Posted on 08/25/2007 2:26:58 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Lowry: The CIA's record leading up to Sept. 11 was one of failure By Rich Lowry Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 09:07:06 AM MDT
The new report from the CIA's inspector general about the spy agency's pre-9/11 failings could be titled, ''What We Did During Our Holiday From History.'' The stretch between the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks was supposed to be a shiny new era of globalized peace and prosperity, to which an intelligence service was considered quaintly irrelevant.
The CIA conformed to the zeitgeist by remaining quaintly irrelevant. George Tenet presided over the agency, failing his way to the second-longest tenure of any director of central intelligence, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a $4 million book advance. He made the Peter Principle work for him not just by advancing to his level of incompetence, but by benefiting from it handsomely.
Congressional Democrats pushed for the release of the scathing IG report, completed back in June 2005, to embarrass the Bush administration. But most of the failures identified in the report took place during the Clinton administration, which set the CIA's skewed priorities and selected Tenet in the first place. President Bush should be embarrassed only because he didn't fire Tenet upon taking office or after 9/11, while Bush also has failed to undertake a serious retooling of the sclerotic bureaucracy that is the CIA.
Tenet took terrorism seriously, ''sounding the alarm about the threat to many different audiences,'' in the words of the report. Maybe he should have gone on a lecture tour. Where Tenet fell down was in managing his agency. The thought may be father to the deed, but without the actual deed, the thought is only political cover in after-the-fact memoirs.
Tenet insists that he had a ''robust plan'' against al-Qaida. In reality, he only thought he had. He directed that such a plan be formulated, but according to the IG report, it never happened. Worse, Tenet did not ''work with the National Security Council to elevate the relative standing of counterterrorism in the formal ranking of intelligence priorities.''
In Tenet's defense, he operated within the context of a Clinton administration that basically was uninterested in intelligence. Tenet notes that the intelligence community lost 25 percent of its personnel in the 1990s and ''tens of billions of dollars in investment compared with the 1990 baseline.'' He implored the administration for funding increases in 1998 and 1999, but had to go ''outside established channels to work with then-Speaker Gingrich to obtain a $1.2 billion budgetary supplemental.''
Even with more resources, his managers repeatedly moved funds from counterterrorism programs to other needs, without ever raiding other programs to fund counterterrorism, according to the IG report. What could be more important than counterterrorism? Analytic resources were poured into addressing more pressing matters like the Balkans and the environment.
After 9/11, Clinton officials and Tenet argued whether the CIA had been granted the authority to kill Osama bin Laden, with the Clintonites, in a bout of retrospective bloodlust, insisting that it had. The IG report finds that restrictions on the CIA killing bin Laden had been ''arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed'' for a brief period in late 1998 and early 1999 (how Clintonian). But CIA managers refused ''to take advantage of the ambiguities,'' and even if they had, the agency didn't have the covert-action capability to kill bin Laden. Such was life during history's holiday.
What's more scandalous is how the CIA has escaped serious reform even today. Two CIA directors in a row have resisted the IG report's recommendation for an accountability board to evaluate the pre-9/11 performance of CIA officials. That word - not ''board,'' but ''accountability'' - raises hackles at Langley, where everyone is above-average at fighting al-Qaida. Even though as many as 60 CIA employees knew that two of the hijackers were in the U.S. before 9/11 and no one managed to get the word to the FBI, CIA Director Michael Hayden thinks holding anyone accountable for that or other failures would be ''distracting.'' And so the band plays on.
http://traces-cl.com/june04/terroristnihil.html
Greats interviews
Terrorist Nihilism and the Crisis of the West
The terrorist attacks on Atocha and the Twin Towers and the affirmation that values and truth no longer exist: symptoms of a disintegration of the “I,” of a nihilism that pervades all of society and sends it into crisis. West against West? We talked about this with one of today’s most authoritative intellectuals
edited by José Luis Restán e David Blázquez
The fundamental thesis of your thought lately is that terrorism is challenging the Western world, the free and democratic world. More precisely, it is nihilism’s challenge to civilization. The menace surrounding us is something multiform, not describable in definitive terms and hard to name, whose source of action is what you call nihilism. What is the nihilism that you posit as the origin of modern terrorism and that we saw in its radical form in the March 11th attack?
Terrorist nihilism is not a product of Islam, and it is not this simply because it is a modern product and because the murderers kill, first and foremost, Muslims themselves. I have followed terrorism in Algeria closely, and the victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslim children, peasants, and women. Precisely for this reason, I do not want to reduce the problem of terrorism to something that is born solely out of the Islamic world. In my opinion, nihilist terrorism is above all a war against civilians. And this war was already going on in the twentieth century in the totalitarian regimes that set themselves up in order to terrorize people. The cry that arises from Manhattan, the cry that arises from the murderers in Atocha–“Long live death”–is, after all, equal to the statement they wrote right after the attacks: “You love life, we love death.”
The new thing about this terrorism is that it has been transformed into a world phenomenon. This nihilist terrorism was first described by Dostoevsky in his novel Demons. In it he describes a terrorist group made up of very different people, each with his own beliefs. Some believed in God, others declared He was dead, those beyond them believed in the great Russia, and those even farther along did not believe in anything, but they all had in common the will to destroy and pleasure in destruction. And it is precisely this that makes up nihilism. Nihilism cannot be only love for God, because one can be nihilist and believe in God (this is Bin Laden’s position), or not believe in anything, or believe in race (like the Nazis or Bolsheviks). Whatever the case, what characterizes nihilism is that it does not consider it evil to do evil. Nihilism does not place itself beyond good and evil, but thinks that everything it does is good. Indeed, Bin Laden thinks he is an envoy of God. But one can also be atheist and thus, even without realizing it, one becomes God, because, as Dostoevsky said, “If God is dead, all is permitted.” The problem, then, is not that of believing or not believing in God, but evil. The problem is that for nihilism there is no evil, all is permitted, there are no taboos. You can murder anyone, in any way. Remember Atocha: they were workers from poor neighborhoods, all of them against the war in Iraq, but this did not stop the terrorists’ attack.
What I call nihilism is the capacity to destroy and to generate terror just for the pleasure of destroying and of generating fear.
In Europe, there are many intellectuals who lately have proclaimed a radical relativism, i.e., a break with the bonds of traditional society. Many of them state that neither truth nor falsehood exist, but everything is relative: a radical cynicism. It is true that these intellectuals are not in favor of terrorism, but by doing this, a cultural and moral base is being cultivated that is incapable of standing up to the challenge of terrorism, isn’t it?
There are two forms of nihilism, Nietzsche said. On one hand, there is the active form of nihilism that tends to destroy, that enjoys destruction, that shouts “Long live death!” On the other, there is passive nihilism, the kind that lets the terrorists shout, that lets the cry of “Long live death!” ring out, that lets populations be destroyed. This passive nihilism is widespread in Europe. Thus, there is a European–but also American–crisis, and when I say that the West is against the West, I say this because I really think there is a crisis of civilization.
Let me recall here that Bin Laden asked Europeans to accept the terrorist power of the Muslims without opposing Islam by withdrawing their troops from Iraq. To my mind, the problem is that if we start to give in to this blackmail, we end up yielding all the way. Here arises the problem of Islamic veils in school, but not only this. Bin Laden is demanding a part of Spain (Al-Andalus) that belonged to a caliph of Baghdad centuries ago. Passive nihilism, which I tried to express in the title of my latest book [West Against West], is not just the opposition between Europe and America—Europe is divided, each person is divided in his conscience. There is a great division within the West, a profound, philosophical division. This is nothing new: all happy civilizations–and we, in the midst of all our difficulties, are the happiest in the world–have wanted to believe that their happiness was eternal, but happiness is always threatened. What characterizes the West ever since ancient Greece is the capacity to fight whoever threatens our happiness.
In your book, you say that Europe is no longer able to say “I;” it no longer knows who it is. You also say that the European institutions do nothing more than manage a conceptual desert. But it seems that among politicians and intellectuals, there is not a clear intention to want to define what Europe is, to want to acknowledge their own tradition and roots. Can the future of the European Union be built on the basis of the person, setting aside this identity that pertains to Europe?
I believe that Europe’s problem now is that it is not able to evaluate the evil that surrounds it and the disasters that can occur. It is precisely for this reason that we are amazed by events like what happened at Atocha, just as the Americans were struck dumb by the attack on Manhattan. This consciousness of disaster in common is what can unite Western civilization, not a shared conception of God or Paradise.
Even if this has been the case and there has not been unity, as you have said, what is true is that there were shared traditions, common experience. But now, the impression I have is that the individual is radically isolated, as though the elements of society that transmitted tradition and the value of the world (from the family to religious communities) no longer existed and the social fabric were weaker and weaker. Is this situation a solid base for being able to fight against the great challenge of terrorist nihilism?
Ever since the Greeks, Europe has not been built on a solid social fabric. Go read Plato’s dialogues, and you will see the Greeks’ problems: adolescents who said what Mom and Dad had told them. We see this in Plato’s dialogues in ancient Greece five centuries before Christ. The crisis of the social fabric exists not only in modern times, but since the beginning of the West, and, quite rightly, the capacity of Western culture to face this crisis is what has kept it united.
The alternative is this: to face this crisis or to sleep serenely, pretending not to see the problems. The capacity to face the challenges of the current situation is the most important thing about Europe (as we can see in the Greek tragedies, in Homer…). But, on the other hand, the greatest mistake is to close one’s eyes in front of the world.
During World War II, in 1938 and 1939, France lived in a peaceful, idyllic world and sang a popular song that said: “Everything is going very well!” And when the Third Reich fell, Europe and American sang: “The big battles are over! Violence is no more. There are only small conflicts, low-level conflicts.” During the ten years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the terrible “success” in Manhattan, American intellectuals said: “We are living the end of conflicts.” And it was not true. I have always said that letting women be killed in Afghanistan, leaving their dictators in place, was not only a problem of the people of Afghanistan, but also of the Americans of Manhattan.
How do you judge the phenomenon of the pacifism that has invaded our European cities since the US intervention in Iraq?
I have been very critical of pacifism for a number of years. I started by criticizing the German pacifists when they took to the streets to manifest against American missiles, against the missiles that were defending us from the Soviet missiles. The expression “Make tea, but not war” is entertaining, but totally useless. Making tea is good for the digestion, but it does not solve the problems. The pacifists are not true pacifists; if they were true pacifists, they would not have risen up against the intervention in Iraq, forgetting to protest the worst of wars that a particularly important power, which is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Russia, is building up against the Chechen people. Where were the pacifists when Grozny was destroyed? Where are they when a people like the Chechen one is threatened? To be sure, the Chechen population is not huge, at the most a million people, but is this any reason not to ask for peace in Chechnya? The fundamental reason why people fill the streets for peace in Iraq, but not for a people that is close to destruction, is that in one case they would have to take to the streets against Putin, but no one is interested in demonstrating against Putin, and in the other case they have to demonstrate against Bush. The pacifists are not pacifists, but anti-American and anti-Bush.
I do not understand how we can accept not defending the Chechen people, when everyone declares himself to be a “friend of peace.” There is a great hypocrisy and great irresponsibility on the part of the demonstrators who say they are pacifists. This is nothing new–there were pacifist demonstrations in 1947 in favor of the Communists and against nuclear weapons (because, at that moment, only the United States had them), but from the moment when Stalin also had his nuclear armament, nobody remembered to demonstrate until the 1980s. The idea that pacifism claims to be an absolute truth should already be reason enough not to trust it. I have always asked the pacifists why they did not demonstrate against the war in Chechnya, but I never got an answer, while the Chechen people is destroyed in the most complete silence.
Let’s go back one step. You cited as a characteristic of European history the subjecting of everything to criticism. But criticism is always sustained on a previous point, i.e., on the fact that there was a tradition that was put up for discussion. But there is a core of certainties that has always been untouchable: the idea that killing is evil, the idea that what happens in the Congo has to do with me in Madrid. I have the impression that an educational cultural effort that generates this type of conscience does not exist. I would like to ask, from where do we start today? Where can we find the energy to stand up to a challenge like this one, if there is nothing positive from which to start?
I believe that Europe has always united “against” and not “in favor of”–but, for example, when someone fights an illness, it is because he has some idea what health is. Being in a democracy means living in the regime that is least bad of them all, but it does not mean living in Paradise, because democracy is what enables us to fight against certain ills, against oppression. But good is relative to evil. Doctors do not know what perfect health is. When one wants perfect health, he is not a physician but a charlatan. In my opinion, it is the same thing in politics and philosophy; we have an idea of what is false. Even if we do not have an idea of what eternal life is like, we know that two plus two is not five, we have some idea of evil, we know that concentration camps are an absolute evil, and thus we have points on which we can come together and define a life that is less bad. The wisdom of the West is this.
I am less positive than you are, because I do not think that we lost the roots and idea of good ten or twenty years ago. It is sufficient to see that the stage on which the greatest massacres of the twentieth century were perpetrated is Europe. Hitler was born in Europe, as was Communism with its millions of dead, and so we are not innocent, we are not angels, we fought wars of religion long before Islam, we were capable of genocide long before the rest of the world. Indeed, the idea of genocide is already there in Greek literature, in the Odyssey and the Iliad, in which the city of Troy is destroyed. The worst of evils is that of closing one’s eyes in front of the evil we commit and that we are able to think up.
Shakespeare does not tell us that the whole world is good and has grand intentions; he does not tell us that all we have to do is drink tea for violence to disappear. Shakespeare analyzes the roots of violent behavior: envy, malice… This is culture: to open our eyes even when it hurts. And to my mind, this is what is missing today. We are full of good intentions, we have grand ideas about our innocence, but we have left free room in the world for great crimes to be committed, while we were celebrating the end of wars and the reign of reason. Neither the UN nor the United States nor Europe intervened in the last great genocide of the twentieth century: Rwanda. There, for three months, 10,000 Tutsis were killed every day; in other words, a million in three months. Thus, we cannot declare ourselves innocent, but must open our eyes to our own complicity.
We are facing one of the most important moments in history. Reflect on this: immediately after the attacks on the Twin Towers, people called the site Ground Zero. This was the term used to refer to the place where the atom bombs dropped before Hiroshima exploded. People, seeing the attacks of September 11th, felt they were facing a power of devastation analogous to that of the H-bombs. In 1945, men discovered that history could end, that man could come to an end with his existence. Before that time, only God’s power could put an end to mankind, but it was inconceivable that man himself could put an end to the human adventure. In 1945, a great responsibility was born for the country that had the H-bomb. We discovered from Manhattan that the power of devastation and the will for evil are much more widespread than we thought. There is no longer a monopoly in the hands of nations with nuclear capabilities. The power of the nuclear bomb is in the hands of the first madman passing by. What happened at Hiroshima can happen again. Atocha would have been much worse if the trains had not been late. About 10,000 people could have died. There is a great power of destruction in the hands of empty-headed people who can kill cheaply, because we must not forget that the attacks on the Twin Towers cost roughly the price of two apartments in Madrid. Now we are much more responsible than we were before. I do not say we should be optimists or pessimists; what I am saying is that we have to be much more responsible.
We have gone from the era of the nuclear bomb, the H-bomb, to the human bomb, the h-bomb.
The temptation is to avert our gaze and to try to live happily as though nothing had happened, but when one yields to this temptation, reality comes crashing in as at the Twin Towers or Atocha. We have to be sentinels to danger. Biography
by Benedetta Villani
André Glucksmann was born on June 19, 1937, in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. He studied in Lyon and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Saint Cloud, earning a degree in philosophy. He is currently one of the most famous intellectuals and polemicists of our time. In the 1970s he was a protagonist of the debate initiated by the nouveaux philosophes, along with Bernard Henri Lévy and Alain Finkielkraut. During the 1980s he was a precise and attentive commentator on political change in Eastern Europe.
He has long been committed to the causes of the Soviet dissidents, the Vietnamese boat-people, and, more recently, the Chechens.
For some years, he has devoted his attention to analyzing the international social-political situation in light of the new events connected with Islamic terrorism. Works
by B.V.
Glucksmann published his first book (Le Discours de la Guerre) [The Discourse of War] in 1968, but his reputation grew on the basis of two essays, La Cuisinière et le Mangeur [The Cook and the Eater] (1975), in which he drew a parallel between Nazism and Communism, and Les Maîtres Penseurs [The Master Thinkers] (1977). Among his most recent books are Le Bien et le Mal [Good and Evil] (1997) and the Troisième Mort de Dieu [The Thirteenth Death of God] (2000).
Posted by Orrin Judd at 7:41 AM
FULL FORCE DEMAND:
A match made in October (Luke Pyenson, October 10, 2007, Boston Globe)
Cider doughnuts are a well-known accompaniment to apple cider, but nobody knows exactly when and why the two were first eaten together. According to the “King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion,” recipes for beignets, a kind of high-class fried dough, came here from France and Holland during Colonial times. Autumn was the time for fall butchering, and so it was the only season when there was enough fat available to fry things. As a result, doughnuts became an autumnal treat in the Northeast. In many homes, “cake” doughnuts - made with baking powder or baking soda instead of yeast - would be fried in fat rendered after the slaughter. This coincided with the season for apple cider production, and the two seemed to be a natural pairing. Whether someone spilled cider into the doughnut mix accidentally or purposely wasn’t recorded. But there is actually apple cider in the batter for cider donuts. In fact, it’s often the main liquid.
“That’s what makes them so yummy!” says Honey-Pot Hill Orchards co-owner Julie Martin Sullivan. The Stow orchard uses its own cider in the batter, which is a secret recipe. The doughnuts are about one-third the size of regular doughnuts and come plain or covered in cinnamon sugar. Half-dozen bags come with three of each, but be careful. Their size makes it dangerously easy to unknowingly consume several. Outside they’re crispy and inside they’re dense; they’re best right out of the fryolator and washed down with, or even dipped into, Honey-Pot Hill’s apple cider, which is for sale in individual-serving cartons.
“Sometimes on the weekends the demand is full force and there’s a bit of a wait,” says Martin Sullivan. But don’t worry, “We keep making them.”
Rich Rounds Of Cider, No Less (Kara Newman, 10/06/04, The Washington Post)
Apple Cider Doughnuts
Makes 18 doughnuts
and doughnut holes
These apple cider doughnuts — dense, richly spiced and with a faint taste of buttermilk — are adapted from a recipe by pastry chef Lauren Dawson from Hearth restaurant in New York City’s East Village. Hearth serves the doughnuts with applesauce and whipped cream.
For the doughnuts:
1 cup apple cider
3 1/2 cups flour, plus additional for the work surface
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk (low-fat or nonfat work fine)
Vegetable oil for frying
For the glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider
For the doughnuts: In a saucepan over medium or medium-low heat, gently reduce the apple cider to about 1/4 cup, 20 to 30 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed (with the paddle attachment, if using a standing mixer) beat the butter and granulated sugar until the mixture is smooth. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and continue to beat until the eggs are completely incorporated. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the reduced apple cider and the buttermilk, mixing just until combined. Add the flour mixture and continue to mix just until the dough comes together.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or wax paper and sprinkle them generously with flour. Turn the dough onto 1 of the sheets and sprinkle the top with flour. Flatten the dough with your hands until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Use more flour if the dough is still wet. Transfer the dough to the freezer until it is slightly hardened, about 20 minutes. Pull the dough out of the freezer. Using a 3-inch doughnut cutter, cut out doughnut shapes. Place the cut doughnuts and doughnut holes onto the second sheet pan. Refrigerate the doughnuts for 20 to 30 minutes. (You may re-roll the scraps of dough, refrigerate them briefly and cut additional doughnuts from the dough.)
Add enough oil to a deep-sided pan to measure a depth of about 3 inches. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan and heat over medium heat until the oil reaches 350 degrees. Have ready a plate lined with several thicknesses of paper towels.
For the glaze: While the cut doughnut shapes are in the refrigerator, make the glaze by whisking together the confectioners’ sugar and the cider until the mixture is smooth. Set aside.
To fry and assemble: Carefully add a few doughnuts to the oil, being careful not to crowd the pan, and fry until golden brown, about 60 seconds. Turn the doughnuts over and fry until the other side is golden, 30 to 60 seconds. Drain on paper towels after the doughnuts are fried. Dip the top of the warm doughnuts into the glaze and serve immediately.
THE CLANNISHNESS OF DYING PEOPLES:
A Portrait of Europe’s Aging Population: EU residents over age 65 outnumber those under 14, a Spanish study says, as the bloc’s young population has fallen 21% in 25 years (Elitsa Vucheva, 10/09/07, Business Week)
There are currently more elderly people than children living in the EU, as Europe’s young population has decreased by 21 percent - or 23 million — in 25 years, 10 percent of which in the last ten years alone.
Only 16.2 percent of today’s EU population is less than 14 years old, while one sixth (16.6 percent) is 65 years or more. In addition one out of every 25 EU citizens is over 80 years old.
Italy has the least young people (14.2%) and one out of every five Italians is more than 65 years old. At the other end of the scale, Ireland has the most youngsters (20.7%), according to a recently-released report by the Institute for Family Policies based in Spain.
However, the decrease in numbers has been greatest in Spain, where the young population has diminished by 44% in the 1990 to 2005 period.
Despite these figures, the EU population has grown by 8.2% over the last 27 years, now reaching almost 500 million.
This paradox can mostly be explained by an ever increasing number of immigrants coming to the EU. Last year alone, 75% of the population growth was the result of immigration flows, says the report.
Bickering Belgians Find a Point of Unity in Toughening Borders (DAN BILEFSKY, 10/09/07, NY Times)
[S]igns of a breakthrough in the talks emerged Tuesday morning when the Christian Democrats and Liberals temporarily put aside their differences and agreed on a tough new approach to asylum policy and economic migration.
Political analysts stressed that the crisis was far from over with the important issue of how to grant more autonomy to Flanders and Wallonia still hanging in the balance. They underlined, however, that the deal illustrated how immigration had become a unifying issue in the country.
“A toughening stance on immigration has overtaken politics in Belgium and made immigration a swing issue, and we are seeing this across Europe,” said Pierre Blaise, secretary general of Crisp, a sociopolitical research organization in Brussels.
Note the irony that we’re trying to break tribalism in the pre-Judeo-Christian Middle East even as post-Judeo-Christian Europe reverts to it.
Posted by Orrin Judd at 6:58 AM
CONNECT THE DOTS?:
From Washington to war in Waziristan (Syed Saleem Shahzad, 10/11/07, Asia Times)
A dramatic sequence of events in Pakistan has grabbed global attention, but few have so far connected the dots between the hurried issuance of a National Reconciliation Ordinance on October 5 and the savage fighting that is currently raging in the North Waziristan tribal area. [...]
While last week’s political machinations were under way in Pakistan, the US was providing intelligence to Islamabad about a massive regrouping of the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas in preparation for a big campaign against NATO forces in southeast Afghanistan. The US feared that a disruption of the political dialogue would mean a hiatus in Pakistan’s political transition, and delay military operations against the thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces gathering in North Waziristan before launching attacks on the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Gardez and Ghazni, and then Kabul with unending waves of suicide missions. If the Taliban were allowed to hatch their plans unmolested during a political vacuum in Islamabad, Washington believed the Taliban would seize the upper hand in Afghanistan.
That was the situation when a representative of the US spoke to Bhutto and noted her minimum demand for a political deal: “At least a signed letter by General Pervez Musharraf which would document his promises against my demands.” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice then spoke to Musharraf by telephone, and immediately thereafter, Musharraf’s legal team promulgated the National Reconciliation Ordinance.
Waziristan is the dot.
MORE:
Al-Qaeda has built safe haven in Pak tribal areas: US (Sridhar Krishnaswami, October 10, 2007, Rediff)
Al-Qaeda has regenerated a ‘safe haven’ in Pakistan’s tribal area, the latest United States policy document has stated. A top American official has also blamed the failure of a peace agreement in the Afghan border area for the terror network regaining its strength there.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the US-led war on terror has deprived al-Qaeda of its safe haven in Afghanistan, said the new ‘National Strategy for Homeland Security.
“But the group has protected its top leadership, replenished operational lieutenants, and regenerated a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas —core capabilities that will help facilitate another attack on the homeland,” the White House document said.
Comments (1)
Posted by Orrin Judd at 12:00 AM
LIKE SEEKS LIKE:
Brothel Sponsors Italian Soccer Team (Der Spiegel, 10/10/07)
The Italian fourth-division soccer team Trento Calcio 1921 has stepped into the reddish spotlight for having a sponsorship deal with an Austrian brothel.
The team, which is based in Trento in northern Italy, displayed the company Casa Bianca at the top of its list of sponsors, which also include local restaurants and an electrical goods retailer, on its official Web site. However visitors who clicked on Casa Bianca’s innocuous white rose icon found themselves taken to a Web site for a brothel.
[LOL, bet you read it twice........granny]
Posted by Orrin Judd at 12:00 AM
THERE IS NO LEBANON:
Hizbollah and the Lebanese Crisis (International Crisis Group, 10 October 2007 )
Looking back over the past ten months, Lebanese can feel somewhat relieved. The massive demonstrations in December 2006, followed by a general strike and clashes between pro- and anti-government forces with strong sectarian overtones, as well as a series of assassinations and car bombs, brought the nation perilously close to breakdown. State institutions are virtually paralysed; the government barely governs; the economic crisis is deepening; mediation efforts have failed; political murders continue; and militias, anticipating possible renewed conflict, are rearming. Still, fearful of the consequences of their own actions, leaders of virtually every shade took a welcome step back.
An important explanation lies in Hizbollah’s realisation that its efforts to bring down the government carried dangerous consequences. Facing calls for its disarmament and denunciations of its (allegedly foreign-inspired) adventurism in triggering the July 2006 war, the movement concluded that the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and its backers were hostile actors intent on cutting it down to size and further aligning Lebanon with the West. As a result, it carried the fight squarely on the domestic scene, removing Shiite ministers, taking to the streets and pushing for the government’s ouster. This resort to street politics was risky and ultimately self-defeating. At almost every social level, Shiite support for Hizbollah has solidified, a result of both the movement’s longstanding efforts to consolidate its hold over the community and a highly polarised post-war environment. Former Shiite adversaries are, for the time being, silencing their differences, viewing the movement’s weapons as their best defence in an environment where Shiites feel besieged from both within and without.
But while the movement demonstrated its mobilisation capacity and enjoyed support from an important segment of the Christian community, its use of an essentially Shiite base to bring down a Sunni-dominated government reinforced sectarian loyalties. Sunnis and many Christians were alarmed at Hizbollah’s might and ability unilaterally to trigger a devastating confrontation; they increasingly saw it as a Shiite not national movement and as advancing an Iranian or Syrian not Lebanese agenda. In short, while the movement sought to highlight the conflict’s political stakes, the street battles quickly morphed into confessional ones, forcing Hizbollah into a sectarian straitjacket and threatening to distract it from its primary objectives.
Hizbollah faces other dilemmas. Deployment of the army and of a reinforced United Nations (UN) force at the Israeli border have significantly reduced its military margin of manoeuvre. The movement’s Shiite social base also is exhausted and war-weary, a result of Israel’s intensive campaign. Sectarian tensions restrict Shiites’ capacity to take refuge among other communities in the event of renewed confrontation with Israel. Hizbollah thus has been forced into a defensive mode, prepared for conflict but far from eager for it.
Hizbollah appears to be in search of a solution that defuses sectarian tensions and reflects its new military posture. Its discomfort presents an opportunity to make some progress on the question of its armed status. Of course, Hizbollah will not compromise at any price. Its priorities are clear: to maintain its weapons and protect Lebanon as well as the Middle East from Israeli and U.S. influence through a so-called axis of refusal that includes Iran, Syria and Hamas. Should it feel the need, it likely would perpetuate Lebanon’s political paralysis, even at the cost of further alienating non-Shiites; mobilise its constituents, even at the risk of reducing itself ever more to a sectarian movement; and protect Syrian or Iranian interests, even at the expense of its national reputation.
Lebanese parties and their foreign allies should seek a package deal on a domestic arrangement that, while postponing the question of Hizbollah’s weapons, restricts their usage – in other words, that neither resolves nor ignores the problem. The elements of the deal will be neither easy to negotiate nor a panacea, and they will provide at best a temporary reprieve. Without fundamental political reform, Lebanon’s political system – based on power sharing between sectarian factions – inevitably will encourage cyclic crises, governmental deadlock, unaccountability and sectarianism.
The fundamental reform is obvious enough—rather than divide power along confessional lines within an artificial state just divide it into natural confessional states.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=154740
No evidence Iran building nuclear bomb: Putin
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia has no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday after talks in Moscow with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.
“”We do not have information that Iran is trying to create a nuclear weapon. We operate on the principle that Iran does not have those plans,”” Putin said.
He added that Russia shared the West’s desire for Iran’s nuclear program, in which Russia is building the first civilian power station, to be “”absolutely transparent.””
Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed on a timetable for addressing the remaining ambiguities about Iran’s nuclear activities. The IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has called the agreement “”an important step in the right direction.””
According to the Associated Press, Sarkozy said the two countries had bridged some of their differences on the Iran nuclear standoff.
Sarkozy has taken a firm line on Iran in recent months, shifting closer to the United States in his insistence on tough UN Security Council sanctions agaisnt Tehran.
“”Our positions moved much closer together”” on Iran and other sensitive subjects, Sarkozy told reporters during his first presidential visit to Russia. He mentioned “”many convergences”” on Iran but would not elaborate.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=154803
Iran, UNIDO to set up SPX club
Tehran Times Economic Desk
TEHRAN – Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines (ICCIM) and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) will establish Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (SPX) club, the ICCIM head announced here on Wednesday.
Mohammad Nahavandian added that the parties’ collaboration will be on private sector and agencies.
Referring to the Iranian economic organizations’ capabilities, he blamed the lack of an information network for the sector’s pale presence in global economic arena.
The official referred to the other fields of cooperation as holding seminars and training workshops.
Wexi Gong, the UNIDO representative in Iran, underlined the need of country’s private sector for ICCIM support.
Islamic Chamber Research and Information Center (ICRIC) has had a SPX club in ICCIM since three years ago, head of ICCIM said, ding the center’s responsibility is to network the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member states’ information.
UNIDO’S primary objective is the promotion and acceleration of industrial development in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
Pointing to the organization’s fields of activity as private sector, occupation, and the environment, he added that “we have to spot common areas of cooperation to boost the related relations
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=154743
Spy chief: West wants to split Russia
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s security chief said that Western spies were working to weaken and break up the country and singled out British agents as the most intrusive, according to an interview published Wednesday.
Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency, also claimed that foreign spies were working to foment discontent in Russia in the run-up to December’s parliamentary elections and the presidential vote next spring.
Patrushev is a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin, and his comments reflect deeply entrenched suspicions of Western intentions in the Kremlin’s inner circle amid a cold spell in Russia’s relations with the West. Putin himself is a 16-year KGB veteran and former chief of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.
“”Politicians thinking in the categories of the Cold War still retain their influence in a number of Western nations,”” Patrushev told the weekly Argumenty i Fakty. “”They have claimed credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they are hatching plans aimed at dismembering Russia. They are viewing special services and their organizations as an efficient instrument for their implementation.””
Patrushev said that foreign spies were focusing their efforts on gathering information related to Russia’s elections. “”They are trying to influence protest feelings and demonstrations in Russia.””
He singled out Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, saying its agents “”aren’t only gathering intelligence in all areas, but they are also trying to influence the development of the domestic political situation in our country.””
Britain’s Foreign Office didn’t immediately have any comment on the matter.
Russian-British relations have been sliding, and they were strained further by last November’s poisoning death in London of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic given asylum in Britain, accused Putin on his deathbed of being behind his polonium poisoning — charges the Kremlin has angrily denied.
Russia has rejected British demands for the extradition of the sole suspect in Litvinenko’s murder, former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko in a London hotel bar the day he fell ill. Putin dismissed the extradition demands as a relic of British “”colonial thinking.””
Patrushev said that his agency had learned how to counter British intelligence.
“”We know both its strong and weak points,”” he said. “”Since the times of Elizabeth I, (MI6) agents have been guided by the principle of the ways justifying the means. Money, bribery, blackmail, exemption from punishment for crimes committed are their main recruitment methods.””
Patrushev claimed that British intelligence has relied on people who fled abroad to avoid criminal charges in Russia — an apparent hint at Kremlin critics living in Britain, such as tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev. Russia has vainly sought their extradition.
Patrushev also alleged that foreign spies were using non-governmental organizations “”both for gathering intelligence information and as an instrument for having a hidden influence over political processes.”” He pointed at the revolutions that ousted governments in the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Georgia as a product of such activities.
The statement reflected Kremlin concerns over outside influence within Russia amid Western accusations of backsliding on democracy — the fears that prompted the government to tighten restrictions on NGOs.
“”There is a danger of foreign NGOs being used to finance activities to undermine Russia,”” Patrushev said. He claimed that some NGOs were also being used by international terror groups to support militants in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus.
Patrushev said the CIA and MI6 were actively relying on the special services of Poland, Georgia and the Baltics to spy on Russia.
He said his agency had uncovered 270 foreign intelligence officers and 70 agents they had recruited, including 35 Russian citizens, since 2003.
While fuming at the West, Patrushev said that his agency would continue to cooperate with its Western counterparts in combating international terrorism.
[Davey, do you hear google calling?]
[propaganda]
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=154742
Zionists using Holocaust as a tool to silence people: chief rabbi
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN - Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox Jewish Community in Austria, Moishe Arye Friedman, believes that the “Zionist regime is using the Holocaust concept as a tool and weapon to silence people.”
In an interview with the Mehr News Agency here on Saturday, October 6, Friedman said “the root of the world’s problems is the existence of the Zionist regime.”
The chief rabbi was in Iran on an invitation from the Islamic Republic.
Here is an excerpt of the interview:
Q: Would you please explain about your community’s activities?
A: We are in a religious community, and our activities are actually concentrated mainly and truly on exercising the religion only, by being the followers of Prophet Moses. We are actually forbidden from having any activities of political nature. But also similar to the Islamic Republic of Iran, our activities are for human rights, for world peace, resulting from a religious perspective.
Q: Don’t you think that Israel’s behavior in the Middles East, especially its treatment of the Muslims in the occupied territories, would pose threats to Jews in other countries?
A: When we talk about Israel, the catastrophe of Zionism is not only in their state, it is the regime. The Zionist regime is not concentrated only on the so called Israel, the Zionist regime is actually in the most of the world. To march to Jerusalem, we mean of course to physically be in Jerusalem, we have to wipe off the Zionist regime.
The Zionist regime includes the governments all over the world with Zionist Jewish communities. When we say Jewish people we mean Jewish people following Moses which we have around the world. Of course it is very important to distinguish between Jewish people and those Zionist people.
The behavior of some of the countries is very irresponsible. For them there is no difference between the Jews and the Zionists, and this can lead to danger. It is different in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is going to the root of the problem, to find how it was possible at all that such a regime came about. They went for example to engage with the issue of Holocaust, to have the world free from the Holocaust concept propaganda which is used as a tool for committing crimes against humanity.
There is a lot which has been done by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and especially recently, I think it was in a responsible way. Unfortunately we have to condemn those Arab regimes who are tolerating Israel. And it seems they are not dealing in a responsible way, and are even trying to misinform the public that Zionism is actually representing the Jewish people, in order to protect their interests and to keep their regime, and their population is silent.
Q: What about an abuse of Judaism by Zionists?
A: Zionism is all about to humiliate the faith in God. Not only the Jewish religion, but faith in God in all religions, mainly Islam. They also have a great interest in driving the Christians, the Catholic church, away from their traditional religions.
They are uprooting the religion, trying to reduce historical elements, and at the same time, when there are critics or people who are able to independently research such a theme, they will try everything to arrest them, to harm them, eliminate them, and that is their nature. For that purpose they have always used the Holocaust concept as their tool and weapon to silence people. Jerusalem should be wiped off from the Zionists.
Q: What does your community do to counter Israel or Zionism?
A: I think in the circumstances in which I came here with my family to Tehran could in practical terms state an example of the activities we make against Zionism, condemning the crimes against humanity.
But we have to deal with the problem by going to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that the world is actually confronted with the Holocaust based on lies. We will have to get rid of the Holocaust lies of the Zionist regime, there is no question about this. All the media is silent about all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime by using the Holocaust concept.
Q: What’s your idea about Ahmadinejad’s suggestion that the West should allocate a land to the Zionists so that they can establish their own country there?
A: The first thing which has to happen is the immediate and unconditional return of the entire Palestinian refugees to their own land. When I say unconditional, I mean without having the precondition that they have to recognize the Zionist regime. The Palestinians have to receive their rights without recognizing the Zionist regime. By recognizing the Zionist regime we are having contradiction with the Palestinians’ rights and the rights of the Islamic world. We have to discuss not about the people who lived in Palestine, but those who came from Poland, from Russia, and other places. By using the Holocaust concepts they came to the holy land to eliminate others. At the first step, they should return to where they came from. I do not understand really the logic or the position of the Europeans or the Americans for opposing the approach and initiative of President Ahmadinejad, suggesting that the Zionists should return to Europe or to U.S. because after all, the Europeans are sacrificing their whole economy for those Jews, for the colleagues and associates of those Israelis who are now in Palestine. They are even sacrificing their own national security. They are not willing to implement law and order against Jews in their own state. So what is the problem for Jews to come there? There is no problem.
As a consequence of the Second World War, in a very unjustified way, at least a third of Poland nowadays and at least 34 percent of the Zech Republic for example is simply a German territory which they robbed off unjustified, and they are not doing anything about that. So there is no problem with giving the Zionist Jews some territories.
Q: What do you think about President Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University, about Holocaust?
A: The issues which President Ahmadinejad stated and the issues that Iran’s leaders, Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei, have mentioned, those issues were known before, but we are living in a world that is shut by the horrific Zionist media domination. In fact he managed to break those taboos. He had his mission there. Now the world is starting to realize that the Zionist regime is not only concentrated in the holy land. The root of the problems is actually the Zionist regime elsewhere. The Zionist Jewish community is extremely violent, they are even poisoning the American society. The Zionist regime is leading them. Even they have their own police in New York. A few thousand Jews in New York are able to have their own police.
Q: What is your opinion about Iran, and about the U.S. propaganda calling Iran a terrorist state?
A: I think it is the best thing and you should be proud that the Zionist media, inside the United States, are against you. The more they are trying to attack you, the more is because you are at a better position. Do not be afraid of people who speak openly of attacks, you should rather be afraid of those who speak nice to you. No one in the world had expected the Islamic Republic to make such achievements. The Iranian people are far too clever to fall into such propaganda, and I think they are clever enough to realize that this propaganda is the exact reason to stand firmly, and they do not expect to receive cheers from the evil.
I think the Islamic Republic is the nation chosen by God for justice and peace
[more propaganda]
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=154739
Bullying impedes dialogue between Islamic and Western world
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN — Lebanon’s most senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, believes that the bullying behavior of the arrogant powers is the main stumbling block for establishing dialogue between the Islamic world and the West, ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.
“The logic of arrogant powers, which enjoy political, economic, and military powers, is the same logic of using force against weak countries” in order to control their fate, the top cleric noted.
“These countries consider Arab, Islamic, and Third World states as their own colonies.”
At the present time it is all Muslims’ obligation to be united against the conspiracies of the global arrogance against the Islamic world’s culture, economy, politics, and security, Fadlullah told ISNA.
The grand ayatollah also lamented extremist views by some persons who claim to be the true defenders of Islam, saying a “lack of creative mind is the root cause of the existing radical prejudices.”
Elsewhere in his remarks he said some Islamic states within the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) are not helping seriously to resolve the problems faced by the Islamic world.
“Most of these countries are under the U.S. domination and are moving in line with (the U.S.) strategic interests and even some of these countries are friend to Israel and some others consider it as an enemy,” he noted.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-05wo.html
Over the Edge
Hofstra Law School’s new guest lecturer on legal ethics: disbarred felon Lynne Stewart
Walter Olson
5 October 2007
Given the hothouse ideological atmosphere of today’s legal academia, it’s quite possible that administrators at Long Island’s Hofstra Law School had no idea that they’d touch off a furor when they invited Lynne Stewart, the disbarred felon and radical lawyer, to lecture on legal ethics. It’s not, after all, as if they were bringing in someone really controversial—someone, say, like Larry Summers or Donald Rumsfeld.
Stewart, recall, was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists after a jury found that she had conspired with her client, the bloodthirsty “blind sheikh” Omar Abdul Rahman, to smuggle out messages to his followers. (She remains at liberty while her case is on appeal.) The followers in question had committed such atrocities as the first World Trade Center bombing and the massacre of 58 Western tourists in Luxor, Egypt, as well as plotting unsuccessfully to slaughter thousands more New Yorkers by blowing up city landmarks. Secret prison wiretaps leave no doubt that Stewart broke the law in the manner alleged; in interviews she has forthrightly acknowledged her ideological solidarity with Abdul Rahman as a foe of American imperialism, and her support for “directed violence” against “the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions.”
None of which has deterred Stewart’s supporters from insisting that she’s (to quote an Arizona State law student) “a high principled idealist who was singled out for her willingness to advocate for unpopular and controversial clients.” Inevitably, she has become a regular on the college circuit, addressing audiences at San Francisco State, Portland State, UC Davis, and many other institutions; one Minnesota event under putatively educational auspices was later described as a “rally for credit.” Only occasionally has the utterly unrepentant Stewart, who remains at liberty pending resolution of her appeals, been met with anything short of adulation—though she did miss out on the dignity of being named a “Public Interest Mentor” during her paid gig at Stanford, when law dean Kathleen Sullivan reversed the decision of underlings who had bestowed that honorific on her.
When Hofstra sent out the brochure for its conference, “Lawyering on the Edge: Unpopular Clients, Difficult Cases, and Zealous Advocates,” it did not mention Stewart’s conviction or disbarment, listing her merely as “high profile radical and human rights attorney.” That anodyne description led James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” to wonder whether the school really “regards a disbarred criminal as an expert on legal ethics and someone who has been convicted of giving material support to mass murder as a champion of human rights.” Taranto’s criticism sent Professor Monroe Freedman, a legal ethics specialist who’s among the school’s best-known law professors, into what looked like damage-control mode. “Ms. Stewart is not being invited to teach trial advocacy,” Freedman wrote to Taranto’s colleagues at the Journal’s law blog. “Implicit in lawyering at the edge is the risk of going over the edge, both ethically and legally. Like every speaker at our highly successful conferences, Stewart will speak for twenty minutes and then be subjected to sharp questioning for an equal twenty minutes. Students are more likely, therefore, to come away viewing her not as a role model, but as a cautionary lesson. That’s effective education in lawyers’ ethics, which is too often considered a dry, uninteresting, and unimportant subject.”
By suggesting that Stewart has been invited as an example of the “risk of going over the edge, both ethically and legally,” and that students are likely to come away seeing her “not as a role model, but as a cautionary lesson,” Freedman might leave the impression that Stewart will face a lion’s den of severe critics. Why, a hasty reader might even conclude that the decision to bring her on board was a Bollinger-and-Ahmadinejad “invite-her-to-refute-her” sort of affair.
A look at the October 14–16 conference schedule, however, tells a different story. Joining Stewart’s panel—the conference’s final one—will be attorneys Ron Kuby and Richard P. Mauro. Kuby, who probably needs no introduction to most readers, preceded Stewart in representing Abdul Rahman, and has stridently denounced Stewart’s prosecution in the press. Mauro, a Utah criminal-defense attorney, has been involved in unrelated controversies in which lawyers for unpopular defendants have encountered dangers of personal legal jeopardy—a theme, of course, that Stewart’s partisans would very much like to associate with her claims to martyrdom. Are we really supposed to believe that the point of assembling this panel was to send students away with the lesson that Stewart’s actions went “over the edge, both ethically and legally”?
What about the rest of the conference? Well, the banquet speaker turns out to be leftist lawyer Gerald Lefcourt, another of Stewart’s most vocal defenders. And the keynote speaker? None other than Michael Tigar, who represented Stewart at her trial. It’s true that the three-day conference will address various other topics, including Guantánamo, capital defense representation, and prosecutorial misconduct. But overall, the lineup looks very unlike the lion’s-den model, and perhaps a good deal closer to the “rally for credit.”
Critics, however, may have the last laugh. The conference brochure announces that “Hofstra Law School is an accredited NYS CLE provider. Continuing Legal Education credits and scholarships are available.” Yet as a commenter pointed out at Legal Ethics Blog, New York regulations declare that accredited continuing legal education courses and programs “shall not be taught by a disbarred attorney, whether the disbarred attorney is the sole presenter or one of several instructors.”
The Hofstra brochure designates Lynne Stewart among “conference faculty,” but does not warn registrants of the danger of partial or complete loss of CLE credit. Lawyers are asked to pay $475 to attend the conference. Were the conference organizers themselves lawyering a bit closer to the edge than they realized?
Walter Olson is senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and edits PointofLaw.com. He is at work on a book about law schools.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-09-17td.html
Islam, the Marxism of Our Time
Some troubling signs in Europe
Theodore Dalrymple
17 September 2007
From an Islamist point of view, the news from Europe looks good. The Times of London, relying on a police report, recently observed that the Deobandis, a fundamentalist sect, now run nearly half of the 1,350 mosques in Britain and train the vast majority of the Muslim clerics who get their training in the country. The man who might become the sect’s spiritual leader in Britain, Riyadh ul Haq, believes that friendship with a Christian or a Jew makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion.” At least no one could accuse him of a shallow multiculturalism.
According to Le Figaro, 70 percent of Muslims in France intend to keep the fast during Ramadan, up from 60 percent in 1989. Better still, from the Islamist point of view, non-practicing Muslims feel increasing social pressure to comply with the fast, whether they want to or not. The tide is thus running in the Islamists’ favor.
Best news of all for the Islamists, however, comes from Germany. Two of the men that the German police arrested in early September for plotting a series of huge explosions in the country were young German converts to Islam. It is impossible to know how many such German converts there are, but it is thought to run into tens of thousands, principally men; in the nature of things, it is also uncertain how many of them are attracted to extremism, but few people are so attracted by moderation that they are converted by it.
The man believed to be the leader of the little group, Fritz G., the son of a doctor and an engineer, was himself a student of engineering, of mediocre attainment. He grew up in Ulm, where a quarter of the population is now Muslim, and at the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 15, he began to frequent the Islamic Information Center of Ulm, and also the comically named Multikultihaus in the neighboring town of Neu-Ulm, where young men of jihadist views, including Mohammed Atta, had long congregated. In 2004, he was spotted at the Ulm Islamic center, selling a journal called Think in the Islamic Way. In December of that year, the police found propaganda in favor of Osama bin Laden in his car. In 2006, he went to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
His fellow conspirator, Daniel S., came from a well-off family and converted early in life to radical Islam. He traveled to Egypt to learn Arabic, and then returned to Germany, where he sometimes irritated his neighbors by praying loudly in Arabic three times a day.
All this suggests that Islam is fast becoming the Marxism of our times. Had Fritz G. and Daniel S. grown up a generation earlier, they would have become members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang rather than Islamic extremists. The dictatorship of the proletariat, it seems, has given way before the establishment of the Caliphate as the transcendent answer to some German youths’ personal angst.
This is good news indeed for Islamists, but not so good for the rest of us.
Canada’s oil industry a possible al Qaeda target
Canada’s oil industry a possible al Qaeda target
Updated Wed. Oct. 10 2007 8:48 AM ET
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — A Canadian Security Intelligence Service document obtained
by a
Quebec newspaper says terrorists have included Canada’s petroleum
industry
among their possible targets.
The potential al Qaeda targets were included in a risk-assessment
document
prepared for CSIS and obtained by Montreal’s Le Devoir under the Access
to
Information Act.
The newspaper reports today that North America’s electricity network is
also
a potential target.
The document says petroleum industries in Mexico and Venezuela were
also
proposed as targets by a publication sympathetic to al Qaeda on Febrary
9th.
Blogs target jihadis online
Blogs target jihadis online
October 10, 2007
By Audrey Hudson - Ordinary Americans are tracking down U.S. Web sites
used
by al Qaeda and jihadi sympathizers and then using the Internet to
persuade
the service providers to snuff out the sites.
“I do this because it has to be done,” says one blogger who calls
himself a
“counter-cyberjihadist” for his campaigns to post on the Web the
Internet
service providers (ISPs) that host the pro-jihad sites.
A perfect storm of complaints forced several ISPs to shut down Web
sites
just days before al Qaeda released a tape of Osama bin Laden in August,
says
Aaron Weisburd, director of the Society for Internet Research and host
of
the Web site Haganah.us. He released a list of 19 pro-jihad Web sites,
some
of which were shut down in August.
The tactic was so effective that al Qaeda later said it was forced to
disseminate the video directly to the networks, Mr. Weisburd said.
Mr. Weisburd’s group and other Internet users say they are regular
citizens
who want to help in the war on terror by acting in cyberspace against
Islamist jihadis.
continued...............
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin
* *
* *
* MoveOn.org Bullies Crack Down on Critics
By Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
*
Todays Date 10/10 - Jihad Boom Postcard Follow-up
October 10, 2007
On September 17th of this year, you may recall that investigators in Marion County, Fla., announced that they were searching for the author of nine postcards sent to different schools on the same day, with the words “9-11? 10-10 ‘Jihad-Boom” and cartoons drawn by hand, of a building being blown up with people inside.
Investigators released photos of the postcards with the threatening drawings on them in hopes of generating leads in the case and NationalTerrorAlert.com posted the images here.
Clues in the case were minimal.
Deputies found an impression of the name “Matthew A.” on some of the cards, as if it had been written on something placed over them. That prompted the questioning of every Marion County high school student named Matthew with a last name beginning with “A”.
Fingerprints taken from the cards didn’t match any known prints in law enforcement databases, and a DNA analysis was sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab. The analysis apparently has not yet yielded any further clues.
As of today, there have been no arrests and no further information has been released regarding the investigation.
Several members of law enforcement suggested to us that if it was a prank by junior high or high school teens, more than likely the case would wrap quickly. They indicated that when kids pull these types of “practical jokes”, they tend to brag of their exploits and word travels fast. Thus far, that apparently has not happened.
Several of our readers speculated about the significance of the 10/10 date. Here is what a couple of you wrote:
October 10, 2002 - Congressional Authorization To Use Military Force In Iraq
A possible significance of the 10/10 date. It is the day the US Congress gave President George Bush authorization to use military force against Iraq.
October 10, 732 - The Battle of Tours - Epic War Between Muslims and Christians
A another and perhaps very significant tie to the 10/10 date is that it was also the beginning date for the Battle of Tours , also called Battle of Poitiers and “The Battle of The Court of Martyrs”. The battle at Tours was the turning point battle of the epic war between the Muslims and the Christians. This battle won by Charles Martel and his Franks stopped the spread of Islam into Western Europe. If Abd-ur-Rahman had won the battle at Tours and conquered even farther into Europe then the world as it is now might be different.
In closing…
There has been nothing further to indicate that this was either a legitimate threat or a hoax and in all likelihood nothing will happen today. That being said… Remain vigilant and be aware of your surroundings. Keep your eyes open for any suspicious behavior and if you see something, don’t hesitate to report it to law enforcement immediately.
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Comments
One Response to “Todays Date 10/10 - Jihad Boom Postcard Follow-up”
1. Causeway Blinkin on October 10th, 2007 7:19 am
What’s concerning in my mind is the illustration of the exploding buildings and people. These are in actuality, highly stylized representations that I do not see else where in popular culture. By this I mean, the roofs are detached in each of the drawings with people pouring/falling/blown from the opening between the structure and the roof. This is unusual way to represent an exploding building, and I am no expert, but I do not associate this type of demonstration with that of an American teenage prankster. Secondly, the vast majority of American schools do not employ a roof structure like that of a typical residential home ( a pitched roof). I would suspect most pranksters would at least inadvertly mimick the more institutional looking flat roofed schools of today. If one would suspect an actual terrorists’ warning, then I would question how they would associate school buildings in thier native country (four walls and a pitched roof?) And whether one’s native schooling structure could easily have it’s roof “blown off”.
One obvious point here, and either A) intentional or B) a symptom of a non-native english speaker is the incorrect casing (lower versus upper case) letters in the addresses.
Finally, if this is a domestic prankster, I would tend to pinpoint a person of at least middle age, simply based on the fact that the script is not one I associate with young people, secondly to address a postcard to the school board rather than say, a unpopular administrator or teacher. School Boards (a taxing body in regards to property taxes) is something a homeowner would more likely target for a prank.
This message consists of the following:
1. Christmas Tree Shops Recalls Glitter Candles Due to Fire Hazard
2. Toshiba Recalls AC Adapters sold with Portable DVD Players Due to
Burn Hazard
3. Fluorescent Ceiling Light Fixtures Sold Exclusively at Home Depot
Recalled by Lithonia Lighting Due to Shock Hazard
4. Starbucks Recalls Children’s Plastic Cups Due to Choking and
Laceration Hazards
5. Kahoot Products Inc. Recalls Cub Scouts Totem Badges Due to
Violation of Lead Paint Standard
************************************************
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Release #08-014
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (888) 287-3232
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Christmas Tree Shops Recalls Glitter Candles Due to Fire Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in
cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall
of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled
products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Sequin Glitter Candles
Units: About 9,600
Distributor: Christmas Tree Shops Inc., of South Yarmouth, Mass.
Hazard: The candle’s exterior glitter coating can ignite, posing a fire
hazard.
Incidents/Injuries: The firm has received four reports of flames or
smoke coming from the candle or the exterior coating. No injuries have
been reported.
Description: This recall involves glitter candles in three styles.
UPC | Size/Shape
0 00014 42442 7 | 3 inches across x 3 inches tall
0 00014 42441 0 | 3 inches across x 6 inches tall
0 00014 42444 1 | 6 inches tall, teardrop shape
The candles were available in gold, silver and red. The UPC label can
be located on the product’s packaging.
Sold at: Christmas Tree Shop retail locations nationwide from November
2006 through December 2006 for between $1.70 and $3.00.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the candles and return
them to the place of purchase for a full refund. For a list of stores,
visit the firm’s Web site.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, call Christmas Tree Shops
toll-free at (888) 287-3232 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET Monday
through Friday, or visit the firm’s Web site at www.christmastreeshops.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including a picture of the
recalled products, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08014.html
************************************************
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Release #08-015
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (877) 290-6064
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Toshiba Recalls AC Adapters sold with Portable DVD Players Due to Burn
Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in
cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall
of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled
products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Toshiba AC Adapters Sold with Portable DVD Players
Units: About 142,000
Distributor: Toshiba America Consumer Products LLC, of Wayne, N.J.
Hazard: The AC adapters can fail, causing the portable DVD player to
overheat, posing a burn hazard to consumers.
Incidents/Injuries: Toshiba has received two reports of minor damage to
the bottom of the DVD player. No injuries have been reported.
Description: This recall involves the AC adapter sold with the Toshiba
portable DVD player Model SD-P1600. “Toshiba” and ADPV16 can be found
on the side of the adapter. “Toshiba”, Model SD-P1600, and the serial
number can be found on a rating label on the bottom of the cabinet for
the DVD player.
Sold at: Consumer electronics stores nationwide from January 2005
through April 2006 for between $200 and $230.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should stop using the AC adapters immediately and
contact Toshiba Customer Solutions for a replacement adapter.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Toshiba Customer
Solutions toll-free at (877) 290-6064 between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. CT
Monday through Friday, or visit the firm’s Web site at www.tacp.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including pictures of the
recalled products, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08015.html
************************************************
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Release #08-016
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (800) 638-7705
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Fluorescent Ceiling Light Fixtures Sold Exclusively at Home Depot
Recalled by Lithonia Lighting Due to Shock Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in
cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall
of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled
products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Lithonia Lighting Nickel End Wrap Fluorescent Ceiling
Light Fixtures
Units: About 50,000
Distributor: Lithonia Lighting, a division of Acuity Brands Lighting
Inc., of Conyers, Ga.
Manufacturer: Suzhou Powerhouse Co. Ltd., of China
Hazard: A wire inside the light fixture could be loose, posing an
electrical shock hazard to consumers.
Incidents/Injuries: None reported.
Description: The recall involves the Lithonia Lighting Nickel End Wrap
fluorescent ceiling light fixtures model number “New 2 32 120 RE BN”
and date code “N050807”. The light fixtures measure four feet long and
consist of two brushed nickel end caps and a clear plastic cover for the
fluorescent tubes. “Lithonia Lighting”, the model number, and the date
code can be found on the shipping box or on a label located inside the
fixture, next to the fluorescent tube. To read the label on the
fixture, consumers should turn the power off at the home’s circuit breaker and
remove the plastic cover of the light fixture. Light fixtures sold in
a box marked with a round pink sticker are not included in this recall.
Sold at: Exclusively at Home Depot stores from June 2007 through August
2007 for about $40.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should stop using the light fixture immediately and
return the product to Home Depot to receive a full refund or free
replacement. Before removing the fixture, consumers should turn off the power
at the home’s circuit breaker and consult the installation
instructions provided with the fixture. For a complete set of instructions, visit
the firm’s Web site at www.Lithonia.com
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Lithonia Lighting
toll-free at (800) 638-7705 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET or visit the
firm’s Web site at www.lithonia.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including a picture of the
recalled product, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08016.html
************************************************
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Release #08-017
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (888) 288-4008
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Starbucks Recalls Children’s Plastic Cups Due to Choking and Laceration
Hazards
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in
cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall
of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled
products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Starbucks Children’s Plastic Cups
Units: About 250,000
Importer: Starbucks Coffee Co., of Seattle, Wash.
Hazard: If the cup is dropped, the colorful face on the cup can break
off and leave small parts or sharp exposed edges that can pose a choking
or laceration hazard to young children.
Incidents/Injuries: Starbucks has received seven reports of the cups
breaking, including two reports in which a child began to choke on a
broken piece. No injuries have been reported.
Description: The recall includes four styles of Starbucks children’s
plastic 10-ounce cups. Styles include: “Dot” Red Ladybug; “Dash” Green
Turtle; Bunny Pink; and Chick Yellow cups.
Sold exclusively at: Starbucks stores nationwide from May 2006 through
August 2007 for about $6.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should immediately take the recalled cups away from
young children and contact Starbucks for instructions on returning the
cups for a refund. Starbucks is also offering a complimentary beverage
as an incentive to return the recalled cups.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Starbucks at
(888) 288-4008 anytime or visit the firm’s Web site at www.starbucks.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including a picture of the
recalled products, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08017.html
************************************************
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Release #08-018
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (770) 552-2921
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Kahoot Products Inc. Recalls Cub Scouts Totem Badges Due to Violation
of Lead Paint Standard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in
cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall
of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled
products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Cub Scouts Totem Badges
Units: About 1.6 million
Distributor: Kahoot Products Inc., of Roswell, Ga.
Hazard: The surface paints on the badges contain excessive levels of
lead, violating the federal lead paint standard.
Incidents/Injuries: None reported.
Description: The recalled Cub Scout Totem Badges measure 4½ inches x 3
inches with a square portion measuring 2¼ inches x 2¼ inches. The Boy
Scout emblem is printed on the badge along with a wolf and bear.
“PROGRESS TOWARD RANKS” is also printed on the badge.
Sold at: Boy Scouts of America retail outlets nationwide from January
2000 through September 2007.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Parents should immediately remove the badges from clothing and
keep the badges away from children. Contact the firm for instructions
on obtaining a free replacement badge.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Kahoot at (770)
552-2921, or visit the firm’s Web site at www.kahoot.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including a picture of the
recalled product, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08018.html
The above man wrote the article below.
Is he teaching your children?
granny.
Pakistan’s Mercenary Elites
By: Shahid Alam
In Pakistan today we encounter a paradox crying for an explanation; it
is a
paradox, moreover, whose exploration can bring some clarity to the
predicament of the Islamicate today.
In January 2002, when President George Bush defined his near-term
agenda for
waging wars, he fixed his sights on Iraq, Iran and North Korea: the
‘axis of
evil,’ marked for regime change. These countries were targeted – we
were
told – because they were developing ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ In
the
case of Iraq and Iran, this was only a cover. More likely, the two
countries
were targeted because they opposed Israeli hegemony. Perhaps, too, the
US
wanted their oil.
continued.....................
Homeland Security Payday for several groups and history, several articles on this page:
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3196
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