Currently viewing the tag: “army”
It’s time once again for a trip into the very special mind of Congressman Louie Gohmert, who spoke on the House floor last night about the Libyan situation:
It’s a bad bill. And then when you find out that the prior Congress not only passed that 2,800 page bill with all kinds of things in it, including a new president’s commissioned officer corps and non-commissioned officer corps. Do we really need that? I wondered when I read that in the bill. But then when you find out we’re being sent to Libya to use our treasure and American lives there, maybe there’s intention to so deplete the military that we’re going to need that presidential reserve officer commissioned corps and non-commissioned corps that the president can call up on a moment’s notice involuntarily, according to the Obamacare bill.
The “corps” that Gohmert refers to is the new Ready Reserve Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, something that had been proposed back during the Bush Administration as a way to ensure that the Federal Government could organize immediate medical care in the event of a mass casualty disaster.
We live in an age, as Michele Bachmann illustrated recently, in which veneration of the Founders isn’t always matched by a profound grasp of historical fact.
And an amused reader forwards on an email he got from the Louisville Tea Party, under the image above.
Those are, he was surprised to note, Redcoats.
UPDATE: Readers say the image is accurate, as the military band typically wears the opposite colors of the army. So, esoteric, but not wrong.
Written by Sasa Milosevic
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
Over 60,000 people in Serbia have joined a Facebook group to publicly support Gaddafi's regime. Credit: Support for Muammar al Gaddafi from the people of Serbia, a Facebook group
A Facebook group titled “Support for Muammar al-Gaddafi from the people of Serbia”, with its 62,500 members, became a serious threat for the Libyan opposition not only due to the support for Gaddafi, but also because of cyberattacks on the opposition's web site.
The cyber war initiated by pro-Gaddafi Serbian citizens, recruited mainly from the Serbian ultranationalists, rang out in the international media and panicked the Libyan Youth Movement (@shabablibya), “a group of Libyan Youth both in and out of Libya inspired by our brothers and sisters in Egypt and Tunis.”
Mohammed al-Sabah, a Libyan Youth Movement representative, said this to the Serbian media:
Thousands of Internet users from Serbia are attacking and infringing on our sites daily with anti-NATO and anti-EU slogans, so much that [the sites become] completely useless. We do not claim that all of them are hackers, but it is clear that it is an organized campaign. If something is not done soon, things will get worse for us.
According to Milan Kovacevic, a web administrator and author of the book “Cryptography in Electronic Banking,” Serbian hackers are not independent in their actions, but are a part of international groups:
These are two of hacker groups: “C1337ORG” and “Black Hand.” A big part of the attackers are actually foreigners who hide behind Internet address of ordinary users from Serbia.
He adds that it is possible that among the Libyan rebels there exist insiders who are informing Serbian hackers where and how to attack.
Administrators of the most popular Serbian Facebook page deny any connections with ultranationalists, explaining the essence of support for Gaddafi:
Gaddafi was sending oil to us when we were under economic sanctions. Gaddafi did not recognize Kosovo's independence. After the bombing in 1999, he sent money for Serbia's recovery. Gaddafi was providing employment to our people while they had nothing to eat here. Gaddafi is fighting against the people who have destroyed our childhood. So we are with him! Colonel, win for all of us!”
Daniel Vidal wrote in a comment to this statement:
I heard that Gaddafi gives €2500 to each student who wants to study outside Libya. He also gives them a car…
Milan Veris added:
Gaddafi is a living legend. Twenty years ago, this man built the most modern plumbing in the world. He brought water to Libya directly from the Nile.
(Because of this desert irrigation project, Belgrade's private Megatrend University awarded Gaddafi an honorary doctorate in 2007. Some of Gaddafi's opponents in Serbia, however, consider that a marketing trick to attract Libyan students to this university in the Serbian capital.)
Gorica Pukmajster wrote:
I am one of those whose family was fed by Gaddafi's salary, which, back then, was ten times what I was making when I worked in Belgrade.
Below are some more Facebook comments.
An army of monkeys led by a lion worth more than an army of lions led by a monkey.
To the east of Libya, in cities that are controlled by the rebels, mobs and gangs, according to several human rights organizations, are virtually committing a crime against humanity. […] Rape, murder and torture are normal for rebels…
Trese Babe Oraje got this information from friends in Libya:
The rebels intercepted four buses from Tripoli to Benghazi, with people who started the peaceful protests in support of the Libyan army and stopping the NATO aggression. They took them hostage, and they beat even the women.
The NATO action in Libya has caused some young Serbs, who still live with the memories of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, to react with hatred.
These are the disturbed minds, and I really think to go to the French and Italian embassies and kick them with empty beer bottles on their heads. Monsters.
Ljubomir Popovski suggested this:
First, it should start from the dead. All French soldiers should be dug out from the New Cemetery and sent to France in cattle wagons. Second, all French monuments from Kalemegdan should be removed. Third, the French embassy in Belgrade should be closed and turned it into a museum of the NATO aggression.
Will exchange Tadic for Gaddafi. Credit: Vujaklija.com
The most rigorous critics are those Serbs who are disappointed with the decision of the Serbian president Boris Tadić to publicly distance himself from Gaddafi's government, “washing his own hands” of the long-term arms trade with Libya.
Vladimir Speed Savic urges:
Gaddafi, take from Tadic the Persian carpet you gave him last year for the Day of the Libyan revolution. And the honorary medal… Let Sarkozy weave him a new one at his own expense…
The administrator of the group posted a video of Radio Television Vojvodina from the time when the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affair paid a visit to Gaddafi, thanking him for not recognizing Kosovo. Foreign minister Vuk Jeremić and his group performed a deep bow for Gaddafi.
Some of the group's members warn that the Serbian police and the Serbian Inteliigence Agency ((BIA)) are monitoring online activities in the well-known dictatorial style.
Marko Nikolic posts this alarm:
Twenty of them from BIA are here in this group and they are posting messages to the wall.
Jebes Chuck Norris, Gaddafi ujedinio Srbe reveals:
We welcome the night shift of MUP [Ministry of the Interior] that monitors our group with fake profiles.
Bloggers on Vujaklija.com also offer public support to the “defiant” Libyan leader, as the Western media describe him.
Cho-Seung Hui says:
The president who would welcome us to free ourselves forever from joining the European Union, democracy, the rule of human rights, privatization, globalization, capitalism and other disasters that have befallen us after the October 5, [2000].
As_basket_player_5 concludes:
Until a few days ago, a totally irrelevant figure in our lives, and now a hero in Serbia. Nobody knows why.
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
The new Democratic Party leader for Weston, Davie, Cooper City and Southwest Ranches is trying to mobilize the party faithful into an army to combat the opposition, which he views as an army of hate.
“As it is clear that our values, education and livelihoods are under attack in Tallahassee and DC, we must organize to GOTV [get out the vote] protect the seats we have left. The 2012 election will be vital,” area leader Randy Fleischer e-mailed to Democrats in his West Broward territory. “As we under attack, we need an army to GOTV.”
Here’s more of Fleischer’s thinking:
“We need an army, because we are fighting an army.
“They have an army based on hate. They hate Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“We need an army of love – love of country, love of life, love for each other.
“They believe that the best of life should be stockpiled at the top, claiming that it will trickle down to those who they are certain exist below them.
“We know that the high tide lifts all boats.”
As a first step, he’s trying to get Democrats to a bar happy hour featuring half price drinks, food and political talk Monday night.
The event is from 5 to 7 p.m. at Gatsby’s at University Drive and Interstate 595.
Below, on the continuation, read Fleischer’s call for mobilization on the new website for the Broward Democratic Party’s Area 10 organization.
(Claire Berlinski)
Here in Turkey, we’re consumed by the hunt for the forbidden manuscripts of The Imam’s Army. The police have arrested the author, Ahmet Şık, on suspicion of membership in the Ergenekon conspiracy, and they’re hunting down every copy of the draft of his book.
What’s in that book? Who knows? Supposedly it blows the lid on Fethullah Gülen’s control of the Turkish police, or supposedly it contains the organizational blueprint for overthrowing Turkey’s democratically-elected government. I stress supposedly: I haven’t read it, and Turkey is conspiracy-theory central.
The effort to silence Şık is inherently doomed. Here’s a site that claims to have the manuscript-and to be counting down to releasing it. Do they really have it? No idea. But there’s probably nothing the authorities could have done to publicize this book-or any crackpot claiming to have this book-better than to pitch up at the offices of a large newspaper to wipe the draft off someone’s computer. These developments have enraged quite some number of journalists, even ones who until this point had been quite friendly to the government.
The growth of this Facebook group is interesting: Ahmet Şık’ın Kitabı Bende de Var, which means, “I’ve got Ahmet Şık’s book too.” About 500 people are joining every hour; right now it has 54,125 members. This is striking in a country not characterized by “political self-organization.” To give you a sense of numbers, this AKP Facebook page has 38,753 members and has been around, I think, for years.
I don’t think you can or should draw firm conclusions from the size of a Facebook page, but “rapidly growing groups” do offer hints, not only about public sentiment, but about who is trying to influence it and the influence they’re trying to have. This brings me to the depressing part. Among others, the organizers of the group are the Yayın Kolektifi. The photos on their website won’t fill you with hope:
Now, does this mean the 54,125 people who have thus far added their names to that list are communists? Of course not. Is there widespread support for communism in Turkey? Not at all. The TKP-the communist party-took 0.22 percent of the vote in the last general election, which can pretty much be chalked up to a sampling error. There are about a dozen other miniscule communist parties, so small that the social sense of the word “party” is more apt to describe them than the political one. This is not at all to say that there has never been a serious communist movement in Turkey; to understand anything about modern Turkey, you have to appreciate that it was a key Cold War playing field. But the country is not now laboring under the Red Menace.
All the same, the comparative political energy of organizers who are keen to advance the thought of Marx and Lenin is an ominous sign about the state of Turkish civil society. I’m sure some will say, “It’s just a bit of salon Marxism, nothing to worry about.” Even if that’s true-which I doubt-it’s a sign of deep political immaturity. I mean, come on. We all know full well that wherever the posters of Marx and Lenin have gone up, the word Samizdat has not been far behind.
I say “we all know,” but most young people in Turkey, or at least the ones I’ve spoken to, have no idea. How would they? If so few in the West really know or care what communism meant-and the literature is widely available to consult, in English-how would people who only read Turkish grasp this? From Bukovsky’s archives: December 1970 report by KGB regarding “alarming political tendencies”in Samizdat and Preventive measures. Not translated, as far as I know, into English. Certainly not translated into Turkish.
In an advanced democracy, you can buy all the copies of Ahmet Şık’s book you like, as well as all the books by Marx and Lenin, and you can keep them and read them and talk about them without fear. But this isn’t an advanced democracy, it’s a fragile, new democracy; and the Leftists and the Islamists occupy a political space much greater than their real numbers. This is not a symptom of Red-Green alliance-they hate each other. But it’s a symptom of something, and it’s not robust political health.
So where are the normal people who are outraged by this? They’re not starting Facebook groups. Not like this one, anyway, not yet. They’re not taking to the streets in large numbers. I very much doubt it’s because they’re thrilled about having a government that seizes books. It’s because they don’t want trouble, the whole thing scares them, and they think there’s no point in protesting-that’s something only crazy Americans and communists do. They figure they don’t know what’s really going on. They think everything in Turkey’s a complicated, opaque game controlled by someone else and nothing’s what it seems. (This is not an entirely crazy conclusion to draw in a country whose fate has been determined by real conspiracy after real conspiracy.) Besides, they have jobs and they have families, so they don’t have the time. There’s a Turkish proverb that’s relevant here: Bana dokunmayan yılan bin yaşasın-let the snake that doesn’t bite me live a thousand years. (If you want to explain all of Turkish foreign policy in two proverbs, by the way, go with that one and Türk’ün Türk’ten başka dostu yoktur: A Turk has no friend but a Turk.)
Turkey is in fact a democracy-a new, struggling one, not an advanced one-so normal people actually have much more power than they realize. Certainly, no other group has more power in Turkey than voters-not the AKP, not Gülen, not the United States, not Soros, not the Jews, not the communists, not international capital, not the military. But I suspect this realization would be as terrifying to many people here as it is liberating. They would feel, if this really dawned on them, the way little kids feel when their parents lose them in the supermarket.
On the bright side, 54,125 people joined that group in the space of about 48 hours. They’re definitely not all communists.
Ain’t Arab democracy wonderful?
Amnesty International has today called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.
After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges.
‘Virginity tests’ are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced.
“Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women,” said Amnesty International. “All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called ‘tests’.”
20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.
The women were then subjected to ‘virginity tests’ in a different room by a man in a white coat. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution.
According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and given electric shocks.
(h/t Silke)
Deja vu all over again? First there was the scandal of Abu Ghraib in Iraq, which involved photos of U.S. military abusing prisoners and posing next to a dead man — a shocking public relations fiasco for the United States all over the world. Now a controversy is breaking in Europe where the German magazine Der Spiegel has published three photos involving prosecuted “kill team” members posing with a dead Afghan, only days before accused member start their trial for murder.
How bad is it? The fact that the photos are behind a paywall may limit (a bit) their public emergence — for now. But one site has run a copy of a photo of one of the accused members posing and grinning next to a dead Afghan. And the rumblings suggesting a major story and controversy are bad enough that the U.S. Army has apologized.
The US Army has apologised for graphic photographs of US soldiers grinning over the corpses of Afghan civilians they had allegedly killed.
The photos published by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine were said to be among many seized by US Army investigators.
An army statement said the photographs were “repugnant” but were already being used as evidence in a court martial.
Afghan civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces is a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan.
These photographs are purported to have been taken by a “rogue” US Army unit in Afghanistan in 2010.
Such images are only going to exacerbate tensions between the Afghan government and the people on the one hand and the US-led coalition on the other, says the BBC’s Paul Wood in Kabul.
Fox News adds this background:
According to reports, Mudin was walking toward the soldiers when Morlock threw a grenade to create the impression soldiers were under attack. Pfc. Andrew H. Holmes of Boise, Idaho, who is also in the photo squatting next to Mudin’s body, reportedly shot at Mudin after the grenade went off. Others also began shooting and two other Afghan civilians were killed.
Der Spiegel noted that Holmes’ attorney claims the private was operating under orders, unaware of the alleged set-up, which supposedly involved other soldiers as well.
The Army said it can not comment on the photos and the men are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But it reasserted its commitment to “adherence to the law of war and the humane and respectful treatment of combatants, noncombatants and the dead.”
“Soldiers who commit offenses will be held accountable as appropriate,” the statement said.
The army said actions shown in the photographs were now the subject of the court-martial.
“The photos appear in stark contrast to the discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our soldiers’ performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations (in Afghanistan).”
Photos such as these — even one photo out of three — are a fiasco for the U.S. government and the military. A photo creates a kind of mental imagery tattoo that is generalized by some who assume it’s standard behavior. It’s also used by opponents whose concern is not always the photo but promoting another political agenda. The Army was wise to act swiftly.
But, as always, the immediate question becomes: if one photo has trickled out into publication doesn’t this mean more will come out as publications see it’s a great way to attract audience? It also suggests that the soldiers on trial may have not just the book but the computer thrown at them.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez reports: The US Army is apologizing for photographs published in the German magazine Der Spiegel this weekend that show American soldiers posing beside the corpse of an Afghan civilian they are accused of having killed for…
Political Punch
In an unusual move, Pakistan’s top military commander has denounced today’s airstrike in North Waziristan that was carried out by CIA-operated Predator aircraft. Pakistani officials are claiming that more than 20 civilians were killed in the strike.
In a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, spoke out against today’s airstrike in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, a known haven for al Qaeda and allied terror groups.
“Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, strongly condemns the Predator Strike carried out today in North Waziristan Agency resulting into loss of innocent lives,” according to the statement, which was released on the ISPR website. “It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens including elders of the area was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life. In complete violation of human rights, such acts of violence take us away from our objective of elimination of terrorism. It is imperative to understand that this critical objective can not be sacrificed for temporary tactical gains.”
Kayani also called the airstrike a “senseless attack” and “aggression against people of Pakistan,” and ordered the Army to help those killed in the strike.
Kayani’s statement was preceded by another from Syed Masood Kausar, the governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, who claimed that a tribal jirga, or council, was hit.
Initial reports indicated that more than 30 Taliban fighters, including Sharabat Khan, a top lieutenant of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, were killed when the unmanned Predators or Reapers fired several missiles at a compound known to be used by the Taliban and other “militants.” [See LWJ report, US Predators strike again in al Qaeda stronghold of Datta Khel.]
But The New York Times later reported that the jirga was held to settle a mining dispute between local tribes, and was being mediated by the Taliban. Eleven Taliban fighters, including Khan, the Taliban commander, and 21 tribal leaders and attendees are reported to have been killed. The Taliban have an interest in settling disputes in order to tax the sales of chromite, the The New York Times noted.
The denunciations by Kayani and Kausar of today’s strike mark an unusual turn in Pakistan’s handling of the issue of US airstrikes on Pakistani territory. In the past, Pakistani officials have publicly stated the strikes are unhelpful but have failed to weigh in on individual attacks. Kayani has previously remained silent about the strikes, while the Pakistani military has quietly aided the CIA in gathering intelligence and executing the attacks.
The denunciations also take place one day after Pakistan freed Raymond Davis, a CIA employee who is thought to have gathered information on Pakistani terror groups and supported the Predator strikes. Davis was arrested in Lahore after shooting and killing two Pakistani who are reported to have attempted to rob him. Davis’ release has sparked protests among Islamists and nationalists alike.
Today’s statement by Kayani may have been made to deflect some of the criticism over Davis’ release. Also, the US has been pressuring the Pakistani military to move against the Taliban and al Qaeda in North Waziristan, as the tribal agency is used to host al Qaeda’s leadership and external operations network, as well as to support terrorist operations in Afghanistan.
Datta Khel is one of the most targeted areas in the CIA’s air campaign in Pakistan. Forty-five of the 234 strikes, or 19 percent, have taken place in Datta Khel since the US began carrying out strikes in Pakistan in 2004, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. And so far this year, eight of the 19 strikes in Pakistan have taken place in Datta Khel.
Today’s strike is the second in the Datta Khel area in two days, and the third in Datta Khel since Feb. 21. Several top al Qaeda commanders, including Mustafa Abu Yazid, a longtime al Qaeda leader and close confidant of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, have been killed in strikes in Datta Khel.
Custom-postcards were popular with the people of the Soviet Union, while cameras were for the most part available to them, developing film, a messy and painstaking process, had to be done at home.
That’s particulary difficult to do for army soldiers. Which is why Mrs. Marathon Pundit’s cousin, Ivars Rimša, sent a postcard from Moscow to his family in Latvia in 1964.
The message says “Greetings from the Army!”
Related posts:
Twenty years ago: Latvia’s Barricade Days
Riga Doms and Latvia’s Barricade Days
Latvia 20 years after independence: Tearing down a Stučka statue
1990 bread line in Riga, Latvia
Potato harvesting in Latvia in the early 1970s
From the other side of the Iron Curtain: Gas mask drill in Latvia
Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad
Technorati tags: 
Latvia Latvija europeeuropa international ussr photography photos communism history russia military armed forces military ussr soviet union
Michelle Malkin’s Cousin Marizela is still missing, please read the below and get acquainted with Marizela … if you have any information that can help return Marizela to her loving family please call the SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582
Crossposted from Michelle Malkin.com
Searching for Marizela: New videos, message from her parents & an army of volunteers
We spent the weekend on the ground in Seattle, looking for any signs of our missing 18-year-old University of Washington student Marizela Perez.
Family, friends, supporters, student and church volunteers, Facebook users, blog readers, and kind strangers met us on Saturday in the parking lot at the Safeway in the University District where Marizela was last seen. Family members continued the search on Sunday. We spread out and canvassed Ravenna Park, Cowen Park, the Arboretum, the University District, Chinatown, Green Lake, Rainier Beach/Rainier Valley, and the UW Bothell campus.
Nothing.
Family members were on the ground again today in the city. We continue to ask for the public’s help in providing any information possible about Marizela’s whereabouts. The Seattle Police Department continues to investigate. The King County Search and Rescue division has been alerted, but cannot launch an official search mission until law enforcement receives more information and leads on where Marizela went after she left the Safeway.
If any public transportation workers or cab drivers came into contact with Marizela on the afternoon of Sat. March 5, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
If any Seattle-area hikers or joggers recognize her face, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
If anyone noticed her after she walked north out of the Safeway on Brooklyn Avenue carrying a green Starbucks mug, a Safeway shopping bag, and a denim drawstring bag on her back, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
Last week, the family released screen caps from Safeway surveillance video showing Marizela. Today, the family is releasing video clips of her exiting the check stand and store in hopes of jogging someone’s memory and gathering more clues about her location.
The videos are on YouTube and can be embedded and shared. Please watch and distribute widely:
In this clip, she appears at :18 exiting the store, walking north:
In this clip, she appears at :52 exiting the store, walking north.
Marizela’s parents are also issuing a public statement along with the videos:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STATEMENT FROM EDGAR AND JASMIN PEREZ
PARENTS OF MISSING UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON STUDENT
MARIZELA PEREZ
Seattle, Wash.
March 12, 2011
Contact: Edgar Perez, 609 – 646 – 0905
First, we would like to extend our deepest thanks to all of the citizens in Seattle and across the country who have spread the word about our daughter’s disappearance on Saturday, March 5, in the University District.
We would like to thank Seattle law enforcement and the University of Washington staff, students, administration, and campus police for their ongoing support and assistance at this difficult time.
And we would like to thank all the local media outlets that have covered Marizela’s case with vigilance, compassion and sensitivity.
We remain hopeful and we will not rest until we find Marizela.
As the police investigation continues, we are releasing today video clips of surveillance video from the University District Safeway on 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle where Marizela was last seen on Saturday, March 5.
She was wearing a dark jacket with hood over a light-colored sweater with hood, denim jeans, light brown suede laced boots, possibly wearing green eye contacts, carrying a denim drawstring backpack with rainbow butterfly screen print.
We are asking for anyone who may have seen Marizela after she exited the Safeway sometime in the 2pm hour on Saturday, March 5, to please contact SPD immediately.
As our family has mentioned in flyers all week, Marizela is taking anti-depressants. We are concerned about Marizela’s safety, health, and well-being. She is in a vulnerable state of mind and it is urgent that we find her and bring her home safely as soon as possible.
This has been a heart-wrenching time for us and for all of Marizela’s friends, family, and supporters. We appreciate the public’s continued thoughts, prayers, and help in locating Marizela.
– Edgar and Jasmin Perez
Missing UW student Marizela Perez with her parents, Egg Harbor Township (EHT) High School (NJ) graduation 2010
***
Every set of eyes and ears, every pair of boots in the ground in Seattle, is a huge help for the family.
With Marizela’s Army of volunteers watching out for her, we hold on to hope and faith that she will be found and brought home soon.
Please email me at [email protected] to be put onto my mailing list.
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com![]()
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
We spent the weekend on the ground in Seattle, looking for any signs of our missing 18-year-old University of Washington student Marizela Perez.
Family, friends, supporters, student and church volunteers, Facebook users, blog readers, and kind strangers met us on Saturday in the parking lot at the Safeway in the University District where Marizela was last seen. Family members continued the search on Sunday. We spread out and canvassed Ravenna Park, Cowen Park, the Arboretum, the University District, Chinatown, Green Lake, Rainier Beach/Rainier Valley, and the UW Bothell campus.
Nothing.
We continue to ask for the public’s help in providing any information possible about Marizela’s whereabouts. The Seattle Police Department continues to investigate. The King County Search and Rescue division has been alerted, but cannot launch an official search mission until law enforcement receives more information and leads on where Marizela went after she left the Safeway.
If any public transportation workers or cab drivers came into contact with Marizela on the afternoon of Sat. March 5, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
If any Seattle-area hikers or joggers recognize her face, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
If anyone noticed her after she walked north out of the Safeway on Brooklyn Avenue carrying a green Starbucks mug, a Safeway shopping bag, and a denim drawstring bag on her bag, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.
Last week, the family released screen caps from Safeway surveillance video showing Marizela. Today, the family is releasing video clips of her exiting the check stand and store in hopes of jogging someone’s memory and gathering more clues about her location.
The videos are on YouTube and can be embedded and shared. Please watch and distribute widely:
In this clip, she appears at :18 exiting the store, walking north:
In this clip, she appears at :52 exiting the store, walking north.
Marizela’s parents are also issuing a public statement along with the videos:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STATEMENT FROM EDGAR AND JASMIN PEREZ
PARENTS OF MISSING UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON STUDENT
MARIZELA PEREZ
Seattle, Wash.
March 12, 2011
Contact: Edgar Perez, 609 – 646 – 0905
First, we would like to extend our deepest thanks to all of the citizens in Seattle and across the country who have spread the word about our daughter’s disappearance on Saturday, March 5, in the University District.
We would like to thank Seattle law enforcement and the University of Washington staff, students, administration, and campus police for their ongoing support and assistance at this difficult time.
And we would like to thank all the local media outlets that have covered Marizela’s case with vigilance, compassion and sensitivity.
We remain hopeful and we will not rest until we find Marizela.
As the police investigation continues, we are releasing today video clips of surveillance video from the University District Safeway on 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle where Marizela was last seen on Saturday, March 5.
She was wearing a dark jacket with hood over a light-colored sweater with hood, denim jeans, light brown suede laced boots, possibly wearing green eye contacts, carrying a denim drawstring backpack with rainbow butterfly screen print.
We are asking for anyone who may have seen Marizela after she exited the Safeway sometime in the 2pm hour on Saturday, March 5, to please contact SPD immediately.
As our family has mentioned in flyers all week, Marizela is taking anti-depressants. We are concerned about Marizela’s safety, health, and well-being. She is in a vulnerable state of mind and it is urgent that we find her and bring her home safely as soon as possible.
This has been a heart-wrenching time for us and for all of Marizela’s friends, family, and supporters. We appreciate the public’s continued thoughts, prayers, and help in locating Marizela.
– Edgar and Jasmin Perez
Missing UW student Marizela Perez with her parents, Egg Harbor Township (EHT) High School (NJ) graduation 2010
***
Every set of eyes and ears, every pair of boots in the ground in Seattle, is a huge help for the family.
With Marizela’s Army of volunteers watching out for her, we hold on to hope and faith that she will be found and brought home soon.
A suicide bomber killed more than 35 Afghans, including children, in an attack today at an Afghan Army recruiting center in the northern province of Kunduz. The Taliban claimed the attack, which is the latest suicide bombing in the northern province.
The Taliban suicide bomber detonated a bomb that was placed on a bicycle at the Army recruitment center in Kunduz City, the provincial capital.
“The death toll includes new recruits, army soldiers and civilians,” the deputy governor of Kunduz told Reuters, which put the death toll at 37. The International Security Assistance Force saif four children were among those killed. Score more were wounded.
The Taliban claimed the attack in a statement released on their website, Voice of Jihad, but said all of those killed were soldiers and government workers.
“As many as 31 puppets including Afghan soldiers and officers were killed and 34 more were badly wounded in a martyrdom operation conducted by Saifullah, a loin of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Kunduz city,” the statement read.
The attack is the third major strike in Kunduz, and the latest in a string of suicide bombings targeting government officials and security forces.
Just five days ago, the Taliban killed General Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, the provincial chief of police, and four of his bodyguards in a suicide attack at a bazaar in Kunduz City.
On Feb. 21, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 32 people in an attack on the provincial branch of the national statistics department in the district of Imam Sahib. The Afghan civilians waiting for ID cards. Several women and children were killed in the blast.
On Feb. 10, a suicide bomber killed the district governor of Chardara and six other people. The district is a known haven for the Taliban and the allied, al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
On Oct. 8, 2010, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Governor Muhammad Omar as he worshiped in a mosque in neighboring Takhar province. Omar had been vocal in his opposition to the Taliban, and had consistently warned of the spread of the Taliban and allied terror groups in the Afghan north.
Coalition and Afghan forces have been heavily targeting the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s networks in the Afghan north over the past year. The latest raid, which took place just yesterday in the district of Burkah in neighboring Baghlan province, which ISAF described in a press release as “a Taliban and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan safe haven.” Security forces detained “numerous suspected insurgents.” [For more information on the special operations raids in the Afghan north, see LWJ report, ISAF kills, captures IMU leaders in Afghan north, and Threat Matrix report, ISAF targets another IMU commander in Baghlan.]
Sources:
- North Suicide Attack Kills 33, Wounds 42, TOLOnews
- Suicide attack on Afghan army center kills at least 37, Reuters
- ISAF Joins President Karzai in Condemning the Suicide Attack in Kunduz, ISAF press release
- 31 government officials and soldiers killed, 34 wounded in martyr attack, The Los Angeles Times
- Suicide bomber assassinates Kunduz police chief, The Long War Journal
- Taliban suicide bomber kills 32 in Afghan north, The Long War Journal
- Suicide bomber kills district governor, 6 others
- Taliban assassinate Kunduz governor in attack at mosque, The Long War Journal
- ISAF Joint Command morning operational update, ISAF press release
- ISAF kills, captures IMU leaders in Afghan north, The Long War Journal
- ISAF targets another IMU commander in Baghlan, Threat Matrix
Last month, on the 32nd anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah Iranian President Ahmadinejad spoke of a New Middle East spurred by the by the Egyptian revolution and hastened by the 12th Imam. This new Middle East would be free of the United States and Israel, as he warned Egyptians to be watchful of America’s “friendly face.”
“We will soon see a new Middle East materialising without America and the Zionist regime and there will be no room for world arrogance (the West) in it,” Ahmadinejad told the cheering crowds who gathered despite the cold and cloudy weather.
“They (the United States) have adopted a friendly face and saying ‘we are friends of people of North Africa and Arab countries’, but be watchful and united. You will be victorious,” he said.
Then Ahmadinejad brought up his messianic beliefs saying the world was witnessing a revolution managed by Imam Mehdi, the 12th Shiite Imam who disappeared down a well as a five-year-old in the 10th century and who Shiites believe would return on the judgment day when the world is covered with blood and chaos
“The final move has begun. We are in the middle of a world revolution managed by this dear (12th Imam). A great awakening is unfolding. One can witness the hand of Imam in managing it,” said Ahmadinejad.….
“Come and take away the Zionist regime which is the source of all crimes… take it away and liberate the region. Free the region and give it to the people and take this regime, which is the child of Satan (the United States), out.”
Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei practice the Hojjatieh’s interpretation of Shiism. This type of Islam has a very messianic and apocalyptic view of the world. It predicts a period of universal chaos before the return of the Mahdi (the 12th imam, also known as the hidden imam, a Muslim version of the Messiah). This version of Islam is so radical that even the leader of the revolution against the Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini banned its practice in 1983.
Ahmadinejad has claimed that it is the role of his government to bring about the return of the 12th Imam. On August 29, 2007, Ahmadinejad said,
“The Iranian nation and the Islamic Revolution have a pivotal role in preparing the ground for the coming of the Hidden Imam… We must rapidly develop Iran in order to create the [right] conditions for his coming, and we must also help the rest of the world’s nations [to prepare for his return], in order to precipitate this great event…
Taubmann reports that Ahmadinejad believes he personally has been chosen by Allah to hasten the return of this Muslim messiah. The way to achieve this goal for the Iranian president is the occurrence of a nuclear Holocaust. And this is why it is so vital for Ahmadinejad that Iran acquires a nuclear weapon.
The video below is a documentary from Iran (its in Farsi with subtitles). According to the video it was created by the Ulema, the Iranian Muslim scholars who hold much power.
The video is teaching that the coming of the 12th Imam is very near, that Iran, with the help of Hassan Nasrallah the leader of Hezballah will lead the way, Israel (specifically Jerusalem) will be the first target. It ties in today’s mid east events to the radical Hojjatieh interpretation of Shiism.
I find this video very frightening, not because I am a follower of the Hojjatieh interpretation of Islam (they didn’t teach that in Hebrew School), but because the leaders of Iran believe it.
The first rule of negotiation is to understand the wants and needs of the opposite side. If the United States truly wants to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program through negotiation, it must first cast aside political correctness to learn and understand what the Iranian government’s real goals Until our government understands this Iranian belief, we will never be able to deal with them through peaceful needs.
The US Army has announced it will punish nine officers in connection with the Fort Hood murders for “leadership failures relating to the career of Maj. Hasan.”
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, you’ll remember, is on trial for gunning down 13 people and wounding 29 others on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood in Texas while screaming “Allah Akbar!”
This is likely a direct reaction to the Senate report showing that Maj. Hasan’s superiors had more than enough information to prevent the shootings but failed to do so because of political correctness and fear of retaliation from higher ups for being perceived as ‘anti-Muslim.’
The press release from the Army reads:
“The severity of each action varies depending on case-specific facts and circumstances. In certain cases, it may take several weeks to ensure that each officer is accorded appropriate due process and to take final action. In order to protect the due process rights of the officers involved, the Army will not identify them or provide details of the administrative actions at this time. Upon the completion of all cases, the Army will review whether the release of additional information would be appropriate.”
Army Secretary John McHugh has sent a comprehensive Army review of the incident to Secretary Gates.
This situation must certainly play havoc with serving field officers. If they flag a soldier as a potential jihadi, they still run the risk of severe career damage and loss of promotion for being labeled ‘anti-Muslim’. If they go with the flow and an infamous ‘man-made disaster’ like Major Hassan strikes, they get made into scapegoats for the higher ups who initiated the politically correct nonsense in the first place.
