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How strangeMona Charen (archive) June 17, 2003 | Print | SendIsn't it strange that the very same people who were prepared to give the United Nations weapons inspectors months and even years to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are screaming after just a few weeks that our failure to discover them is proof of a hoax? And isn't it amazing that the very same people who believe Saddam never had weapons of mass destruction also believe that Hillary found out the truth about Monica only two days before Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony? And isn't it odd that...

Federal agents raided a Boston-area computer software firm looking for evidence that the company, which does business with key government agencies including the FBI, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Naval Air Systems, has links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. Ptech CEO Oussama Ziade The Quincy, Mass., firm, Ptech, makes software and is allegedly secretly owned by Qassin al-Kadi, one of 12 Saudi businessmen accused of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaida. U.S. government investigators told ABC News there are fears al-Qaida may have had access to some...

SAUDI Arabia is the al-Qaeda terror network’s main financier but the kingdom’s rulers have deliberately turned a blind eye to the problem, a report released yesterday said. The report, from the influential New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, also criticises the US for failing to confront Riyadh over its terror links. It says that the House of Saud has tolerated millions of dollars a year being raised for al-Qaeda inside the kingdom. “It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official US government spokespersons have not,” the report states. “For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been...

Middle East THE ROVING EYE Part 1: The Saudi equation DUBAI - There are few more privileged places to gauge popular opinion on the American jihad against Iraq than this gargantuan emporium - one of the world's definitive crossroads. Lebanese still dream of their golden days, but after the devastating Lebanese civil war, it was Dubai that eventually prevailed as the late 20th century, and now 21st century, high-tech equivalent of Venice in the 15th, or Amsterdam in the 17th. Fly and buy. Anything. Universal commerce. A WTO dream come true. This is a vortex that feeds a much larger...

The New Appeasement By Monu Nalapat   07/23/2002 The Asian Wall Street Journal A7 (Copyright (c) 2002, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)     In the late 1920s and early 1930s, few took Adolf Hitler's words seriously. Today, few of the several thousand sermons, speeches and writings of the Wahhabite extremists -- a worldwide network of religious schools and places of worship funded by the House of Saud -- who fuel the international terrorist movement are even known to most people. Even among those who do read or understand Arabic, most prefer to look away, to call the sermons...

Totalitarian regimes in the Middle East have targeted the United States with a well-financed influence campaign that is being rooted in American politics. Veteran watchers of the "active-measures" programs of the former Soviet Union say this Islamist propaganda offensive bears an uncanny resemblance to the old Soviet international front operations and the broad parade of fellow travelers who used themes of peace, tolerance and civil liberties to advance Soviet strategic goals by weakening the United States at home and abroad. "Active measures" is a translation of aktivniye meropriyatya, a term of KGB tradecraft that spans the covert-action spectrum from disinformation...