army, which would like to even the score with India for their catastrophic defeat in Bangladesh in 1971.

Kashmir

India

Bangladesh

U.S. State Department

Pakistan Army


Input: Unreported by the international media, the Valley of Kashmir has seen an ethnic and cultural genocide that has resulted in the fleeing from the valley of almost all the Hindu families who have been living there since human habitation was first recorded.

Valley of Kashmir


Input: Over nine dozen temples that had served the Hindu population have been destroyed, with some used as building material and others as urinals.


Input: Thus far, none of the many " human rights " busybodies across the world have bothered to even notice such a development.


Input: Indeed, their reports are filled with tales of the " atrocities " of Indian troops on the innocent jihadis.


Input: Despite Sept. 11, the United States still supports the Kashmir groups that back jihad as part of the price Washington is paying to keep Pervez Musharraf happy.

United States

Kashmir

Washington

Pervez Musharraf


Input: Unfortunately for them, the general has decided to take seriously Colin Powell's frequent boasts that it was on his nudging that the Indians made conciliatory gestures toward Islamabad.

Colin Powell

Islamabad


Input: The U.S. State Department and the misnamed think tanks that follow its lead have held numerous conferences on Kashmir and, in most of them, the solution that has emerged is a valley prized loose from Indian control and under its own version of Ibrahim Rugova.

U.S. State Department

Kashmir

Ibrahim Rugova


Input: That India is not Yugoslavia and that the " foreigner-led " Indian National Congress can least afford to ignore Indian nationalism, has not struck the conferees, among whom have been several Indian " scholars " and " analysts " ready to say and endorse anything for the sake of a free trip to New York or Vienna.

India

Yugoslavia

New York

Vienna

Indian National Congress


Input: Despite many wrinkles, India remains a part-democracy and merely signing on to a piece of paper that calls for an independent Kashmir does not get you into the trouble that writing an op-ed piece against Sonia Gandhi or Atal Behari Vajpayee would instantly.

India

Kashmir

Sonia Gandhi

Atal Behari Vajpayee


Input: It was the business community in India that stepped in after Vajpayee indulged in an empty bout of saber rattling in 2002, pointing out that the only beneficiary of the mythical perception that war -- especially nuclear war -- was around the corner in the subcontinent was China.

India

China

Vajpayee


Input: The reason for this is that India is emerging as an alternative investment destination to China, hence the favor that the generals in Islamabad do to their trusty supplier of nukes and missiles by creating a scare about war involving India when in fact the real flashpoints are the Taiwan Straits and North Korea.

India

China

Islamabad

India

Taiwan Straits

North Korea


Input: Since then, India has talked peace while always signaling that only the status quo would be acceptable as a final settlement: a line of action that is followed in the case of disputes with China as well.

India

China


Input: Unfortunately for those eager to indefinitely carry on with the lucrative business of conflict resolution in South Asia, Pervez Musharraf has now called Colin Powell's bluff, challenging him to deliver on his frequent statements implying that the Indians jump to his commands.

South Asia

Pervez Musharraf

Colin Powell


Input: Once the Manmohan Singh government shows that it has little appetite for suicide, Musharraf will face the moment of truth: accept the inevitable, or once again ramp up the insurgency and spawn a fresh lot of killers that can hit not merely Mumbai and New Delhi but London and Chicago as well.

Manmohan Singh

Musharraf

Mumbai

New Delhi

London

Chicago


Input: The one country that has shown that it understands the realities in South Asia is China.

South Asia

China


Input: Under President Hu Jintao, Beijing has opened out to New Delhi and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is expected to visit early next year, making friends by formally accepting Sikkim as part of India and backing India as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council -- thus leaving Washington as the only one of the " permanent five " that has not yet done so.

Hu Jintao

Wen Jiabao

Beijing

New Delhi

Sikkim

India

India

Washington

U.N. Security Council


Input: With Colin Powell around, the U.S. has no need of an Osama bin Laden

Colin Powell

Osama bin Laden

U.S.


Input: M.D. Nalapat, an expert on jihad, is professor of geopolitics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal Academy of Higher Education

India


Input: Washington Times 28/10/2004

Washington Times


Input: Tamils feel that the proposed defense agreement between India and Sri Lanka would encourage Sinhala rulers to prepare for another war abandoning the current peace process

India

Sri Lanka


Input: But there are strong hints in the country that a new Indo-Sri Lanka defense deal could be in the making.

Sri Lanka


Input: And this has already drawn protests from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which was backed by the LTTE in the April general elections held in Sri Lanka.

Tamil National Alliance

TNA

LTTE

Sri Lanka


Input: Apart from the 1,200 Indian lives lost in 1987, the Indian peacekeeping force was immensely unpopular not only in Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna peninsula but also among the Sinhalese majority who considered it a violation of their country's sovereignty.

Tamil Nadu

Jaffna peninsula


Input: India defensive over Sri Lanka

India

Sri Lanka


Input: By Ranjit Devraj

Ranjit Devraj


Input: NEW DELHI-

NEW DELHI


Input: While India is ready to enter into a " defense cooperation agreement " with Sri Lanka, it is wary of being drawn into any military involvement in the island nation's two decades-old civil war that has seen violent strife between ethnic Tamils and the Sinhalese majority-leaving over 60,000 dead on both sides.

India

Sri Lanka


Input: And that explains the delay in the signing of a formal defense agreement that was at the heart of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's four-day visit to India recently.

Chandrika Kumaratunga

India


Input: According to Professor S D Muni, South Asia expert at the Jawaharal Nehru University, the two-year peace talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are stalemated.

S D Muni

South Asia

Colombo

Jawaharal Nehru University

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

LTTE


Input: For that reason, he said, Kumaratunga's government was keen to beef up military preparedness with Indian support.

Kumaratunga


Input: " The Sri Lankan government does not want to initiate a conflict but would be interested in deterring the LTTE from starting one.

LTTE


Input: And the Tigers look as if they are on the brink of launching another offensive, " Muni told IPS.

Muni

IPS


Input: Colombo held six rounds of talks with the Tigers between September 2002 and March 2003.

Colombo


Input: But last April, the rebels abruptly pulled out of negotiations demanding recognition, first, for the right to self-rule before proceeding any further.


Input: Kumaratunga's India tour preceded a three-day visit to Sri Lanka by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen in a new bid to revive the peace talks that were supposed to follow a ceasefire that Oslo successfully brokered in February 2002.

Kumaratunga

Jan Petersen

India

Sri Lanka

Oslo


Input: Petersen held discussions with both Kumaratunga and the reclusive LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi without success, and chief Tamil rebel negotiator Anton Balasingham and Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim held closed-door talks at the international airport late Saturday in an effort to keep the salvage effort on track, diplomatic sources said.

Petersen

Kumaratunga

Velupillai Prabhakaran

Anton Balasingham

Erik Solheim

LTTE

Kilinochchi


Input: But they, too, failed.


Input: Colombo, too, seems to be in an intractable position.

Colombo


Input: According to former Indian army general A S Kalkat, the difficulty for Kumaratunga's government lay in the fact that the LTTE had become a de jure power in the north and east of the island and was running every aspect of civil administration in the areas within its control.

A S Kalkat

Kumaratunga

LTTE


Input: A veteran of India's military intervention in the Jaffna peninsula to help implement the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord-which ambitiously provided for the disarming of the formidable LTTE-Kalkat said the new defense deal would essentially be a reiteration of the older one minus its military commitment.

India

Jaffna peninsula

Sri Lanka

LTTE

Kalkat


Input: Kalkat, who currently chairs the independent US-based International Council on Conflict Resolution, said despite the failure of the Indian army to disarm or even subdue the Tigers, India remained the only power capable of influencing the course of the current peace talks.

Kalkat

International Council on Conflict Resolution

India


Input: " The Norwegians mean well but their role is limited to that of honest broker and the LTTE is keenly aware that they do not have the power [unlike India] to underwrite any arrangement, " Kalkat told IPS in an interview.

LTTE

IPS

India

Kalkat


Input: In 1987, the Tamil Tigers reluctantly accepted the peace accord under Indian pressure.

Tamil Tigers


Input: Under the accord, a new northeastern provincial council was formed and the Indian army was deployed as peacekeepers in the north and east.


Input: However, differences between India and LTTE soon surfaced and led to clashes between Tiger guerrillas and the Indian peace keeping force.

India

LTTE


Input: About 1,200 Indian soldiers were killed during this phase of the conflict.


Input: India had to pull back its forces from Sri Lanka in 1989 following the election of Ranasinghe Premadasa, a strong critic of Indian mediation.

India

Sri Lanka

Ranasinghe Premadasa


Input: Last June, an international initiative led by Japan to persuade the LTTE to come back to the negotiating table failed despite an aid package offer of US$ 4.5 billion.

Japan

LTTE


Input: Japan's special envoy, Yasushi Akashi, who called for tangible progress in the peace process before the money would be released, came back from visits to Colombo and Kilinochchi in early November a frustrated man.

Japan

Colombo

Kilinochchi

Yasushi Akashi


Input: He complained about the " visible lack of progress " and reaching an impasse in talks with both sides.


Input: The Tigers' chief ideologue, Balasingham, sniffed at the proposal saying that " a solution to the ethnic conflict can not be predetermined by the resolutions or declarations of donor conferences, but has to be negotiated by the parties in conflict without the constraints of external forces. "

Balasingham


Input: But there are strong hints in the country that a new Indo-Sri Lanka defense deal could be in the making.

Sri Lanka


Input: And this has already drawn protests from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which was backed by the LTTE in the April general elections held in Sri Lanka.

Tamil National Alliance

TNA

LTTE

Sri Lanka


Input: " Tamils feel that the proposed defense agreement between India and Sri Lanka would encourage Sinhala rulers to prepare for another war abandoning the current peace process, " TNA member of parliament P Sithamparanathan was quoted as saying in a statement.

India

Sri Lanka

TNA


Input: She added that recent visits to the island by India's top military brass including army chief General Nirmal Chander Vij have " caused apprehension among Tamils that preparations are under way for another war in the island ".

India

Nirmal Chander Vij


Input: But Kalkat pointed out that India would be ill-advised to be involved again, militarily, with Sri Lanka if only because it still had to consider the sentiments of 45 million ethnic Tamils in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu-separated from Sri Lanka's Jaffna peninsula by the narrow Palk Straits.

Kalkat

India

Sri Lanka

Tamil Nadu

Sri Lanka

Jaffna peninsula

Palk Straits


Input: Apart from the 1,200 Indian lives lost in 1987, the Indian peacekeeping force was immensely unpopular not only in Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna peninsula but also among the Sinhalese majority who considered it a violation of their country's sovereignty.

Tamil Nadu

Jaffna peninsula


Input: The best option, now, under the present difficult circumstances is for Colombo to do its own dirty work, although New Delhi can always be counted on to render good neighborly help because of the shared belief that religion, ethnicity and language can not be the basis for secession.

Colombo

New Delhi


Input: In any case, Kalkat puts it succinctly: " There can not be a military option to what is a political situation. "

Kalkat


Input: Asia Times Online 16/11/2004

Asia Times Online


Input: + As the implications of the Andaman Islands situation sink in, Indian intelligence has inevitably come under scrutiny.

Andaman Islands


Input: In recent months, its fallibility has become evident.


Input: The inability to foresee in advance the assassination attempt on the pro-India political leader and former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed last August 21 at a political rally in Dhaka, and the recent " coup " by Nepalese King Gyanendra dismissing his government and imposing a virtual absolute monarchy, are glaring examples of intelligence failure. +

Sheikh Hasina Wazed

Gyanendra

Dhaka


Input: Trouble on India's islands

India


Input: Ramtanu Maitra

Ramtanu Maitra


Input: In early February, India charged 34 Arakan separatists from Myanmar with hiding in the Landfall Islands, part of the Andaman Islands group (see end note).

India

Myanmar

Landfall Islands

Andaman Islands


Input: These alleged members of the Arakan Army, the military wing of the National Unity Party in Myanmar, have been charged with illegal entry.

Arakan Army

National Unity Party

Myanmar


Input: It is likely, but not certain, that they will be deported to Myanmar.

Myanmar


Input: But the news of the Arakan rebels is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to growing concern in New Delhi over the security of the Andaman Islands.

New Delhi

Andaman Islands


Input: Reports are circulating in the intelligence community that the Andaman Islands are not only thick with Myanmar rebels.

Andaman Islands

Myanmar


Input: It has also become an arms depot of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who operate almost freely in the Andaman Sea.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

LTTE

Andaman Sea


Input: Information pointing in this direction came to light after the December 26 tsunami, which took a heavy toll on the Andamans.

Andamans


Input: Correspondents who flocked in to cover the tsunami found they also had another story-the miserable security situation surrounding the Indian navy's Far Eastern Naval Command, now being established along with India's " blue water navy ".

Indian navy

Far Eastern Naval Command

India


Input: Deteriorating security


Input: Security problems in the Andaman Sea are not new, but they have deteriorated during the past few years, in tandem with a deterioration in the security situation in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, and particularly in the northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura.

Andaman Sea

Bangladesh

Nepal

Bhutan

Manipur

Nagaland

Tripura


Input: While the Indian army has become rock-solid in the western front, and has developed the capability of withstanding any Pakistani adventure in that sector, it has become highly vulnerable in its eastern sector, where its enemy is not a national army but a multitude of secessionist, terrorist and drug-running militants operating between Southeast Asia and northeastern India through Bangladesh.

Southeast Asia

India

Bangladesh


Input: The Andaman Sea is a major conduit for this traffic, and the 572 large and small islands that constitute the Andaman and Nicobar group are a natural transit base.

Andaman Sea

Andaman

Nicobar


Input: The drugs and arms travel in all directions.


Input: Since the " Sea Tigers " of the LTTE, better known as the Tamil Tigers, are the ones who rule the Andaman Sea: they carry the arms and drugs for their own use and also to deliver to rebels in Aceh and all along the east coast of Africa.

Sea Tigers

LTTE

Tamil Tigers

Andaman Sea


Input: It is old news that the Tamil Tigers have developed a strong network within South Africa.

Tamil Tigers

South Africa


Input: This is not unknown to New Delhi.

New Delhi


Input: A recent report by a journalist from Port Blair, in the Andamans, quoted an unnamed official saying that foreigners from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have permanently settled in the islands, using fake Indian ration cards, while citizens of Thailand, China, Indonesia and Malaysia have migrated temporarily to plunder the natural resources and leave.

Port Blair

Andamans

Myanmar

Bangladesh

Sri Lanka

Thailand

China

Indonesia

Malaysia


Input: " Port Blair, Havelock Islands, Diglipur, Middle Nicobar, Campbell's Bay, Neil Islands and Rangott are mostly overrun by foreigners, " he said.

Port Blair

Havelock Islands

Diglipur

Middle Nicobar

Campbell's Bay

Neil Islands

Rangott


Input: An official estimate issued in 2003 suggests there are 50,000 " foreigners " in the Andaman Islands, but unofficial figures are much higher than this.

Andaman Islands


Input: A large number of them are Bangladeshis, who like millions of their countrymen have left their densely populated homeland to settle elsewhere.


Input: As most of them have few technical skills, and the Andamans have little demand for them in any case, they turn to smuggling and other unlawful activities.

Andamans


Input: The presence of the Sea Tigers in the area with guns, cash and drugs makes the situation extremely dangerous.

Sea Tigers


Input: Reports from Port Blair make it evident that New Delhi gets little on-the-ground intelligence, and the Indian Coast Guard is grossly unequipped to deal with the surge of illegal migrants to the islands.

Port Blair

New Delhi

Indian Coast Guard


Input: One unnamed naval officer was quoted saying, " Arms smuggling is a very profitable business in this region. "


Input: Considering the islands' huge strategic importance, it is amazing how lax New Delhi has been.

New Delhi


Input: These islands sit aside the vital sea lanes of the Strait of Malacca, through which 300 tankers and merchant ships pass daily, bringing in oil for the Far East and Southeast Asia.

Strait of Malacca

Southeast Asia


Input: Intelligence lapses


Input: As the implications of the Andaman Islands situation sink in, Indian intelligence has inevitably come under scrutiny.

Andaman Islands


Input: In recent months, its fallibility has become evident.


Input: The inability to foresee in advance the assassination attempt on the pro-India political leader and former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed last August 21 at a political rally in Dhaka, and the recent " coup " by Nepalese King Gyanendra dismissing his government and imposing a virtual absolute monarchy, are glaring examples of intelligence failure.

Sheikh Hasina Wazed

Gyanendra

Dhaka


Input: With growing economic and military power, India will be dependent on smaller nations in the region increasingly to maintain regional security.

India


Input: Unless New Delhi does better in providing security to its own nationals against rebels, secessionists, drug runners and arms traffickers, it will not generate much confidence in the capitals of surrounding nations.

New Delhi


Input: In fact, it would tend to encourage more organized anti-India outfits, such as the Pakistani Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) and outside-linked Maoists, to exploit these networks and weaken India's eastern flank.

ISI

India


Input: Indian intelligence's lackluster performance in dealing with the LTTE is startling.

LTTE


Input: This formidable enemy, which gave the Indian army a black eye in the mid-1980s, has been operating in northeastern India and in the Andaman Sea for a long time.

India

Andaman Sea


Input: In 2001, according to Indian army officials, security forces launched a wide-ranging operation in the 300-some inhabited islands neighboring Andaman and Nicobar, and found huge caches of arms.

Andaman

Nicobar


Input: The arms were said to belong to the LTTE and " other terrorist groups ".

LTTE


Input: The search-and-destroy operation was carried out by the Indian government after repeated requests from Colombo.


Input: In addition, LTTE activity in the Andaman Sea is well known to local observers.

LTTE

Andaman Sea


Input: The biggest LTTE maritime disaster was reported in the now-defunct Asiaweek in 2001.

LTTE

Asiaweek


Input: A shipment of weapons, ammunition and explosives, believed to have been purchased from Cambodia and worth several million dollars, left the port of Phuket in Thailand in early February 2001 aboard the freighter Comex-Joux 3.

Cambodia

Phuket

Thailand


Input: As is LTTE standard procedure, the vessel changed its name at sea to Horizon.

LTTE


Input: On its journey across the Bay of Bengal the freighter was tracked by the Indian navy and Orissa-based spy planes of India's Aviation Research Center; it was intercepted by Indian naval vessels off Sri Lanka's east coast.

Bay of Bengal

Orissa

India

Sri Lanka

Indian navy

Aviation Research Center


Input: LTTE arms-running

LTTE


Input: In 1997, the Thai navy reported the interception of a 16-meter boat after a chase off the Thai port of Ranong, and the confiscation of two tons of weapons and ammunition.

Thai navy

Ranong


Input: Among the weapons intercepted were two rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, 20 assault rifles, M-79 grenade launchers and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition.


Input: Four persons were arrested, reportedly belonging to the Manipur Revolutionary People's Front.

Manipur Revolutionary People's Front


Input: Six crew members were from the Arakan region of Myanmar.

Arakan region

Myanmar


Input: The boat was heading toward Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.

Cox's Bazar

Bangladesh


Input: Until 1995 the LTTE maintained a base at Twante, an island off the coat of Myanmar, west of the Andaman islands.

LTTE

Twante

Myanmar

Andaman islands


Input: Subsequently, Phuket became the LTTE's main backup base.

Phuket

LTTE


Input: A Sri Lanka-born Tamil with a Norwegian passport was arrested by Thai authorities in 2000 for his links with the LTTE.

Sri Lanka

LTTE


Input: At the time of his arrest, the suspect was allegedly involved in constructing a " submarine " in a shipyard on the island of Sirae near Phuket on the Andaman Sea coast.

Sirae

Phuket

Andaman Sea


Input: Steady buildup


Input: The real threat to the Andaman Islands is the steady building-up of ports and conduits that serve the Tamil Tigers and a host of less-strong militant groups.

Andaman Islands

Tamil Tigers


Input: Over the past decade, Bangladesh has steadily moved into a state of lawlessness.

Bangladesh