Me, waa markii Oodweyne Dooxa Hargaysa kugu soo dili lahaa... It appears good Oodweyne is off as always on a long tangent again. All Baashi suggested was that one should try to debate without resorting to name-calling, and that I find a very hard point to shoot down. Whether it’s all possible to maintain holding to the civility bar, of any debate on SOL, to a reasonable level in these testing times when one’s confronted with shameless characters and blatant political opportunism on a daily basis is a different thing all together. But Baashi’s point is quite valid. One also needs to note, just for clarity sake, that Kashafa’s stance is quite different than that of Oodweyne. Kashafa is a man who has been preaching virtues and enjoying bad on these boards for a long time. Any objections against him primarily concern about his style and not his principalities. Oodweyne on the other hand has a track record of disowning, like most secessionists did, anything that had something to do with the very Somali republic whose downing he seems to be lamenting now. If I were Kashafa I would just say, like I did many times: war faataxada, faataxadayda iiga duw . Having said that, I think what tfg did, though notched a bit, is akin to what other many Somali movements did in the past tree decades or so. The relationship it has with Ethiopia is not unique. Tfg is a just one piece on the larger political landscape of the geopolitical scheme of the Horn. The chief difference in the tfg’s framework is the fact it made hunting/fighting terrorism [read: good Muslims who want to exact change in their troubled homeland] the corner stone of its political stability. It’s that appeal that allowed it to have the barrowed life it’s breathing now. There’s no doubt in my mind it will fail in that accord.

Time for col. Jibril to extend his political ambitions a bit and contest for the big price that’s Puntland, I say. MMA’s maahmaah comes to mind. Conflict is inevitable so why not thing BIG yaa Caamir ! Adeer meesha xoolo sadaqo ah ma yaallaan ee nimanka sii fiican wax haloogu qabsado. Cadde lost about fifty boys to get to where he is; I think Jibril can avoid losing more boys than Cadde sacrificed to make his voice heard--sadly that's how Somalia’s political formula has become. ps--i would be interested to know what relationship good Jibril has with the King in Adis, he might as well get my support if he shares our views as it regards to Ethiopia. pss. What's the background of the new colonel btw?

^^Bishaaro waad haysaa walle! Alas, if the commoners were so edequately informed about this ever irksome minyaro thing and adopted the same game plan and strategy Bisharo so aptly described….

^^JB does that only when he is angry!

Originally posted by Abdiladiif: Keyf ukhtii? Horta ma ogtahay dumarka waaggii hore sida geela in loo dhicijirey/qaadijirey? somalis have came along way...ilaah ku mahadiya gabdhow. Hadaba'masaafo' waa marka gabadha intaa lala baxo lawado in masaafo la eg si loo meheriyo hadii kale oon meel reerkooda ka fog lageyn meher maqabanayo wali-geeda/waalidkeed/walaaloheed oon fasixin marka waa in lala cararo. PS: Waagaas inaan joogaa fiicnaan lahayd, mid yar oon garan baan soo dhicilahaa ala geeljire style . ^^you made it sound like in masaafadu ahayd dumar dhicid! It wasn't. Actualy it is not, and mind you masaafo still continues adeer in many parts of Somalia. Nay, it happens in urban ereas too---i have seen it happened in Kenya few years back. Ninka iyo naagta is masaafaystaa waa inay helaan sheekh fiqhi ahaan qaba in sidaa ay arrin banaan tahay oo reer lagu dhisi karo. Marka masaafo waa mas'alo diini ah than it's a somali culture. Midda Keyf tilmaantay waxay iila egtahay waxa Soomaalidii hore u yaqaaneen Heerin. Waxaa heermi jirey gabdhaha yara weynaada oo waxay aadi jireen degaan kale si ay rag u helaan. Anaa arkay rag hooyooyinkood sidaa reerka kusoo galeen oo aabahood ku guursaday. Arrin xun maaha. Haddaad Miami ku guur seegto iskaga qax oo xaggaa iyo Sweden iska aad waa intaas ood calafkaaga ka heshaaye. Taasi sidaa oo kale bay la macna tahay! Middaan anigu ugu jeclahay waa Qodba-siro. Al yacni waa ju'u ha dhihin. Yaan lagaa maqal. contract baa lasaxiixayyaa waana layska warqabaa. How neat yaa Ladiif !

Horn, maanta i tacliimi adeer. I know you support Hiiraale and you feel very strong about it. That i know. What i dont know is who you are against. Which of the following statements is true: A)Horn is against anyone who opposes Hiiraale and his subclan's interests B)Horn is against Ethiopian and tfg not because of what they did to Somalia, but how they treated good Hiiraale and betrayed him in the formation of Kismayo admin. C)Horn deeply opposes Ethiopia and sees for what they are but does not think time is ripe for such a stance to be taken, and therefore Horn hesitantly supports this tfg but would like them to solve the Kismayo issue before he commits himself for them. Adeer, once and for all, tell me (us), not who you support, but who you are against!

Hornow, adeer waxaad illowday tazkiayadii Sh.Xassan Daahir ee uu ku sheegay inuu Hiiraale yahay xakiim ah; leader shan daqiiqo dhimman! lol. cuqdad iyo ninkii ciil qabaa looma caal helo adigoon ----buu cuq iska siiyaaye'e Kashafa, and many of us are fond of poking at Hiiraale not because who he is, in tribal terms, but for what he does, and strictly at that. It's difficult adeer but try to reason with people without considering their qabiil! When you feel at ease with Kismayo's gangs, like you do, [those you know who pride themselves to be under the command of wasaaradda gashaadhiga], you become an easy prey...

Green zone, eh? Creating a green zone will not solve Mogadishu’ s security problems yaa Geedi. Remember you and your boss thought that bringing Ethiopian troops would give you the advantage you thought you needed to rule the country in peace. It didn’t happen. The reason it did not happen is not because Ethiopian troops aren’t superior militarily to your foes. They are. The have tanks and attack helicopters. And they have mechanized army with the proper logistics. But all of that didn’t give you and your colleagues the peace you so desperately wish to have. Why not? Here are some of the reasons (take note yaa Geedi): 1- The presence of Ethiopian troops on the sacred Somali soil is itself a reason for insecurity to spread. We trust you would not compel us to cite history for that to be so. 2- Lack of legitimacy combined with incompetence---when the clannish sentiments is removed from the equation, you, the old man, and your junior partners come across as puppet and pre-owned characters who would do anything to gain personal goals (enriching yourself, in your case, and clinging the feeble power he has, in the case of Yey). 3- Injustice---you seemed ignorant about the most elementary meaning of justice. ^^Ponder on those points yaa Geedi!

^^lol@Macalimiintu nin waynaan iskuul ku galay wax uma sheegaan Waab waabtintaaskaad ku baran shuqulo waawaayne… The reason I am mixing things up is because I have not met my literature mentor for a while. But honestly, I always thought Salaan was the one-time-butcher that Ali caught in a surprise visit, and who in turn, in a witty preemptive manner, composed tixdii aan kor ku sheegay! You say otherwise, and I take your word for it---and for now I stand corrected yaa Sharmarke (i am in your home turf now ). Until I go back digging my sources that is. Qammaani’s standing in the infamous Guba series is beyond dispute adeer, and as you said the man left behind immortal verses that to this day people cite in search of wisdom. Considering the whole series was triggered by Ali’s guubaabo directed at Qammaani’s subclan of the larger clan for which both men belonged to, the way Qammaan reacted to it was quite marvelous.

lol@Hologram.. NGONGE, you are calling Baashe back sow maaha ! Waryee JB, I believe the news of Cadde’s demotion has reached you; the infallible King is now at bar with M Dheere of Benaadir. Some argue latest events could be in Puntland’s (Cadde's) advantage. Remember that state has been financing this tfg thing for some time now and the only politically correct way to compensate it for its prior favors is to come up with a legal façade that could bring it in the tfg framework. Hence the reported integration of some Puntland institutions (its militias, customs, security apparatus, etc) with the Gedi’s is nothing more than a profit sharing scheme--some say. It’s why Puntland elites are quite tightlipped with the old man’s current moves…they don’t see it as a consequential as it appears at the surface… And on a second thought, I begun to think this Maakhir development could also be along those lines and not as fundamental a change as it's currently presented… But what's clear though is the fact that the boys on the top of this Puntland thing has ran out of ideas...mar dhowna ayyaga iyo dadku waa is hardin doonnaan!

^^Maxaa loo hoggaan baray duqdii inaku hawhsootay Oo hilayga loo suray.... Thanks Abdiladifow. I think Inaad qummantahay. Qammaam was a cool poet! Ragga Cali sida fiican iskaga dhiciyey buu ku jirey.

Qudhac, adeer is daji waa karaysaayye---no one is against Somaliland's success when it comes to its development and progress! What i have been against, and i still am, is the wrong course Somaliland's seccessionist ilk is taking. Namely this separatism thing never sat well with me adeer, and that's understatement. So you know, Xiin opposes your success towards that goal. And it's not Xaasidnimo saaxiib...

A dose of honesty is needed here yaa Duke! Whether Somaliland loses or wins as a result of Maakhir state coming into the political equation of the northeast region is clearly an afterthought of sort. A more germane point is that Puntland’s status as a regional state diminishes as a direct consequence of Maakhir’s formation. What’s even more interesting and quite naïve at that is the argument I am hearing about the viability of this newly created state being rested on the success of the old man’s project, the tfg. Of course this development is quite negative, and can’t be gowned as a positive when it comes to Puntland’s feasibility as a counter weight to Somaliland’s influence in the region. It marks a new dawn for creating mini tribal enclaves and deepening political fragmentation in Puntland. Let’s face it: Maakhir state, if it comes to fruition, is a flake of Puntland’s crumbling house. If it succeeds, it would thrive and grow lofty on top of Puntland’s graveyards, and it would represent the defeat and the political failure of Puntland, not its success adeer. Starting positive threads on this is a poor political gambit haddaba. So let’s put that to rest. Now had you presented your argument in the form that political arrangements necessitated by the civil war politics, like Puntland’s type, is behind us and we are entering a new era where a new federal system is taking shape and hence there’s no need preserving Puntland in its current form, I might have bought your flowery speech. But again and even in that argumentation, one could clearly detect its chief anomaly, and that is, the assumption of tfg succeeding and transforming itself and becoming a viable and stable government throughout Somalia is quite feeble, to say the least! Now I don’t want to earn our Maakhirian’s anger on this nor do I want to demean their effort to better their lives in whatever shape or form of governance they see fit. They may succeed to attain their end goals to develop their region and people. But I can’t let unchallenged the suggestion of a clear political fragmentation in Puntland to mean positive development for the same entity. That just defies logic as we know it. I do also believe this segmentation coming at this time, and in the absence of a central government, will in the end help Somaliland’s effort to succeed, and not hinder it. For if Somaliland stays united and latches to its current political system the advantage is with it, and not with a fragmented and segmented Puntland adeer. Union always defeats and tramples division and disunity. As always I fail to see any value in going small, and I am sorry to say to Paragon, Caamir, and Maakhir, this one of yours is not thinking BIG adeerayaal. Inaad ku qabsattaan bay ahayd Cadde ee inaad xaggaa iyo Laasqoray isku uruurisaan ma habboonayn. Waa ila tahay~~

lol@Najjis... That reminds me the famous Galkacyo comercial where a cinema in that city reportedly sent a xaajiyo khamsiin with an announcer. And this is how it reportedly went: Ilma adeerayaalow hal mar i dhegeysta. Caawa, hadde waa habeenka caawa ah, waxaan caweysinkii soo deyndoonnaa filim aan inama caadi ahayn. Atooruhu waa wiilkii balada ahaa ee Cali-dheere, Attariishaduna waa gabadhi Hiba ahayd oo aad hadde quruxdeeda la indha saarcadayso. Caawa ilma adeerayaalow halaga soo qayb galo filimka. Inta biririfta lagu jiro cad aad gowska ku haysaan iyo caanaba annagaa idin la diyaar ah. Kii ka maqnaada dhaxalkii aabihi buu gefey ee ogaada, waana najis-najis dhalay iyo inanki ! ^^Or so went Galkacyo's best marketing gimmick.

Goobo geli tii sax ah [waa multiple choice]: 1. Wareega dhulku wuxuu sababaaa: - (B) Xiliyada - (T) Maalinta iyo habeenka - (J) B iyo T 2. Gudbiyaha ugu fiican walxahani waa: - (B) Gobol yar oo xaashiga - (T) Musbaar - (J) Caag 3. Sadexda weji ee biyuhu waa: - (B) Adke - (T) Hoor - (J) Neef - (X) Dhanaan ---------- MMA, Dhanaan waa dhadhanka qayb ka mid ah. Tusaale ahaan qaybaha dhadhanka waxaa ka mid ah: macaan, qaraar[kharaar], dhanaan, iwm. Sidaa darteed dhanaan kama mid noqon karo heerarka, ama wajiyada, kala duwan ee biyuhu maraan. Neeftu waa waji ka mid ah wajiyada biyyuhu maraan [vapor]. Marka adeer u celi Ayoub dhibcahaad ka goosatay ! pps. Dhibcahaygu waa bannaanka ...

War Paragonow & Maakhirow, what’s going on with this? It seems a major development yet most Somali websites, aside from the local ones, did not pick it up. Did it already take place, or is it something that’s in the works. Xaggee salaadu iska qaban la’dahay? Igu dhura saaxiibayaal! ps- markaan hubsado inay sheekadani dhab tahay iyo inkale baan labadayda sumuni doodda ku darsan doonna. Waxaa la yiri nimaan arrin ugub ah oo hadalkeeda loo fadhiyyo codkiisa ka dhiiban, ama waa nacab ama waa n-a-c-a-s !

Oo tolow maxaa loo sheegay, mise ciyaarsiis bay meesha u yimaadeen?

^^That neo-conservatives in Washington promoted this war in the interest of Israel is not a moot point here yaa camel boy--they did that, and very successful at it they were. Their strategic objective was to destroy Iraq and take it back in time for at least few decades. The Jeffersonian democracy talk, which we have been accustomed hearing from the media, has always been a ploy to intellectualize their hidden and evil intent. So lets agree on that adeer. That’s to say the project of vandalizing Iraq and destroying the livelihood of its people has been superbly done. Now what’s ironic is how Iraq turned out. For one, the utter destruction of Iraq exposed inherent intuitional anomalies in the American empire. America though vast and great in many ways is utterly ill equipped to play the role of world’s supper power. From budgetary and fiscal issues, stressed fighting forces, not to mention emboldened legislative bodies, the boys on the top of this current admin are getting the heat from different directions, and with that, the would-be American empire is being ambushed from within. When pushed against the wall, survival is the only thing in their mind, and naturally, fending for own self seems the preferred strategy to get on to minimize its loses in Washington. And there comes in my second point; Iraq ironically is beginning to hurt both politically and economically those whom the war was originally designed to benefit, i.e. Israel. I trust your intelligence to complete that statement and say, the war in Iraq empowered some of the entities that the architects of the war sought to weaken, i.e. Iran. So Israel is about to feel the heat. And as Buchanan many times wrote in his essays the only way to deflect that heat is to start another, larger war with Iran. The rational of such a move would be to broaden the horizon of war theatre so the constant talk about Iraq and the obsession of media with it is significantly diminished. It remains to be seen when such a move is initiated whether it would it have adverse, again, on the parties it was designed to benefit. Now what this article sheds light on is how serious fiscal constrains are in Washington. If you did not notice already the irony of the Iraq war as this piece reports, particularly as it regards to Israel, you need to take your xabatu sawdaa adeer …

^^I would agree. This time though Iraq got in the way in a very ironic way...

I can’t believe this article was published with the amount of simple grammar/spelling errors in it. I find myself agreeing with most of the sentiments it so poorly expresses tough—the effort of educating the public about these shady deals is quite commendable. Also the attempt to advise tfg parliament, though a bit misplaced, and urge them to take correct measures to restore some balance in this move, if not outright oppose it, is worth the effort. But as I said the whole piece is poorly written and hence deems the body that produced it ineffectual. I think caadi bay iska noqotay in af soomaaliga sida news tabloids ka loo qoro, oo aan lasiin mudnaanta uu leeyahay marka la qorayyo.

Overstretched US cuts aid to Israel By Damien McElroy and Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 2:15am BST 10/08/2007 America has been forced to withhold funding from its key ally in the Middle East amid the strain of paying for its expensive military campaign in Iraq. Washington had promised Israel a substantial increase in its financial support to bolster it against Iran. But US officials decided to amend their pledge because of escalating costs, including the need to spend $750 million (£375 million) to fly thousands of armoured troop carriers to Iraq to protect troops against Iranian-made roadside bombs. The Pentagon has come under intense pressure to speed up deployment of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), which boasts a V-shaped hull and a raised chassis and is proven to withstand a range of explosive projectiles common in Iraq. The army has ordered 8,000 MRAP vehicles at a cost of $12 billion. But a request by the Pentagon for an emergency transport budget illustrates the increasing danger faced by troops on the ground. advertisementOfficials said extra funds would be used to get 3,400 MRAPs to Iraq by the end of the year. The diversion of funds has caused a budget shortfall in Israel that forced Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, to convene an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday. Officials discussed ways of dealing with the £250 million deficit in next year's budget, which Israeli commentators said would result in austerity measures. More worryingly for Israel, there are fears the shortfall will have a significant impact on the ability of the country to defend itself as military training and procurement are cut back. The tension over the delayed American money has tarnished relations between the two countries, which were boosted only last week when Israel confirmed it would enjoy a surge in American defence aid of 25 per cent over the next 10 years. US forces claimed yesterday to have killed 32 suspected Shia terrorists and taken 12 prisoner in an operation involving air strikes on Baghdad's Sadr City district. They said the militia members killed belonged to a group accused of smuggling weapons and facilitating attacks on Americans. However, regional satellite television channels claimed that women and children, not fighters, were killed in the raid. America is under tremendous pressure to clamp down on Iran's allies in Iraq. Lt General Raymond Odierno, the US operations commander in Iraq, said Iran-backed attacks rose to 99 last month in response to American efforts to clamp down on Shia militias. The pressure American forces are under in Iraq was further illustrated when they released photographs of insurgents setting up a battery of 49 rockets aimed at a US base outside Baghdad. One serviceman was killed and 15 others injured in the attack that followed. United Nations staff yesterday unanimously voted against an expanded UN presence in Iraq. Their protest came a day before the Security Council is due to agree a resolution broadening UN involvement in the country. The UN scaled back its operations after the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in 2003 killed its envoy and 21 other staff. The organisation's staff association said it could not put up with "the unacceptably high level of risk to the safety and security of UN personnel". Source:.telegraph.co.uk

America under surveillance Granted new power to spy inside the U.S., the Bush administration may be doing more than eavesdropping on phone calls -- it could be watching suspects' every move. By Tim Shorrock Aug. 09, 2007 | In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 1, 2005, a U-2 surveillance aircraft known as the Dragon Lady lifted off the runway at Beale Air Force Base in California, the home of the U.S. Air Force 9th Reconnaissance Wing and one of the most important outposts in the U.S. intelligence world. Originally built in secret by Lockheed Corp. for the Central Intelligence Agency, the U-2 has provided some of the most sensitive intelligence available to the U.S. government, including thousands of photographs of Soviet and Chinese military bases, North Korean nuclear sites, and war zones from Afghanistan to Iraq. But the aircraft that took off that September morning wasn't headed overseas to spy on America's enemies. Instead, for the next six hours it flew directly over the U.S. Gulf Coast, capturing hundreds of high-resolution images as Hurricane Katrina, one of the largest storms of the past century, slammed into New Orleans and the surrounding region. The U-2 photos were matched against satellite imagery captured during and after the disaster by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Relatively unknown to the public, the NGA was first organized in 1996 from the imagery and mapping divisions of the CIA, the Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that builds and maintains the nation's fleet of spy satellites. In 2003, the NGA was formally inaugurated as a combat support agency of the Pentagon. It is responsible for supplying overhead imagery and mapping tools to the military, the CIA and other intelligence agencies -- including the National Security Agency, whose wide-reaching, extrajudicial spying inside the United States under the Bush administration has been a heated political issue since first coming to light in the media nearly two years ago. The NGA's role in Hurricane Katrina has received little attention outside of a few military and space industry publications. But the agency's close working relationship with the NSA -- whose powers to spy domestically were just expanded with new legislation from Congress -- raises the distinct possibility that the U.S. government could be doing far more than secretly listening in on phone calls as it targets and tracks individuals inside the United States. With the additional capabilities of the NGA and the use of other cutting-edge technologies, the government could also conceivably be following the movements of those individuals minute by minute, watching a person depart from a mosque in, say, Lodi, Calif., or drive a car from Chicago to Detroit. Prior to Katrina, the NGA had been used sporadically during domestic crises. Its first baptism of fire came after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the agency collected imagery to help in the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the storm of 2005 triggered NGA activity on a scale never before seen inside the borders of the United States. "Hurricane Katrina changed everything with what we do with disasters," John Goolgasian, the director of the NGA's Office of Americas, told Salon. In New York after 9/11, the NGA had only a handful of people on the ground, but "with Katrina, we put a lot of people down in the theater," he said, using a term usually reserved for overseas military battlegrounds. The agency now deploys its staff on a regular basis to hurricane zones and also provides assistance to law enforcement agencies during events such as the Super Bowl, the baseball All-Star Game and political conventions. On one level, the engagement of the NGA and the U-2 flights over the Gulf Coast during Katrina were commendable efforts to use America's vast surveillance powers for the safety and support of its citizens. But at the same time, the incident apparently marked the first time in history that U.S. intelligence agencies created to spy on foreign countries were deployed to collect extensive information on the U.S. "homeland." Their role during Katrina is just one aspect of an enormous domestic surveillance infrastructure put in place by the Bush administration ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks sparked a radical restructuring and expansion of America's intelligence system. Although the full scope of domestic surveillance under Bush remains elusive, we now know from press accounts, lawsuits, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top Bush officials' descriptions and denials that the NSA has been involved in multiple domestic surveillance programs -- in apparent violation of federal law -- including spying on Americans' telecommunications and Internet traffic, as well as data mining. In December 2004, the NSA and the NGA announced the signing of an agreement to share resources and staff and to link their "sources, data holdings, information infrastructure, and exploitation techniques." The document spelling out the agreement itself is classified. But in a press release the NGA explained that the pact allows "horizontal integration" between the two agencies, defined as "working together from start to finish, using NGA's 'eyes' and NSA 'ears.'" The collaboration makes it possible for the agencies to create hybrid intelligence tools that enhance the ability of U.S. forces in combat. By combining intercepts of cellphone calls with overhead imagery gathered by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for example, intelligence analysts can track suspected terrorists or insurgents in Iraq in real time. Last November, NGA director Robert B. Murrett disclosed that it was through such technology that the U.S. military was able to locate and bomb the safe house where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, was staying in June 2006. "Eventually, it all comes down to physical location," he told reporters. When NSA and NGA data are combined, he added, "the multiplier effect is dramatic." Nine months prior, during Hurricane Katrina, the NGA's sophisticated surveillance tools, which can create three-dimensional maps, helped first responders identify hospitals, schools and areas where hazardous materials were stored in the Gulf Coast region. And in an unprecedented move, the NGA distributed thousands of unclassified images of stricken areas, via the Internet, to the public. "People could actually see their houses," said retired Air Force Gen. James R. Clapper, the NGA director at the time of Katrina. In an interview with Salon before his appointment in April as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Clapper said that the NGA's work during the hurricane was "the most graphic example in my 40 years of intelligence of coming to the direct aid of people in extreme circumstances." The purpose and utility of such intelligence tools in a disaster area, or in a war zone, are clear. But given the Bush administration's highly secretive, aggressive policies in the war on terror, what's to stop the NGA and the NSA from collaborating on other types of real-time surveillance at home? This past Saturday, Congress approved legislation expanding the ability of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without warrants, on telephone calls, e-mail and faxes passing through telecommunications hubs in the United States when the government suspects terrorists may be involved. The legislation, which expands the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was negotiated between the White House and lawmakers in response to a federal court ruling this summer determining that the NSA's past eavesdropping had violated the law. Mike McConnell, the retired Navy admiral who was appointed last January as the nation's second director of national intelligence, told Congress that the ruling drastically reduced the ability of the NSA to track terrorists, while Bush warned that, because of the ruling, the government was "missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country." The fear of Democratic leaders that their party might be further accused of being soft on terrorism apparently prompted them to vote for the new FISA legislation -- handing new unilateral surveillance powers to the executive branch while significantly diminishing judicial oversight. Civil liberties groups and lawmakers opposed to the legislation believe the changes will make it easier for the government to spy on U.S. citizens, because the more loosely defined FISA statute now allows warrantless surveillance of people communicating with others who are "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." During the House debate last Saturday night, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., described the bill as an enormous loophole that will grant the attorney general the ability to "wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances." President Bush signed the measure into law on Sunday. The NGA, which has a staff of 14,000 and an estimated budget of about $2.5 billion (the actual amount is classified), buys most of its imagery from commercial satellite vendors, but it also relies on highly classified overhead photography captured by the National Reconnaissance Office's fleet of military satellites. According to David H. Burpee, the NGA's director of public affairs, the agency operates under strict oversight rules that ban it from collecting imagery over the United States without a formal request from a "lead" domestic agency coordinating efforts during a disaster. In the case of Katrina, the NGA's assistance was requested by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. In a statement to Salon, Burpee said that the NGA collects intelligence "in accordance with Constitutional law, federal law, and executive policies such as Executive Order 12333." (That order, signed in 1981 by President Reagan, includes a mandate for federal agencies to cooperate with the CIA and other intelligence agencies.) Any questions involving domestic operations would have to be directed to the lead agency requesting NGA support, Burpee added. It is unclear how the latest changes to FISA might affect other intelligence agencies besides the NSA. But the zeal with which McConnell and Bush pursued the new legislation unbridling the NSA -- which could presumably tap the NGA for assistance with operations at home, just as it does in the war zones -- raises stark questions about the administration's intentions with domestic intelligence. A close look at the NSA programs suggests that the Bush administration is casting the widest net possible. To date, President Bush and administration officials have acknowledged only a narrow aspect of domestic spying -- referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- which they admitted, in the wake of media reports, included the warrantless wiretapping of phone calls. But in May 2006, USA Today reported on a program that involved the NSA's gaining access to huge customer databases maintained by AT&T and other telecommunications providers. In another alleged program, discovered by AT&T technician Mark Klein and disclosed in a lawsuit against the telecom provider filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the NSA attached what amounts to an electronic hose to AT&T Internet data lines in San Francisco and other cities and diverted global Internet traffic and phone calls to a special room, where calls and messages were analyzed with powerful computers to find clues to terrorist cells. A Salon report in June 2006 uncovered what appeared to be a nexus for such activity in a secret room at an AT&T facility in St. Louis. Then, last month, the New York Times disclosed that a dispute in 2003 between the White House and the Justice Department over NSA operations involved a potential fourth program using "computer searches through massive electronic databases" that contained the records of tens of thousands of domestic phone calls and e-mails. McConnell acknowledged multiple programs, albeit without specifics, in a July 31 letter to Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "A number of these intelligence activities were authorized in one order" by Bush shortly after 9/11, McConnell wrote. With regard to the administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program, he added: "This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged." Many FISA experts, such as James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, have concluded that the NSA was running at least three domestic surveillance programs, including data mining. "I think the TSP was an after-the-fact name given to an activity, or a set of activities, or a whole subset of activities" by the NSA, Dempsey said. After 9/11, the paradigm for domestic law enforcement shifted radically, by making it the duty of the government to use its intelligence resources to help law enforcement agencies preempt attacks before they happened, beyond the traditional practice of gathering evidence to prove that a crime had already occurred. The idea that the U.S. homeland was now a battleground (or a "theater") first took hold in 2002, when the Pentagon established the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado to provide command and control of military efforts within U.S. borders. Northcom was given two primary responsibilities: providing military security during national emergencies, including terrorist attacks and natural disasters; and protecting important U.S. military bases in the 50 states. As part of the Pentagon's domestic security mission, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created the Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) in 2002. But CIFA soon became a weapon against anyone suspected of harboring ill-will against the Bush administration and its policies. CIFA was caught spying on antiwar groups, Quakers and other organizations. Even though Clapper and his boss, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, have expressed concerns about CIFA's reach, the agency remains an integral part of the Pentagon's counterterrorism efforts. The link between Pentagon-driven intelligence operations and the homeland was underscored during the Katrina crisis by the NGA's deployment to New Orleans of a special vehicle called a Mobile Integrated Geospatial-Intelligence System, or MIGS, which is loaded with equipment that allows NGA analysts to download intelligence from U-2s and U.S. military satellites. The vehicles were first deployed by the NGA in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later to the Gulf Coast. "They're pretty much the NGA in a Humvee -- very military," said Goolgasian, the NGA official. "But it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb if you're driving into an urban area" in the United States. As a result, the NGA has painted its domestic vehicles blue and renamed them Domestic MIGS, or DMIGS. Military, intelligence agency and police work is also coming together in numerous "fusion centers" around the country in a joint program run by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security that has received little public attention. At present, there are 43 current and planned fusion centers in the United States where information from intelligence agencies, the FBI, local police, private sector databases and anonymous tipsters is combined and analyzed by counterterrorism analysts. DHS hopes to create a wide network of such centers that would be tied into the agency's day-to-day activities, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The project, according to EPIC, "inculcates DHS with enormous domestic surveillance powers and evokes comparisons with the publicly condemned domestic surveillance program of COINTELPRO," the 1960s program by the FBI aimed at destroying groups on the American political left. It doesn't take much imagination to see how powerful technologies, when combined with secretive, growing interagency collaboration, could be misused in a domestic context. In recent years many U.S. cities have deployed sophisticated video cameras throughout their downtown areas that track activity 24 hours a day. And U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies now have at their disposal facial recognition software that can identify one person among thousands in a large crowd. Combine that with the awesome eavesdropping power of the NSA and the ability of the NGA to capture live imagery from satellites and UAVs, and the result could be an ability to track any individual, in real time, as he or she moves around. John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, said the NGA is unlikely to be called upon for surveillance of an individual inside the United States. "NGA imagery is not what you would use to track people," he said. But as the intelligence infrastructure, including the kinds of local camera-surveillance systems that proved so useful in identifying the perpetrators of the London subway bombings, expands in the United States, it raises the specter of a nationwide surveillance web. "These networks are going to get denser and going to cover more area over time," Pike said. "At some point in time somebody's going to drop in an automated face-print recognizer, and then they're off to the races. Anybody who is currently wanted by the authorities, well, there's just going to be parts of the country where such a person could not enter." The expanding role of U.S. intelligence agencies on the home front raises serious issues, according to Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, the commanding general on the scene in the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina. Last fall, during a national conference on geospatial intelligence, he said, "Most of our capability [in the military] is kept on the classified side because that's the best way to fight the enemy." But the situation in the Gulf Coast, as the lines blurred, was complicated by conflicting policy directives. There were some people in government saying, "You're not going to use the intel stuff on us," Honoré recalled, while others were saying just the opposite: "Why aren't you using that intel stuff to tell us what's going on down there?" And then, there were people sitting back, saying, "They can't do that inside the United States," he said, adding, "This is one of the things government has to work out." In light of the mounting revelations about the Bush administration's domestic spying, civil libertarians no doubt strongly agree. Source: salon.com

lol@Sharmarke.. Salaan was quite good at inuu Cali shiddeeyo.. One time Ali paid visit to Salaan and found him in a slaughterhouse, working hard and butchering stuff. But in the Hawd dhaqan that was ceeb for a rebutable man do that. Salaan sensed that Ali was about to say something about this, and thusly preempted him first and said: Kafadaha dalooliyo mindaan daba hasytaaye Nafta dooji mooyyee xarrago laga dawaaraaye'e Da-a-r-o-o-d siduu beri ahaa loo dad qalatowye'e Ali was left scrambling for words in response to Salaan's witty verses... But Ali was also a serious poet: Naagtii gambada taabatee gacanta loo mayray Oo gelisay meeshii xumayd gabaygu soo maaha. he once said to Salaan (i believe it was salaan). Middaan taariikhdeedii ma hayyo ee bal Sharmaarkow nagu sadaqayso~~

lol@Bishaaro. The differnce between the man who said: Abil-Islaamu laa abban lii siwaahu...idaftakhuruu biqaysin ow tamiimi, And the somali nomad who said: Shafka lagu fariistan ahay iyo shiisha qoorahe'e Oo [reer hebel] baan ahay rag waa kala shisheeyaay'e. Is wacyi and proper education. Educate your children about it when the opportunity arises, or ignore and dismis it for your own, and thiers as well, peril...

Dukow, Fagaase, on behalf of Horn , has just sent this poem to the old man: wuxuu yiri-- Sayidkuba ka fiig geelayaga inuu faduushaaye Fagaase iyo summaddaa nafluhu kaga fogaadaaye Waa fiil nin lihi foofsadoon feleg ka yaabayne Hadba mesha loo filo dal buu farow ka laacaaye Farowga iyo baruurtiisu way kaa fajicisaaye Faalaha iyo dhalankuu yahaa gobi ku faydaaye Fiidkiyo aroortuu durduro ganafka fiiqaaye Ma facaysta laangaabka iyo tuugga fiirsada e Nimaan fuulin guutada hadhkii faal ka bixi waaye Faataxa wadaad iyo burduhu fanax ma beerane Faras xoog leh baa lagu dhaqay iyo geesi fool adage Fulayada Daraawiish ah iyo Maxamed faankiisa Hadduu faral jahaad iyo Islaam faro ku doonaayo Ararsamaha faaray ee arlada culus ku soo foofshay Muu foos la xulay iyo dagaal foore kaga qaado Fiqiyada ku lumay xarunta muu fiixa ka hibaadsho Oo foodhi laasimo sidii Ferenji Reer Loora. ps--waryee yaan la caroon ; I did it for its sheer entertainment. Sayid Mohamed’s response had more deeper and rarer verses, and as always the timing of his reply was quite fitting…ask Sophist!