A Rotten Year Gets Worse... :=8(
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Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!

2005 - going out with a stinky bang:


BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Mourners in Sri Lanka used their bare hands to dig graves Tuesday while hungry islanders in Indonesia turned to looting in the aftermath of Asia's devastating tsunamis. Thousands more bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll across 11 nations to around 44,000.

Emergency workers who reached Aceh province at the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town, Meulaboh, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry.
Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and surrounding towns, amid unconfirmed reports that other towns along Aceh's west coast had been demolished, he said.
In Sri Lanka, the toll also mounted significantly. Around 1,000 people were dead or missing and feared dead from a train that was flung off its tracks when the gigantic waves hit. Rescuers pulled 204 bodies from the train's eight carriages — reduced to twisted metal — and cremated or buried them Tuesday next to the railroad track that runs along the coastline.
More than 18,700 people died in Sri Lanka, more than 4,000 in India and more than 1,500 in Thailand, with numbers expected to rise. The Indonesian vice president's estimate that his country's coastlines held up to 25,000 victims brought the potential toll up to 50,000.


Oh, and it that weren't news enough, let's not forget this little tidbit, quite possibly buried in the back pages of moost newspapers, thanks to the killer tsunami:


WASHINGTON (Dec. 28) - An audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden suggests the al-Qaida chief has accepted Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's offer to unite the world's most famous terror group and the bloodiest insurgency inside Iraq, national security experts say.
Bin Laden could benefit from allying himself with an anti-American fighter who gets daily publicity. Al-Zarqawi may get more financial assistance and support from bin Laden's backers, the experts said.
But for bin Laden, the alliance comes at a price: He is now tied to a man directing bomb attacks against Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims as well as Americans.
In an audiotape broadcast Monday by Al-Jazeera satellite television, the man appearing to be bin Laden described al-Zarqawi as the "emir," or prince, of al-Qaida in Iraq and said Muslims there should "listen to him." He also called for a boycott of Iraqi elections planned for next month.
"Bin Laden gets the benefits of Zarqawi's notoriety," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism chief. "He (al-Zarqawi) has got the pre-eminent insurgency in Iraq. He's the one who is the bloodiest, who carried out the most dramatic and public suicide bombings."
The difference between this and other bin Laden alliances, Cannistraro said, is that bin Laden - a Sunni Muslim - "has not been a vocal enemy against the Shiites. By adopting Zarqawi, he's taking that whole package, someone who is virulently anti-Shiite."
The CIA said Monday it had not yet identified the man on the tape as bin Laden.
Dr. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp., said al-Zarqawi also gets an advantage by association with his former rival.
"Zarqawi tried to milk his broader association with bin Laden and al-Qaida to win new sources of support and recruits and finances," Hoffman said.
Hoffman, whose company is known for its problem-solving research, agreed that both men benefit from the alliance.
In calling for a boycott of elections, bin Laden appears to also be speaking as a political leader, not just a terrorist going into battle.
The speaker on the tape said, "In the balance of Islam, this constitution is infidel and therefore everyone who participates in this election will be considered infidels. Beware of henchmen who speak in the name of Islamic parties and groups who urge people to participate in this blatant apostasy."
Roger Cressey, who was the deputy to former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, said the boycott message indicates bin Laden has been trying to broaden his audience.
"He is trying to position himself as speaking to a global Islamic community in a way that further defines the fight against the West in his terms," Cressey said.
"If he can show he's more than just a rank-and-file terrorist, that will help his message."
Cressey said bin Laden is trying to reach "the part of the Muslim world that is sympathetic to the message, but is not willing to endorse him. These are fence sitters, people who have serious problems with the U.S. policy but have not become activists against us yet."
Peter Bergen, a fellow at the New American Foundation, a Washington think tank, says he doesn't believe bin Laden's call for a boycott will have much effect because most of the Sunnis against the election already were planning to shun the polls. "It's just one more reason to boycott it," he said.

Great, now the real fun begins: the US is getting dragged into the centuries-old conflict of Sunni vs Shiite. Will the fun never end??

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- posted by The MooCow @ 9:05 AM