Posted on 11/11/2007 11:57:59 PM PST by HAL9000
Excerpt -
Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after.
The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive.
Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by both US and Pakistani intelligence services.
The interrogation produced information that Memon was helping al-Qaeda develop anthrax strains, the newspaper said.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at news24.com ...
Someone fax me a crying towel, I seem to have misplaced mine.
Hmm ...
Anthrax ping.
Sounds like a mega-first-class scumbag. I’d like to cry for him but I’m too busy cheering his demise.... but I’m sure that Patrick Leahy will be simply outraged and will make a fuss.
Murtha will probably call for an investigation, Kucinich will hail it as "one more reason to impeach", Pelosi & Reid will call it an example of a "flawed strategy" and a "culture of corruption", Kennedy will eulogize the terrorist between belts of Famous Grouse, Obama will visit his gravesite "in solidarity", Rosie O'Donnell will text a screed from her i-phone, Robert Redford and Rob Reiner will begin production on a movie about the man, and Hillary Clinton will put together a focus group to decide what to do!
This Poo-toe won’t be missed.
‘was helping al-Qaeda develop anthrax strains’
Wow. They found out you can dig up a dead cow.
I’m just sad he couldn’t have died before he killed Mr. Pearl.
One can only hope an especially hot corner in hell was held for this scheissekopf.
The sentiments above are misguided. If you want to defeat ‘terrorism’, then understand its roots and appreciate that torture and maltreatment of detainees is one of the underlying causes not only of terrorism generally but the use of the mailed anthrax in Fall 2001.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy would not support Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey because Mukasey hasn’t taken a firm enough stand against torture. Leahy said: “No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture.” Separately, Patrick Leahy at last report was very dissatisfied with the briefing the former US Attorney General Gonzales had promised to give him on why he had been sent mailed anthrax. He repeatedly criticized Gonzales for allowing waterboarding. Judge Mukasey, who likely would make a great Attorney General, is in a difficult spot through no fault of his own. Senator Leahy, one of my favorite Senators, was targeted in Fall 2001 precisely because of this issue of torture, and that the folks connected to the WTC 1993 prosecution overseen by Judge Mukasey were responsible.
After the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Cairo attorney Montasser al-Zayat met blind sheik Abdel-Rahman after Montasser had been tortured for 12 hours. He was near a mental breakdown. Abdel-Rahman came over to where he was huddled in a corner of a cell, bent over and whispered: “Rely on God; don’t be defeated.” Mohammed had spoken the words in the Koran. Al- Zayat would become one of Sheik Omar’s most trusted legal advisers and a lawyer on the defense team of El Sayyid Nosair, the Egyptian who served as Abdel-Rahman’s bodyguard and was tried in New York in 1990 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane. In March 1999, attorney al-Zayat, who was representing defendants in a massive prosecution of jihadists in Cairo, opined that Ayman Zawahiri would use weaponized anthrax against US targets because of the continued extradition pressure and torture faced by Egyptian Islamic Jihad members. Two senior EIJ leaders then on trial were saying the same thing to the press and in confessions.
US Postal employee Sattar, who had been the blind sheik’s spokesman after his 1993 arrest, in a 1999 Frontline interview spoke of the role of appropriations and torture in fueling the islamist rage:
“this is the same old story happening again, and again, and again. American government don’t get it. The American government [is] deceiving the American people. They’re not telling them what’s really going on. You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow. You can arrest him and put him on trial in New York or in Washington. É Tomorrow you will get somebody else, his name probably will be different, Abdullah, or Muhammad. É It’s not going to end. Until you, take a hard, and a good look at your policies in the Islamic world and the Muslim world, as long as you’re supporting dictators like Mubarak É as long as you are giving aid to regimes that [are worse] to their people than Saddam Hussein, things will get ugly, and you cannot control the emotion of people when you are tortured in Egyptian prison by an American trained Egyptian officer. He is torturing you, and he is bragging that he was in the United States getting his training, when the equipment that he is using is American made. ”
The founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Kamal Habib (who wrote for the quarterly magazine of the US charity Islamic Assembly of North America) told scholar Fawaz Gerges:
“The prison years also radicalized al-shabab [young men] and set them on another violent journey. The torture left deep physical and psychological scars on jihadists and fueled their thirst for vengeance. Look at my hands — still spotted with the scars from cigarette burns nineteen years later. For days on end we were brutalized — our faces bloodied, our bodies broken with electrical shocks and other devices. The torturers aimed at breaking our souls and brainwashing us. They wanted to humiliate us and force us to betray the closest members of our cells.
I spent sleepless nights listening to the screams of young men echoing from torture chambers. A degrading, dehumanizing experience. I cannot convey to you the rage felt by al-shabab who were tortured after Sadat’s assassination.”
In a videotape that circulated in the summer of 2001, Zawahiri said “In Egypt they put a lot of people in jails — some sentenced to be hanged. And in the Egyptian jails, there is a lot of killing and torture. All this happens under the supervision of America. America has a CIA station as well as an FBI office and a huge embassy in Egypt, and it closely follows what happens in that country. Therefore, America is responsible for everything that happens.”
An August 29, 2001 opinion column on Islamway, the second most read site for english speaking muslims, illustrates that the role of “Leahy Law” was known by educated islamists:
“There is an intolerable contradiction between America’s professed policy of opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, exemplified by the Leahy Law, and the U.S. Congress’ continuing sponsorship of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” The article cited “References: CIFP 2001. “Limitations on Assistance to Security Forces: ‘The Leahy Law’” 4/9/01 (Washington, DC: Center for International Foreign Policy) Center for International Foreign Policy Accessed 8/28/01.Hocksteader, Lee 2001. “The next day, in the same publication, there was an article describing the 21-page document released in Ottawa on August 29, 2001, in which the CSIS claimed that Canadian detainee Jaballah had contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Shehata and sought to deport Jaballah. Shehata was in charge of EIJ’s Civilian Branch and in charge of “special operations.”
“They [Senators Daschle and Leahy] represent something to him,” says James Fitzgerald of the FBI Academy’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. “Whatever agenda he’s operating under, these people meant something to him.” To more fully appreciate why Leahy — a human rights advocate and liberal democrat — might have been targeted as a symbol, it is important to know that Senator Leahy has been the head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. In addition to the Senate majority leader, anthrax was mailed to the position symbolic of the 50 billion in appropriations that has been given to Israel since 1947 (and the equally substantial $2 billion annually in aid that has been keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt and the militant islamists out of power).
Within a couple weeks after September 11, a report in the Washington Post and then throughout the muslim world explained that the President sought a waiver that would allow military assistance to once-shunned nations. The militant islamists who had already been reeling from the extradition of 70 “brothers”, would now be facing much more of the same. President Bush asked Congress for authority to waive all existing restrictions on U.S. military assistance and exports for the next five years to any country where the aid would help the fight against international terrorism. The waiver would include those nations who were currently unable to receive U.S. military aid because of their sponsorship of terrorism (such as Syria and Iran) or because of their nuclear weapons programs (such as Pakistan).
In late September 2001, the Washington Post quoted Leahy: “We all want to be helpful, and I will listen to what they have in mind.” The article noted that he was chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which were considering the legislation. “But we also want to be convinced that what is being proposed is sound, measured and necessary and not merely impulsive,” said Leahy. “Moral leadership in defense of democracy and human rights is vital to what we stand for in the world. Acts of terrorism are violations of human rights. Now is the time to show what sets us apart from those who attack us,” he said.
The options being considered in response to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington included potential cooperation with virtually every Middle Eastern and South and Central Asian nation near Afghanistan. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” would be the only test for foreign aid. The “Leahy Law” plays a key role in the secret “rendering” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al Qaeda) operatives to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria where they are allegedly tortured. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism czar during the Clinton Administration, has quoted Vice-President Gore saying: “Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.” Although humanitarian in its intent, the Leahy Law permits continued appropriations to military and security units who conduct torture in the event of “extraordinary circumstances.”
In an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera television on October 7, 2001 (October 6 in the US) — about when the second letter saying “Death to America’” and “Death to Israel” was mailed — Ayman Zawahiri echoed a familiar refrain sounded by Bin Laden: “O people of the U.S., can you ask yourselves a question: Why all this enmity for the United States and Israel? *** Your government supports the corrupt governments in our countries.”
A month after 9/11, late at night, a charter flight from Cairo touched down at the Baku airport. An Egyptian, arrested by the Azerbaijan authorities on suspicions of having played a part in the September 11 attack, was brought on board. His name was kept secret. That same night the plane set off in the opposite direction. Much of the Amerithrax story has happened at night with no witnesses, with the rendering of University of Karachi microbiology student Saeed Mohammed merely one example. Zawahiri claims that there is a US intelligence bureau inside the headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Investigation Department that receives daily reports on the number of detainees and those detainees that are released. At the time Ayman Zawahiri was getting his biological weapons program in full swing, his own brother Mohammed was picked up in the United Arab Emirates. He was secretly rendered to Egyptian security forces and sentenced to death rendered in the 1999 Albanian returnees case.
Throughout 2001, the Egyptian islamists were wracked by extraditions and renditions. CIA Director Tenet once publicly testified that there had been 70 renditions prior to 9/11. At the same time a Canadian judge was finding that Mahmoud Mahjoub was a member of the Vanguards of Conquest and would be denied bail, Bosnian authorities announced on October 6, 2001 they had handed over three Egyptians to Cairo who had been arrested in July. In Uruguay, a court authorized the extradition to Egypt of a man wanted in Egypt for his alleged role in the 1997 Luxor attack. Ahmed Agiza, the leader of the Vanguards of Conquest (which can be viewed as an offshoot of Jihad), was handed over by Sweden in December 2001.
One islamist, a Hamas supporter, summarized why the anthrax was sent in an ode “To Anthrax” on November 1, 2001: “O, anthrax, despite, your wretchedness, you have sewn horror in the heart of the lady of arrogance, of tyranny, of boastfulness!” In an interview that appeared in the Pakistani paper, Dawn, on November 10, 2001, Bin Laden explained that “The American Congress endorses all government measures, and this proves that .. [all of] America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims.”
At a December 2002 conference held by “Accuracy in Media,” former State Department analyst Kenneth Dillon noted that Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the key component of al Qaeda under Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, head of al Qaeda’s biowarfare program, likely targeted Senator Leahy because of his role as head of a panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had developed the so-called “Leahy Law” in 1998. Dillon explained, “According to the wording of the Leahy Law, the U.S. Government was authorized to ‘render’ suspected foreign nationals to the government of a foreign country, even when there was a possibility that they would be tortured, in ‘exceptional circumstances.’ When the Leahy Law was applied to send EIJ members captured in the Balkans back to Egypt, Zawahiri fiercely denounced the United States. So Leahy was a high-priority target.”
That aid goes to the core of Al Qaeda’s complaint against the United States. (The portion going to Egypt and Israel constituted, by far, the largest portion of US foreign aid, and most of that is for military and security purposes.) Pakistan is a grudging ally in the “war against terrorism” largely due to the US Aid it now receives in exchange for that cooperation. The press in Pakistan newspapers regularly reported on protests arguing that FBI’s reported 12 agents in Pakistan in 2002 were an affront to its sovereignty. There was a tall man, an Urdu-speaking man, and a woman — all chain-smokers — who along with their colleagues were doing very important work in an unsupportive, even hostile, environment. The US agents — whether CIA or FBI or US Army — caused quite a stir in Pakistan along with the Pakistani security and intelligence officials who accompanied them. In mid-March 2003, Washington waived sanctions imposed in 1999 paving the way for release in economic aid to Pakistan. Billions more would be sent to Egypt, Israel and other countries involved in the “war against terrorism.”
The commentators who suggest that Al Qaeda would have had no motivation to send weaponized anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy as symbolic targets — because they are liberal — are mistaken. The main goal of Dr. Zawahiri is to topple President Mubarak. He views the US aid as the chief obstacle and is indifferent to this country’s labels of conservative and liberal.
Zawahiri likely was surprised that the plainly worded message of the letters accompanying the anthrax was not deemed clear. Perhaps the talking heads would not have been so quick to infer an opposite meaning if no message had been expressed using words at all. Perhaps the public the sender had relied only on what KSM describes as the language of war — the death delivered by the letters — the pundits would not have been so misdirected. But why was Al Qaeda evasive on the question of responsibility for the anthrax mailings, dismissing the issue with a snicker, and falsely claiming that Al Qaeda did not know anything about anthrax? Simple. Bin Laden denied responsibility for 9/11 until it was beyond reasonable dispute. On September 16, 2001, he said: “The US is pointing the finger at me but I categorically state that I have not done this. I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance (to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar) which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan.” Before that, Ayman had denied the 1998 embassy bombings too. On August 20, 1998, coincidentally on the day of strikes on camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, Ayman al-Zawahiri contacted The News, a Pakistani English-language daily, and said on behalf of Bin Laden that “Bin Laden calls on Moslem Ummah to continue Jihad against Jews and Americans to liberate their holy places. In the meanwhile, he denies any involvement in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings.” To Ayman, “war is deception.”
The targeted Senators have another connection pertinent to the Egyptian militants. The United States and other countries exchange evidence for counterterrorism cases under the legal framework of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (”MLAT”). Egypt is signatory of such a treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate in late 2000. For example, when the Fall 2001 rendition of Vanguards of Conquest leader Agizah was criticized, the US explained that it was relying on the MLAT. In the prosecution of Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar, the MLAT was described. Sattar’s attorney Michael Tigar, at trial in December 2004 explained: “Now, that might be classified, it’s true, but we have now found out and our research has just revealed that on, that the State Department has reported that it intends to use and relies on the mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Egypt signed May 3, 1998, in Cairo, and finally ratified by the United States Senate on October 18th, 2000. The State Department issued a press report about this treaty on November 29th, 2001 and I have a copy here.” He explained that “Article IV of the treaty provides that requests under the treaty can be made orally as well as under the formal written procedures required by the treaty, that those requests can include requests for testimony, documents, and even for the transfer to the United States É if the treaty conditions are met.”
Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Al-Sirri was a co-defendant in the case against post office worker Sattar. In the late 1990s Sattar and he often spoke in conversations intercepted by the FBI. Al-Sirri’s fellow EIJ cell members in London were subject to process under those treaties at the time of the anthrax mailings. Those London cell members had been responsible for the faxing of the claim of responsibility which stated the motive for the 1998 embassy bombings. A group calling itself the “Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places” took credit for the bombings listing as among their demands “the release of É the Muslims detained in the United State[s] É first and foremost Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the spiritual guide of the Gama’a Islamiya) who is jailed in the United States.” As reason for the bombings, in addition to the rendition recent EIJ members to Cairo and the detention of Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman, the faxes pointed to the detention of dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali . Al-Hawali was the mentor of GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi who spoke in London in August 2001 alongside 911 Imam Awlaki (also from Falls Church) and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips. Al-Timimi was in contact with Saudi sheik Al-Hawali in 2002 and arranged to hand deliver a message to all members of Congress he had drafted in al-Hawali’s name on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailings to Senator Leahy and Daschle.
Michael Scheuer the former chief, Bin Laden Unit, eruditely defended the extraordinary rendition program he had launched at the request of President Clinton and his advisors before Congress in April 2007. There’s always been a huge irony in Michael Scheuer’s emphasis on how OBL is attacking the US for its policies without publicly acknowledging the importance of the rendition policy is to those planning the attacks. For the purpose of true crime analysis, it’s not rendition as a policy or human rights issue — or even a tactical issue — that is the question presented. It is walking in the shoes of your adversary (as expert Scheuer first taught us to do in his wonderful 2002 book). The key is seeing things in terms of what motivates them to act. Sometimes it’s the only way to catch the bad guys — so that you then have the luxury of deciding how well you are going to treat them. How you treat your captives then in turn defines whether the values you have are worth defending. We all should seek to be self-aware and avoid being our own worst enemy.
BTW, did anybody see Lions for Lambs?
These slimes were quite active before we ever did anything to any of them. Get a brain.
I understand now. We just need to throw Israel under the bus and everything will be ok.
No. If you want to defeat terrorism, you ensure that terrorism is devoid of any meaning and that it is regarded as taboo as cannibalism.
Nothing personal, but it is your sentiments are misguided. I appreciate that you spent a great deal of time composing that post, but trying to defeat terrorism by attempting to "understand its roots" is a liberal pipe dream.
Take for example, the beheading of Nicholas Berg. They said that they did it in retaliation for the rape of a woman by a group of American servicemen.
If they didn't have an alleged rape as their self-proclaimed cause to behead over, it would have been the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
If it hadn't been the Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, it would have been Iraq sanctions.
If it hadn't been Iraq sanctions, it would have been Infidels in Saudi Arabia.
If it hadn't been Infidels in Saudi Arabia, it would have been the treatment of the Palestinians.
If it hadn't been the treatment of the Palestinians, it would have been support of Israel.
If it hadn't been support for Israel, it would have been colonial partition of the Middle East.
If it hadn't been the colonial partition of the Middle East, it would have been the Crusades.
If it hadn't been the Crusades, it would be Western Decadence in General.
Bottom line: They don't NEED an excuse to behead a human being. The Islamofacists do it because they are bloodthirsty, goat buggering sons of bitches who do it because they cannot have normal relationships with women.
Any rationale is simply a rationale, and that rationale will change with the day of the week and the direction of the wind. And by taking ANY of those rationales seriously and attempting to "understand" it, you simply lend legitimacy to terrorism. That is PRECISELY what the people who perform acts like beheading people on film or crashing planes into buildings WANT you to do.
The best way to combat terrorism is to ensure that ANYONE involved in it is sure to become a GREASE SPOT with no discussion of the legitimacy of their causes, no sympathy about why they did it, and no delay in that rendering of their corporeal being into an unrecognizable lump of decaying flesh.
Then you write this - “According to the wording of the Leahy Law, the U.S. Government was authorized to ‘render’ suspected foreign nationals to the government of a foreign country, even when there was a possibility that they would be tortured, in ‘exceptional circumstances.’
So what you're telling us is that Leahy is OK with other countries torturing suspects for us (to their deaths if need be) but he's against us (US) using waterboarding because it's torture.
That's big time hypocritical. And Leahy is a big time hypocrite!
You have my vote!
BTTT
I couldn't agree more...and thank you for your post; it sums up the thoughts that are floating around in my head.
Pretending to "understand" why terrorists do what they do ultimately gets turned around into: somehow...it's our fault. terrorists behead someone? our fault. they fly planes into buildings or strap bombs onto their body? our fault.
It's like my 15-yr-old daughter....somehow everything is MY fault. got up late? mom's fault. didn't finish homework? mom's fault.
as if.
I don't care that there are terrorists who get tortured, by America or any other country, and that they feel pain and fear from the torture.
I don't care what their "causes" are, I don't care what their "grievances" are, I don't care about the "oppression" they "suffer" from Western civilization that exists only in their own minds. I don't care about their rage at Israel's existence, I don't care about the "occupation" of "Palestinian land" that is nothing but a fantasy in the medieval Muslim mind since there is no such thing as "Palestinians" and never has been and the only "land" they maybe can lay claim to are the Arab lands they slithered out of and into Israel. I don't care about their rage at our freedoms and way of life, and I don't care that they don't like it when we don't stone to death those they define as whores and infidels.
In fact, I can't say that I care about terrorists at all. I really don't.
I want them all dead, so dead that they almost never existed in the first place. I want them dead, and buried, and no longer a threat to peaceful, freedom-loving people who have progressed beyond the 9th century.
There have always been people like you who sympathize with mass murderers- there always have been and always will be. There were people in the 1930s who marched in the streets demanding that we leave Hitler alone, and there were those of your ilk who, all during the Cold War, demanded that we leave the Communists alone so they could expand into as many nations as possible and murder those who resisted being enslaved. But those people lost because the majority of decent people don't have mushy, love-struck feelings towards those who rampage across the land, murdering and enslaving.
They lost, and the modern-day killer-lovers and sympathizers who sit in freedom and relative safety and who identify with al Queda, and admire them, and support them will lose too.
The train left weeks ago and you are still standing at the station. Nobody cares about terrorists, and nobody cares if they are tortured and killed. Nobody except those living in the alternate universe of liberal leftism.
“Murtha will probably call for an investigation, Kucinich will hail it as “one more reason to impeach”, Pelosi & Reid will call it an example of a “flawed strategy” and a “culture of corruption”, Kennedy will eulogize the terrorist between belts of Famous Grouse, Obama will visit his gravesite “in solidarity”, Rosie O’Donnell will text a screed from her i-phone, Robert Redford and Rob Reiner will begin production on a movie about the man, and Hillary Clinton will put together a focus group to decide what to do!”
Brilliant!!!
You should care about the most effective strategy in winning the war against terrorism.
The wide consensus is that we are losing the war because of major mistakes:
such as not sending enough troops to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora,
invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence,
and not catching the folks responsible for anthrax.
And the reason you should care about the most effective strategy in winning the war against terrorism is that lives are at stake.
To want to kill Bin Laden and Zawahiri — for example — hardly does much good when the US has proved so bad at getting the job done.
The reason to understand your enemy, for example, is that it is necessary for the correct profiling of the anthrax crimes which were always obviously US-based operatives supporting Al Qaeda.
http://www.anthraxanalqaeda.com
Can anyone tell me why pharmaceuticals (like amytal, brevital, I think) aren’t more effective in gaining information?
Most experts report that the information from torture is bad and unreliable.
I know some people that if you gave them a brownie with marijuana they would tell you anything you wanted to know.
Yeah - you and me both. I think my G-A-D is busted.
Yeah, ok, Mr. Paul. It’s our fault. Now can the rest of us go back to thanking God that He has allowed this perso to be removed from our midst and will not be responsible for doing to another person what he did to Mr. Pearl?
BTTT.
Diagnosis: Too much BS news.
Treatment: Put down the NY Times and try reading some REAL news for a change. We are NOT losing the war, and it is only Libs who believe we are.
Understanding your enemy for the purpose of true crime or intelligence analysis is an entirely different thing.
Given the ISI worked closely with Al Qaeda for years, the more important issue is transparency on such issues. The last thing we would want is witnesses who could shed light turning up dead before there is a public accounting.
For example, where is Aafia Siddiqui? She reportedly (according to an Assistant United States Attorney’s statement in court) was willing to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. She was picked up about the same week this guy was. What does Aafia have to say? Where is she? Does ISI have her? And does what she have to say implicate the ISI?
The AUSA’s statement was in connection with the trial of a textile importer’s son. This guy in the WSJ article was in the business of making textiles. The plot (Uzair Paracha) involved smuggling a chemical into the country, apparently to poison a reservoir serving New York City.
I only tried to stem the “rah, rah, yeah he’s dead” type comment because a lot of people follow the anthrax crimes on this board and I think this may be an important story, given that KSM came to be head of the cell weaponizing anthrax for use against US targets and this fellow and his connections might afford a portal to understanding. Given that we want Senator Leahy to catch a clue about who sent him the mailed anthrax, we don’t want to alienate him and his staffers so that they overlook the importance of this development. Folks tend to align their thoughts with their emotion.
Here’s the underlying article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119483721533389766.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Suspect in Pearl Murder Was Held,
Covertly Questioned Before Death
Rights Groups Say Torture
Of Detainee by Pakistan
Likely Led to His Demise
By JAY SOLOMON and STEVE LEVINE
November 12, 2007; Page A3
When I was learning to play golf, after I would shank one into the woods, I would turn to my father and ask what I did wrong. He would always say, “Why do you want to know? Do you want to do it again?”
Sometimes the knowledge of what went wrong does not aid in the solution. One must concentrate on doing it right.
In the case of doing it right, that is not going to entail abandoning the Middle East and the World’s oil supply, it is not going to include regeging on our support of Israel, it is not going to include dismantling US power worldwide, and it is not going to include restoring Spain to the Caliphate. So why should we be concerned too much about what the Muslims want?
Sorry — the guy deserved to die. I just can’t get past that to the other. And I guess I have a hard time wanting to inspect the criminal. It just seems like the only people who get on the “why did he do it” bandwagon are libs, and they will immediately turn around and say “it’s OUR fault.” (of course! *barf*) I’m sorry if I lumped you in with that crown undeservedly.
I guess I should have just stuck to the facts that I find significant:
We have not captured or killed Bin Laden.
We have not captured or killed Zawahiri.
We have not captured or killed the anthrax mailer.
Al Qaeda has more supporters than it did and Al Qaeda now has regular access to the media (something it never did). Zawahiri thinks that at least half the battle is in the media. And so thinking public relations would help. He certainly is.
Had we sent sufficient troops to Tora Bora, we might have avoided much of the mess of the last half decade.
Solving every “crime” is not a prequisite for winning the War on Terror. Making misbehavior so costly that the other side eventually chooses peace is the key. If we rounded up every individual responsible for the Anthrax attacks and 9/11, the war would not be over, much as you might wish that it would be.
Oh — and as for your assertion that we are “losing this war” I stand firm. That’s pure BS handfed by the enemedia. They did it in Vietnam, when Uncle Walter tore his glasses off his face and opined “what the hell is going on over there?” and they are trying to do it again. He was referring to the Tet offensive. According to accounts by the NVA Gen. Giap, the bad guys were preparing to surrender. Then they heard what our MEDIA and the PROTESTERS were doing in OUR COUNTRY and they got a second wind. Let me restate — in 1968 after the Tet Offensive the bad guys were ready to GIVE UP, but OUR MEDIA gave them the hope to keep going. Please, do not aid and abet the enemedia in THIS war by continuing the LIE that we are losing.
The most effective strategy to win the war against terrorism is to kill as many terrorists as we can, before they kill us, not worry about their "rights" (that are bestowed upon them by leftists), or worry about "what kind of a nation" it makes us by killing terrorists before they can carry out another 9/11 or, this time, wipe out an entire city with a suitcase nuke.
Bottom line: if they're dead, they can't kill us and they can't commit terrorism. It's not nuanced, and it's not deep, but it works.
such as not sending enough troops to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora...
I have seen no conclusive proof, since December, 2001 when the attack on Tora Bora was carried out, that Osama bin Laden is still alive. And pieced-together videos, made with someone about whom the argument can be made very convincingly that he is a stand-in for bin Laden posing as bin Laden, don't count.
And I believe that it's not outside the realm of possibility that the feds know bin Laden is dead but won't say it out loud because all the idiots out there who had eight years worth of chances with their Caligula president to fight terrorism and did nothing, will be crowing that since bin Laden is dead, the war on terror is over and we can quit.
If he is dead, which I firmly believe that he is, there will be no official acknowledgment of that fact for years.
invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence
You'll have to do better than that. That is an long-discredited, leftist talking point that, when dissected, reveals that the "faulty intelligence" was believed to be true by many foreign governments, democrats in the congress as far back as 1998, the UN, and, gasp, choke, the Clinton administration!!!!
You libs are upset that President Bush acted on the intelligence and took the fight to the terrorists instead of assuming a fetal position in a corner like your boy did and letting al Queda continue to slaughter innocent Americans and I understand how you feel, but the reality is that a Republican acted to protect Americans and democrats did not. And they never, ever will.
You're PO'd that there is now a clear line of distinction between how democrats deal with terrorism, which gives birth to more and more killings, and how Republicans deal with terrorism, which results in dead terrorists and no attacks for six years. And what's worse for democrats, Americans who will be voting for the next president in 2008 have lived to see that distinction.
and not catching the folks responsible for anthrax.
And how do you know that? Do you have some "intelligence" that nobody else has, that very well could be "faulty", that the "folks responsible for anthrax" are alive and well?
We've killed thousands of terrorists. How do you know that the "folks responsible for anthrax" aren't dead? How do you know they haven't been caught? Where do you get your information? The DailyKos?
And the reason you should care about the most effective strategy in winning the war against terrorism is that lives are at stake.
We tried it your way: protecting terrorists' "rights" to be left alone to grow in number and commit more and more murder; refusing to take custody of bin Laden when we had three chances to because "there wasn't enough evidence"; treating terrorist acts of war like the first World Trade Center attack as mere acts of common criminals; of erecting a wall of separation between the FBI and intelligence agencies to prevent them from sharing information on terrorists in the country- the list of failures of your party goes on and on and on.
The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If your girl Hillary wins the White House, we'll go back to the failed, terrorist-rewarding "strategy" of leaving them strictly alone. In the meantime, we'll continue to hunt them down and kill them, and, much to your dismay, listen in on their phone conversations.
To want to kill Bin Laden and Zawahiri — for example — hardly does much good when the US has proved so bad at getting the job done.
Again, you can offer no proof that bin Laden is alive. And repeating a leftist talking point is not the same as stating a fact.
That leads me to my previous point: not only did your boy's failures to deal with terrorism in a serious, realistic way lead to 9/11, but he had three chances to take bin Laden and refused each time.
You people can never escape that fact. You can try to rewrite history until a new world is built, and it won't change a thing. I can pretty much guarantee you that if any Republican president had the opportunity to take custody of a terrorist, he would certainly not refuse that chance.
Your boy's criminal negligence that resulted in the deaths of 3000 innocent American citizens is the legacy of the Clinton administration. And there is no escape from that fact for you and everyone who thinks like you.
The reason to understand your enemy, for example, is that it is necessary for the correct profiling of the anthrax crimes which were always obviously US-based operatives supporting Al Qaeda.
I already understand al Queda and I want them dead. End of story.
Politics are immaterial to me.
I just want anthrax solved.
And politics has only served to undermine that goal.
Liberals are seriously confused on the subject and intemperate comments by busy surfing Freepers on the subject only encourage them to remain so.
Bottom-line: what is at stake is an aerosolized anthrax attack on NYC and DC that would change the course of Western Civilization. So some serious analysis is required. Not bullshit like Ed spews about how it is a FACT that a first grader wrote the letters. Not liberal politically-motivated garbage like how a biodefense insider like Hatfill was trying to sound an alarm. Indeed, the theory was invented and first publicized by a lawyer/professor working for militant clients abroad. And we don’t need garbage “lone-wolf” profiling such as came out of the FBI’s Quantico from people who apparently did not know jack about religious fundamentalism or the the open source intelligence about Zawahiri’s anthrax weaponization program or the US-based infrastructure supporting the Salafist jihadis.
What is needed is just well-researched analysis that demonstrates that the anthrax letters were intended as a threat and warning — by religious zealots who deemed that the koran required a warning and public relations-minded tactitians like Zawahiri who wanted to win the support of muslims worldwide.
Only if we catch the anthrax operatives will be be able to best ensure that the threat is neutralized. Which is what every true patriotic American should want. And while I wouldn’t ever let my daughter marry a Freeper, I know you all to be patriotic.
Suggestions?
I hope it was IMMEDIATELY (as in an interrogation-ending fatal event) after a particularly painful round of questioning.
It may be unChristian, but I hope he died in serious pain.
Giovanna thinks Bin Laden is dead.
The more debatable question is whether Midhat Mursi is dead. He was their biochem fellow. Thought to have been killed at a dinner meeting Ayman was expected to attend. But recently the Washington Post reported matter-of-factly (and with no fanfare) that the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.
So while I’m not going to debate the evidence that Bin Laden is alive, I do agree that war is deception. Usually, one of the greatest sources of deception is self-deception.
Well, you and the rest of the American Liberal/Socialist Empire would certainly know all about self-deception.
And, just FYI, the only people with whom the Washington Post has any credibility are liberals. So the next time you want to make reference to that rag, remember that that they, along with the New York Times and the LA Times, are the official Gospels of the Liberal Alternate Universe.
Talk about self-deception. The Washington Post???? You're kidding, right?
Yes, the wide consensus of the liberal, anti-Amherican moonbats. And where, perchance, do you place your banner, Pooksie?
You are wasting your time asking this “person” to give aid to the enemy. It is obvious whose side he/she is really on.
Let Ted Kennedy take him out at night for a coupla rounds of drinks and then a dip IN the drink. He’ll be drown and the Democrats will never mention it again.
Are these guys named Memon, both associated with anthrax, related? Is the guy from the 2005 story a son or nephew?
“During a raid on Jamil’s hideout in Swat, Mr Wazir said, police found a computer hard disc that contained information about poisonous chemical agent anthrax and on making dirty bombs.”
http://www.dawn.com/2005/01/18/top3.htm
18 January 2005 Tuesday 07 Zilhaj 1425
Man involved in failed attack on Musharraf held in Swat
By Ismail Khan
Whoops!
The war has been “screwed” by the Chomsky-types who spout that we went into Iraq to broaden the American “empire”, language that has assured an unfriendly welcome.
So we’ve had to tie a hand behind our backs and make assurances that we aren’t going to run things or even establish things, just monitor and guide and pull out sometime.
Still wondering when we will leave Germany, Japan, Korea, Bosnia...
We didn’t capture Adolph Hitler either. And there were prominent Nazis who elluded capture as well. It didn’t mean that the war never ended.
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