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<channel><generator>iloblog 1.0</generator><title>Jakob Varming - Livin&#039; Asia Feed</title><link>http://blog.varming.dk/</link><description></description><item><title>The last post here</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=145</link><description><![CDATA[  So now I am pulling the plug on this version of my blog. I will still keep it for viewing, but no more posting here. 
 BYE! See you on my new blog  here ! 
 Jakob 
 ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:30:24 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Pulling out of Iraq</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=144</link><description><![CDATA[    
 ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:08:47 +0700</pubDate><category>Fun stuff</category></item><item><title>New blog design with much improved functionality on the way</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=143</link><description><![CDATA[  Yes, I got great help from first  Deborah  who put me in contact with  Ole  (Again thanks to you!) to install  WordPress  in stead of the built-in blog I have used so far.  
 Now we just need to fine tune it and then I will launch it and declare this old one obsolete.  
 I will keep this one, but deactivate the functionality so it will still be accessible, but only for reading. 

 See how we are working on the new one  here . 
 ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:04:03 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Washing the Blade</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=141</link><description><![CDATA[  Had my usual fun washing the Blade today. Always nice to see it emerge from the dirt; black and shiny.       Done! 
 ]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:18:44 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Bush in Kansas</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=140</link><description><![CDATA[    
   In Kansas Bush said:   
  "Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.  
  "Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and ' killing fields ,' " the president said.  
 I say: 
 I think the man forgot to read (if he can read at all?) the Vietnam War history or he just got it all wrong. I am getting more and more concerned about the ability (or the lack of) of this man. 
 He is probably the most powerful man in the entire world and yet not capable of thinking one straight thought. Wonder who is actually pulling his strings? It seems like he is always making a fool out of himself every time somebody is letting him loose. 
 He even says that if the Americans had not pulled (or was it in fact kicked?) out of Vietnam the  Khmer Rouge  in Cambodia would not have gained a foothold there? As far as I know America did not give a damn about Khmer Rouge and all their atrocities, and it was the Vietnamese army, who successfully stopped the genocide there by killing and kicking out the leaders of Khmer Rouge. Again I see a clear picture: Cambodia has no oil, so the country is of no interest for the American government.  
 People also tend to forget that the American government back then was trying to keep another brutal dictator Ngo Dinh Diem in place in South Vietnam; he was just not a communist, so he was an OK ally… (Just like Saddam was when he fought against Iran…) They also later looked the other way when he was executed under a coup d'etat performed by the American supported military. And so on... Not that I like either communism or dictators! Same - same; but different. 
 It was during the reign of Ngo Dinh Diem that the Buddhist monks in Vietnam made the famous protests against the policies coming from his American supported government. The most gruesome and conspicuous protest was the self-immolation by the Buddhist monk  Thich Quang Duc  11th June 1963 in the middle of the busy streets of Saigon (Now Ho Chi Minh City). The picture gained further fame when  Rage Against The Machine  used the photo as cover.   
 Normally the history of war is made by the winning side, but in the case of the American Vietnamese war, it is written by the losers… 
 ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:40:40 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Teak wood products in China Town</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=139</link><description><![CDATA[  I came past this shop yesterday and just had to stop for a view!       
   
 ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:45:56 +0700</pubDate><category>Photos</category></item><item><title>Going to China Town</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=137</link><description><![CDATA[  So, time to go to China Town to buy some different stuff for my trip to Bangladesh. It is cloudy and very pleasant weather today, just the kind of weather I like! 
 Pictures will follow! 
 I did in fact not go to China Town as announced. I postponed one day and went there yesterday the 23rd in stead. 
 But the pictures I got! 
   
   
 On the way to China Town 
    
 Inside Old Siam Mall 
     
 Outside Old Siam Mall 
         
 China Town  
 I just love the wiring! 
    
 On the way home 
  Safety...???   
 ]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:55:29 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Uncle Sam&#039;s lucky finds</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=136</link><description><![CDATA[   Here today I came across this article from The Guardian, dated back in March 2002.   The remarks regarding the “convenient” findings of terrorist "artifacts" are mind-boggling!  Read it and think for yourself. It might be old news, but still very disturbing and true.  
   
 Anne Karpf Tuesday March 19, 2002 The Guardian  
  On Sunday night the United States prepared for fresh strikes against new pockets of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. At almost exactly the same time, American intelligence revealed that they had uncovered an increase in money being transferred between groups of al-Qaida fighters. According to my reckoning, this is the 14th handy thing that American intelligence has discovered since September 11. Think back over the past six months and it becomes ineluctable: never in the history of modern warfare has so much been found so opportunely.  
 It started the day after the attacks on the twin towers, with the discovery of a flight manual in Arabic and a copy of the Koran in a car hired by Mohammed Atta and abandoned at Boston airport. In the immediate shocked aftermath of the attacks, these findings were somehow reassuring: American intelligence was on the case, the perpetrators were no longer faceless.  
 In less than a week came another find, two blocks away from the twin towers, in the shape of Atta's passport. We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain down from the towers, but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.  
 Yet we were still in the infancy of coincidence. On September 24 the belongings of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui threw up a cropdusting manual, while four days later came Atta's suicide note, the one with the counsel to shine your shoes before you meet your maker - a piece of advice which seemed suspiciously Norman Rockwellesque. It was here, too, that the stuff about 72 virgins awaiting him in heaven first started to circulate.  
 In December the laughing, boasting video of Osama bin Laden was unearthed in a house in Jalalabad. The new year saw no let-up in this serendipitous trove - January turned up an email sent by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid from a Paris cybercafe (and found on its hard disk) shortly before boarding the Paris-Miami flight in which he claimed responsibility in advance for downing the plane. (Luckily or carelessly, depending on your perspective, Reid had pocketed a business card from the cybercafe.)  
 And then, last Friday, Major General Frank Hagenbeck revealed that Americans had found a whole shelf of field manuals on undertaking terrorist activity, to put beside the instruction manual on how to use light automatic weapons left in a training camp in January.  
 Apart from the fact that the al-Qaida network seem to have a catastrophic way with lost property, isn't it strange that these most demonised and potent of terrorists seem unable to operate any weapons without a manual? Dad's Army is nothing - this bunch sounds as if they wouldn't be able to programme the video. And if the quality of their manuals is anything like those most of us have come across, they will still be wrestling with them long after the guarantee has run out.  
 Of course you could interpret these discoveries differently. You could detect in them the clear hand of American propaganda. This isn't, of course, to claim a dirty tricks department somewhere in the heart of Washington. That would have you immediately accused of peddling conspiracy theories, though I'm coming to think that conspiracy theories have had a bad press. What are they, after all, but "joined-up government" by another name?  
 All these discoveries can't obscure four things that American intelligence agencies have notably failed to find. First, even with a bloated expenditure exceeding Russia's total defence budget, they never managed to find out about September 11 before the event. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's new book, Cloak and Dagger: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Yale), shows how, almost since their 19th-century inception, American intelligence bureaux have invented or exaggerated a succession of menaces to defend their spiralling budgets and demonstrate their own usefulness while failing to tackle effectively other, more substantial threats.  
 Second, despite a reward of $2.5m offered at the end of January, the FBI still hasn't discovered those responsible for last year's anthrax attacks.  
 Third, American intelligence, tragically, didn't find Daniel Pearl, the US journalist kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan.  
 Fourth - and most spectacular - despite having highly sophisticated satellite tracking equipment, and offering a reward of $25m for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction, they still haven't found Bin Laden.  
 Is this one reason why the US is talking about an attack on Iraq - a flexing of the military biceps to distract from flabby intelligence? Whatever the case, to find one training manual might be regarded as a stroke of luck. To find a shelf-full looks like desperation.  
 Link to article:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,669961,00.html  
 ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:11:27 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Busy getting ready to go to Bangladesh</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=135</link><description><![CDATA[  Sorry for waiting!  
 I have been busy moving and getting ready to go to Bangladesh.  
 I have moved all my belongings into Ju's house.  
 At the same time I have done a lot of work around her house to make it work! Ju got many strong points, but not tidiness!  
 So I have been working as maid around the house! But now I can see the end of it.  
 I will now go to the Bangladeshi Embassy to get my visa for my trip.  
 You hear from me later! 
 ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:45:20 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item><item><title>Fogh erkender fejl i Irak-krig</title><link>http://iloapp.varming.dk/blog/blog?Home&amp;post=134</link><description><![CDATA[  Taget fra  www.politiken.dk  den 9. august 2007:  
  Statsministeren erkender, at krigen i Irak var dårligt planlagt, og at situationen i landet ikke er god nok efter tilbagetrækningen.   
  »Jeg mener stadig, at det var rigtigt at iværksætte den militære aktion for at fjerne Saddam. Men situationen i Irak i dag er naturligvis ikke tilfredsstillende, og udviklingen siden 2003 har været anderledes, end man kunne ønske, og jeg havde regnet med«.   
  Det vedgår statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen efter afslutningen af fire års militær dansk tilstedeværelse i Irak.   
  »Det, vi sigtede efter, har irakerne også fået tilbudt. Det er lykkedes at gennemføre to folkeafstemninger om en ny forfatning og et demokratisk valg til regering, som alle har anerkendt som frit og fair. Men jeg skal ærligt tilstå, at jeg har undervurderet styrken i den religiøse fanatisme, som bekæmper friheden og demokratiet. Jeg har ligesom mange andre Vesten troet, at ønsket og kravet om demokrati og frihed er så universelt og stærkt hos alle folkeslag, at de udenlandske styrker ville blive modtaget med åbne arme som befriere. De kom netop for at sikre, at den irakiske befolkning kunne nyde frugten af frihed, som vi andre har. Det tror jeg bestemt også, at et massivt flertal i den irakiske befolkning ønsker«, siger Anders Fogh Rasmussen.   
  Skal lære af dårlig planlægning  
  På spørgsmålet, om det ikke var naivt at tro, at fordi man fjernede en forhadt diktator, så voksede demokratiet nok frem af sig selv, svarer statsministeren, at »det er klart, at man må lære noget af det forløb, som vi har været igennem. Det internationale samfund må lære, at når det fjerner et tyranni - for det kan også være nødvendigt i fremtiden - at gennemføre en meget nøje analyse af de folkelige, religiøse og politiske strukturer i et samfund. At der er et bæredygtigt alternativ, som har en folkelig legitimitet«.   
  Anders Fogh Rasmussen erkender, at krigen var dårligt planlagt.   
  »Ja, krigen blev vundet, men freden har været sværere at vinde. Det er en ting, man må lære af i fremtiden. Men jeg vil gerne samtidig sige, at de danske soldaters indsats med blandt andet genopbygning kan vi være stolte af. Den har gjort en forskel, selv om det også er blevet diskuteret. Vi har givet irakerne det tilbud om frihed og demokrati, som vi havde lovet. At nogle grupper i den irakiske befolkning ikke har villet tage imod det tilbud, er en anden ting, som vi skal lære af«, siger han.  
  Hvorfor er det nu lige at som ekstremistisk demokrat må man godt gå i krig for at udbrede demokratiet, men som ekstremistisk religiøs (det være sig kristen, hindu, muslim eller hvad man nu end er!) så må man ikke gå i krig for at udbrede sin religion? (IKKE at jeg støtter nogen af delene!!!)  
  Jeg fatter sku ikke logikken, men måske kan nogen forklare mig det...???   
  Den krig er jo ikke engang vundet... bare fordi de nu har aflivet Saddam, så er det jo ikke ensbetydende med at alle problemer er løst!   
  Ekstemistiske demokrater som Fogh, Blair og Bush er i mine øjne lige så farlige som andre ekstremister! De mener nemlig sig selv så meget klogere end alle andre, at de kan tage våben i hånden for at gennemføre deres skruppelløse planer! Ikke spor anderledes end ekstremistiske religiøse fanatikere, som jeg heller ikke kan døje!  
  Kan forøvrigt varmt anbefale denne bog: Bush on the couch - Inside the mind of the president. Det er SKRÆMMENDE læsning!  
  Se dette link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_on_the_Couch   
   
 ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:49:22 +0700</pubDate><category>Daily remarks</category></item></channel>
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