Posted on 01/01/2006 6:41:58 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
Weapons of Disruption
C 2006 Frederick J. Cowie, Ph.D.
Whereas we have no masses, it certainly would be seriously challenging to deliver a "weapon of mass destruction" in the vast majority of geographical areas in the American West, as well as in many areas in the East and South. For instance, Montana is approximately the size of Germany, yet the population hovers only around a million (we have one representative in the House). There is no "metropolitan" area anywhere around, though Spokane is about three hundred miles away. Wyoming has more sheep than people. Utah has Salt Lake City and a few nearby populous areas. Nevada has two populated regional areas, Las Vegas and Reno. North and South Dakota have, well, a few folks here and there. Idaho folks are few and far between. I swear you can drive from San Antonio to El Paso without seeing a city policeman, because I've done it several times. Then there are Arizona, New Mexico, eastern California, inter alia. The point is we have a few population points, while the rest of the states are empty excepted for isolated small communities.Thus, out West we probably need to talk more about "weapons of disruption." (Some folks say "weapons of mass disruption," but we have no masses!)
You must ask yourself: What would I do if I were a terrorist (or a terrorism preparedness instructor) looking into the ramifications of launching a rural terrorism attack? Personally, I would concentrate on considering the consequences of disruption rather than mass destruction. Here are a few scenarios you might want consider when your local rural emergency management/response group gathers to discuss terrorism exercises.
1) Wildland Fire Incidents: Incendiary (mostly wildland) warfare has been used by military strategists for at least 2500 years, over a thousand years before the use of gunpowder. The western U.S. is disrupted, seriously disrupted, every year by wildland fires. Quite a few are started by humans, accidentally and purposefully. Starting dozens of major fires in a dozen western states could be a brilliant line of attack if militants wished to disrupt America. Thousands of security personnel could do nothing and the perpetrator/s would probably never be implicated, much less captured. Are you prepared?
2) Railroad Chemical Incidents: Many railroad main lines go through tunnels. A few strategically placed armor-piercing shells in a series of chlorine cars, along with appropriately staged derailments leaving the leaking cars in the tunnels, could shut down many main line routes in the West. Spin-off scenarios are numerous. Ready?
3) Flammable Liquid Incidents: Bridges are not easily brought down from below and approaches to bridge support structures are often highly visible and randomly monitored. However, on CNN we all have seen many tanker truck accidents involving burning hydrocarbons which have made bridge structures unusable. How hard would it be to have a few terrorists steal trucks and drive them (as opposed to hijacking planes and flying them) to strategic bridges over wide rivers or narrow gorges, ignite the gasoline (or diesel or crude), block the approaches with other incendiary or chemical releases, and make the structures extremely dangerous and impassible to highway traffic? Gotcha!
There are many variations of these themes. You probably have or can make up many more plausible, novel, and easily implemented rural-specific attack scenarios. Design exercises around them. If you want to stop terrorist events you must think like a terrorist and quit fighting last year's war!
Peace, thanks, Fred
Please check out my website at fredcowie.com
To find recent presentations, Google (with quotation marks) "Fred Cowie"
Frederick J. (Fred) Cowie, Ph.D. E-mail: fredcowie@aol.com Phone: (24 hr cell) 406-431-3531 Website: fredcowie.com
I was 15 years old before I ever left the house without one of my
parents with me. Then it was only people my parent KNEW well.<<<<
LOL, how different we were, I was out and gone, just give me a chance to get away from all the kids and housework and I was 'exploring'.
I married at 16.
I ditched school one time, went to town with a friend and her parents.......and met my mother on the street.
She said " Fine, if you don't want to go to school, you will stay home and work"........that sure made school look good after that.
We didn't do bad things, just got away from all the little kids that we had to take care of.
They wouldn't mind me then and still don't today.
WMD Terrorism is A Nightmare of Different Sort
Terrorist "capabilities" to use weapons of mass destruction are "more limited" than those of states like North Korea and Iran, but the threat of terrorist attack with WMD is "more likely" than an attack by any state, top U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/03/the_real_threat.html
ORGANISED CRIME.. WHY ALL THE LIES?
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16766854&method=full&siteid=66633&headline=organised-crime---why-all-the-lies---name_page.html
Bush to press Musharraf to dismantle terrorist training camps in Pakistan
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=119394
LETTER: Coast Guard Warnings Over Terrorist Infiltration Never Addressed
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/03/coast-guard-letter/
Terrorist Ops Run By Women
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20060303.aspx
Kazakhstan: In Crisis?
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/DB5B3199-34BD-4D3E-BD3F-8B74FC42000F.html
Long but must read...
Total war: Inside the new Al-Qaeda
Last week’s desecration of a Shi’ite shrine moved Iraq towards civil war. Abdel Bari Atwan, who has had unique access to Osama Bin Laden, explains why Al-Qaeda wants to divide Islam.
Osama Bin Laden, who had been sitting cross-legged on a carpet, placed his Kalashnikov rifle on the ground and got up. He came towards me with a warm smile that turned into barely repressed laughter as he took in the way I was dressed.
I had been kitted out in baggy trousers, a long shirt and a turban for my clandestine journey to his hideout in southern Afghanistan. The turban in particular made me feel self-conscious, as I had never worn such a thing in my life.
I spent three days with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, the only western-based journalist to spend such a significant amount of time with him, before or since. I talked at length to him, slept next to him in his cave and shared his modest food.
Listening to him during that visit 10 years ago I realised he was no ordinary figure, but it didn’t occur to me for one moment that this polite, soft-spoken, smiling and apparently gentle person would become the world’s most dangerous man, terrorising western capitals, inflicting hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage on the United States, threatening its economic stability and embroiling it in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As I had been eating so badly since coming to Afghanistan I was looking forward to our first meal. I’d imagined we would feast on roast deer or goat. When I saw what was available at the Eagle’s Nest, as his base was called, I thought chicken was perhaps a more likely dish.
It was still a great surprise to discover that dinner on the first night consisted of Arab-style potato chips soaking in cottonseed oil; a plate of fried eggs; salty cheese of a variety long extinct even in the villages of upper Egypt; and a bread bun that must have been kneaded with sand, as my teeth screeched and ground whenever I chewed it.
After a few bites I pretended that I did not usually eat dinner for health reasons.
Another meal featured Bin Laden’s favourite, bread with yogurt and rice, served with potatoes cooked in tomato sauce. Animal fat floated on the surface, and I could hardly force it down my throat. Afterwards I was sick under a pine tree outside the cave. I was puzzled by Bin Laden’s chosen path. What motivates this man, from a well-known and honourable family in possession of billions, to lead such a comfortless life in these inhospitable and dangerous mountains, awaiting attack, capture or death at any moment, hunted by so many regimes?
We spoke about his wealth, and while he avoided saying exactly how much he was worth he acknowledged he still managed an extensive investment portfolio through a complex network of secret contacts. But this wealth, he said, was for the umma (the global Islamic community).
“It is the duty of the umma as a whole to commit its wealth to the struggle,” he said. “The umma is connected like an electric current.” (Surprising imagery for a man who would wish to take us back 1,500 years.) I discovered that, in contrast with the primitive accommodation, the base was well equipped with computers and up-to-the-minute communications equipment. Bin Laden had access to the internet, which was not then ubiquitous as it is now, and said: “These days the world is becoming like a small village.”
This modernity was quite at odds with the austerity recommended by the more extreme forms of Islamic fundamentalism and in particular that of his hosts, the Taliban. One of his aides laughed and said the base was “a republic within a republic”.
The next day Bin Laden took me on a guided tour, sporting the Kalashnikov so dear to him. (He told me it had belonged to a Soviet general killed in one of the Afghan jihad battles.) We walked through the trees and he explained that he loved mountains. “I would rather die than live in a European state,” he declared.
He told me about past Al-Qaeda attacks on the Americans — including the 1993 ambush on American troops in Mogadishu, which he said had been wrongly blamed on the Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid.
More attacks were in the planning stages, he said, and he emphasised that these “operations” took a long time to prepare. He hinted at a strike at the Americans on their home territory, but I confess I did not register the enormity of what he implied when he came out with an unforgettable statement: “We hope to reach ignition point in the not-too-distant future.”
Bin Laden also explained his long-term anti-American strategy. He told me he knew he would never be able to defeat America on its own soil using conventional weapons. He had another plan, one that would take years to reach fruition.
“We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land,” he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora. “If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand.”
We are witnessing part of that plan now, in the battlefields of Iraq, which has become a breeding ground for the most ruthless and militant Al-Qaeda fighters we have seen. In the process we are discovering the new face of Al-Qaeda, as a movement involved in bloody sectarian strife against fellow Muslims.
Paradoxically, the strike on American home territory in September 2001 was a setback to Bin Laden’s long-term plan. Al-Qaeda lost support among more moderate Muslims, who sympathised with the victims. It lost its safe haven and training camps in Afghanistan. And, crucially, there was dissent within the movement itself.
Some inner-circle Al-Qaeda members left as a result of what they considered to be a catastrophic decision, according to Abu Qatada, a radical cleric believed to be Al-Qaeda’s spiritual leader in Europe. (He is currently fighting a deportation order in Britain.) They predicted the US would respond with unparalleled ferocity.
Abu Qatada told me that the September 11 attacks were also opposed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who in 2001 was still a relatively obscure Jordanian associate of Al-Qaeda. Zarqawi was soon to shoot into the limelight as the central figure in this story. For, two years on, the arrival of 150,000 US troops in Iraq in March 2003 created exactly the turning point in Al-Qaeda’s history that Bin Laden had dreamt of.
Iraq is in many ways a better base for Al-Qaeda than Afghanistan. It provides an Arabic-speaking environment and culture. Geographically it is the heart of the region. In Islamic terms it is as important as Saudi Arabia and Palestine.
Furthermore, Al-Qaeda’s supporters in Iraq are the minority Sunni Arabs who have been marginalised by the aftermath of the occupation, isolated from the state institutions in a rather humiliating manner, and are eager for revenge and the resumption of power.
With chilling beheadings, Zarqawi rapidly emerged as the most ferocious insurgent chieftain — though he only became the official leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq after a long wrangle with Bin Laden over attacks on the Shi’ite majority.
Militarily, Al-Qaeda has since been increasingly hardline and ruthless in Iraq, demonstrating indifference to “collateral damage”. Zarqawi has long been waging an anti-Shi’ite campaign with the express intention of fomenting the sectarian strife we are now witnessing.
Last Wednesday’s bombing of the Shi’ite golden mosque at Samarra was in all probability the work of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Shi’ite majority have most to gain from maintaining stability, but by bombing their most sacred shrine Zarqawi has finally unleashed the threat of civil war. Previous attacks had failed to provoke the retaliatory Shi’ite violence that has claimed more than 130 — mostly Sunni — lives since the mosque attack.
Zarqawi’s rationale is threefold.
First, civil war will prevent the Sunni minority from joining the current political process. He has denounced democracy as heretical on the grounds that it makes man obedient to man instead of Allah.
Second, civil war will unseat the “heretic” Shi’ite leaders, render the country ungovernable and ensure the failure of the US project.
Third, Zarqawi is mindful of the huge reserves of Sunni military support in neighbouring countries — both on a national level and among the individual mujaheddin pouring into Iraq to aid their beleaguered brethren struggling against the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias.
Civil war in Iraq could rapidly spread through the region. Many Sunni leaders are already unnerved by the growing influence of Iran in Iraqi internal affairs, and sectarian tensions have been brewing in several countries including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
Zarqawi’s language towards the Shi’ites is vitriolic. In a letter to Bin Laden dated June 15 2004 he describes them as “the lurking serpent”, claiming that “they can inflict more damage on the umma than the Americans”.
He elaborates: “These are people who have added to their heresy and atheism with political cunning and a burning zeal to seize upon the crisis of governance and the balance of power in the state . . . whose new lines they are trying to establish through their political organisations in collaboration with their secret allies, the Americans . . . they have been a sect of treachery and betrayal through all history and all ages.”
Initially Bin Laden was opposed to attacks on Shi’ites and urged Zarqawi to avoid civilian deaths. Zarqawi baldly states in his letter that if Bin Laden will not endorse an anti-Shi’ite campaign, he will not join Al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden apparently changed his mind. Any doubts he might have had about the legitimacy of targeting Shi’ite Muslims or the collateral deaths of Iraqi citizens have since been swept away in the relentless flood of bloody attacks unleashed by his latest ally.
How did Zarqawi become such a powerful and pivotal figure? He is a former street thug from a ghetto in the Jordanian city of Zarqa, 15 miles northeast of Amman. He was nicknamed “the Green Man” because of his tattoos. His real name is Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayilah — “Zarqawi” simply means “the one from Zarqa”.
The turnaround in his character seems to have happened towards the end of the 1980s, when he developed an interest in radical Islam — perhaps through contact with Palestinian refugees living near his home — and set off for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan.
There he fell under the spell of a Palestinian religious scholar known as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Back in Jordan following the Afghan wars, both men were jailed after Jordanian police found them in possession of weapons.
Zarqawi became a prison Islamist leader, meting out violent punishments to anyone who dared disobey him. He gathered a following of hundreds of the most hardened criminals in Jordan.
Many sources testify to Zarqawi’s physical and mental resilience. He lost all his toenails under torture and endured 8½ months of solitary confinement.
Released under an amnesty in 1999, he resurfaced in Afghanistan, where he led his own movement, separate from Al-Qaeda. He fled with his men in late 2001 to avoid the American reprisals for September 11.
To understand what happened next, and to see how this obscure figure has emerged to such prominence, we have to look at the strange world of pre-invasion Iraq.
In enclaves in the Kurdish north, close to the Turkish and Iranian borders and beyond Saddam Hussein’s jurisdiction, several Sunni organisations opposed to Saddam’s secular regime had set up base. Jordanian contacts in one of these, Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), smoothed the way for Zarqawi to establish his own camp.
Ansar al-Islam is an important footnote to the invasion of Iraq. Much has been made of a possible connection between it and Al-Qaeda in the course of US intelligence efforts to link Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden.
I met its leader, Mullah Krekar, in Oslo last year and he vigorously denied Al-Qaeda had helped it in any way. He said he had personally asked Bin Laden for financial help and had been turned down. (It must be added that many sources dispute this was their last meeting.)
Like Zarqawi, many Arabs fleeing American retaliation in Afghanistan after 9/11 found refuge with Ansar al-Islam. But then came an unexpected development. According to Dr Muhammad al-Masari, a Saudi specialist on Al-Qaeda’s ideology, Saddam established contact with the “Afghan Arabs” as early as 2001, believing he would be targeted by the US once the Taliban was routed.
In this version, disputed by other commentators, Saddam funded Al-Qaeda operatives to move into Iraq with the proviso that they would not undermine his regime. Sources close to the Ba’ath regime have told me that Saddam also used to send messengers to buy small plots of land from farmers in Sunni areas. In the middle of the night soldiers would bury arms and money caches for later use by the resistance.
According to Masari, Saddam saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion. Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practising Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis.
On arrival in Iraq, Al-Qaeda operatives were put in touch with these commanders, who later facilitated the distribution of arms and money from Saddam’s caches.
Most commentators agree that Al-Qaeda was present in Iraq before the US invasion. The question is for how long and to what extent. What is known is that Zarqawi took a direct role in Al-Qaeda’s infiltration. In March 2003 — it is not clear whether this was before or after the invasion began — he met Al-Qaeda’s military strategist, an Egyptian called Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi, and agreed to assist Al-Qaeda operatives entering Iraq.
Makkawi is a shadowy figure. Little is known about him except that he used to be a war strategies expert in the Egyptian army. His greater strategy for Al-Qaeda, revealed on a jihadist website, is to “expand the (Iraqi) conflict throughout the region and engage the US in a long war of attrition . . . create a jihad Triangle of Horror starting in Aghanistan, running through Iran and southern Iraq then via southern Turkey and south Lebanon to Syria”.
With his new role as Al-Qaeda facilitator Zarqawi rapidly gained importance. Newly arrived Arab recruits were dependent on him for contacts and local knowledge, and — as the anti-American insurgency developed after the invasion — he provided the intelligence for co-ordinated attacks that were instantly more effective than random independent operations. As a result he effectively became the emir of the foreign jihadis in Iraq.
I believe that his aim was to drag the Shi’ites into a civil war. His choice of provocative targets bears this out: he was almost certainly behind the massacre of 185 Shi’ite pilgrims who were killed in Karbala and Baghdad in March 2004.
Zarqawi was in negotiations with the Al-Qaeda leadership for nearly a year before they finally announced an alliance and created “Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers” (Iraq) in 2004. Already established as a formidable leader, he waited to negotiate from a position of strength over his insistence on an anti-Shi’ite campaign.
Perhaps he would have preferred to usurp Bin Laden as leader of Al-Qaeda, but he had the strategic sense to realise this was not going to be possible and therefore decided to submit. He needed Bin Laden’s blessing and the Al-Qaeda name to bring him thousands of new recruits from all over the world (not just from Arab countries).
Al-Qaeda needed him, too. At the time of the new alliance its fortunes were lagging. The attacks on Afghanistan and increased security measures the world over had seen its numbers dwindle; its 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia had hit its popularity in the kingdom.
A new presence in Iraq, especially with such a high-profile, magnetic (if terrifying) leader as Zarqawi, promised a new lease on life. The Al-Qaeda leadership was not to be disappointed.
Zarqawi’s agenda was to prove even more radical than that of the Al-Qaeda leadership; in May 2005, firmly under the Al-Qaeda banner, Zarqawi declared that “collateral killing” of Muslims was justified under “overriding necessity”. He brought a new level of psychological terror to operations with his ferocious reputation.
In July last year his old spiritual mentor, Maqdisi — still in jail in Jordan — questioned Zarqawi’s attacks on civilians, especially women and children, and his targeting of Shi’ites. Zarqawi responded with an internet posting asserting that “al-Maqdisi is being lured into the path of Satan”.
What of the future? Bin Laden remains unchallenged as Al-Qaeda’s spiritual leader, but his fugitive status has created a vacancy for an overall military commander. This will almost certainly be filled by Zarqawi: a recent communiqué from Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers referred to him as the “most likely emir of the organisation in the Middle East and North Africa”.
Here I would like to introduce just one more name. When I first walked alone into Bin Laden’s dimly lit cave 10 years ago, a man was there to meet me; I was astonished to recognise him as a red-bearded Syrian writer I knew quite well from London, Omar Abdel Hakim, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, a specialist on jihad and Islam.
We spoke for a few moments and I learnt that he had left Spain, where he had both citizenship and a wife, to join Al-Qaeda. Later he was to join the Taliban, and became its leader Mullah Omar’s media adviser. “Come,” he said, leading the way into another cave. “The sheikh is waiting for you.”
I heard from him again in 1998 when he gave me a detailed account by telephone of an angry confrontation between Mullah Omar and a Saudi delegation, which asked the Taliban leader to cede Bin Laden to the United States because he was a terrorist.
The visitors, led by Prince Turki of Saudi intelligence, flew to Kandahar in a private jet. They were heatedly ordered to leave by Omar, who was enraged by their request that a Muslim government would seek to deliver a fellow Muslim to an “infidel state”.
Suri was one of the key figures who, like Zarqawi, opposed the 9/ll attacks. They have since become close collaborators. The Syrian is said to be an Al-Qaeda recruiter.
Zarqawi has maintained connections in Europe for many years, and these are nurtured by Suri, who is believed to control several Al-Qaeda groups in the West. Both men are suspected of involvement in the attacks on Madrid and London claimed by “Al-Qaeda in Europe”.
The new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders is in place – with Zarqawi and the Suri among them – and the organisation has become even more hardline as a result. The new ruthlessness about relentless violence directed at a wide range of targets in Iraq is clearly designed to shock and terrorise their enemies. But Iraq has now become a platform from which to launch international operations.
Al-Qaeda is not only attempting to destabilise the western world, but the whole of the stagnated Middle East.
© Abdel Bari Atwan 2006 Extracted from The Secret History of Al-Qa’ida by Abdel Bari Atwan published by Saqi Books at £16.99. (www.alsaqibookshop.com).
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15900
US likely to drag China to WTO over IPR violations
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=119439
Chechen rebels blast Hamas over Russia visit
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03747404.htm
The Arab connection to Chechen conflict
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2006/March/opinion_March8.xml§ion=opinion&col=
It appears that Russia is on the move again, lots of strange things happening there.
I don't understand why all of a sudden, it appears that they are not even attempting to hide their dislike of America, it appears that there is a threat from them in every report, an
out in the open threat.
It does not pay to be a reporter telling the truth in Russia.
Yes, the dead scientist, the Alaska Rob Kane and the Russian mafia would tie into a real life story, deeper than we can search.
They may all have the same mental illness, the same as Hitler had......to be #1.
The Forbes reporter story, the man whose name has escaped me but can found, Don Bolles? that was killed by the mafia in Tucson or Phoenix in 1970's, His car was blown up.
Doing a search on him, got me a couple other reporters, one in California, name escapes me, but reading about him, and his wife's report on the different investigations was a gripping story, you would be surprised at all he had found.
I found him in one of the crime groups at Google Groups.
All of these searches need to be checked in Google Groups, that is where the best info will be.
Real life is far more involved that we would ever dare print in a work of fiction.
And it only took me 24 hours to recall his name:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Don%20Bolles%20murdered
Sad findings here:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Reporter%20murdered%20in%20the%20U.S.
We may have had more reporters murdered, then we knew.
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Investigative%20reporter%20killed
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Investigative%20Reporter%20murdered%20in%20California
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=death%20of%20investigative%20reporter
Good links:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=reporter%20investigated%20mob%20killed
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=reporter%20investigates%20mob%20killed
It might be Gary Webb is the name I can't recall for California, his wife's report was found in google groups, by accident......LOL
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=investigative%20reporter%20suicide
<<<<<>>>>>>
See S. Korea suicide, looks as tho the scientist who faked the stem cell research is dead........(Yahoo news is too small for me to read the print)
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=suicide%20of%20scientist
Mad scientist in the rain forrest?
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=who%20killed%20the%20scientist
Apply extra layers of tinfoil before going here:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=scientist%20and%20mob%20connections
Granny is laughing an evil laugh, thinking about the changes and additions to be made to the searches above.
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=where%20did%20the%20russian%20scientists%20go
Russian Spy here:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Russian%20Scientist
This will be a must read search:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Russian%20spies%20hide%20in%20the%20U.S.
Not searched:
China
Cuba
al-qaeda
foreign
One more:
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=spies%20in%20the%20U.S.
One has to wonder about the sudden change in a jihadi,
but then maybe there is hope, one at a time.
His life has to be in danger, imagine, turning on the jihadi.
Yes, I am lucky, Laura gave us permission to post all that she writes and it is much to valuable to not be read by everyone.
You are missed, will be glad when you can have more time for reading.
Stay safe.
It upset me to find out he had taken Laura and Ms. Rice with him.
That makes too large of a target, how tempting it must have been to the crazies.
His 2003 Thanksgiving trip to Iraq must have prepared him for the landing, as that is how they went in then.
I don't know how to find the threads, Free Republic had a couple by the reporters that were with him and the background on that trip was a good read.
As I recall it the title of the main thread was something like: "Guess who came to dinner?".
I remember that the military person posted it, the Moderator pulled the thread and then when the reports were general information, put it back up, it is a good thread, did my heart good to read it and look at the photos.
That trip still burns the liberals.....(laugh)
This morning on KDWN, the host (Hart) made a nasty remark about the President flying to Iraq to serve a plastic turkey.
The photo of him with the plastic turkey is priceless, you can see the devilment in his eyes, as he offers to serve it to the men.......it is a wonderful photo, a real man, who is surrounded by men who love him. It shows in the photo.
One of my favorite stories is by the jr. Officer who was ordered to show up for the "special politician" who was coming to the base.........he tried to get out of it.
No one knew who it was, until after the speeches had started and they thought it was just the top military brass and then all of a sudden there was THEIR PRESIDENT.........
It is one of the better days in this ugly world.
That was very interesting Granny thanks for posting it and thanks to Laura. Great work, another bites the dust but so many remain.
I am so sorry that the hubbie is ill with the flu.
If you have Oregano Essential Oil, get him to smelling it, it helps settle the stomach and is about the best germ killer there is on the market.
I keep a bottle by the computer, for sinus infections, haven't had a bad one in several years, since I got the bottle.
It stinks, that must be why it settles the stomach.
There have been real tests done on it and it is a germ killer, sprayed in the air.
The Lavender will help too, but is not going to kill the same germs that the Oregano does.
I try to smell it 3 times a day, if I don't I get sinus infections, have had them always and the oxygen machine hose in the nose does not help.
My county has had a massive police bust, over 100 more police from other places came in.
Yesterday, they arrested over 80 people for drugs and gangs.
Haven't heard what the total for last night and today is.
The radio keeps saying it is going to send a message to the gangs that we do not want them here.
I hear that the muslim population in this area has made a big growth, so am curious to see if there are jihadi types in the arrests.
The reporter never mentioned ICE or illegals........
Still 80 in one day is a good start.
Police from all over Arizona, California and Nevada.....
Good news, I thank each and every one of them.
Your links look interesting, I too think that the threat is bigger than ever.
Too much going on for there not to be one.
The cartoons were an excuse to attack, the trip of the President, to their world will upset them.
If he goes there and home safely, that will show them that
he is stronger than them, so they will strike the smaller targets.
Welcome to our efforts to find the war on terror.
Please join us, the thread was never meant to be a secret.
Only 2 to care for, I had 4.
Can't even guess how many beatings I got for making the one brother mind and stay out of trouble.
He and I are close today.
A couple years ago, he and the sister were here, I said something about being their sister, and without thinking,
they said no, "you are more like the mother, we don't think of you as a sister".
Odd how relationships last, and are changed forever, by the real happenings of life.
I still tell them what to do, and they do as they want......
LOL
The new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders is in place – with Zarqawi and the
Suri among them – and the organisation has become even more hardline
as a result. The new ruthlessness about relentless violence directed at a
wide range of targets in Iraq is clearly designed to shock and terrorise
their enemies. But Iraq has now become a platform from which to launch
international operations.
Al-Qaeda is not only attempting to destabilise the western world, but the
whole of the stagnated Middle East. <<<<<<<
The above is a powerful statement.
The whole article is one to leave me breathless.
Yes, most I had read before, a piece here and there, but to see it all in one report, makes it more powerful and terrifying.
Thank you for finding it, it calls out for a google, maybe later.
Laura does good work and is a good writer, I feel honored to know her.
One has to wonder if Daleel and the others have adjoining cells.
I miss their posts, it was interesting attempting to break their codes.
For some reason, I haven't seen a jihadi message in the raw
for months......since the Texas/Border ones.
May you always have walls for the winds,
a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
and all your heart might desire. ~Irish Blessing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RECIPES: Learn to make Spotted Dog for St. Pat's Day!
http://www.oldfashionedliving.com/irishrecipes.html
I had not read about the green arm bands before, is this the school that the graduating class muslims wore the green for the Palestine jihadi's?
granny
~~~~~~
Dear Editor,
Although I was unable to get into the February 28th University of
California, Irvine (UCI) event to watch the unveiling of the Danish
cartoons and the panel discussion on terrorism (I was told by security
that the hall was filled to capacity), I did have an opportunity to
closely observe the mob of protestors demonstrating against the
event. Amongst those chanting "Allah Aqubar" and holding signs
such as "Mohammed Protector of Women" and "Young Republicans =
the new KKK", were a noticeable number of people wearing green
arm bands nearly identical to those worn by Hamas suicide bombers
in the Middle East. Apparently this is not the first time these
armbands have been worn by students on the UCI campus. To learn
that there are people right here in my own backyard who openly
display support for a terrorist organization like Hamas was a real
wake up call.
I'd gone to the event in defense of my right to free speech, and my
right to see the Danish cartoonists' message without fear of violence
or intimidation. What I came away with was the realization that my
right to free speech and my right to life were under a much more
immediate threat.
Debi Ghate
Manager, Academic Programs
Ayn Rand Institute
Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Op-eds, press releases and letters to the editor produced by the Ayn Rand Institute are submitted to hundreds of newspapers,
radio stations and Web sites across the United States and abroad, and are made possible thanks to voluntary contributions.
http://www.aynrand.org
This essay will surprise you, explains the nazi/commie tie, maybe, as Marx was a german, several other surprises.
granny...
My Hero! Your
Hero! Our Hero! Whose Hero?
Usually, heroes are well and clearly identified with certain countries;
heroes broadly defined so to say. So if I throw the name of Mark Spitz
you
will think USA, if I mention the name of Winston Churchill, you will
think
the UK, if I throw in the name Charles de Gaulle, you will think
France,
Mahatma Gandhi, you will think India and generally you will be right.
Unfortunately, some heroes get pulled and pushed around, long after
they are
pushing up daisies. Let us take a look at some of the rather
interesting and
amusing incidents.
The first time I came across such a situation was when I read Don
Camillo by
Giovanni Guareschi, wonderful writer, absolutely brilliant book. I very
strongly recommend this book; it's about the perpetual war between Don
Camillo, a catholic village priest in the Po River Valley in Italy, and
the
communist mayor, Peppone. For those who want to compare, think of him
as an
Italian PG Wodehouse. Anyway, I am digressing from the point. In one of
the
stories, there is a fight between Don Camillo's and another village
about a
local hero, and Don Camillo wins the fight because he finds a hidden
treasure trove of 16th century birth's and death's register, notes that
show
the hero was born in his village, and victoriously brings the statue of
the
hero home from the other village.
And then today I was reminded of it again, when I read that Afghanistan
vociferously complained to Pakistan that all of Afghanistan's old
heroes,
like Mahmud Ghaznawi, Ahmad Shah Abdali and Shahabuddin Ghauri, were
used to
name various Pakistani missiles. As it so happens, the reason for
Pakistan
to name their missiles after these great men, was because these chaps
were
rampaging marauders, who butchered, raped, robbed and pillaged across
India,
and Pakistan wanted to send a message to India (very subliminal
message,
NOT). Be that as it may, Afghanistan's Information Minister Sayed
Makhdum
Rahin has sent a letter to the Pakistani Government complaining that
these
chaps were actually Afghan Heroes, and they (ahem! And I quote), "Their
names should be bracketed with academic, cultural and peace-promoting
institutions, not with tools of destruction and killing and...had
spread
knowledge and civilisation from Afghanistan to the subcontinent of
India." I
think the Indians may disagree, but that's not the point.
I can just imagine the shock and consternation when this letter landed
on
some Pakistani minister's desk. Here we are, symbols of national
identity,
named after some deep seated atavistic desire for military might and
rampaging, and you take that away? How COULD they? Mind you, Pakistan
doesn't treat its own home-grown heroes properly. Think about another
hero,
a real bona-fide Pakistani hero, Professor Abdus Salam, winner of the
1979
Nobel Prize in Physics, was hounded because someone declared him a
Kafir
(non-muslim) and the poor chap had to leave. Well, given the huge
number of
Nobel Prize winners in Pakistan, you could easily lose one or two
without
missing much. Apparently, he was invited back to Pakistan to give a
lecture
after winning the Nobel Prize, but he didn't following violent threats
by a
religious party. So home grown heroes are chased away, and then you go
about
borrowing some from neighbouring countries who, in turn, moan about
misuse
of their heroes.
It is almost like the example of Moses. One of the most famous
law-givers in
world history, but do Egyptians think of him as a home grown hero?
Nope, he
is Israel's son. Israel gives lots of examples of this sort nearer to
our
time. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Minister of Defence and Israel
Labour
Party chairman - was born in Iraq; David Levy, former Minister of
Foreign
Affairs - came from Morocco; Silvan Shalom, Minister of Foreign Affairs
-
was born in Tunisia;; Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sephardic Chief rabbi
of
Israel - came from Iraq; Shlomo Ben-Ami, academic and former Foreign
Affairs
Minister of Israel - originated from Morocco; Shaul Mofaz, Israeli
Minister
of Defence was born in Iran and Moshe Katsav, current President of the
State
of Israel also came from Iran What do you think of these heroes being
considered as heroes in their country of birth? I think Iranian
President
Ahmadinejad will have an apoplectic fit.
Take a peek at India, celebrating and even borrowing some national
heroes
from outside, not that there is any paucity of any home-grown and bred
Indian hero's. Not by a long shot! Any time any chap has any Indian
blood in
him, he is definitely taken on board and chests are thumped. Forget the
Indian born / origin Nobel prize winners, think of the latest heroine,
Dr.
Kalpana Chawla, the lady astronaut who died in the Challenger space
shuttle
crash. While born in India, she became a naturalised American citizen,
but
hey, there was a feeling of pride back in India for her to be an
authentic
Indian heroine.
Here's another example, one which you all know and will recognise.
Albert
Einstein, the famous physicist. He originally had German nationality,
and
then he took up Swiss nationality. He gave up his nationality because
he did
not want to be drafted into the German Army (at 17, if you were German,
you
would be forcibly drafted into the German Army and he was a committed
and
declared pacifist). Then after reconsidering and getting caught up into
the
Weimar Republic's dreams and promises, he took up German citizenship
again.
Then again came the time that the Brown shirts were being heavy handed
and
Jews started to get targeted. So he again gave up German nationality,
renounced it and took up American nationality (while, all the time,
keeping
the Swiss nationality), and the rest is history. The amusing bit is,
all
three countries - Germans, Swiss and Americans consider him to be one
of
theirs. He is ranked 10th of the 100 greatest Germans of all time
according
to a recent survey while we all know how well the Americans think of
dear
old Albert.
Another German, Karl Marx, also falls roughly in this area. Karl Marx,
was
rated to be the 4th greatest German of them all in the above mentioned
survey (ZDF November 2003). While saying that, no prizes for guessing
who
else thought Karl Marx was the bees' knees? An entire ideologically
based
swathe of nations (the communist bloc) took him and his ideas as their
founding hero. Never you mind, that he was actually born in London, UK
-
just to complicate matters. So if the same logic is applied as Albert
Einstein, then the Brits should also have claimed Karl Marx as one of
their
own. Which, as it turns out, it happened with someone else (just to
confuse
you some more). Max Born, a German born physicist, was awarded the
Nobel
Physics prize in 1954 for "his fundamental research in quantum
mechanics,
especially for his statistical interpretation of the wave function..for
the
coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith". The Germans
claim
him from his birth-place, but since he took up British citizenship
after
escaping the Nazi Jewish hunt, he ranks amongst the British heroes.
A worse state was in reserve for Paul Epstein, a brilliant
mathematician and
scientist with too many national identities and no nest to call his
own.
Born in Russia, studied in Germany. He couldn't take up a job in post
war
Poland (the Russian district where he was born went into Poland) as he
had a
German education. He could not teach or work in Germany, as he was
considered Polish by virtue of his birth. Russia refused to consider
him and
anyway, it was too dangerous for him to work there. He could not get a
job
in Switzerland, and since French, Belgian and English scientists had no
contact with Germany, they couldn't sponsor him. He got fired from his
German university as he was a Jew and finally, the tragedy was that the
Gestapo was after him, and not wanting to throw himself to their tender
mercies, committed suicide. Here's an unsung hero, I guess.
Let us take the final example, and this is the funniest, most amusing
of the
lot. This is to do with an entire country. There is a country called as
"the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or (FYROM)". It came into being
after
Yugoslavia imploded and individual states started to emerge. When I
hear
Macedonia, I think of Alexander the Great, his illustrious father,
Philip of
Macedon, but to cut a long story short, this little statelet, called
itself
as Republic of Macedonia. The Greeks immediately went up in flames,
claiming
that the Republic of Macedonia was an upstart, Macedonia as a land area
is
much bigger than that small statelet, the flag which the republic chose
was
a Greek national symbol (showing the emblem of Philip's dynasty), and
the
language in the constitution was expansionary and can provoke
separatism in
neighbouring countries. Then the United Nations stepped in with a
typical
compromise. They called the Republic of Macedonia as FYROM. Very
confusing
issue and it has effectively frozen the debate. With FYROM being
considered
for EU membership, the issue is still rumbling on. Greece refuses to
allow
FYROM to join the EU under any name which has Macedonia in it, while
FYROM
refuses to abandon the name Macedonia. I bet that left you scratching
your
head, it made my hair hurt after I recovered from the stomach ache left
after laughing my head off.
I shouldn't end this essay without looking at it from the other
perspective.
People who call themselves heroes and when somebody else reads about
this
classification, they choke on their tea. Take a look at this quote from
every body's favourite dictator, Idi Amin of Uganda who proudly
claimed, "I
am the hero of Africa". Even the Ugandans would gibber at the very
thought
of Idi Amin being the hero of Uganda, let alone all of Africa. A couple
of
additional self proclaimed African hero's are Muammar Abu Minyar
al-Qaddafi
of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Both love to thump their pigeon
chests, both have run their countries to ground, both love to be
thought of
as heroes and both are considered to be utter dastards by the world.
Another
one is Mulayam Singh Yadav of India, who calls himself a hero, but has
turned out to be your garden variety of corrupt politician
unceremoniously
turfed out of his government accommodation and his seat of power. How
the
mighty have fallen indeed.
My editor reminded of the quote by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), British
philosopher who said, "Hero worship is strongest where there is least
regard
for human freedom." On the other hand, we need heroes when we are
growing
up, they may have feet of clay but they show us the heights which we
all can
reach; they define mankind's self actualisation heights. Then again,
some
are so great, that nations fight over them. It is indeed an amazing and
amusing situation, to see people fight over their heroes.
All this to be taken with a grain of salt!
Also available at
http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-hero-your-hero-our-hero-whose-hero.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5983_1640992,004300140003.htm
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