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My brother's a graduate student at University of Chicago who gets opportunities to speak at various events, including this one, "Sundays at Rockefeller." Being a graduate student, the news isn't always as prominent in his noise stream as for us civilians (lucky him), so when he asked me:

Abbas: have any policians or media figures said anything really nutso about islam lately? :)
I practically jumped out of my seat.

So, for you, dear readers, I present Islam in the News Roundup.

Belgium bans the Veil, France trying to follow, Christian Science Monitor 04/30/2010

"The burqa has no place in France" - French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Previously, Swiss voters barred Muslims from building minarets in a referrendum held in December.
"Once we solve the burqa problem, we'll still have the problem of polygamy, of praying in the streets of big cities, of banning pork from cafeterias, in short all the sectarian demands the French are confronted with daily" - French far right leader, Marine Le Pen
Belgian lawmakers vote to ban full-face veils in public, Washington Post, 04/30/2010

Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, booted from 05/06/2010 Pentagon prayer service for calling Islam a "very violent religion," and Sarah Palin defending him

Great contrast between the military, who's supposed to be apolitical and the Congress, who's nothing but pandering political simps. Apart from the WashPo story on how the military's move could be psyops, it's a good example as to how "political Islam" is more of a term applicable to how non-muslims handle Islam in America. Oh, and earlier in Apirl a federal court ruled that the National Day of Prayer, established by Congress in 1952, was unconstitutional on separation of church and state grounds.
Other super smooth comments by Franklin include:
  • "I don't believe this is a wonderful, peaceful religion."
  • "wicked, violent and not of the same God."
Last on this topic, I'm aware that most of the links are to "lefty" blogs/newspapers. Clearly, like tons of armed white men tea partying on Washington, anti-Islam rhetoric is ignorable by most white America and a given in the media.

The Pope, trying to get out from under pedophiles and his 2006 comments regarding Islam, states you have to work with Islam
Pope: African church must work with Islam, UPI, 04/30/2010

In an audience Thursday at the Vatican with bishops from Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the pope urged them to "continue to promote dialogue with other religions and above all with Islam," the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Here, I'm not so clear whether he means the full Church or just those in Africa.

Tariq Ramadan, banned from taking a tenured position at Notre Dame during the Bush administration has his travel restrictions removed by the Obama administration.

Formerly Banned Muslim Scholar Tours U.S., 04/29/2010
Although he's touring in the US, he says he wouldn't now teach in the US (New York Mag, 04/08/2010) - exactly what he was going to do in 2004. He's now at Oxford. That's a step up, I'd say. Some decent commentary by Ramadan about the past administration and how Islam is viewed in America or Europe from someone on the outside, literally.

Last, but not least, Ayatollah Sedighi who said that indecent fashion causes earthquakes.

  • Do immodestly dressed women really cause earthquakes?, Fitsnews, 04/27/2010. This link has cleavage!
  • Iranian cleric: Promiscuous women cause quakes, AP, 04/19/2010
    "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
  • A minor footnote is the media getting all excited about some girl who created a Fasebook page and called it Boobquake. Yawn.
If American politicians and talking heads can condescend and pander to special interest groups, what's wrong with a little red meat from an Ayatollah (or, I guess that'd be, a little less red meat)? This is a non-story, except that it's a hilarious cultural / rhetorical difference fault point that lots of people can stuff their personal peccadillos into (that's what she said!), such as feminism, supposed oppression of women, ignorance, blah blah, boring.

I guess anything that gets women to highlight their boobies can't be bad. Rock on Hujjat al-Islam Sedighi.

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I ordered my Nexus One in the middle of the press conference, just as the http://google.com/phone site went live. It arrived quickly, as expected, overnight. From shipping information (01/05 4:11p) to arrival (01/06 1:12p), less than a day (FedEx 429951121750). The FedEx truck arrives around 1:30p at the local UPS store where I send my delicate goods and was leaving just as I arrived. I saw him put down two items, a flat and a box. That box was mine.




The included apps are great - first the fact that there're included and second because some have additional features from my G1 Android 1.6 versions.

Google Voice, Maps, and Mail are all solid. Google Mail has the ability to handle multiple Google accounts, which is fantastic. Previously, one had to use IMAP on the generic EMail application to connect to Google accounts other than the primary that's needed for the phone. The Google Maps application shows accuracy on the location ("accurate to 5000 meters"). Google Voice can be set up to replace your cell service's voicemail.

The Contacts app is integrated with social media - Facebook, in particular. If you so choose, Contacts will match up Facebook profiles with your Google contacts. You can jump right to a connected contact's Facebook profile and even see an excerpt of their last post. I haven't used the Cliq interface, but this level of integration between different apps is subtle, just useful enough, and not intrusive. Well done.

The Gallery app That's been demoed in the release press conference is also great, what with its connection to Picasaweb and it's ease-of-navigation. There's another app called "Car Home" which has big icons sort of in the style of what you see on car GPS's these days - Voice Search, Navigation, View Map, Contacts, and Search - all geared towards being used while in a vehicle (not driving, of course).


Additionally, there's some haptic feedback when you choose an app - a short buzz before/as the app launches, and that's a nice touch, if you pardon the pun.

The lack of the keyboard was a major concern for me - I've been a keyboard partisan since my Nokia E70 with it's flip out keyboard. Texting, e-mail composition, web browsing, pretty much everything was better with a keyboard. I've used the virtual keyboard on the G1 and found it to be sluggish and slightly inaccurate (not as inaccurate as my iPod Touch's, but still). The virtual keyboard on the Nexus One's still a virtual keyboard, but I've been able to message and compose e-mails on it without too much trouble. My main issue with the virtual keyboard is accuracy and the fact that I have to watch the keyboard to see what I'm typing (and to verify that I pushed the right letter). With a physical keyboard, the layout's familiarity is enhanced by the tactile feedback of the keys themselves. I hear the Droid's keyboard is flat as a Judy Blume character and that'd be pretty disappointing. Of course, new phone means I give it a wide berth. We'll see how it does during the day to day use.

The two touted benefits - speed and graphics - are great and need no mention, really. They're great and it's fantastic to have a first-class device (tech specs). The speed is a huge improvement from the G1 and allows the device to more or less melt into the background. There's no longer a lot of waiting for things to start up. Other reviews state there's a slight but noticeable delay when flipping between home screens, but it's not really that annoying at all. The graphics, with the dynamic wallpaper flare and the zooming, scroll-wrapping app list, are wonderful and really gives me the comfort that I'm using a device that's been built with the user's pleasure in mind. Neither the Cliq or the Droid, with add-on UI interfaces from Motorola, or the initial G1, really had a feel of continuity to them. Google stepping up and making a set of core apps that work well and are consistent is a major boon. This set of comments is what people focus on when they talk about comparing the Nexus One to the iPhone - the consistency and premium device featureset. From that aspect, it's definitely a really good asset to the device market. 

The G1, even with its keyboard, was underpowered and sometimes struggled to run Android and, a year and a half ago, there really weren't a core set of solid Android apps. The Android Market is a phenomenal cornucopia, without a doubt, but without a core set of apps out of the box, it's tough to navigate the wilds of free (and possibly poorly coded) apps when looking for common functions.

Google's added a bunch of videos on YouTube about the Nexus One features. Take a look.


A further nice touch was a set of mp3's that was included from a bunch of artists, all but one I'd never heard of: 17 Candle, Ali Spagnola, Amanda Blank, Brett Dennen, Jackie Tohn, Lissy Trullie, Marcus Miller, Miike Snow, Mos Def, Really Addictive Sound, White Denim, William Fitzsimmons, Zack Borer.
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As I was getting ready for work today, I had the Kindle read to me the top article in today's WSJ, "U.S. Courts Former Warlords in Its Bid for Afghan Stability". I had also been contemplating also writing another "Six Degrees of Bin Laden" with the Haqqanni movement as that's making some news and it's a game I invented but then I heard Kindle robot TTS voice read this quote* and it struck me.

"Every politician in Afghanistan is a thief, but our governor doesn't take all the money for himself. He is building our city," says Shafeeq Azizi, a 37-year-old shop owner in Jalalabad. "Why does it trouble me if he gets rich?"

Mr. Azizi was lounging with friends in one of the Jalalabad parks restored by Mr. Shirzai's administration. Across the street is a park Mr. Shirzai built for women. A few miles away stands Shirzai Stadium. There's a new mall, new stoplights and refurbished mosques in many neighborhoods.

Critics say the governor's strengths and weaknesses are often one and the same. "He wants something and he says, 'Build it.' There is no plan," said Haji Wahid, who owns a construction company. He says he sees no long-term vision behind Mr. Shirzai's rebuilding efforts.

Parts of the US Government are tribal.

And not in any good connotation. Particularly our government's IT divisions. They're not just protected, entitled fiefdoms, an analogy whose European roots softens the devastation and criticism that it should bring, but actual tribal land grabs by people who have no idea what effective IT means but think they do because they can use a Blackberry like Obama or love their iPhone.

Here's how it should run. And by "it" I mean the Afghan situation and not our government IT's situation, since that's well in hand by people who think they know what they're doing, puls Web 2.0 ftw, data transparency and Vivek Kundra's back on the job. (Petty "warlords" watch out.)

When analysing situations like this a review of history's always helpful. Here's one slice of history that looks like it might be applicable: The aftermath of the British Raj and the subsequent upheaval in India and Pakistan eventually leading to an India where large wealthy families (Tata, etc) control multiple industries in a monopoly grip. The latter half of that statement resembles the US with our monopoly-families, too, which should give some indication where I'm going here. Granted, in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and most elsewhere), we - America - are not colonialists like the Brits, French, Germans, Dutch, etc and I'd argue our methods are less damaging, but that's another debate and another post.

The process at hand is this:

Tribal succession -> Tribally appointed, Elections -> Elections where Tribal relationships may still have sway -> "Free and Fair" Elections.

In the western world we may think we're so far advanced that we don't deal with fiefdoms anymore - we're beyond that process and that management style is retrograde or deprecated. It's not, we (westerners) just don't do it any more nor do we do it well. They (middleasternerners) do. There may be a value judgment in saying one style is better than another and I'll leave that up to someone's masters/phd thesis, but one fact is true: "Democracy" and "tribal consensus rule" don't interface well at an economic point. It's much better to have two democracies (or political structures loosely framed around democratic principles) interacting than disparate political systems (china-us, etc.). To this point, if we or for that matter Afghanistan, themselves, want to get to a more "democratic" style of political system, they'll have to go through the above transitional phases and we'll have to honor and recognize that those phases will happen. Whining (from western governments and western NGO "democracy watch dogs") does not and will not help phase transitioning, it'll just be annoying.

Currently tribal succession is in play. We'll have to let it happen. For example, the Jamal Baba Construction Co., part owned by Mr. Shirzai's son, Jaan Agh mentioned in the article will have to undergo economic pressure and engagement to become a company that has influence in the region. That'll allow external democratic organizations (whether external to Kandahar and Nangahar provinces or external to Afghanistan) exert some influence. The influence could be democratic-leaning or possibly Talib-leaning. That pressure, if properly exercised, will lead to another political round wherein the region'll be able to assess the benefits of a more open economic and political model and then continue down the tribal-democratic spectrum. Note India's example - Tata, Mittal, etc are all still in place, mostly unregulated from a monopoly stance - India's still not at "free and fair." One could also argue that Japan's kiretsus haven't reached the fullness of the "democratic" spectrum yet, either, after their rebuilding. Some countries don't want to go all the way and we should recognize and accept that. Will we, though?

* Here's the quote (wav format) using my Say This app.

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"Peshawar — Top Al-Qaeda Commander Abu Kash is among the 30 dead when suspected US drone fired two missiles at a house of a tribesman in Essory area, two kilometer short off tehsil Mir Ali in North Waziristan Agency Friday night."

Drones again strike NWA, 30 killed Senior Qaeda leader among dead - Pakistan Observer

Pakistan - NWFP

People might note from reading this blog, Mir Ali is where Hamza Rabia - an AQ plotter who tried to kill Musharraf in 2003 - was killed via Predator drones on 12/03/2005, in Asorai/Asoray/Essory, a suburb of Mir Ali (33 1 16 N, 70 17 21 E). The military cantonment in Mir Ali (where Pakistani troops hide) is at 32 59 0 N, 70 15 37 E.

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President Carter is again saying things that no one wants to hear - Israel's a human rights abuser (the irony) and they have nuclear weapons.  Never mind that he pointed out the first middle east oil crisis and people ignored that, more or less.  They'll do the same with these two nuggets of obvious.  All he has left to point out is that Israel's been destablizing the middle east since it got there, and he'll probably disappear from the press without even a *poof*.

Israel has '150 nuclear weapons', BBC
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Here's a guy you can't accuse of an assassination and expect to rest on his laurels.  This one was pretty much expected, given Mehsud's past.

Showing off his undisputed warlording skills, and further embarassing the Pakistani military's Frontier Corps, (FC) Baitullah Masood (or Meshud, the spelling of his tribal-origin name is still quite confusing in angrezi) has taken the Sararogha Fort in South Waziriztan, 80 kilometers from the town of Wana, with a 1,000 man strong force.  Most of the Pakistani military is bunkered up in cantonments and forts and doesn't really get to exercise much control in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

The last we heard of Sararogha Fort was in August 2007 when a convoy of 16 FC paramilitary troopers went missing (08/10) leaving the fort and then "[the] surrender of an estimated 280 soliders, including a colonel and nine other officesers, on 30 August in South Waziristan to just a few score Taleban fighters who blocked their supply convoy on the road to the main town of Wana."  That's 280 highly trained paramilitary corps just giving up at the sight of Mehsud's troops.

The loss of the fort is a continuing blow to President Musharraf who's repeatedly attempted to assert some control over the region, both for his sake and also at the repeated urging of our military.

Washington Post, 47 Killed as Insurgents Take Key Fort in NW Pakistan, 01/17/2008
Pak Tribune, Taliban claims to have control of Sararogha Fort, 30 soldiers killed in attack, 01/17/2008
McClatchy, Islamic militants capture Pakistani fort, 01/16/2008
BBC, Pakistan crisis 'hits army morale', 09/17/2007
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Surprize!  Musharraf has postponed the election until February and Nawaz Sharif, a longtime Bhutto rival, previously boycotting the election, is now running.
"The other, somewhat smaller, main opposition party, the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif, said it was ready to participate in the vote on Jan. 8."
Clearly, an election, on schedule, so soon after Bhutto's assassination would garner a huge sympathy vote and, since a lot of PPP stalwarts can't see anything but red and blame Musharraf, well, that'd benefit Sharif. The article also states that the US is pushing for elections earlier:
"A February election date would probably be acceptable to the Bush administration, even though the Americans have been pushing for the elections to go ahead on schedule, the Musharraf party member said."
At this point, all we're doing is providing Musharraf's party someone to quote and therefore someone to indirectly blame for his actions.  We should take our time and watch him flounder. 

Granted, they can't really hold equitable elections after the post-assassination riots:
"In 11 districts of Sindh Province, offices of assistant election commissioners have been burned to the ground," [Elections Commission secretary] Dilshad said. "Nothing is left."
Well played, sirs, well played.  Now if our politicians could only stop trying to make a media event out of it (that means you, John Edwards),  maybe Pakistani politicians would take some responsibility for their actions.
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I had thought that with Benazir Bhutto sorrowfully following in the family footsteps of martyrdom, there'd be a vacuum of "democratic" leadership in Pakistan not just because the rest of the parties have no-names or refusniks, but that her children - the logical choice for the nepotistic, er, dynastic political heirs - were teenagers.  I was wrong.

This article from Reuters, Bhutto supporters pin homes on son and heir, have quotes from party faithful already abandoning any struggle for democracy in Pakistan and looking towards the recently renamed 19 year old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari  (nee Bilawal Zardari), living and educated in Dubai, now to go to Oxford, as their new hope.  He's not eligible to run for anything in Pakistan for another 6 years.  Never mind that his father, Asif Ali Zardari, still chairman of the PPP (People's Party of Pakistan, the party Bhutto's father founded), and should be picking up the mantle, but won't, due to blackmail and corruption scandals and, honestly, isn't that well liked by Pakistanis.

I guess with 6 years to go, that should give Musharraf a bit of breathing room.  Granted, he's like a weeble wobble reaching his flopping point - I don't know how much more vaccilation between Western appeasement and hometown bluster in the face of unwillingness and inability to crack down on the FATA provinces he can manage - 6 years will be too long for him.  One might thing that'd give him enough time to clean house, but he hasn't started yet, what makes anyone (especially the USUK) think that he'll start now?  In fact, if he were an American President, the campaign season against the Bhutto dauphin has just officially started - there won't be any time to legislate, not even mentioning execution of military missions, while he's trying to think up negative campaign ads.

On the other side of the tracks, what sort of trophies can the highly motivated "Talibs" achieve in 6 years?  If we've looked back on Musharraf's record and seen a dearth of progress and are extrapolating to the future, looking back on the last few years of the Taliban's ascendency in Pakistan post "Operation Infinite Justice" (oops!) recovery, well, it's probably ungentlemanly of me to mock and juxtapose at the same time.

Lastly, what does it mean for us, the US (and ever so slightly for the UK, where, btw Zardari lives)?  This, for me, puts Musharraf into even greater relief - he's not on our side and apparently not very much on Pakistan's side either.  And, as everyone seems to remind me, he's got nukes.  We, as far as our foreign policy towards Pakistan goes, have been wimps or naieve or both - it's not that they can't be trusted, they're just not fully willing to be seen as collaborating in the War on Islam, oh snap there I go again, I mean the War on Terror.  Since we're unable to put on the perspecticles of the region and not at all of Pakistan's, we still don't have a clue as to how to engage Pakistan.  I hesitate to suggest Afghanistan as a model, since blowing the crap out of Pakistan (remember: nukes!) isn't really going to help, right?  Oh right, yes it will.  We (used to) do it all the time with Afghanistan's and Pakistan's tacit approval and made a certain amount of headway in the 2002 - 2005 period.  Unfortunately, we've gone soft, allowed Musharraf to vaccilate a lot more, and we've lost the advantage.  Now, we're on the defensive in that region, politically - for at least another six years.

Oh, yeah - what's this kid supposed to do again?
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The Pakistani government is saying that 35 y/o Baitullah Masood (also Mehsud), a South Waziristan Taliban commander aligned with al Qaeda, is responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. [sify, jamestown 2006]

Baitullah calls himself a Talib and swears by Mullah Omar, despite signing a deal with the Pakistani army in February 2005, in which Baitullah and three other tribal leaders promised the government they would not support or shelter Al Qaeda terrorists.

Baitullah Masood was responsible for the first bombing at Bhutto's return to Pakistan, October 19, 2007 where 128 people were killed [Guardian, CSM].  This, one day after Bhutto was quoted in a BBC interview that Pakistan was "one of the most dangerous countries in the world."

A Taliban commander, Baitullah Masood, has threatened to deploy suicide bombers against her, but Bhutto told the newspaper that the real threat came from within the powerful military establishment.

"I'm not worried about Baitullah Masood, I'm worried about the threat within the government," she said. "People like Baitullah Masood are just pawns. It is those forces behind him that have presided over the rise of extremism and militancy in my country."

Ms Bhutto singled out as her most potent enemy retired military officers "who have fought the jihad".

"They have a lot of supporters and sympathisers within the echelons of administration and intelligence," she said.

From the Musharraf's address to FATA Jirga in Peshawar (26 Apr, 2006):

I say if you succeed we will withdraw our troops from here but I am telling you what you have to do. The foreign elements have to be expelled to curb extremism. This extremism has to be stopped, he added. He stated that previous Corps Commander Gen Safdar had signed a peace agreement with Baitullah Masood and Nek Muhammad and army halted its operations and then what did they do. They did not honour the agreement and they stabbed in the back. This was not in accordance with the Pukhtoon traditions. You also know they broke the agreement and again resorted to same activities, as a result Nek Muhammad was killed. You know what Baitullah Masood is doing now. He is telling lies. He is indulging in harmful activities, he will be dealt with. If you take action according to traditions then I will support you and the army would make a ceasefire. You should dissociate yourself from these elements.

Note my previous post mentioning Nek Mohammed, US incursions into Pakistan: Going where they won't (12/2005), where it was mentioned that the Pakistani army was continually embarrassed by the 27 y/o Taliban commander.  Baitullah Masood came into prominance after Nek Mohammed was killed by a US Predator drone.  As mentioned, Musharraf and the Pakistani army wasted no time in claiming that they killed him, contrary to the evidence.

Bhutto had said that if she died, Musharraf would be partially responsible. The responsibility she speaks of, to me, is Musharraf's consistent behavior of talking but not doing. His inability to enforce any sort of rule on the FATA area has been shown over and over again begging the question of complicity - is his attempt to navigate between internal independence and the yoke of US-UK foreign influence contributing to the instability of his country? My opinion is yes, and Pakistan is suffering for it.

Whether Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), a party formed by her father, can survive the death of its only charismatic leader and continue to pursue a transition to democracy is an almost irrelevant question.  They're already blaming Musharraf [Forbes]. Will the elections, scheduled for 01/08/2008 occur as planned? One thing is for sure, they've earned the title of most dangerous country.

Other Taliban commanders have been gunning for both Musharraf and Bhutto, which is why the the government's snap accusation of al Qaeda-linked Taliban militants as the source of Bhutto's death is not far off.  Note that with the Pakistani government, identifying the threat does not mean they're any closer to neutralizing the threat.  In some cases with Pakistani's ISI, they themselves are the source of the threat, having propped up and encouraged Taliban elements.

The Taliban had threatened to kill Ms Bhutto after she suggested that she would help American troops hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida fugitives inside Pakistan. "She has an agreement with America. We will carry out attacks on Benazir Bhutto as we did on General Pervez Musharraf," Taliban commander Haji Omar said yesterday.

Intelligence reports suggested at least three groups with al-Qaida or Taliban links were plotting suicide attacks, according to a provincial official quoted by Reuters. [Guardian, 10/19/2007]

About 57 y/o Haji Omar:

Nevertheless, despite Haji Omar's influence, he has been overshadowed by Baitullah Mehsud, another prominent leader in South Waziristan (Terrorism Focus, July 5). This development occurred because of the ethnic fault line that affects South Waziristan. The two main tribes that populate the agency are the Wazir and the Mehsud. While the late Nek Mohammed and Haji Omar are Wazir, Baitullah is Mehsud. After the death of Nek Mohammed, the Wazirs were unable to maintain leadership and Baitullah took control of the Talibanization movement there. Currently, militants like Abdullah Mehsud are working under Baitullah's command. Therefore, under the present circumstances, Haji Omar has to work under the guidance of Baitullah. According to his close associates, in order to avoid this subordinate role, Omar has maintained a low profile and for the time being is not playing an active role in the insurgency. [Jamestown, 08/08/2006]

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I've been watching Pakistan and the whole Subcontinent area for a while now and this latest bully move by Musharraf to retain some sort of control of his country by declaring martial law, or "emergency plus" powers as the locals are calling it, continues to be instructive.  Here in America we have a choice, do we continue supporting a so-called-ally on the War on Terror, Musharraf, as in this assertion of power or do we support our overarching goal, the Rule of Law, which has been the ostensible underlying principle of our engagement with the rest of the world as well as the War on Terror?

Musharraf's been subverting what we'd consider an approved ROL path for years, starting with his coup and continuing through sacking judges and now this martial law declaration, all in hopes of bringing the country together.  This latest move was in a small part to attempt to get his soldiers whom the NWFP rebels captured w/o a shot.  Musharraf's been playing two ends against each other, in my opinion, which to be honest, is almost the only way he can do it - he's been turning a blind eye, sort of, to our cross-border interactions between Afghanistan and the NWFP, causing us to refer to him as an "ally" and causing his own countrymen to call him a hypocrite and a tyrant.  This enrages his opposition - both the seemingly more democratic Buhtto-esque side as well as the more fundamentalist Taliban side.  The foregone fact that Al Qaeda's in full force in the NWFP makes it even more of a joke that we call him an "ally."

So, this new step - does the War on Terror trump the Rule of Law?  Defenders of the Constitution already have their answer, but for foreign policy nerds we'll have our answer burned bright in how we react - via hollow diplomatic rebukes (aka "disappointment") or actual pulling of monies and materiel support.

[Follow up edit]: CSM Article on this very topic.
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Wow.  The US government, and dare I say Israel, got their a**es handed to them regarding their believability of evidence for convicting charity organization Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development of terrorism (technically, providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations, aka Hamas).  No decision on the consipracy charges, no decisions on whether they helped terrorist organizations, etc. 

The government argued that the money collected by Holy Land went to other charities which then went to Hamas, which they provided no evidence for, just saying that the money benefitted Hamas.  Since 1995, it's been illegal for US organizations to provide money to Hamas.  Israeli agents provided via pseudonyms evidence that these other organizations gave their money to Hamas, but not Holy Land.  What a strange tactic.

I can't imagine why our government would drop the ball on this case at all.  For them, the implications are disasterous - they/we look like we're secret-evidence toting, brown-person targetting, remorseless Muslimhating, double-standard charity platers.  It's sad and rediculous. Break out the mouse suits, let the schadenfreude from the left begin.

Brown people jumping on themselves? Check
Babies holding sad signs? Check

To be fair and balanced:
Disaffected, unhappy "fact" reporting? Check
Pictures of Hamas? Check


For what it's worth, Holy Land Foundation Charities is the big fish the government's been trying to spear, knocking off suckerfish over the years:
  • Oct 2006 - Georgia Imam Shorbagi pled guilty to funding Hamas (via Holy Land Foundations) (nyt)
  • Feb 2007 - Salah & Ashqar acquitted of helping Hamas, where Holy Land was claimed as a defendant (nyt)
Fun quote #1: “The government has tried to turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into something criminal,” said William Moffitt, who is Dr. Ashqar’s lawyer. “Maybe the government will get it in their heads that the conflict won’t be settled in the criminal courts of the United States.”

Fun quote #2: The lone guilty finding against Salah related to a written response in which he denied being a Hamas member that was made in a civil suit won by the family of David Boim, a 17-year-old American killed in Israel in 1996. Piers [defense attorney] said he expected the $156 million judgment in that case to be overturned on appeal.  [The parents accused Salah and Ashqar of conspiring to kill their son via donations to Hamas] The trial saw an unprecedented appearance by agents of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service, who testified in disguise to a cleared courtroom. They reportedly said Salah was not tortured.

Hillarity #3: [Riotous shill, Judith] Miller testified that she saw no evidence of mistreatment when she witnessed an interrogation of Salah and -- in an unprecedented twist for a U.S. courtroom -- two Israeli interrogators testified under aliases that Salah was treated well. (wapo)

What's really interesting is the level of desire to point to Hamas as the issue.  Places that are known for good research, like the 9/11 Finding Answers foundation, put the Ikhwan/Muslim Brotherhood and their ties to Hamas down (properly) as a source of violence, but to whom and in what context?  In our governments specific fight against "funding sources of terrorist organizations," they've fallen down here, blowing legit chances at unraveling knots by refusing to show how threads are connected, regardless of the clear connections in that region.  But here?  Our own ties with Israel make our funding pursuit look more and more like a pro-Israel "witchhunt" rather than an exposure of how violent NGOs continue to get funded.


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 Which is stupider the Biden-Brownback Iraqi partition bill or the Leiberman-Kyl blind rage run-up to a war on Iran bill?

All the throngs of readers of this prolific blog will recognize, I find it the height of hubris for our domestic pandering Neanderthals, Congress, to start pretending they’re aware of or anything north of Minnesota or south of Galveston Island.  For these people, the rest of the world is one big photo op and list topper for the last few years, the prize paparazzi joint, has been the horrifically dangerous Iraq, the one place these people can’t get into fast enough so they can decry how quickly our troops should be getting out.

Add to this the almost universal and unexplainable zeitgeist of hatred spewing out towards Iran this week coupled with the handjobbery and backpattery from all sides, from the president of Columbia University, to Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich and Socialist radio personalities on Air America, all falling over to up the count of how many times they can say “evil” and “Ahmedinejad” with the same breath. 

Literally everyone is trying to point the finger at someone else, preferably someone of the brownish persuasion, about who’s to blame for Iraq – it’s either the Iraqis themselves or their neighbors who are causing our boys and our country to fail – not in any way us.  Introspecting or discussing what’s within our power to change is liable to be branded either “planning to fail” or not wanting to succeed.  Try getting a radio talk show host to define what “success” looks like in Iraq without rehashing Bush’s vague “stable democracy that supports America.”

With General Petraus stating that Iran is waging a proxy war against us, it’s opened the door for a bipartisan photo op of unprecedented damage, garnering 73 votes in the Senate for the Leiberman-Kyl bill that states we should go ahead with a covert war against Iran.  Let’s not bother questioning whether this is a consequence of short term policy decisions on either side or whether there’s any implications beyond this week’s Iran hating press cycle.  First off, we should acknowledge that Iraq’s a mess of corruption and multiple attitudes towards all insurgents of all stripes and that there are any number of organizations that would fund combatants and supply arms to those combatants, from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Israel, yes, Iran, and geez, guess who, us (ref. all the dead Anbar leaders).  It’s myopic and retarded to think that Iraq’s neighbors aren’t going to try to influence Iraq in a multitude of ways and, eventually, one of those ways will blow up or fly at supersonic speeds and kill one of our boys.  Second, if intentionally killing one of our soldiers were a cause for war, we would’ve attacked Israel long, long ago.

With the popular outrage of the progress of the war in Iraq and the general apathy and ignorance towards the Middle East in this country, the desire for having our troops get out of Iraq is growing. One of the more stupid ideas has been peddled by Senator Biden for a few years now and it’s a “weak federal government, strong ethno-regional state government, and equal oil distribution” plan.  In the historical categories of occupation, it falls somewhere in the annals of colonial strategies, something like divide-and-conquer but with a twist of ostrich – run away and hide your head from the consequences.  It’s clear that the heyday of colonialism is long past, yet Biden thinks it’s World War 1 again, where the west has the power to divide a country via our perception, like a modern day Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, of their ethnic differences – whee, he figured out that there are 3 (never mind all the others) types of brown people! – and then expect things to work out.  It’s also clear, historically, that if you want to do divide-and-conquer you have to have enforcement, like the British did during the Raj (twist your Google Earth centered on Baghdad a few longitudes to the left) with their governors and strict rule enforcement.  Also never mind that we’ve already done our version of it, with the Coalition Provisional Authority and L. Paul Bremer.  It takes a lot of gall to suggest a colonial model – something we as Americans have always shunned – and then follow it up with “it’ll all just work out.”

I can’t imagine anything stupider than our domestics thinking their beltway ideas have any effect beyond our borders.

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Two quick things:
  • Yesterday, jury selection started in the Florida Liberty City Seven "cell," the Seas of David (Orlando Sentinel) who were caught "plotting" to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower (none of them had ever been to Chicago) - jury selection's expected to last 3 months.  It should be interesting to see what comes out of this trial - the details of the FBI agent(s) posing as Al Qaeda, the details of the martial-arts organization and their connections with the Moorish Science Temple, and how the public regards another terror trial.
  • We all know that after 9/11 other countries have been using the word "terrorist" willy-nilly to crack down on their unruly groups, but Israel's gone one better labeling the whole Gaza Strip as an "enemy entity" (Reuters) bringing in a pseudolegal justification of their apartheid.  One wonders why they need to play rhetorical games when they've done so well without it?
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Jack sent me an article from MSNBC that had this great picture of an Anbar province Iraqi shiek having a cigar with a US military commander.  The article went on to describe how the US is making friends with the Sunnis of Anbar.  I found it all ironic and just another rotation of the short-term US spotlight on various Iraqi ethnofactions in order to curry US domestic short term political gain.  Then again, I'm opinionated and jaded.  First, no-fly Kurds, then appeasing the Shia majority, now, pretending like minority Sunnis give a crap about the US just to appease surrounding Sunni states (Egypt, Saudi and the gulf emirates, and Jordan).  At least they're getting closer to getting neighboring buy-in, only 4 years too late.  They'll turn against us just like all of them do as our support wanes with our political tides.


Lucian Read / Atlas Press for Newsweek Smoking Buddies: Marine Lt. Col. Craig Kozeniesky shares a cigar with Sheik Shakir Saoud Aasi, one of his new tribal allies

The much bigger and historic news is the diplomatic meeting between us and Iran this weekend.  I'm literally agape at the whole thing, given the rhetoric on both sides, but it's much more of a real path to stablizing the region than a cigar/hooka exchange.  This story's already faded from the front pages, which is also telling as to how serious the US populace and media consider the breaking of a 25 year diplomatic freeze.
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2002 - Jose Padilla picked up and accused of planning a "dirty bomb" plot, stuffed in a Navy brig not to be seen for 3.5 years.
2007 - Fast forward 5 years, he's in civilian court being accused of supporting/organizing a cell in Florida assisting resistance/jihad in BCA (Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan), along with Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, "providing material support to extremist groups."
Never one to be accused of repeating the obvious, I'll say it looks as if the legal system is being consistent, going for whatever they can make most easily stick, ie the low-hanging fruit.  One could also state this in a way that faults the government - they're CYA'ing themselves by not revealing "national secrets" regarding the dirty bomb.

Another way to interpret this is that the lowering of the bar, ie going from terrorism to being a cheerleader as well as punting it to civilian court, is further widening the net to include anyone who's ever given money to support anyone in BCA.  Yes, that's broad, but if that's the "scare" that then narrows to "evidence," (again, not to state the obvious) check your charitable records from pre-9/11 because if terrorism or the hint of terrorism is prosecutable in civilian instead of military court, I can't wait to watch the torts.

Btw, the government's evidence is a "job application."
ref: A first look at US case against Padilla, Christian Science Monitor
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First off, I purchased 2Gb for my Vista box and let's just say Vista is quite happy with 3Gb. I'd go so far as to say it's definitely much more usable when it's not constantly redlining its mem usage (at 1 Gb).

Vista introduces a new easy evaluation rating for your hardware, the "Windows Experience Index." This number (and set of sub-ratings) gives you an idea of how your computer's performing. I haven't looked into it too much, but it's not out of 5 and I don't think it's out of 10. The overall number is the lowest score you get out of the categories of Processor, Memory (RAM), Graphics, Gaming graphics, and Primary hard disk. My numbers (prior to the +2Gb RAM) were, respectively, 5.4, 4.5, 4.7, 4.2, and 5.7 giving me a Windows Experience Index of 4.2. After the extra RAM, my RAM number, 4.5, went up to 5.5 giving me a Windows Experience Index of 4.2 (the lowest number hadn't changed).

The idea of one number you can look at and see if your computer's up to snuff is a pretty neat idea, really, since you can ask your mom or dad what their number is and go and help them up it. It seems like it'd be a good thing for game manufacturers to say "You need at least at 3.0 to play this game," too. What the number really means is wholly unclear, plus lame. So, for doofuses, good, for me, opaque (like the Vista borders).

With that said and done, I figured it was time to take another tentative step and install a non-MS program that I know was developed with DX9 on this Vista/DX10 system. WorldWind's wiki says to disable UAC to install & run WorldWind but, even though I may not like UAC personally, it's in Vista and circumventing it instead of trying to live with it also circumvents the whole Vista experiment I'm doing. Cancel or Allow UAC - "Cancel or Allow?" Unfortunately, Allow.

There are some issues with UAC (User Access Control) that can be gotten around by installing an app outside C:\Program Files. I tried it both ways and the result?

... and no launch of the app. Just that. Whee. Time to download the sources and install Visual C# Express and build WW myself. (Yes, I know, world of hurt, etc.)

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Vista doesn't "crash" so much as catch itself crashing and restart Explorer. At least once a day.

Also for you, an article: The Most Annoying Things About Windows Vista, PC World, 02/2007

The new iTunes + QuickTime (7.1.5) doesn't solve the previous issue, where any QT using app drops to Vista Basic UI. Uninstalling only QT makes iTunes unuseable. Thanks Microsoft Apple someone (probably me, for "trying out" Vista in the first place.

That brings me back to the whole wtf about Vista - If apps you want to use cause you to diddle with settings instead of using the app, it's the equivalent of a home-grown computer system, a less interesting networked uber executor, a "linux" if you will.

The Vista verdict still remains sliding slowly to Cancel. I have ordered 2 more GB of RAM (5300, not the 4200 that came with the system, and not the 11600 that in theory the motherboard can handle) and hopefully that'll allow me to have more than 5 tabs in IE and Firefox open at once without lag when switching between them. Yes, seriously. I've installed like 6 non-MS apps on this machine, Adobe Lightroom, Trillian, Mozilla Firefox, Eclipse 3.3M5, SecureCRT, and 7-zip. I haven't installed more for fear of being further disappointed.

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So far, the benefits to going Vista boils down to Aero, the new UI with the pretty eye candy. If there's anything that stops Aero from working, I'm liable to make frownie fase and tell everyone I know to stay away from it. So...

Do not install QuickTime if you like Aero.

I installed QuickTime (7.1.3) because some webpage wanted it and suddenly Trilian (3.1) became the reason that Windows Vista alerted me that Windows Vista Basic was now the profile I was going to use, until I quit Trillian. If apps I use start not working, the OS becomes a non-starter.

Searching the web gives you some horsemung explanation of how QT and GDI and Trilian's av.dll and blah blah, but it boils down to having Areo diabled. That means no transparent borders on windows, no window sizing effects, no "Windows Flip 3D," and no toolbar minimized menu previews.

I ended up uninstalling QT, rebooting, reinstalling QT, making sure Trillian had no camera and no camera source. QT in web pages seem to work. When it's a random combo of things that work, that's called "fragile." The alternative, of course, is to not watch the Black Snake Moan trailer until Apple releases a QT that works with Vista.

Thing #2 is the native unzipper. I downloaded and proceeded to unzip Eclipse, the Java-based IDE (size: 120Mb), and Vista thought about it, then told me it'd take 5 hours and 36 minutes to extract. Seriously? Yes, 5+ hours. That's unacceptable, Vista. Fix that.

Third party unzip programs work great and as expected. I prefer 7-zip. But that's not the point. Out of the box, don't expect a coffee break when unzipping something (unless it's under 120Kb, aka 11 minutes), just go to bed. That's what I did.

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Today's the third day of my life with Microsoft's newest Windows operating system, Vista. I purchased a new computer from Dell in order to replace an ailing development machine and decided to also throw Vista into the mix of integrating a new desktop into the network.

There are a few things that are striking:

  • Aero, the new "look & feel" for Vista, is very pretty - so pretty that when I look at the old G3 with Mac OS X Panther (10.3, the latest is 10.5) on it sitting off to my left, I realize where Windows got their inspiration for their resizable icons, animated window expansions, and backgrounds. It's still impressive to look at. "Windows Flip 3D" is an overly clever implementation of a much needed way to see all the open applications. Makes me want to open lots of applications just to see them in half-profile.
  • Installing applications is aggravating. Who knows when User Access Control or, as my brother puts it, the Department of Desktop Secruity, will come knocking, forcing the beautifully coifed but otherwise helpless onto the vast expanse of the internet where mostly Vista haters reside to find an answer. The much maligned Secure Desktop of the "Cancel or Allow" fame (it's "continue or cancel" really) blinks the monitor and turns everything else but the dialog box dark. That's like having someone slap you in the face randomly while having a pleasant conversation. It can be hobbled, but as people will lament, it takes away the secure desktop.
  • The sounds are soft and in the background, "part of the wallpaper" as they intended. They spent a lot of time and money on it, and I can barely hear the audio alerts. When I do, I'm in a peaceful trance or attempting to be really quiet and still so I can hear the alerts. Peaceful trance or audio equivalent of a deer in headlights - I dunno, one of the two.
  • Things XP just does, like finding printers, seems missing. It took me two tries and another visit into the meat-smelling wilds of the internet to find Microsoft fanbois in order to have Vista recognize the HP LaserJet 1100 attached to another networked computer.
  • Unzipping folders takes hours, literally. It's either a Vista bug or the Norton anti-virus checking each bit as its extracted. I haven't been able to emperically isolate who's screwed up here. Unzipping Eclipse (120mb zip) took 6 hours. Yes, hours. I went to bed.
  • The Dell Dimension 9200 is, amazingly, "out of the picture" - it's quiet and just performs. The operating system is the star here. That's refreshing to not feel like a patchwork of hardware's a hurdle. With that said, Dell peppers and customizes the OEM OS with enough tchotchkes and unnecssary and useless trial apps that, if I didn't know it was Vista, I'd swear it was a sponsored NASCAR jacket. I'm seriously considering reinstalling the OS just to get rid of Dell's preinstalled mung.

This is day three of the rest of my life: Cancel or Allow?

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O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O i'm in ur cities panicking ur DHS

Edit: what boston thought... (video)

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So, yeah, ATHF made a PR stunt and now Boston's just getting around to realizing it and they've gone way off the deep end.

It's literally fantastic.
In a news conference, Rich told reporters he had advised his clients not to discuss the incident. Stevens and Berdovsky took the podium and said they were taking questions only about haircuts in the 1970s.

When a reporter accused them of not taking the situation seriously, Stevens responded, "We're taking it very seriously." Asked another question about the case, Stevens reiterated they were answering questions only about hair and accused the reporter of not taking him and Berdovsky seriously.

Reporters did not relent and as they continued, Berdovsky disregarded their queries, saying, "That's not a hair question. I'm sorry."

I love it.  Of course, they're already on eBay.

I really want one.  They're the defining symbol of the Global War on Terror.  Oh, and how Boston's full of queahs.

This + 50 or so of these = GWOT Mooninite

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That's Southhampton, UK's Bellemoor School for Boys where two prankish Year Eleven youths poured weed killer in the shape of a dongule on their school lawns.  Smart chaps killed the grass long enough for satellites to pick it up and propagate it.  Cheerio, lads!  That'll get you your A levels, indeed.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth has 2006 imagery which still shows it, Yahoo! maps with iCubed imagery doesn't get close enough, and Google Earth and maps has 2007 imagery, where the "dark mark" has been reseeded.
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This is for all you Google searches hitting here: Zamzola, South Waziristan (32.6919444, 70.0863889) (where the Pakistani military strafed villagers using a helicopter, claiming it as an anti-Al Qaeda operation, while the villagers insist it was missiles from a US plane, causing the Pakistanis to have to deny that the US was in any way involved furthering the oft repeated dance by the Pakistani military to assert it's sovereignty looking tough for the US while oppressing its own people) is not Damadola, North Waziristan (34.8055556, 71.4666667) (where, last year around this time, we tossed a Hellfire missile at some buildings, hoping to smush Zawahiri, and missed).

Thank you.

screenshot of Damadola and Zamzola from NASA WorldWind 1.4rc4

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Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban that OBL once called "the Caliph," has eluded the NATO & US forces since the beginning of the operation in Afghanistan. His whereabouts are suspected to be in Afghanistan, but Afghani Secret Services' recent captures of Taliban spokesmen has put that in doubt, continuing the spat between the countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Al Jazeera reports that Nato-led troops and Afghan forces arrested Muhammad Hanif, a Taliban spokesman, in Nangarhar province in the east after he crossed through a border checkpoint from Pakistan.
Al Jazeera, 01/17/2005

On Monday, NATO caught a top spokesman for the Taliban and on Tuesday, another.

The captured militant, whom NATO did not identify, had fled another recent offensive by Afghan and NATO forces in the south of the country, the alliance said. He was captured in the Gereshk district of Helmand province late Tuesday
Sayed Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service, told reporters Wednesday that the Taliban spokesman's real name is Abdulhaq Haji Gulroz, a 26-year-old Afghan from Nangarhar's Chaparhar district.
Ansari said Hanif had lived in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar and had told investigators that the Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Omar was living in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, protected by that country's intelligence agency.
Afghan raid nets Taliban chief, 01/17/2007
"He lives in Quetta," Hanif says of Omar, as he sits in an oversized chair in a dimly lit room, as Afghan agents pepper him with questions. "He is protected by ISI," the 26-year old said in a quiet voice, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Captured Taliban spokesman says militant leader lives in Pakistan, International Herald Tribune, 01/17/2007

This capture was confirmed by another Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi. This spokesperson, Ahmadi, contradicted a 12/13/2006 US report of having killed a top Taliban commander in Helmand province, Afganistan, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani. He did confirm the death of four Taliban commanders, including Mullah Abdul Zahir.

Quetta's the capital of Baluchistan province in Pakistan, a city of approx. 800k people and something like the 9th largest city.

A few days ago, on 01/05, Qatar's Gulf Times/Reuters published that Mullah Omar is in e-mail contact with the world and OBL and claims he's in Afghanistan.

So, who's to be believed? Pakistan's history of dissembling and mismanagement of their tribal areas vs. a Taliban PR guy who could very well be lying. Or, if he's not and there is protection from the Pakistani government, he's in no trouble revealing that fact, because no one in Pakistan'll scour Quetta.

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Along with the Frontline report about the resurgence of the Taliban, a recent interview with Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it's starting to feel a lot like deja vu around here. (Sure, there's some diplomatic dance off's going on with Iran, but that's just pretty-stepping.)

Three weeks ago, Pakistani satellite station Geo TV conducted an interview with the Afghan warlord that was just aired, confirming that OBL and Zawahiri were taken to an undisclosed location during the 2001 Tora Bora attacks.

Hekmatyar was a big Northern Alliance player and ally of ours against the Soviets during our clandestine guerrilla war in the 1970's which left Afghanistan in ruins, associating with OBL back when it was cool do to so. I still feel that this indicates OBL & Zawahiri are in Pakistan (and at the very least have enjoyed tacit cover by Pakistan) due to Hekmatyar's intimate association with the ISI. Since preferring to fight rather than participate in what he sees as an occupying force/government, he's been in hiding and is rarely heard from. In the 70's he formed a political party that's active in Pakistan, Hizb-i-Islami (Party of Islam) and was Prime Minister of Afghanistan from '93-'94. That's influence.

That he bailed when the Taliban took over in the mid '90s to live in Iran for a while makes some people think he's in with the Iranians and, therefore, an "undisclosed area" could possibly be in Iran. US pressure kicked Hekmatyar out of Iran. Get that? US pressure - that means us - on Iran - which further means we've got relations with Iran - made Hekmatyar a persona non grata there. So, more likely, the 2nd best place after Pakistan for hiding, would be Turkmenistan.

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Two things, one to watch, one to listen:
  • Frontline's excellent summary documentary on Pakistan and the Taliban, The Return of the Taliban.  It's all on line.  Watch it.  Or, if you like, catch it on HD on PBS.
  • Soundprint's Feminism and the Veil.  A great piece on the use of the veil in contemporary Egyptian society.  Listen (when they put it up on line).
  • KGNU's Thursday Call In Show is on "Shi'ite and Sunni Islam," 01/11/2006 @ 6pm MST, a chat with Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni, an Iraqi Shia alim, and part of Denver's St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral's interfaith organization "Abrahamic Initiative" and head of the Islamic Center of Ahl Al-Beit in west Denver.
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Yesterday, the International Crisis Group released a report that states what anyone who was/is paying any little bit of attention over there knows: The government of Pakistan is complicit in setting up a Taliban state in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan).  That means our "buddy" Musharraf.  I should say "continues to be complicit" when the word "Taliban" is mentioned, considering that the Pakistani "CIA," the ISI, fostered the Taliban. Also, with the Pakistani military being sporadically deployed over there, it further means that Pakistan has actively been supporting a resurgence of the Taliban. Pakistan has abdicated responsibility for that region of the country and won't bother bringing it in line.  A tragedy for the real possibility of democracy in the region, Afghanistan. It's also a tragedy for you, dear reader, because I'm all pissed off and therefore will ramble.

For a country that thinks we had to do something after 9/11 and are action takers and "deciders," we sure don't really care to have our eyes on the ball.  We let our "allies" shamelessly promote their autobiographies while fomenting insurgency against a neighboring country that we, ourselves, are propping up.  We're funding both sides.  How smart is that? So, where do you think OBL is hiding?

The only reason we're not all over Pakistan is because they have nukes.  Nukes that, might I add, are controlled by the same parts of the military and ISI who're vehemently and unabashedly pro-Taliban.  I wonder why American people are made to think getting nuclear power of any kind is scary? I'll answer that: we've got no clue how to designate "allies" or bothering to deal with them.  Tossing a few accurate but broadly devastating 5ft long drone missiles at various apartment buildings is nothing.  Boots on the ground is what's desperately needed in a place where diplomacy has only entrenched Taliban forces and attitudes.

Serious solutions to the Taliban resurgence in the Afghan-border area of Pakistan involves a long term shift of attitude in the Pakistani people, who're very anti-American government but broadly pro-Western. We can't rely on their desire to be more western (actually, just jealous of their older sister, India) to have any positive effect. We've got to be as aggressively diplomatic as we have been militarily, but this is much more difficult of a task than finding replacement soldiers to deploy or convincing Congress to fund the military (which, oddly, isn't very difficult at all). Supporting Afghanistan while not snubbing Pakistan is just as tough and long-term of a change proposal as the last one. We can attempt to use NATO as a proxy for some of the military actions and the UN as a proxy for the diplomatic, but they don't have the power, influence, and drama that comes with the word and force of the United States. Early in the response to 9/11, we pressured Pakistan to allow us to go into Afghanistan and to route their bastard stepchildren, the Taliban. Around that time, we assured Pakistan that we wouldn't break their sovereign territory and we've stuck to it. I think that was a mistake. We should've let them know that they're going to be our allies, but we'll "hot pursuit" up to and through hanging out for a while. The time for that has passed and we're now stuck with a very clear state-sponsored terrorist region. I'd go so far as to say FATA.pk's even clearer in it's state support than Hezbollah's origins with Iran, in order to emphasize how much of a mistake we made in not pressuring Pakistan to clean up their own house. So, with an overt military option off the table, we're left with milquetoast suggestions as in the ICG's report:

Press the Pakistan government to take action against pro-Taliban elements in FATA and publish monthly NATO figures of cross-border incursions into Afghanistan to encourage it to do more on its side of the border.
...
Press President Musharraf to allow free, fair and democratic elections in 2007 and give political and economic support for the process.

There're also the standard "give them economic reasons to not be so anti-"[American or anti-Afghani or pro-Taliban]" that are straight out of the large institutional state-building playbook (see IMF, WMF, etc.).

This isn't going to work. The Pakistanis won't enact a crackdown in FATA for fear of getting their asses beat like they've done in the past (only to be saved by US helicopters or drones) nor will they consider any outside pressure to reform their government as "beneficial," they'll simply consider all of it "meddling" and more reason to hate on the West. (See: Iran's attitude towards western influence calling for their reform, which manages to discount their internal reforms and give fuel to the conservative elements to repress any nascent reform movements.)

What it's going to do is what's been happening over these last 5 years: the west will continually forget that Afghanistan and Pakistan are having a low-level war and we'll focus on rebuilding things we can actually control (tsunamis and hurricanes and domestic health care, things w/o a "face") and they'll continue to be anti-Musharraf and anti-Afghanistan and anti-West. The ICG solutions look nice on paper, but aren't surgical or long term solutions.

The problem of the FATA is not a problem that can be dissociated from Pakistan, in general. It's not as if "Pakistan" is vexed as to what to do with this boil they have on their arm and they don't know how to lance it, it's that the FATA is simply a more conservative region in Pakistan. It's like some non-US person saying, "why don't you just nuke the red states?" (or blue states, however your preference).

Our major problem is that we don't care enough about that region to address it in ways that would be culturally and societally significant. We can press all our economic and military might to bear on them, but this modern era of American dominance has dulled people to the effects of the power of our money and war resources: it's not going away and it's just something the world has to live with and will. I don't know any place except maybe France where American goods, MTV, culture and language aren't regarded as totally and utterly "cool." We've won that bit and, in doing so, blunted that as a tool to use. At some point, offering more monetary incentives reaches a point of diminishing returns such that people don't need "cool American goods" directly, but can get "cool Western goods" passively, from Japan, say (since that's where we get ours). Similarly, with our military might, it's clear that all you have to do is run around a corner with slippers carrying an RPG and you'll frustrate the best teenagers our country can offer. See: Iraq. It's not that we don't have big scary weapons and can't kill all your base, it's that the threat of that isn't a deterrent. Apart from money and guns, we're out of viable options where we have any sort of influence.

Our minor problem is that we (and our actual allies) are persona-non-grata over there, so if we're seen doing something, even tangentially, it's effectiveness is diminished. We're not confident enough that enabling Russia or China (very distant "allies" if anything) to encourage Pakistan to stand down wouldn't backfire on us and give Russia and China more control in that region than we want them to have. Of course, we've got to enable Afghanistan to control their lands and should go to great lengths to make it look like Afghanis are controlling Afghanistan. Making diplomatic moves towards Iran would assist in securing Afghanistan's confidence. Some people in the State Department (and all of the Congress) seem to think that if we do similar parallel actions of "shoring up the neighbors" with regards to India (giving India nuclear materials, economic and military help) will be a shining carrot-like example to Pakistan - "look what being a nice ally gets you!" - and those people are willfully naive, willing to place their bets on the "future" rather than the unresolved and culturally and societally deep rivalry between India and Pakistan. It's encouraging Pakistan's ultra nationalists to "go it alone," without US help. Utilizing the UN is a similar situation to Russia and China, except our fear is not that they'd gain an upper hand, but that they'd be unable to follow through in putting diplomatic, economic and humanitarian pressure on Pakistan. Ideally, we should encourage an internal reform movement and not daemonize any startings of that, regardless of how it may come about. With Pakistan, this is much more opaque, since our official line is that Musharraf's our boy, when it's clear he's a skillful proxy that keeps us at bay while simultaneously shoring up his power base and making us look the fool. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi and Afghanistan are all less opaque with regards to internal political reform movements, but we - as American people - can't get over not having some replacement for a "Cold War"-esque vague evil like the Russians.

We've got to commit to keeping the region in mind for a long term period and keep trying to solve it. That's not something that the domestically-focused American people (and domestically-focused Democrats) want to hear or even do. Further, we're just as reluctant to assume the mantle of world leader now as we were when we picked it up after WW2. It makes all the lesser western nations jealous and all the non-western nations switch pegging their economies from the Dollar to the Euro or the Pound (which, btw, they're doing).

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Muhammad's Sword, 09/23/2006

Excellent read. A criticism of the Pope's statements and quoting of the Orthodox Pope with history in tow by a "Jewish atheist."

At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

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Next week, Pervez Musharraf is coming to the White House to visit our President. They'll probably talk about this:

The United States would not hesitate to send troops into Pakistan to hunt for Osama Bin Laden if there was credible intelligence about his location, President George W Bush said in an interview.

Responding to a question if US forces would track down bin Laden if it meant hunting him down on Pakistani soil, Bush, in an interview to CNN yesterday, replied, "Absolutely".

"We would take action necessary to bring him (bin Laden) to justice," Bush said.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, however, made it clear that he would not allow the sovereignty of his country to be breached by the US.

"We wouldn't like to allow that at all," he told reporters in New York. "We will do it ourselves. We are able to do everything, wherever we locate anybody. There have been many such occasions where we have located al Qaeda or Taliban activity, and we have struck with full force very successfully," Musharraf told repoerters when asked about Bush's comment.

Go get 'em, boys.

U.S. Will Hunt Bin Laden in Pakistan If Necessary, Bush Says 09/21/2006, Bloomberg
Continuing Pakistan's Porous Political Border with the US, 01/23/2006
Bisy Backson - AZ, 01/14/2006
Damadola, Pakistan, 01/13/2006
US incursions into Pakistan: Going where they won't, 12/03/2005

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In my post about the Tablighi Jamaat and its apparent ties to the recent British bombers & suspects, I failed to make a clear distinction between tabligh and the organization known as the Tablighi Jamaat. In doing so, I've caught myself in a bit of a trap.

I mentioned that I've known tablighis, ie Muslims who believe proselytization's a part of being a good Muslim (which it isn't as "spreading the good news" is in Christianity), but I didn't clarify - I don't know any tablighis, or "pilgrims," that belong to the Tablighi Jamaat. The distinction's important because, as I've mentioned, proselytizing Islam's a bit queer, if harmless, but the origins of the TJ aren't harmless. The Deobandi sect is basically an offshoot cult of Islam much more in line (not only politically but also doctrinally) with Wahhabi Salafists.

That's a bad thing, fyi. The vocabulary of Islam's foreign to the west and the distinction's not easy, since Salafists/Wahhabis and TJ Deobandi's consider themselves to be Sunnis - the only legitimate Muslims - and tend to shun the titles of "Wahhabi" (ie, followers of Ibn Wahhab - they don't think of themselves as followers of a person's doctrine, but of true Islam) and "Salafi" (see previous parenthetical). Mainstream Sunnis, themselves, have a difficult time separating Wahhabis from other Sunnis, particularly because of the large support that Wahhabis enjoy due to Saudi Arabia's support for them (see: CAIR, MSA, etc.). Further, it's tough for other Muslims (Shia, Sufis) to make the distinction due to the perception of Islamic infighting that this causes when non-Muslims hear or read criticisms of heretical cults.

If it's still not clear, Wahhabis/Salafists/Deobandis are cult and aren't Islam, imo.

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Suicide car bomb outside the Interior Ministry building kills 13 civilians, wounds 33

Yesterday, in Khalis, a town 35 miles north of Baghdad, near Baqubah, armed men opened fire on civilians in a marketplace, killing at least 12 people. Gunmen stormed the house of a local judge, Hamdi al-Ubaidi, shot one of his brothers, and moved to abduct another, police said.

When men from a nearby cafe ran to the aid of the family, gunmen opened fire, killing 12 of the would-be rescuers and injuring 25, police Brigadier Safa al-Mandalawi said.

The mass killing occurred about 11 hours after a bomb planted in a marketplace at Khalis exploded at the height of morning shopping. Nine people were killed, and 15 were injured, police Lieutenant Ali Khayam said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, 23 people were also killed in violent episodes occurring in Baghdad (7 Iraqi civilians were killed last night in a street battle between American forces and insurgents), Bakuba and Basra (a bomb mounted on a motorcycle killed 7 people). 10 people were killed in Kirkuk after two car bombs exploded killed outside the house of a police colonel and outside a meeting hall of Sufis

In one roadside bombing north of Baghdad, four US soldiers were killed, the US military said. Another soldier was killed in a roadside bomb in western Baghdad and the sixth was shot to death in the eastern part of the capital.

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13 Iraqis, civilians, soldiers, police killed in bombings and shootings.
4 in Ramadi, Iraq (2 via snipers, 1 in Gomhorria district, 1 Qattan district) - US N. Ramadi base attacked by RPGs
2 car bombs in separate areas of Baghdad: 4 civilians, wounded 9 incl. 2 policemen (concealed in trash); bomb in minivan killed 3 policemen, Baqouba, NE of Baghdad
3 Iraqi soldiers, roadside bomb, Outskirts of Baghdad
3 people dead, shootings, Baghdad, Mosul

1 US soldier, patrol attacked by small arms at around 12:15 pm (0815 GMT) Thursday (08/24)
1 US soldier, vehicle hit by IED, S. Baghdad (Release No. 20060824-02)
1 US soldier, during a raid in S. Baghdad (2 foreign terrorists killed during the raid)

Abdul Rahman Ali Abdul Rahman, also known as Abu Hajir, believed to be the local leader of the Mujahedeen Army (claimed responsibility for many attacks, incl. April 2005 downing of a helicopter carrying 11 civilians, including 6 Americans), arrested Mosul

Kut, 100 miles southeast of the capital, police on Thursday found 4 handcuffed bodies dumped separately in the streets. All had been shot.
Police in Mosul said they found the bodies of a five-member family - 2 women, 1 man and 2 young men - in a house in the east of the city. (Forbes/AP)

Violence across Iraq kills more than a dozen people despite word of progress, Canadian Press/AP

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I keep meaning to keep a running total of the dead in Iraq and elsewhere, but it's a morbid and depressing thing to do. Anyhow, here's my start (you can see my past post on this, here: powerlessness)

Last year, on the same day - around Aug 19, 2005 or Rajab 24 Earth: Strategic Petroleum Reserves and the Imam Musa al Kasim Stampede - a stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber during the procession of the 7th Shia Imam, Musa al Kazim, killed 700 people. This year, snipers shot dead 20 people and 200 people were injured in the ensuing confusion. Snipers Target Shiite March, LA Times

That there's constant retaliation against the Shia majority by Sunni insurgents continues to show that there're segments of the Sunni population who are not only well armed and prepared, but also committed to inciting sectarian violence. See the overt destruction of the Askariya mosque in February 2006 Pushing for Civil War that caused a step-up in the tempo of Shia on Sunni violence as an example.

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Today we found out that some of the British Muslims who were detained on suspicion of plotting to blow up airliners bound for the US were members of or linked to Tablighi Jamaat, an orthodox Islamic proselytizing movement (the name means "proselytizing group"). Assad Sarwar (26) and Waheed Zaman (22) are part of this movement and share that distinction with at least one of the 7/7 suicide bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and possibly another, Shehzad Tanweer.

For me, this is sort of a fortuitous event, but for you (at least most of you who don't know much about Islam), it's a new threat from within Islam. The reason it's neat for me is that I'd planned on writing a bit about the link between charity and terrorism and about why Islam is more succeptible to that angle. With Pakistan allowing Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant wing of the Dawa wal Irshad charity group, help with rebuilding the earthquake damage in Kashmir to both Hamas and Hezbullah's charity wings (look who's rebuilding the Lebanon, now), Americans should be aware that not only do the most virulent Islamic organizations have a political agenda, but they also do significant charity work. Only recently with this administration's restriction on money for AIDS and impoverished countries do we get the opportunity to feel the confusion of how religious mores affect good works.

Anyone can wikipedia either Tablighi Jamaat and LeT (hopefully, people are more aware of LeT and their influence over Pakistan) and get some information about them. TJ, in particular, is a bit of an oddity - Islam is a non-proselytizing religion, regardless of what sort of tripe the Church fostered about a "violent religion of the sword." So having a retroactively conservative organization that's managed to incorporate the heresy of "spreading the good news" starts out at being at odds with itself. Their targets are mainly the Muslim community itself, and not external conversions, and because of this, they're not considered a "cult" or anything more than really passionate by the Muslim community at large. Most Muslims, if they're aware of TJ at all, see the adherants as very pious and serious Muslims with no political agenda. Some people might want to know how I know that TJ's mostly an apolitical, peaceful, if strange, group, considering I'm not a TJ follower: I've known tablighi missionaries that've been involved with them for a very long time. The majority of them are definiately kooky, but harmless, focusing on encouraging Muslims to be better Muslims.

This isn't to say that TJ is a harmless organization. After it's origins around New Delhi, India in 1927 as a Sunni Deobandi sect organized to convert Indian Muslims whom they thought were too "indianified," a section of this loosely organized group moved - like a lot of aggressive retroactive Islamic movements - to Pakistan where they have a pattern of recruiting "believers" not just into proslyetizing missions, but in a lot of cases, towards a radicalized view of Islam. In a derrogatory way, Pakistani and Bangledeshi TJ's a "gateway drug" religion for hard-core politics. There are definitely Indian, Bangledeshi, and Pakistanki TJ groups that remain apolitical and peaceful, but I don't think those are of any interest to the media nor are they relevant to figuring out how to excise a lunatic strain from Islam.

Giving alms to the poor, a tithe, and caring for the poor are central tenets in Islam and, in this way, a lot of money's available to charity organizations. Also, since a lot of the giving is not through traditional banks, it's a great way for organizations who either lose their way or are malicious in the first place to get money under the radar. Islam is a religion of what can be explained as "works" combined with "belief" (for the Christians) - no separation of politics and religion - and those people that want to take advantage of a political agenda in the name of Islam have a bit of a leg up.

So, what's to be done about it? When people ask that question, they usually mean "So, what's Islam going to do about it?" The answer is that most Muslims have a good grasp about what's right and what's wrong with the variety of offshoots in the religion and in society. There're a few lines and when crossed, it's not for "polite company." Really, making sure that Muslims understand their own religion is a big part of all of this. Realizing that there are people who're willing sub/pervert the faith for their own ideas means that we have to be more vigilant about what the religion really means. So, next time some Deobandis or Salafists come knocking at your door or bug you on campus on one of their proselytizing missions, do what most Americans do with cults - be ready to engage them or turn them away.

Recognizing that they're not mainstream Islam and being able to discriminate between the types of these heretical bida cults is also really important for both the fight against lunatics who not only seem to be a major threat to us and our allies but who also prey on the religious for their fodder.

The British have picked up on the TJ connections and are now watching the European headquarters (called markaz) which is located in Dewsbury, England. (53.681206°, -1.628523°) There are even some reports that the British police are starting to keep track of TJ adherents as they go about some of their itinerant travels.

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Israel has found out what we've known, but won't acknowledge, about fighting a stateless enemy - "resolve" in defeating an enemy is incomplete and ultimately detrimental when the engagement's only military. It's not just that our people aren't willing to "win," we don't know what winning looks like, nor can we fathom winning with anything more than physical weaponry. This has been clear since before America awoke on 9/11/2001. We've been in denial because Americans like action and our politicians invested themselves in trashing diplomacy and reviling anything that didn't look like a bullet, gun, and explosions as "hugging." In this race, I hope the Israelis take a clue from us, even though we haven't been the paragons of a syncretic guns & butter solution, instead of the embarassment of policy that we've had by taking Israeli advice. Israel's policies of dealing with "terrorists" have simply brought them what they have right now - the constant fear and tension of maintaining and enforcing a prison. Maybe we can get a clue from Israel's "failure to win" and not repeat their mistakes. Also, it's ironic how America thinks we can play some sort of mediator in any Israel-* peace when we've got our own issues. It's a long time coming, but our benevolent neutrality's starting to wear really thin.

British Muslims and Muslim leaders are very worked up about British foreign policy. We're lucky, as Americans, that our Muslim communities aren't as disenfranchised as theirs are, yet unlucky since, in a way, we're cowed by assimilation. Our only established outlet of disapproval slips directly into the American socialist Left, which is not what Muslims are. It's a voiceless outrage, another thing Americans outsource to other countries.

The Pakistan connection to Laskhar-e-Taiba's dawa (charity) parent organization's being made in the press, both our press and Pakistan's press. I think the Rashid Rauf connection (British Pakistani, brother of an arrested alleged bomber, Tayib) - arrested in Lahore, from the eastern Bahawalpur region - to Al Qaeda is being made through the charity work that the Jamaat ud-Dawa's been doing in the wake of the Kashmiri earthquakes. I think it's resonable, but a noticeable amount of stretch. More on this later.

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The Bank of England freezes the accounts of 19 of the 24 caught suspects of the air bombiing plot and publishes their names.

Name DOB Age
PATEL, Abdul Muneem 4/17/1989 17
KHATIB, Osman Adam 12/7/1986 20
HUSSAIN, Nabeel 3/10/1984 22
KHAN, Assan Abdullah 10/24/1984 22
RAUF, Tayib 4/26/1984 22
ZAMAN, Waheed 5/27/1984 22
TARIQ, Amin Asmin 6/7/1983 23
ALI, Cossor 12/4/1982 24
SADDIQUE, Muhammed Usman 4/23/1982 24
HUSSAIN, Tanvir 2/21/1981 25
HUSSAIN, Umair 10/9/1981 25
KHAN, Waheed Arafat 5/18/1981 25
ALI, Abdula Ahmed 10/10/1980 26
SARWAR, Assad 5/24/1980 26
SAVANT, Ibrahim 12/19/1980 26
ALI, Shazad Khuram 6/11/1979 27
ISLAM, Umar 4/23/1978 28
KAYANI, Waseem 4/28/1977 29
UDDIN, Shamin Mohammed 11/22/1970 36

Here're their locations in Google Earth:

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Statement coming from his Eminence al-Sayyid al-Sistani (May Allah perserve him) regarding Massacre Ghana

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful , the Most Compassionate,

In a series of persistent assaults on noble Lebanon, the military forces of the Israeli enemy have commited today a fresh massacre in the wounded town of Qana Its victims were tens of innocents in such a spectacle, how disgusting and horrible it was !

verily words are insufficient to denounce this loathsome crime, a sin which was brought on by those who have totally stripped themselves of any humanitarian principles and morals so even women and children in refuge shelters are not safe from them.

Verily the size of the disasters that have occurred in Lebanon , as the result of the continuance of Israeli aggression, has reached a limit which , any further patience is not imaginable nor is standing by with hands withheld , in front of it. So the international community must undertake compelling an immediate cease-fire and putting an end to this horrific tragedy. The Muslim world and the rest of the nations, who love peace will not pardon those sides who are trying to inhibit such an undertaking. Such inhibtion will lead to disastrous consequences in the region, in its entirety.

The Office of al-Sayyid al-Sistani

Rajab 4, 1427

That's July 30, 2006. As we all know, since we've studied our Bibles, Qana, Lebanon (33.2080556, 35.3002778) is where Jesus turned water to wine, 2006 years ago. Israeli's updated that by turning more than 60 civilians into blood.

Sistani's our great hope in Iraq. With Iraqi PM Maliki being shunned by our congress due to his statements on Israel and Lebanon, we're rapidly running out of allies on the ground.

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Hazard definitions, particularly "Pyrophoric" means a chemical that will ignite spontaneously in air at a temperature of 130 deg. F (54.4 deg. C) or below and Organic peroxides, which undergo autoaccelerating thermal decomposition, are excluded from any of the flashpoint determination methods specified above. Oh, and of course, triacetone triperoxide (TATP). It's really too bad I didn't pay enough attention in orgo or pchem.

Precedent includes the 1994 bombing of a Manila - Tokyo flight planned by Ramzi Yousef (in custody here in Florence's supermax) that used nitroglycerine hidden in a contact lens solution bottle, stabilized with cotton balls, and set off with a Casio wrist watch - it ripped through a Boeing 747, killing a Japanese passenger and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. It was a "dry run" for a plan to be executed on to be repeated on 11 American commercial jetliners, with the timing devices synchronized to go off as the planes reached mid-ocean and would have killed an estimated that 4,000 passengers had the plot been successful. [source, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2000, Bust and Boom, Washington Post, Dec 30, 2001] The image on the right is a snap from Ramzi Yousef's Manila apartment (cnn)

Detecting explosive liquids requires bombarding the target with neutrons and looking for a nitrogen presence. Neutrons means nuculars and particularly "gamma rays." Let the Hulk jokes begin. Poop, someone's already on it: Patent for Multi-sensor explosive detection system.

Al Qaeda? I don't think so. It's more likely that it's copy-cat or ex-AQ-influenced British of Pakistani extraction taking off on OBL's declaration of war on the US that occured this month, 1996.

More, as it develops.

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Israel's invasion of Lebanon to "wind the clock back 20 years" on the people there and crush Hezbollah is a neat thing we're doing - it's a combo of the classic proxy war throughout the Cold War era (plus the whole Zionist victim-complex) plus War on Terrorism. Mmmm, language. What's most neat about our proxy war with Iran is that they're not fighting back. I can't tell if they've recognized this yet.

The moonbats who thought the US was going to invade Syria after Iraq should take note: We've heard you and we're distracting you with an flea-flicker from an old playbook and still getting our broken PNAC ideations done.

Analysts are saying that in five years the people of Lebanon will look back and revile Hezbollah for the pain they've brought Lebanon and I think they just might, but not because they're cowed. I'm still thinking on this, but what I think it's going to do is make Israel less stable as the pall of empire becomes even more deep-seated in the hearts and minds of the people of that region. We're throwing good money after bad, with regards to Israel and our poor attempts to effect change via military dominance.

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It's my opinion that Zarqawi's legacy is legitimizing the concept of terror 'cells' that aren't necessarily generated from a single source, as classic terror cells are. A biological analogy might be cancer.

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the PATH plot appears to part of that new trend of "leaderless" terror.

The trend would include, he goes on to say, the May 2003 Morocco bombings, the March 2004 Spain bombings, and the July 2005 London bombings. Also included would be the Seas of David group.

I don't believe leaderless terror is a new thing at all, nor do I find it disturbing, from the point of view of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's core leadership had significant and public issues with bringing Zarqawi's Tawhid wa Jihad group into the AQ fold. It's to AQ's credit that new terror groups want to be associated with it's brand, but that desire also makes glaringly evident that Al Qaeda, itself, is marginalized and without the ability to generate operations of its own. This is a good thing, because it proves Al Qaeda's effectiveness is neutered and has moved on to a purely ideological mode. Combatting an ideological mode of a movement requires a different methodology than breaking up isolated pseudo-cells.

Zarqawi-esque "Al Qaeda copycats" tend to have their own twist on the Al Qaeda's demands - Zarqawi's was vehemently militant Salafist, anti-Shi'a, and anti-Jordanian, rather than the more anti-global, anti-Western first, pro-caliphate that AQ professes. These 'regionality' wrinkles are grippy handles for intelligence and enforcement operatives to grab onto and exploit. At the logical end of this spectrum, we come back to locally disgruntled terrorists - basque/eta, ira, timothy mcveigh.

There's a question of motive for these new cells which is a good and bad thing for the intelligence community. It's possible they're trying to gain AQ's attention to receive some sort of legitimacy from AQ, but it's just as possible that AQ's message has gone "mainstream" as it were and is causing spontaneous cells. Of the ones that have emerged, regardless of their "success," their tradecraft has been weaker than previous missions attributed to core Al Qaeda. For the enforcement community, that's also a good thing - bungling cells are easier to catch.

The real question is what a real "sleeper cell" looks like. Well trained and prepared cells would not look like the Seas of David or Assem Hammoud, the Lebanese man caught in April 2006, and being compared to the Lebanese 9/11 hijacker Ziyad Jarrah.

The tangential question is why are we hearing about "Kramer Jihadists" (a phrase used by Stratfor to describe opsec-poor terrorist wannabes) at this point in time. If this sort of hero emulation's constantly going on why is this being played up in the press? Is there actually a significant upsurge or is it for domestic political consumption? Anniversaries of Madrid, London, and NYC are also always good times to focus more on foiled plots, too.

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I believe the US government has the right and ability to detail the categorization of the extra-judicial designation of "enemy combatant." I also do believe that most people at Guantanmo are "innocent" but that the tragedies of their individual situations, which threatens to overshadow our pursuit of justice, are orthogonal to the legal issue of their designation.

It may not have been consistent with the precedent established by the Bush administration in further detailing the “enemy combatant” designation when it was decided to apply military tribunals as a method of trial to said designees as a rapid and easily implementable method by the President (ie, no need to confer with the other branches of government, Legislative or Judicial, due to the inherent extra-judicial nature of the EC designation). It would seem that a more consistent, albeit further inflammatory, path would've been to create an extra-judicial executive sponsored body of justice possibly based upon, but not exactly, existing military tribunal process.

The judicial branch is definitely concerned over matters judicial and especially concerned when their purview is sidestepped by something like the enemy combatant designation. It's also bit unsettling when legalities place areas beyond the actual, direct reach of the judicial branch. Lawyers on both sides of the issue seem to be doing the right thing by approaching the issue via one of our cornerstones of justice, habeas corpus. Whether habeas was respected by the tribunal process in place is in effect what this ruling narrowly addresses.

Their ruling today answered the question as to whether the administration's executive branch utilization of the military's tribunal system was constitutional, legal, and sufficient to adhere with their previous ruling that enemy combatants must be given a trial. They said that the President is not allowed to use the established and formal legal system of military tribunals as a means of justice. That's not what they're designed for. Enemy combatants are outside established precedent so, in essence, an existing form of adjudication cannot be used. I have to carefully read the ruling, but it may imply that even they themselves, the judicial branch, aren't the appropriate venue. This would further confirm the extra-judicial nature of the enemy combatant designation.

The question still remains as to what to do with these detainees. I'm comping up a punnet square of options for reference.

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Their leader, Narseal Batiste, was known in his native Chicago for his large, wooden walking stick, flowing robes and matching headdress - either white or purple.

"He used to stand on the corner for a long time talking up at the sky and holding a big stick," said Sarah Villasensor, 53, who owns the Latina Jewelry store a few doors down from where Batiste used to live. "He would stay for hours right there."

Batiste, at 32 the oldest of the group, imposed an ascetic regime: no women, no booze, no drugs, no meat and lots of martial arts. They affected a military bearing and wore black uniforms with homemade shoulder patches that some described as a Star of David.

"We study and we train through the Bible, not only physical but mentally," a member calling himself Brother Corey told CNN. "We are not no terrorists."

A close friend of one of the defendants said Batiste's teachings came from the Moorish Science Temple of America, an early 19th century religion that blends Christianity, Judaism and Islam with a heavy influence on self-discipline through martial arts.

Oddballs tried mix of creeds & religions, New York Daily News, 06/24/2006
Emphases mine.

Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. (wikipedia) states that it "is a religion founded in the early 20th century claiming to be a sect of Islam, but having equal influences in Buddhism, Christianity, Freemasonry, Gnosticism and Taoism. Its main tenet was that African Americans were descended from the Moors and thus were originally Islamic. Its founder was Noble Drew Ali, the Prophet né Timothy Drew (1886-1929), whose disciples included Wallace Fard Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, and Elijah Muhammad, who was Fard's successor and who later employed Malcolm X as the mouthpiece of the Nation."

So here we have a group, MST, which is also related to the Nation of Islam (NOI), a group whose offshoots joined an American version of Jamat al Fuqura (JF) (Here's Something Interesting) which is related to the 1993 WTC bombing (Clement Rodney Hampton-el), to members DC shooter ex-NOI John Allen Muhammad and shoebomber Richard Reid, and to the Daniel Pearl murder.

It's interesting that America's latest domestic "Islamic" terrorists aren't Muslims or Islamic at all, except superficially. Recall, when the Oklahoma City bombing happened even Geraldo thought it was Muslims.

Related post: Sleeper Cell? Seas of David, Liberty City, 06/23/2006

On a related note, this isn't in the Islam category because this doesn't belong there.

On a secondary related note, the SoD's wanted to blow up the Sears Tower, right? The Sears Tower was designed by a Muslim, Fazlur Rahman Khan (wikipedia), so in my eyes, that makes them doubly dumb.

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Seems like the insurgents are ticked off at Zarqawi's killing and are taking it out on the residents of Hibhib, the town where Zarqawi was killed. The Iraqi government should've anticipated revenge attacks at the scene of the crime. Other "revenge" incidents are taking place, such as the checkpoint attack that lead to beheading of our boys and the Shi'a factory workers that were abducted en masse.

A bomb struck a Sunni mosque in a town north-east of Baghdad, killing 10 worshippers and wounding 15 in the same town where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq earlier this month.

The explosion occurred in front of the Grand Hibhib mosque in the volatile Diyala province, according to the provincial joint co-ordination centre.

Al-Zarqawi, the leader of Iraq’s most feared terror group al Qaida in Iraq, was killed on June 7 in a US airstrike in Hibhib, which is near Baqouba, about 35 miles north-east of Baghdad.

10 killed in bomb attack on Sunni mosque, Ireland OnLine, 06/23/2006
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Edit: Here's the indictment, U.S. v. Batiste, et al.
Seven people arrested during an FBI raid in the US city of Miami have been charged with conspiring to work with al-Qaeda and under its control.
Ok. The press thinks them to be American Muslims, possibly an offshoot of black muslims. (five US citizens and two foreigners, including a Haitian)  They're most likely not even muslims.
Reports say they were infiltrated by a US agent posing as an al-Qaeda member.
Wow. Showtime's Sleeper Cell, anyone? I wonder what the JTTF/FBI thinks a profile of an AQ plant in Miami looks like?
Batiste met several times in December 2005 with a person purporting to be an al-Qaeda member and asked for boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, vehicles and $50,000 US in cash to help him build an “`Islamic army’ to wage jihad’,” the indictment said. It said that Batiste said he would use his “soldiers” to destroy the Sears Tower.

In February 2006, it said, Batiste told the “al-Qaeda representative” that he and his five soldiers wanted to attend al-Qaeda training and planned a “full ground war” against the United States in order to “kill all the devils we can.” His mission would “be just as good or greater than 9/11,” the indictment accused Batiste of boasting.
Here're some names. I'm looking for the indictment document. Seems juicy.
  • Narseal Batiste
  • Patrick Abraham
  • Stanley Grant Phanor
  • Naudimar Herrera
  • Burson Augustin
  • Lyglenson Lemorin
  • Rotschild Augustine
They were arrested on Thursday after heavily armed FBI agents and other law enforcement agencies swooped on a warehouse in one of Miami's poorest neighborhoods, Liberty City, [isn't this a GTA city?] a predominantly black area that has witnessed some of Miami's worst race riots.

A man identified as a member of the "Seas of David" religious group told CNN on Thursday that five of his fellow members were among those arrested and that they had no connection to terrorists.

"We are not terrorists. We are members of David, Seas of David," said the man, identified as Brother Corey. He said the group had "soldiers" in Chicago, but reiterated it was peaceful movement.

...

He refused to provide the names of those arrested, insisting his group was a religious organisation: "We study Allah and the worship of the regular Bible."

Cory also said his group had connections in Chicago. "We have soldiers in Chicago," he said, clarifying that by soldier he meant: "We train through the Bible ... not only physical but mentally."

Echoes of the Branch Davidians, or a David-derivative cult? Seas of David is apparently a religious group that blends the teachings of Christianity and Islam.

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Bodies of the missing US soliders were found here, approximately 20 miles south east of Yusufiyah, reportedly in a river/canal in the village of Jufra as Sahkr, Iraq.

Link to the places w/ Google Earth:
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"We give the good news to the Islamic nation that we have carried God's verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders... With God Almighty's blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court"

With this message posted on a jihadi website and reports from the press that two beheaded bodies of servicemen were found, it looks like Abu al-Masri's starting off his succession of Al Qaeda in Iraq with a bang. Recall that it was Zaraqwi who brought his group Tawhid wal Jihad to the fore by using the beheading of Nick Berg (04/2004) and Eugene Armstrong (10/2004), a contractor, to great media success. It's arguably this brutal strategy that made Al Qaeda recognize Zarqawi as a force to be reckoned with in Iraq and lead to his franchising the Al Qaeda name. Also, recall, that Zarqawi backed off this tactic when beheading was shown to be backfiring among his target recruiting audience. Yes, too brutal.

Now, al Masri appears to be doing the same, and that statement implies personally. Rehashing this old tactic may be a ploy to solidify his position as top dog in the insurgent pantheon since things were shaken up due to Zarqawi's death, but it also signifies that he's desperate for attention and position. Since the established public perception of beheadings turns the populace away from the insurgency, we're left with these possibilities: Desperate attempts for power or legitimacy.

What the American people do with this event will really be determined how the press and the individuals in Congress feel about the political opportunities that can be leveraged. It's a sad even that our boys are captured and killed, but it's a clawing reaction to try to hold on to the Iraqi public's fear in the face of an ever solidifying Iraqi government.

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I compiled some images snapped from NASA's WorldWind app to show the recent abductions by the Mujahedeen Shura Council insurgent cartel in Iraq. The Green Zone's an approximate outline.

Link to the places w/ Google Earth:

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On Friday, 06/17/2006, two American soldiers were captured and one killed during an attack on a checkpoint in Yusufiyah, Iraq. (Pte. 1st Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, TX and Pte. 1st Class Thomas Tucker, 25, of Madras, OR) The group who claimed responsibility for the abductions -Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella group of Al Qaeda related insurgent groups – is the same one that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of four Russian diplomats and killing one in Baghdad’s Mansour district, 06/03/2006. (The four missing are Fyodor Zaytsev, Rinat Aglyulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedosseyev; Vitaly Titov died) They hadn't made any demands, but as of today, they’ve given Moscow 48 hours to pull out of Chechnya and free Chechen prisoners.

Iraqi government Sunnis poised to take on insurgents

Coordinated raids in the days after Zarqawi’s death are looking more and more to have been a politicized effort – insurgents and their protectors who were close, but not aligned, with the Sunnis in the Iraqi government were ratted out and crushed, forcing a polarization of the insurgent and insurgent supporter community. The blowback will cause the insurgents to do more and dramatic attempts to assert relevance, such as these high profile abductions and further destruction. As long as the Sunni element in the Iraqi government keeps the pressure on, the insurgency could very well be on its last gasps.

Also, today, 500 detainees were released from U.S.-run detention centres in Iraq, the Justice Ministry said, part of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s plan to release 2,500 prisoners to promote national reconciliation. This will probably have a positive effect of widening the gap, mainstreaming Sunnis toward the government's cause and isolating the insurgency. Our American military probably doesn't think releasing prisoners's a good idea, especially since our left/press will probably find some way to make it into the cause celeb - return our troops!

I’ve some pictures of Yusufiyah and the Mansour district as well as some more info about the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which I’ll put up later.

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Iraq's Insurgency After Zarqawi - Council on Foreign Relations - Council on Foreign Relations: World - Jun 9, 2006 -

A decent article about the remainder of the Iraqi insurgents (the International Crisis Group's report, "In their own words" (Feb 2006), is more in depth, but less immediately digestable due to the details about each of the many insurgent groups) that concludes that the Iraqi Sunni insurgents won't be satisfied until perceived humiliations (by Americans, of the loss of their control/country, etc) have been addressed. I concur.

Khalayleh's influence was and legacy is to show that an independent cell-structure could carry out objectives that were tangentially related to Al Qaeda and be successful and (grudgingly) accepted by Al Qaeda. Madrid, London, and Tornoto all owe their origins and inspiration from the independency of Zarqawi. His priority was sewing dissent by attack Shia and destabilizing the region (for him, Iraq and Jordan were more important than America, Saudi, or Europe or the goal of the Caliphate), unlike "orthodox" Al Qaeda ideology.

For Iraq, Zaraqwi's death means a cooling of Al Qaeda influence and a chance to heal the Shia-Sunni rift.  The foreign-born jihadists in Iraq will experience a marked decline (more than they were already experiencing) now that Zarqawi isn't available to continue the PR and impose his ideological and tactical differences on Iraq. It won't matter if it's Abu Ayyub al Masri (an Egyptian that Zarqawi picked to be his successor) or Abu Abdel Rahaman al-Iraqi (a Baghdad native previously from a different insurgent group who is AQI's 2nd in command) who takes over Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Iraqi government's continued stability should now be getting closer to being enough to contain their insurgency.

As mentioned above, the broad view of the Iraqi insurgent composition doesn't help with minor course changes, but gives a general handle on what the insurgents are fighting for (and against).  The article references Ahmed Hashim's Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq which I'm currently reading and hopefully I'll make commentary or at least a summary.

For the rest of the world, though, it's Zarqawi's life that'll give hope for the broader, violent Salafist movement - whether in line with Al Qaeda's goals or not.  I expect more "copy-cat school shootings" - half-baked, but baking, nonetheless - like London and Toronto to be the commemerative reactions: DIY "Al Qaeda," and if you're good enough, you can use the brand name.  Further, because of this, the image of Islam will continue to be denigrated by western governments and populaces, reinforcing an anti-muslim view that perpetuates both the War on Terror and the rationales for resistance. 

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Yesterday, France, Britain and Germany were considering giving Iran a light water reactor (LWR) in exchange for Iran's assurance not to continue enriching uranium. A LWR is considered less proliferation-worthy since it's byproducts/waste aren't as usable in further refining processes, such as a heavy water reactor's (HWR) plutonium waste product. All this and LWR's are considered a-ok under the NPT by the IAEA. Iran's in the process of building a HWR in Arak, Iran.

I find all of this rather curious, as if that whole "doomed to repeat it" business about history's excluded from the IAEA's thinking. Let's review:

  • 1956: The British, US, and Canadians, in good faith, give India nuclear technology, ostensibly for peaceful, domestic purposes, as specified in the contract for the Cirus HWR and heavy water supply. May, 1974: India has a nuclear bomb and tests it. India's latest 2006 agreement with the United States excludes their military nuclear reactors from oversight. The US agrees.
  • 1994/1997: The United States, in good faith, offers LWRs (and oil) to DPRK in order to have Kim Jong Il retreat from pursuing nuclear weapons, KJI's stated goal. A few years later, sometime after 2002, the addition of LWR technology helps DPRK become a nuclear power.
In the words of our silver tongued, esteemed President from 2002 "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

That's right, no third time, and even the second time was a flub. You heard it. Additionally, Washington officials asked to comment on this plan have stated that they'd oppose such an offering.

Apparently, the European nations who're mulling over offering Iran a LWR aren't big history buffs. My favorite quote out of the supposedly tentative and secret discussions is from a French official:

"We are not going to offer them a finished reactor," he told the AP.
Mademoiselle, of course you're not. Rich, so rich. June 7, 1981 Israel bombs the French-made nuclear reactor given to Iraq. This reactor was delivered unfinished. Prior to its destruction, there were claims that the French delivered the reactor with a massive crack in its side - i.e. inoperable. The French are apparently either completely unaware of history or fully cognizent of their disengenuousness.

My advice to Iran would be to reject any offer like this and save the world the embarassment of this post.

As of this writing, Iran has. In the words of Iran's silver tongued, esteemed president "They say we want to give Iranians incentives, but they think they are dealing with a four-year-old, telling him they will give him candies or walnuts and take gold from him in return."

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Big Z's coming to Colorado. Specifically, to the ADX Supermax in Florence, where we keep all our traitors (Robert Hanssen), bombers (Hampton El, el Hage, Eric Rudolph, Terry Nichols), and general nutcases (Kaczynski). Maybe he can have McVeigh's old cell?

Admitted and accused Al Qaeda member and on-again-off-again 9/11 hijacker Zacharais Moussaoui was sentenced to life w/o parole yesterday evening and this morning Judge Brinkema stated that his destination would be the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) here in Colorado.

Briefly, to have gone through our judicial system and in particular a trial-by-jury is an accomplishment and credit (albeit a phyrric one) to our system. The real insight here was that our judicial system and FBI completely fell down on the job and were wholly inadequate in preventing anything terrorist related. They barely caught Moussaoui whose only connection to Al Qaeda was ideations and delusions of grandeur. Catching what amounts to a decoy is like that mounted singing bass of late-night shopping channels.

Additionally, the spotlight put on how little closure is actually available to the 9/11 victim's families via Moussaoui is embarassing. Again, what's catching an insane person who had no ability to do anything going to assuage? He's not the "one" or even part of anything, people.

Some people may think the real travesty of this case is that the "ones" we do actually have in black sites (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammaed, planner of 9/11, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, etc.) will never go through the US judicial system and that the judicial system has failed us by not giving Moussaoui our country's harshest punishment. I firmly believe the judicial system is set up for a retroactive enforcements and is not the proper forum in which to "bring justice" to the real terrorists. With all its strengths and benefits, the judicial system will, would, and could not bring any sort of closure, clarity, or "justice" to terrorism. Terrorism operates outside laws by design, attempting to put stricture on its intents by forcing it within our judicial system or current judicial systems creates the stage of the absurd that only a master nutter like Moussaoui could consistently play such a grand part. It's what'd happen if any other terrorist were brought within the system: they'd jump around on our legal system like monkeys on a jungle gym.

Lastly, not killing him was the right thing to do from both a punishment and Moussaoui's perspective. The only better thing to do would have been to declare him insane and put him away for life, but our judicial system doesn't really allow for that too well. Why? Because insane people can't be martyrs in Islam. Apart from the fact that it's clearly evident since his capture and processing through the system that Moussaoui's totally lost it, his delusions hinge on him being a great Al Qaeda martyr who'll get to heaven by bucking the Great Satan's system. Well, nice try buddy, but not only is he not going to become a martyr, he's continuing his slow decline into insanity.

  • "God curse America, God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him" "I fight for my beliefs. You think that you own the world and I will prove that you are wrong." - Moussaoui's last words
  • "Mr Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun… hear the birds… and they can associate with whomever they want. You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won." - U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema
  • "Mr Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory. But to paraphrase the poet TS Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper." "You will never get a chance to speak again, and that's an appropriate ending." - U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema

Finally, and on edit, I urge you in the most strongly worded manner that an excess of verbiage can only muster, secondary to writing this as a UN resolution, to not read this article in the Washington Post, Judging the Moussaoui Jury, by Andrew Cohen, 05/04. Why? This article analyses the juries judgements and utterly destroys any high falutin' ideals one might have of our jury system. Contradictions abound in their conclusions. Cohen's conclusion is that it's fitting that a confused defendant, defense would create complexity and doubt and that's how the ends justify the means.

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Zarqawi, who Ian thinks is a fake, is upping the ante*, calling for Iraqis to join him in ousting America from Iraq.

Zawahiri who, in a DNI revealed letter in July 2005 (see google's cache of it), sent some pointed but polite advice to Zarqawi to tone it down and not incite too much sectarian conflict in Iraq. I found this very odd at the time, given Zawahiri's religious bent, but the in-field deference to al Qaeda's latest franchise seemed to be the real intent. Zarqawi had recently renamed his "Tawhid wal Jihad" as AQI.

Zawahiri's - an Egyptian - most recent statement, in March, about broad political happenings, including the Hamas victory in Palestine, seemed like he was setting a global state of affairs. With Zarqawi probably having a hand in the Shi'ite directed bombings as well as this latest recruiting video, he's not really heeding the mother ship much anymore.

So, with the recent bombings in Dahab, Egypt:

The Egyptian judiciary recently announced that an Islamist group calling itself Tawhid wal Jihad was responsible for the multiple bombings on Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2005 and other Red Sea resorts further north in October 2004. - Blasts linked to 'Islamists' News24

... we've got a group that could be an ancestral offshoot or one that has taken Zarqawi's cast-off name operating in #2's homeland.  Aw, snap, Zawahiri!

Overall, it's looking to be quite a summer for terror's PR - they're not fighting each other, but they sure are fighting for the spotlight. In the (recent) past, the movement that al Qaeda promoted was at a crossroads: does it "think global" with big themes, yet keeping the eye on the prize of removing Western influence from Muslim countries or does it "act local" (and yes, that's my homage to Earth Day) and fight the percieved perfidy of the West locally? At this point, with the strategy of stoking of sectarian tensions (warned off by Zawahiri, but given the nod by Zarqawi), explosions in Egypt (said to be the most proactive anti-terrorist Arab nation) that recall the earlier ones, a summer Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, and the tapes from Zawahiri, Zarqawi, and Bin Laden it really looks like the terrorists have decided to go for friendly competition instead of internal strife.


* ... upping the ante or having his strings pulled?

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It’s a bit boring to rehash, but people keep doing it: Bush lied us into war. Jack had a fanboy on his blog, commenting random Democrat sayings and asked this: What were the proper justifications for war and would the American people have believed them?

It struck me that this was a good question, amid all the vehement “Bush lied, People died” yawnable thematics that were going on. What were the justifications for war and would those’ve actually convinced the American people? Upon some reflection over the Cliffs Note’s of history in my head, I realized that the only valid justification for war in the last 20 or 30 years has actually been the threat of nuclear bombing. During the Cold War, “Duck & Cover” was the fear that was drilled into young school children with clever black & white instructional videos, Mutually Assured Destruction and the nuclear arms race, the fear of 3 Mile Island’s fallout, the constant reviling of nuclear energy – these are the memories that come up. More recently, North Korea gets light water reactors, the Iraq war hinged on aluminum tubes and Iran’s getting centrifuges. Nuclear and nuclear ambitions really stick out as the only thing that really scares Americans.

Why that’s the only thing that scares us Americans is a whole other pool to dive into. With our fear of another 3 Mile Island (which was wholly contained, unlike Chernobyl), France and Japan have successfully powered themselves on “peaceful” nuclear energy, Albright during the Clinton years plied the reticent North Koreans with light water reactors, and India was helped in getting civilian nuclear power. (Granted, the last two are failures, not successes, since both nations went on to develop nuclear weaponry with our help, but I’m straying from the point.)

After the Cold War, our collective assholes needed some rest from being so clenched. With the Russians defeated, there was also a void for the object of our collective hatred. Our Clinton years really made us ignore foreign policy and involvement with other countries. It was a halcyon time, with budget surpluses and domestic foibles. Some of our military boys got shot here or there, but those were nefarious “small wars” started by Reagan and were Cold War holdovers - distasteful and easily ignored by the American people. The UN was allowed to run roughshod over the world, filling a power void they were really never meant to fill.

What wasn’t priority, if it ever was, was reclaiming the US’s dominance or “hand” in international relations. The American people have a very non-committal relationship with anything outside the US other than a “great enemy” and the Russians were destitute. It’s not that we didn’t fear, it’s that we didn’t (and honestly, still don’t) care.

Our culture passively asserts our dominance, and we tend to be chagrined whenever anyone points out the negative effects of Levi’s jeans (black markets) or Coca-Cola (environmental damage).

Additionally not a priority, was changing the status quo especially when it meant “doing something” – a la the failed containment of Saddam Hussein by 10+ years of sanctions through 14+ UN resolutions. The UN was failing quietly. American people don’t realize that it’s actually our responsibility to make sure that the UN doesn’t fail, regardless of the arguments about how much back dues we owe to them (or the other side of the argument, how much of their budget we actually do provide).

Another priority, that was more pointedly relevant, especially after 9/11 which the American people were ambivalent of, if not completely ignorant of, was the reestablishment of America as not a paper tiger. During the Clinton years, we ignored attacks on our sovereignty (the Cole, Khobar Towers, Berlin nightclubs, Tanzanian embassies) as random outliers. Whoops, big mistake. What to do about it, though? With no real understanding, lashing out worked ok for a while, but then Americans get confused. There’s no ability to understand geopolitical strategy beyond “Saddam was contained and secular” or any other short, three word chants.

An overt attack on Afghanistan and covert pressure on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Sudan really wasn’t going to cut it for the 9/11 families and the revenge takers. The logical conclusion of bombing a country who’d literally been bombed for the last 20 years was what? Nothing. Afghanistan’s a strategic backwater. Continuing, what’s the logical conclusion of covert American pressure in the region? Blowback. Blowback and a lack of control of the already unstable WMD market. Removing the low hanging fruit of instability – Saddam Hussein – would literally force our country back into the terrorists’ faces with a bold and committed move. It’s too bad that the American people don’t find (re)asserting American priorities on people who’re clearly harmful (from terrorists to people gaming the system, like Mr. Saddam) as anywhere near an American priority. In a way, they’re right – It’s never been an American priority.

None of these work nearly as well (if at all) on the American psyche as “immanent threat of nuclear attack.” And that’s what we lead with to get the most people on board. Got your attention, didn’t it?

(And, no, “further goals” or negative consequences of war aren’t selling points but are a whole other discussion.)

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My cousin insisted that I listen a show that This American Life did on 03/10/2006 called "Habeas Schmabeas" (real audio, pdf transcript) which is a much more coherent picture of the difficulties and obvious mistakes made with regards to Guantanamo and enemy combatants (or NLECs, no longer enemy combatants). Along with Moazzam Begg's book, it's pretty evident that the American MPs and other 'handlers' were just over the top in the treatment and hate of the majority of people who should've been released.

If we've labeled them as terrorists, then that's how they get treated.

In this new war, the plan was to build a prison so bleak that the detainees would give up home and talk.

Too bad most of them have nothing significant to talk about. As pointed out in this show and elsewhere, the 50 or so that do know anything are in CIA custody, in black sites, where they should be.

It brings up a lot of good points with regards to the relevance of habeas corpus in this 'new war,' or, as I like to call it, the new cold war. Since '01, I haven't been convinced that habeas should be so sanctified, but the public fallout of what we're told is, and continues to be, nothing short of egregious. The longer it goes on, the easier it gets to believe that Americans both hate and are afraid of Muslims, carte blanche, instead of thinking that this is a tight situation navigating legal precedent.

even if I were an angel, I would still be a terrorist to them, because it's the thing that they wanted. People don't want to take responsibility for their mistakes, that's it. They want to put it on others.
- Abdullah al Noaimi, a Bahraini 19 y/o who'd been to Spring Break in Daytona Beach and other places in the US, as a tourist; released in 2005

It's a good listen.

XII.
And for preventing illegal imprisonments in prisons beyond the seas; (2) be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no subject of this realm that now is, or hereafter shall be an inhabitant or resiant of this kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon Tweed, shall or may be sent prisoner into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier, or into parts, garrisons, islands or places beyond the seas...
Habeas Corpus Act, 1679
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Jim Welker, the Colorado representative who thinks Muslims can't be Americans, has resigned:
“It’s something I wanted to do anyway,” he said. “I wanted to make a change. I did not plan on a career in politics.”

“I’d rather spend the summer traveling and camping than knocking on doors,” he said.

Many in the party did not see Welker’s announcement coming.

“It was a shock,” said Jane Peters, secretary of the Larimer County Republican Party. “We were all in shock.”

Shocking, uh huh. What's shocking is that this guy had constituents and if they weren't shamed, like this guy, they'd forthrightly express their unthinking misbeliefs.

Thanks, Ian! (ps, all you have to do to make a comment is log in)

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I'm reading Moazzam Begg's Enemy Combatant, about this British national's experience from being caught up in a sweep in Afghanistan and held at Bagram and Guantanamo, to being freed in 2005 w/o charges. Here's a quote from Clive Stafford Smtih, his British death row lawyer talking to him, while Begg was in Gitmo:

In the US they have always hated black people, but never feared them. During the Cold War, they feared the Soviets, but never hated them. With the Muslim world, they fear you and hate you.

That seems to about sum it up for now.

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This is how you know we've lost and they've won:

LONDON - British anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said on Wednesday.

The taxi driver had become worried on the way to the airport because Mann had been singing along to The Clash’s 1979 anthem “London Calling,” which features the lyrics “Now war is declared -- and battle come down” while other lines warn of a “meltdown expected.”
Briton held as terror suspect over punk song, MSNBC 04/05/2006

Idiots.

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The best thing for the 'enemy combatant' law (so far) has happened: it's not going to be addressed or challenged (at this time) by the Supreme Court.

Jose Padilla's detention appeal was in line to be considered by the Supreme Court until they decided, today, not to hear it.

Padilla was detained in Chicago returning from Pakistan on grounds that he was intending to commit acts of terrorism in the US and held for 3 years in a Navy brig in South Carolina. Recently, he was released from being in 'enemy combatant' status and charged with non-terrorism crimes and sent to Florida. His lawyers appealed the change in status, because it made their case - questioning the legality of the President's ability to designate US citizens caught on US territory as 'enemy combatants' - irrelevant. The appeal was rejected in the 4th Circuit and was headed towards the Supreme Court

No such luck. Padilla's still in custody, though not as an 'enemy combatant.' Better luck next time. Souter and Breyer dissented.

Supreme Court Refuses to Review Padilla Case, Washington Post

For more background, see my previous posts:

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This morning, as I walked into work, the security guard I like did the verbal double take a lot of people here do: "Hi, Saddam, er uh, " his voice getting lower and then correcting himself. I, as per usual, ignored it, since it was obvious he was making a mistake, and went on with the morning niceties. Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy, very friendly and usually goes out of his way to say hi when he's around (they rotate the guards), but seriously, after a while, this camel's back gets one too many straws on it. Here's one of them:

Today, as the Colorado Caucus starts nominating representatives, let's hope this guy gets thrown out on his ass: Nearly two years ago, Jim Welker (R-Loveland), the representative from House District 51 sent an e-mail to constituents titled “Beware of Islam in America.”

The subject line of the May 2004 e-mail read "Beware Of Islam In America." The text, which Wright [a Fort Collins Pastor who received Welker's e-mail] provided to the newspaper, said in part, "Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and loyal citizen? ... Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah, who teaches annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan."

Is this guy serious? Is this guy still in office? What the ever loving? Now I want to be gerrymandered into his district just to vote against him.

Welker apologized on the House floor for an forwarded e-mail he sent recently (March 6, 2006), commenting on how moral poverty caused Katrina.

"I don't condone those comments" in Peterson's essay, Welker told colleagues. [I just forward them along.] "I offer my sincere apologies to this body and to the public (and) to the people of Loveland. I hope I become a better person for having made a big mistake." [It hasn't worked in the past, so I don't see why it would now.]
Also...
Welker, 58, is a Christian who said he believes the Bible is meant to be read literally.
... I wonder if anyone's asked him if he can read Greek?

Usually I ignore shit like this (see Tom "Let's Bomb Mecca" Tancredo, R-Littleton) because, like hello dude, I live in (growing) white(r) America.  Since Welker judges (judge not lest ye be judged) and doesn't really seem to fear being judged, here's mine:

People of Loveland, listen the fuck up: Toss this anti-American ignoramus who "represents" you out. Rest of you Colorado Republicans, be ashamed of how Welker portrays your party. The irony that it's a Republican being racist (someone harness the energy from Lincoln spinning in his grave already) is way too much to take. And, if not, and you guys think he's an upstanding Loveland citizen, well, now you know why I didn't title this post "In My Backyard."

Pastor: Lawmaker Sent Earlier E-Mail About Muslims, cbs4denver/AP
E-mail Exposes Trend 03/17/2006, LovelandFYI
... and so many others.

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The Israel Lobby, London Review of Books, 03/23/2006 - A fantastic article, an edited version of their paper (pdf), describes how "Israel blind" we are in this country and shows how much a detriment and a security risk being so overtly pro-Israel actually is. The authors are right that this could've only been published somewhere outside of the US. It really makes me consider turning off all media that originates from the US.

No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.

Thanks to Ian's It's a St. Patrick's Day Miracle where he has many more good links.

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Time has an article whose title poses the question What's Really Wrong With The Moussaoui Case? Following the case (and related terrorism prosecution in Spain, etc.), the answer's easy: Prosecuting terrorism within the Justice system doesn't work as a deterent, method of closure, or, well, anything at all. Sorry, John Kerry.
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Here's a nice succinct way of putting it:
The ironic fact is that the UAE is precisely the kind of Arab ally the United States needs most now. But that clearly didn't matter to an election-year Congress, which responded to the Dubai deal with a frenzy of Muslim-bashing disguised as concern about terrorism. And we wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like us.
Burning Allies -- and Ourselves, an op-ed in the Washington Post by David Ignatius, 03/10/2006 (a fun aside for Ignatius can be found here, in his upcoming movie deals with director Sir Ridley Scott).

I'm making a list of people who should never talk ever again about foreign policy. Updates here.

This is the amendment added by Jerry Lewis (R-CA) regarding blocking Dubai Ports World (pdf) that has been attached to H.R. 4939 (pdf, see pp.82-83, Sec 3011) "Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes."

House Subcommittee members voting for the amendment
Jerry Lewis (R-CA - Chairman)
C. W. Bill Young (R-FL)
Ralph Regula (R-OH)
Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Frank R. Wolf (R-VA)
Tom DeLay (R-TX)
James Walsh (R-NY)
Charles H. Taylor (R-NC)
David L. Hobson (R-OH)
Ernest J. Istook, Jr. (R-OK)
Henry Bonilla, TX (R)
Joe Knollenberg, MI (R)
Jack Kingston, GA (R)
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, NJ (R)
Roger F. Wicker, MS (R)
Todd Tiahrt, KS (R)
Zach Wamp, TN (R)
Tom Latham, IA (R)
Anne Northup, KY (R)
Robert Aderholt, AL (R)
Jo Ann Emerson, MO (R)
Kay Granger, TX (R)
John E. Peterson, PA (R)
Virgil Goode, VA (R)
John Doolittle, CA (R)
Ray LaHood, IL (R)
John Sweeney, NY (R)
Don Sherwood, PA (R)
Dave Weldon, FL (R)
Michael K. Simpson, ID (R)
John Abney Culberson, TX (R)
Mark Steven Kirk, IL (R)
Ander Crenshaw, FL (R)
Dennis R. Rehberg, MT (R)
John Carter, TX (R)
Rodney Alexander, LA (R)
David R. Obey, WI (D - Ranking Member)
John P. Murtha, PA (D)
Norman D. Dicks, WA (D)
Martin Olav Sabo, MN (D)
Steny H. Hoyer, MD (D)
Alan B. Mollohan, WV (D)
Marcy Kaptur, OH (D)
Peter J. Visclosky, IN (D)
Nita M. Lowey, NY (D)
Jose E. Serrano, NY (D)
Rosa L. DeLauro, CT (D)
John W. Olver, MA (D)
Ed Pastor, AZ (D)
David E. Price, NC (D)
Chet Edwards, TX (D)
Robert E. "Bud" Cramer, Jr., AL (D)
Patrick J. Kennedy, RI (D)
James E. Clyburn, SC (D)
Maurice D. Hinchey, NY (D)
Lucille Roybal-Allard, CA (D)
Sam Farr, CA (D)
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., IL (D)
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, MI (D)
Allen Boyd, FL (D)
Chaka Fattah, PA (D)
Steven R. Rothman, NJ (D)
Sanford D. Bishop, Jr., GA (D)
Marion Berry, AR (D)

People consistently and vocally displaying no clue John Kerry (D-MA)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Charles Schumer, (D-NY)
Howard Dean, DNC Chairman
Harold E. Ford Jr. (D, State Senator TN) - "President Bush wants to sell this port -- and five others -- to the United Arab Emirates"

Here's a set of criteria to tell that people are idiots about "ports" and "security"

  • If they use the word "own" as in 'Dubai or UAE will own ports in the US,' or "run" as in 'Dubai or UAE will run US ports'
  • If they conflate terminal operations and port security (port security, dummies, is handled by US Customs/Border and the Coast Guard)
  • If they're unaware that 80% of the west coast ports are "run" or "owned" by non-US companies and in some cases (Singapore) partially foreign-government owned companies
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The politics on the DPW deal (that's gone through, btw) is, in my opinion, short term political "gains" at the expense of actual long-term security. There's only been one voice on the news I've seen recently (and I really haven't seen much news), so I'm digging all the quotes I can search out on Kim Childs, VP of The American Business Group of Abu Dhabi. An expanded 2nd quote's being replayed during BBC World's coverage.

"If the deal is blocked on terms that aren't consistent with a due diligence process, that sends a loud and clear message to our friends that maybe they should rethink investments in the U.S.," said Kim Childs, ABG executive vice president.

"We deeply regret what appears to have been an uninformed rush to judgment by some opponents of the transaction, as well as inflammatory language that some have adopted," she told reporters in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.[1]

Much of the uproar is coming from "people in Washington who have never been here or worked here," said Kim Childs, executive vice president of the American Business Group of Abu Dhabi, who first came to the United Arab Emirates 11 years ago from Pennsylvania. "Most of us have raised our children here and have our businesses here," she said. Some of the criticism of the emirates has been like "slapping your best friend in the face," she added. [2]

"A delegation will go this month to educate politicians on relations between the UAE and the United States," said Kim Childs, executive vice-president of the Abu Dhabi-based American Business Group.

"The UAE is a reliable and trustworthy partner and one of our closest allies," she said. [3]

1 U.S.-UAE trade at risk from ports deal-business group, Reuters, 03/08/2006
2 U.S. Businesses Are Lining Up Behind Dubai, NYT 03/08/2006
3 US House committee votes to keep Dubai firm from US ports, Middle East Times, 03/09/2006
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Rarely do I have public radio "driveway moments," sitting in my car listening to a program instead of going inside and turning on the radio, but sometimes work's not that exciting and there's a soy chai to be tended to.

This morning, KGNU aired a good Alternative Radio interview with Emran Qureshi who wrote an op-ed in the NYT entitled The Islam the Riots Drowned Out on their "Morning Magazine." Qureshi has a solid grasp of the history of Islam and the Islamic world as well as how the resurgence of Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt have been trying to combat the Iranian revolution's dominance (prior to 9/11) of the image of Islam is a context worth understanding. Qureshi sets forth how this fundamentalist one-uppmanship has taken its toll on Islam. Also, he has a measured response to the issue of censorship.

The controversy comes at a time when many in the Islamic world view the war on terrorism as a war on Islam. They draw on memories of colonization and of the Crusades, when Western invaders ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad as an imposter.

Ironies abound. Saudi Arabia leads the protests, yet is systematically destroying its Islamic heritage. The Wahhabis who dominate Saudi Arabia do not believe in honoring Islam's holy men and women or the Prophet Muhammad (they've proscribed the celebration of his birthday). Driven by sectarian zeal, the Saudi authorities have razed and dug up virtually every site in Mecca and Medina linked to Muhammad, members of his family and his companions.

No, the answer is not more censorship. But it would be nice if Western champions of freedom of speech didn't trivialize it by deriving pleasure from their ability to gratuitously offend Muslims. They view freedom of speech much as Islamic fundamentalists do — simply as the ability to offend — rather than as the cornerstone of a liberal democratic polity that uses such freedoms wisely and responsibly. Worse, these advocates insist on handing Muslim radicals a platform from which to pose as defenders of the faith against an alleged Western assault on Islam.

I find his comparison of the critique of "the cartoons as hate speech" argument that I'm fond of as a bit disingenuous. He asks whether muslim-produced literature that could be construed as hate speech should be banned as well? The argument's not exactly apples-to-apples, what with Western media's inherent responsibility of weighing free speech vs. hate speech. Haters in the muslim world are obviously not going to police themselves and the western media wouldn't even know who they are, really, so they wouldn't publish them. If a media organization who is attempting to adhere to 'free speech principles' (whatever that means in Europe) itself produces encourages hate speech, that should be recognized for what it is: hypocrisy and a failing of the responsibility that comes with free speech. Regardless, his article takes a good angle to critique the popular view of Islam in America.

KGNU has mp3 archives of their interviews and when the place it up, I'll put a link here to the interview segment (the whole "Morning Magazine" tends to be 30mb and some people really don't need to hear Jim Hightower's inane ideations just to get to an interesting interview). Update: Since this was an Alternative Radio live interview, KGNU cut off their recording.  You'll just have to take my word for it that it was worth sitting in the car for.

On a perfectly superficial aside aimed at "non-native" people trying to pronounce foreign-language words with some sort of ethnocorrectness: Bravo at your attempt but, please, pick a dialect. For example, if you want to pronounce "Karbala" and "Qawaali" be definite and consistent in the dialect chosen. There's nothing worse than a "dialect of the moment" pronunciation of Saudi, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Indian cities, places and things.  You can pronounce both words as Arabic or as Urdu words (which sound slightly different), but mixing the two (especially mixing up the two), makes one sound very eracism. It really hurts the ears. After a while, I'd rather hear the anglicized pronunciations rather than a well-meaning butchered attempt.

The second interesting interview, which was actually before the first and only kept me in my car for a short period of time, was with Jim Spiri, a civilian contractor who was fired from KBR for writing an article about a Las Cruces, NM soldier whose casket he helped load on a plane back from Iraq, The night Jesse Zamora was carried to the C-130. This incident seem to have blown up in KBR's face. Spiri's obviously a patriot and didn't really succumb to any anti-Bush goading of some of the callers, but he does come down pretty hard on KBR's management of their contract. From the segment, it seems like he'd been a good worker and was ground up in the bureacracy that complicates government contracts, something that hits home. Edit: Here's the interview with Jim Spiri on KGNU 03/02/2006

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Here's a roundup of the port related political bullcrap that's going on. It's shameful that people've waited until now to talk about port security and doubly shameful that it's directly interfering with America's economic feasabilty in favor of... in favor of what? "Security"? No, in favor of Congressional grandstanding.  Congressional midterm elections are fast approaching and the free-for-all 2008 Presidential gladitorial events, even faster.  Everyone wants to grab the low-hanging fruit of looking like they're strong on security via calling on less foreign-government owned companies managing our ports regardless of how it effects our position in the global economy or, for that matter, actual port security.

It seems to me that our inability to come to terms with an Arab nation, domestically, almost five years after 9/11, and where American companies don't even manage most port berths in this country speaks volumes about the level of sophistication we bring to understanding the situation in Arab countries, themselves. AQ's now attacking Saudi areas and able to foment really deep discontent in Iraq, playing off our evident dunderheadedness and what appears to be racially-motivated fear mongering.

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States - CFIUS was created in 1988, as concerns about Japanese investment in the US rose when Mitsubishi purchased the Rockefeller Center in New York. Since then, the interagency group, led by the Treasury Department, reviews and has the potential to block foreign acquisitions of US assets if they are deemed to have the potential to harm national security.


Coast Guard Saw 'Intelligence Gaps' on Ports, Washington Post, 02/28/2006

"Security measures were thoroughly reviewed, including intelligence matters," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. She did not know whether the White House was briefed on the Coast Guard assessment, but, she said, "I do know that at the end of the day, when the process was completed and the transaction was approved, homeland security questions were resolved."

Clay Lowry, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for international affairs, told Homeland Security Committee members the Coast Guard's concerns "were addressed and resolved."

The Coast Guard document, completed about one month before the ports deal received government approval Jan. 17, was the strongest indication that members of the administration had expressed security concerns over the transaction. Officials from the departments of Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the secretive interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviewed the DP World deal, was unanimous in its position that no concerns had emerged to trigger the 45-day national security review required by the law that established the panel.

Later, the Coast Guard said in a statement that the excerpts of its preliminary evaluation "when taken out of context, do not reflect the full, classified analysis" that eventually concluded "that DP World's acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in ports" in the continental United States.

  • "Given the red-flag questions that the Coast Guard raised, very serious questions about operations, personnel and foreign influence, how could there not have been the 45-day investigation that's clearly required by law?" asked Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine).
  • "This report suggests there were significant and troubling intelligence gaps," Collins said. "That language is very troubling to me."
  • Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said, "Since the president won't act to keep our ports safe, we will."
  • Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) said he will introduce legislation today mandating that security reviews by the homeland security and intelligence committees run concurrently with administration security reviews of company purchases. "We have tried our best to support this administration at every turn, but to be blindsided by an issue of this magnitude demonstrates we have a lot of work to do," he said.
  • A bill introduced yesterday by Coburn, Menendez, Collins, and Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) would halt the sale of P&O pending the 45-day review and would give Congress the authority to reject the deal after the investigation.
  • A bill by Menendez, Clinton, Lautenberg and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) would block the sale and ban companies owned by foreign governments from controlling U.S. port operations.
  • "Congress has a right and responsibility in this case to conduct aggressive oversight and block a deal that could seriously undermine our national security," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). "This deal should not go through without an open investigation and congressional input."
But in a Dec. 13 intelligence assessment of the company and its owners in the United Arab Emirates, the Coast Guard warned: "There are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets to support terrorist operations, that preclude" the completion of a thorough threat assessment of the merger.

"The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities," says the document, released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Excerpt of Coast Guard statement
Most U.S. Port Terminals Are Foreign-Run, NPR 02/26/2006

Security issues go beyond ports flap, USA Today, 02/23/2006
At the massive Port of Los Angeles alone, 80% of the terminals are run by foreign firms. And the U.S. Department of Transportation says the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan have interests in U.S. port terminals.

Allowing Dubai Ports World to control up to 30% of the port terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami shouldn't really be a cause for concern, says James Loy, former deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and a retired commandant of the Coast Guard. "We're making a mountain out of a mole hill here."

He and other analysts say that instead, politicians should focus on gaps in port-security programs that have left the global shipping system and the nation's 360 ports vulnerable to terrorism. The vulnerabilities extend from companies that load cargo containers abroad and the inspection process at overseas ports, to the need to install radiation detectors at most U.S. ports.

Stephen Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations estimates that most port terminals across the nation are run by foreign interests.

In Los Angeles, port spokeswoman Theresa Adams Lopez says, foreign operations include Yusen Terminals Inc., a subsidiary of Japanese shipping giant NYK Line, established in 1885.

The Port of Seattle has five container terminals. Three are run by U.S. companies, one is managed by a South Korean company, and the fifth is managed by a company partly owned by the Singapore government.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns five primary cargo terminals, three of which are run by foreign firms. The terminal that would be run by the Dubai-based company is operated in conjunction with a Danish firm. The terminal is leased to the two companies and is five years into the 30-year lease, port authority spokesman Steve Coleman says. The other two main cargo terminals in New York and New Jersey are run by the same Danish firm and by a Hong Kong-based company.
Securing Americas Ports, PBS, 02/23/2006
Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt, "We're not aware of a single national security concern raised recently that was not part of the CFIUS staff review."

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: The process used to review this transaction appears to be cursory at best.

ROBERT KIMMITT: It doesn't suggest the security concerns were not raised; they were raised, they were resolved. We moved on.

Margaret Warner, NewsHour: Mr. Dinsmore, this Dubai Ports World, that's commonly referred to as a port operator, what does a company like that actually do?

M.R. Dinsmore, CEO, Port of Seattle: Margaret, thank you. Terminal operators really run the terminal. They lease the terminal from the Port Authority -- in our behalf, the Port of Seattle. And if they're a terminal operator and stevedore, they actually load and unload the containers from the vessel.

MARGARET WARNER: So what you're saying is the port is really the geographic area and you may have many terminals within a port, say, New York.

M.R. DINSMORE: I am. Many times I've listened to the news and talking about they bought six ports. They clearly haven't bought six ports. They bought terminals within a port authority.

STEPHEN FLYNN, CFR:The people are actually in the port picking up the containers, working the cranes, moving the carts around and so forth. These are all longshoremen, and they're American citizens, and they don't change no matter who is in charge - who is the owner of the lease in the port.

STEPHEN FLYNN: Basically the terminal operator often has an office that looks like an industrial park kind of office that you might imagine inside the port, and they're doing a lot of the paper shuffling and call making and other kinds of things to facilitate -- It's an incredibly complex activity of moving containers from all over the world and getting them to the customers that ultimately end up in our shelves or in our manufacturing plants. Now virtually all those folks are Americans as well.

Typically if it's a foreign-owned company who leases this terminal, there will be a few senior managers who report from the home office but they're not having any contact physically with the box. That is done by only the longshoremen. So on the West Coast, those are members of the ILWU, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. On the East Coast it's the International Longshore Association. These are pretty red-blooded Americans who get these jobs; they're in the cranes, they're driving the carts and basically anything that happens in that terminal is in the union's hands largely.

M.R. DINSMORE: Margaret, let me start by saying I concur with Stephen's comments and in answer to your question, I believe strongly that the U.S. government, this administration needs to do a good job of due diligence in making sure there isn't any loopholes on behalf of any company coming in to be a terminal operator.

Now, that being said, in our port, there's three major terminal operators. One is SSA Marine, a very large U.S. corporation, very large customer. Another is American President Lines, NOL, Singaporean company and part of that company is owned by the government. And another is HanJin Shipping, and they're a terminal operator, and that is a South Korean company. I think after we do our due diligence, we need to move on and make sure that issues like this do indeed go forward and ultimately get approved.
At ports, security vs. trade, Christian Science Monitor, 02/27/2006
"The current CFIUS process was designed to deal with this on a case-by-case basis because outright prohibitions would not be good for the US," says Nancy McLernon, senior vice president of the Organization for International Investment, which represents US operations of foreign companies. "If an American company had acquired P&O, there wouldn't be any security review at all. Let's remember that just because it's a US-owned company doesn't mean there are no security concerns with them at all."
Ports, UAE and The Addiction to Foreign Dependence, New Civilization Magazine

A Ship Already Sailed, New York Times 02/24/2006
American companies began withdrawing decades ago from the unglamorous business of stevedoring, ceding the now-booming industry to enterprises in Asia and the Middle East.

So it is no accident that American companies are not in the top ranks of global terminal operators, who have ridden the coattails of the explosion in world trade. That shift has transferred growing financial clout to a handful of seafaring centers in Hong Kong, Singapore and now the emirate of Dubai.

Though two American companies now rank eighth and ninth among the world's top 10 operators, it would not be easy for other American companies to get into the business. The retreat began decades ago amid rising labor costs and slow growth, while foreign companies spotted opportunities.

P&O earned $383 million on revenues of $2.4 billion in the first six months of 2005. The company itself grew in the United States through an earlier wave of industry consolidation, taking over local companies like Gulf Service of New Orleans in 2000 and International Terminal Operating Company of Jersey City in 1999. Similarly, Neptune Orient Lines of Singapore in 1997 acquired one of the oldest American terminal operating and shipping companies, American President Lines, which originated in the Gold Rush of 1848.

A terminal operator is now expected to manage where and when a ship will berth, the use of gantry cranes, relations with unionized stevedores and arrangements with trucks or rail cars to take goods to market. This is all done with specialized software intended to minimize the amount of time a ship stays in port, allowing owners to use the vessels as much as possible.

Even with assurances from DP World and its supporters that it would hew to American security requirements, analysts, regulators and bankers have been scratching their heads at demands by politicians to review the deal, in part because the deal is already completed under British law.

"God knows how you'd reverse it," said one London-based executive involved in the sale, who did not want to be identified because of client confidentiality agreements. British regulators have approved the deal, and shareholders have already voted for it, he said.

"The Arabs own it, what are you going to do? Force them to sell it? Revoke their licenses for United States ports?" he asked.

Either of those measures might spark some sort of retaliation from Dubai in the form of legal action, he said, or even something as extreme as some sort of a restrictions on American-bound shipments passing through the port of Dubai.
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Bloomberg reports Saudi authorities killed 2 of their most wanted in a shootout in Riyadh as they hunt for the people who drove Aramco-labled cars up to the Abqaiq oil processing facility. Mohammed Saleh al-Ghaith, 23 years old, and Abdullah Abdulaziz al-Tuaijri, 21 years old, were killed along with 3 others.

Reuters reports that Al Qaeda issued a statement naming the two as martyrs and pledging to carry out more operations against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia:

The statement, signed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said: "We renew our vow to crush the forces of the crusaders and the tyrants and to stop the theft of the wealth of the Muslims."

In Iran's Khuzestan province, a southwestern province which borders Iraq and the Persian Gulf and is a center of Iran's oil production (90% of their oil production), two percussion grenades went off in the bathrooms of the governor's offices in Abadan and Dezful within ten minutes of each other. (IRNA, BBC) No injuries were reported.

And, here's something I haven't been following - on January 24, in Ahvaz, the capital of the Khuzestan province, twin blasts hit a bank and a government building leaving six people dead and dozens injured. Responsibility for the Ahvaz blast was claimed by a group called "Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz."  That's not the latest or the only terror that's been going on there. On 02/20 a "noise bomb" exploded, blowing out windows, but injuring no one.  On 10/15/2005 two bombs exploded an IT center, killing 6, wounding 50.  06/12/2005 three bombs exploded concurrently near public facilities, killing 8, wounding dozens.  Seems like Iran's got it's own problems with retroactive Arabs going after oil-rich areas.  Coordinated explosions is an identifying hallmark of al Qaeda.  The Iranian government has implied that the British forces staged nearby in Iraq are harboring and possibly aiding the terrorists that attacked Ahvaz.  They're either playing politics, seeing that as having more traction than an al Qaeda link, the resistance group is al Qaeda copycats, or there is an al Qaeda presence in Iran.  The last speculation would cast some doubt on the Iran-AQ link.

Iranian cities of Dezful, Abadan, and Ahvaz of the Khuzestan province

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I recently dug up a Venn diagram I made a few years ago to explain the nuances of the Iraqi insurgency, lost as a broken link during a blog software change:

Iraqi players

"IIG" refers to the Iraqi Interim Government, previous secularly oriented, government.  I thought it would be good to pull this old analysis image out of rememberances of things past just to get an idea of where and how the players have moved, if at all.  Since the situation in Iraq continues to be tense, it's nice to try to put a perspective on what some of the groups and their representatives say.

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or
Buqayq, Saudi Arabia, the location of the Abqaiq (Abqayq) oil-processing facility

Two or three cars approached the gates of the Saudi oil facility that processes 2/3 of the Kingdom's oil and were blown up by guards during a gunfight while they were stopped at about 3p local time.  Oil production and export from Saudi continues, unabated.  Oil prices (delivery of crude, April) went up $1.36/barrel as of this writing. This attack recalls Zawahiri's 12/2005 call to attack Arabian oil facilities.

“I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam"
bloomberg, financial times

25.9356, 49.6683
Other names for Buqayq: Abaqaiq, Abqaik, Abkayk, Abqayq, Bukayk, Madinat Abqaiq, Abqaiq


Buqayq, centered, in relation to the Persian Gulf, Bahrain, and Qatar, LandSat 7 Visible

Buqayq, close up, LandSat 7 Pseudo Color

Buqayq, close up, LandSat 7 Visible

Imagery from NASA World Wind.

Update: Stratfor: Saudi Arabia: Anatomy of the Abqaiq Bombing Attempt, A Shift in Al Qaeda's Thinking

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The Askariya shrine, one of the holiest Shia sites in Iraq, was severely damaged by a large explosion in Samarra, 60 miles (95km) north of Baghdad (AP/Hameed Rasheed)

Al-Askariya shrine: 'Not just a major cathedral', Times Online UK, 02/22/2006

Today, men dressed as Iraqi police officers entered the Askariya shrine in Samarra and set off bombs ruining the dome.

But the continued and intense religious importance of the site is connected to the 12th imam, the so-called "Hidden Imam" who Shias believe went into hiding in 878 under the al-Askariya shrine to prepare for his eventual return among men. According to Shia tradition, the Mahdi will reappear one day to punish the sinful and "separate truth from falsehood". For many years, a saddled horse and soldiers would be brought to the shrine in Samarra every day to be ready for his return, a ritual that was repeated in Hilla, about 100 miles to the south, where it was also thought that Mahdi might reappear.

Here's the deal with this shrine: It's a representative of a lynchpin in Shi'a belief, the Mahdi. In this way, it's very "non-Sunni," in other words it's definitely a place to attack that would immediately cause sectarian tension. Attacking the shrines at Karbala (Hussain, the prophet's grandson) or Najaf (Ali, the prophet's son-in-law and the stem of the division between Shi'a "party of Ali" and Sunni muslims) would be undeniably serious, but both Hussain and Ali are related to the Prophet. The concept of the Mahdi, on the other hand, is a pointedly Shi'a thing that can only mean those who dressed up as Iraqi Police and set off bombs in the shrine are trying to cause a civil war. That virulently anti-Shi'i MO is very Wahhabi and therefore it points directly to Al Qaeda and our good friend Zarqawi, not necessarily Sunni Iraqi nationalists.

Professor Northedge [Alastair Northedge, a Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the Sorbonne in Paris], who last met Samarra's director of antiquities at a conference in Paris in September, believes the attack to be the work of al-Qaeda related militants from outside the town. In September, Sunni rebels in Samarra joined an unprecedented condemnation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq after the execution of a leading cleric in nearby Ramadi. "It is really quite surprising that something like that has happened in Samarra," he says. "The people there have a a very, very powerful sense of community identity, they know how to act in their best interests." "If you look at the resistance situation in Samarra, there are two general sorts: there are local fighters and there are al-Qaeda fighters and foreign jihadis," said Professor Northedge. "I'm absolutely certain that this is not the local people from Samarra, they would not have blown it up."

Muslims have widely condemed the bombing, Sunni and Shi'a alike. Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani has called for restraint and protests, but no violence. I haven't seen any reaction from Moqtada al Sadr or his party, but I bet he's flying off the handle.

Al-Forat television, run by a Shi'ite political party, showed the ageing and reclusive Sistani flanked by his three most senior colleagues in the holy city of Najaf after Sistani called for protests but restraint following the attack in Samarra.

Earlier Sistani, a key force for Shi'ite restraint in the face of Sunni insurgent attacks, called for protests and declared seven days of mourning. He insisted in a statement, however, that there must be no violence and in particular no reprisals against Sunni mosques.

Update: Sadr, who continues to show that he should be marginalized, but gets people's blood going, reacted to this by calling for violence and blaming what can only be an Al Qaeda attack on Iraqi cohesion on America on Israel. Good going. Thanks for proving, once again, that you're not your father and not even your brother. Woe is us.

Sistani in rare TV appearance, Kurdish Media/Reuters, 02/22/2006

Here's a "before" picture of the mosque, from GlobalSecurity.org:

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When a reported 90% of the West Coast's ports are managed by foreign companies and the jobs at these ports are all American jobs (no foreign nationals), it strikes me as overtly polticial and, yes, racist for Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, and now, Joesep Biden, to talk about how a sale to the Arab Dubai Ports World (owned by Dubai, UAE) of a British port management company would effect national security.

Questions here include:

  • Why isn't the objection to having non-US companies running the management of US ports in a "post 9/11 world"?
  • What exactly do they think's going to happen? Will there suddenly be Arab nationals replacing American security workers at the ports? Are there British workers there, now?
  • Why're the Democrats scare mongering?
  • Why're these people racially profiling? I thought Democrats, of all people, just hated that?

I'll be the first to say that it's beneficial to have a public discussion of interactions with Arab countries and about Arabs (and the implied Muslims) in America, but if this is the way the Democrats choose to sidle up to the issue, it's sadly disingenuous (ie, they've no desire to actually talk about it) and pointless (ie, they've no desire to actually block it). If this is the way the issue's going to be brought up in public because there are prominent Democrats and some Republicans that are isolationists and racists, then that's further a sad commentary on how they view the US. Taking clues from these talking heads, not only will our domestic reactionaries take a clue, but anti-Americans in other countries will as well. It further proves to them that Americans are are anti-Arab racists. Do I think we're that way? No (even though Morgan Spurlock's contrivied "30 Days" on-the-street interviews sure do make us out to be), but I do think that politicians really, really push our image that way for their own short-term gains. The fact that potential Democratic presidential nominees come out and say things like this, that a west-coast Senator can say this when her coasts are managed by Chinese companies, and various Republicans can be just as politically tone deaf as shrieking Democrats.

More questions:

  • Is wrapping a much needed discussion on US port security in a crunchy racially-directive invective good eating for the American public?
  • How do liberal politicians back out of a stance that puts them in a pro-racialprofiling, potential anti-american job corner? Unions, who work at these ports, must love that they're with Bush on this potential veto of his, and against Democrats who want to scuttle, via legislation, their paychecks.

"And I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British [sic] company. I'm trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to people of the world, we'll treat you fairly. And after careful scrutiny, we believe this deal is a legitimate deal that will not jeopardize the security of the country, and at the same time, send that signal that we're willing to treat people fairly." President George Bush, 02/21/2006

The other bidder in the purchase of the British P&O (Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company) was a Singapore company (PSA International). That'd probably go right under the racist radar.

U.S.-based private intelligence firm Stratfor noted that "the government of the UAE is about as pro-American as you can get" in the region. "If the United States can't do business with the UAE, then the United States cannot do business anywhere in the Islamic world," it said.

Stratfor also said "a British company previously was managing the (American) ports, and there are plenty of jihadists traveling on British passports these days who are at least as dangerous as anyone in the UAE."
- Seattle Times/AP

Duh. Sexing it up for the political midterm elections of 2006 is detrimental to trust domestically and abroad.

Arab investors who pulled their capital out of the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks — fearing asset seizures under the Patriot Act — want to reinvest, Alani [Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center] said. But anti-Arab sentiment in Congress will push those funds to friendlier markets in Asia and Europe.

"This is a major long-term investment," Alani said. "If it's going to be undermined for unjustified reasons, that will tell Arab investors and governments to keep away from the United States."

P&O agrees bid from Dubai Ports, BBC 11/29/2005
Dubai finishes buying P&O, Baltimore Sun 02/14/2006
Bush Backs U.A.E. Company's Administration of Six U.S. Ports, State Department, 02/21/2006
Port Security Is Still a House of Cards Far Eastern Economic Review, CFR, January/February 2006
To Arabs, port-deal backlash looks like bias Seattle Times/AP, 02/22/2006
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Along with one of the Cole bomber masterminds, Jaber Elbaneh is one of the escapees from the Sanaa, Yemen jail last Friday.  Elbaneh is an American of Yemeni descent, and one of the "Lackawanna Six," as profiled in "Chasing the Sleeper Cell" on PBS:

photo of elbaneh

In May 2003, the U.S. government unsealed an indictment charging Jaber Elbaneh, 37, with providing material support to Al Qaeda.

According to Sahim Alwan, Elbaneh admired Kamal Derwish who encouraged the young Lackwanna men to become more religious. Derwish, who is believed to have been an Al Qaeda recruiter, organized the summer 2001 trip into Afghanistan.

Elbaneh traveled to Afghanistan with al-Bakri, Alwan and Yahya Goba. At the camp, Elbaneh told Alwan that he wanted to fight with the Taliban and was willing to become a martyr.

Elbaneh never returned to the U.S. after his trip to Afghanistan and in September 2003, the FBI announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. He was believed to be living in Yemen.

January 2004 Update: According to U.S. and Yemeni officials familiar with the case, Elbaneh has been taken into custody in Yemen. These officials gave no details of his arrest, but U.S. officials say that negotiations concerning Elbaneh's possible extradition are under way between the U.S. and Yemeni governments.


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Proclaiming "I am al Qaeda," Zacarias Moussaoui was escorted from a federal courtroom in Alexandria on Monday at the outset of jury selection in his terrorist conspiracy trial. As he was removed by federal marshals, he shouted, "This trial is a circus."
CBS News, today
Why oh why can't we see this stuff on TV?  We miss out on Moussaaoui's insane ramblings just like we do Mr. Saddam's trial.  There must be TV executives who are squirming for rights to broadcast this great, great stuff.

Here're some other nuggets from Moussaoui (in no way definitive):
  • I don't want you to have the time to manipulate the system again against me
  • Do you think that I am crazy to see your Doctor Frankeinstein.
  • Do you think that every month I am going to put up with your insanity
  • Leonie Brinkema your mentally sick.
Wikipedia on Moussaoui
Moussaoui Letter 1, Letter 2, Appeal Transcript, The Smoking Gun
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Friday, 02/03/2006
Yemen

23 members of Al Qaeda escape from a prison in Sanaa, Yemen, the capital. The prison was at the central headquarters of Yemen's military intelligence services building (Political Security Organization of Yemen) in the center of the capital. Checkpoints were set up around the city to prevent the escapees from fleeing into the mountain tribal areas around the city.

Escaped inmates included those accused of bombing the USS Cole, 10/2000, and those accused of attacking French supertanker Limburg, 2002.  At least 13 of 23 of the escapees were convicted Al Qaeda members.

Escapees:
  • Abu Asim Al-Ahdal (Abu 'A'sim Al-Ahdal) #2 Al Qaeda in Yemen, escaped
  • Jamal al-Badawi (Jamal Badawi) - convicted of plotting, preparing, and helping the Cole bombings; sentenced to death in 09/2004
  • Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee (al-Rabe'ie, al-Rabahi), whom Interpol considers one of the people responsible for the Limburg attack, convicted for an attack on a helicopter carrying Hunt Oil Co employees a month after the Limburg attack, plus  explosions at a civil aviation authority building

Escape coincides with the trial of another group of suspected Al Qaeda members, 15 people who were charged in involvement of terror operations in Yemen, including Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, another Cole and Limburg bombing suspect; the trial was posponed indefinately

Escape occured via a 140 meter (460 feet) tunnel connecting the prison to a mosque in Sanaa.

"Al-Badawi broke out of jail in 2003 and his escape had been facilitated by prison guards," Neal Quillian of the London firm, Control Risks, says. "So this isn’t the first incidence where Al-Qaeda members have escaped from a Yemeni jail." (globalsecurity)

After he escaped from the prison in Aden and was recaptured, he was sent to the headquarters, the most secure prison, in Sanaa'

It's a big blow to Yemen's truthiness in the war on terror, since the Yemeni authorities will be scrutinized for any complicity in this escape.

Under anonymity a security official said:

"It couldn't have happened without the coordination of high ranking officers in the intelligence," said one official. He pointed to possible infiltration of the intelligence agency by militants, saying hundreds of Yemenis who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s against Russian occupation were given jobs with the security forces when they returned home.

"It is no surprise that many of these former fighters are sympathetic to al-Qaida," he said. (AP, 02/06/2006)

Additionally, in July 2005, 4 Al Qaeda members broke out of Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Among them was Omar al-Farouq, a top leader of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia. (BBC, AP)

In Afghanistan, a search for the four al-Qaida members who escaped in July is still continuing, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said. Military officials declined to say how they broke out of the high-security facility at Bagram.

The four boasted about their breakout on a video believed filmed in Afghanistan and broadcast in October on Dubai-based TV station Al-Arabiya. They claimed they picked a lock and timed the escape for a Sunday when many of the Americans on the base were off duty.

Escapees, according to district chief of Bagram, Kabir Ahmed (Times Online,  07/2005):

  • Abdullah Hashimi, from Syria
  • Mehmood Ahmed Mohammed, from Kuwait
  • Mehmood Alfathani, from Saudi Arabia (Mohammed al-Qahtani)
  • Mohammed Hassan, from Libya (aka Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Lybi)

"God willing, they (the Taliban) will slaughter you," he screamed into the camera during the alleged attack, pointing to Taliban fighters who were seen collecting spoils of weapons from the deserted post.

"Every time we attack you, you run away like women," he said wagging his finger angrily.
- Mohammed al-Qahtani, escaped militant, on an al-Arabia videotape. (Al Bahhar, 01/2006)

Abdul Latif Hakimi, a spokesman of the Taliban movement, had told AFP the four men were being looked after at a Taliban hideout.

Omar al Farouq, an Iraqi Kuwati national, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States, was reported to have escaped in this breakout, but he's not mentioned in some of the later reports.  This guy's interesting because he was supposed to be a star witness for US prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq.  See Confessions of an al-Qaeda Terrorist, Time, 12/15/2005.  Bagram air base was one of the places mentioned to have a CIA "black site."

Rumors on the blogosphere put Farouq alternatively in Iraq in the jihadi movement, turned or "let go" for CIA use, or "disappeared" by the military to keep him from testifying.


Interpol:
An Interpol "Orange Notice"was issued, which is a global security alert indicating that the escapees were "clear and present danger to all countries"
Interpol is seeking the names, photographs, and fingerprints of the escapees so that they can issue a "Red Notice" Interpol, 02/05/2006

Sources:
Al Ayyam, Yemen
Washington Post reprinting AP report
News Yemen
Telegraph (Limburg bombing, 7/2002)

"How did Al Qaeda operatives escape Afghan jail?" Al Jazeera (be noted this is from their "conspiracy" section)
"Suspected al-Qaeda leader escapes U.S. military prison," USA Today 11/2005

History:

USS Cole bombing, 10/12/2000
17 US soldiers killed in a suicide bombing attack at the port of Aden, Yemen
two suicide bombers blew up a boat full of explosives next to the ship

French supertanker Limburg, 2002
Euronav owned tanker, 2 Bulgarian crew members were killed, 90k barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Aden

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On the heels of a poll where everybody but the Israelis thinks Americans are crap (BBC "What the World Thinks of America", Pew Global Attitudes Project), Turkey's new blockbuster "Valley of the Wolves Iraq," opening tomorrow, portrays American soldiers as butchers:
"In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother.

They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv."

Neat, huh?  Billy Zane stars as the lead, rogue American soldier, and Gary Busey as the Jewish-American doctor.  This, apparently, after the popularity of a fiction book published in Turkey, Metal Storm (nyt, aljazeera), which portrays a bloody war between the US and Turkey in 2007.

Talk about a failure of "hearts and minds" - and these are our allies.  Meanwhile, US tv audiences are glued forcefully to their navels (no offense to the "heros," you know who you are) with A&E's "Flight 93".
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The public in Pakistan's at a media tipping point: The Northwest Frontier Provinces've put out a unanimous resolution requesting the expulsion of the US Ambassador to Pakistan, John Crocker, condeming the recent missle strikes in Damadola, requesting to refer the incident to the UN Security Council, and demanding an apology from the US.  [Zaman]

We demand the federal government declare US ambassador in Pakistan a persona non grata over the missile attack, which the American forces carried out in Bajur where innocent civilians were killed

According to Al Jazeera, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said that the government would neither expel U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker nor seek any apology from Washington. This continues the Musharraf government's tacit support of our actions.

Usually, we don't hear about the protests after Hellfire strikes from our CIA/military teams (or even the Hellfire strikes, themselves) from over the border in Afghanistan into Pakistan that have been going on with some regularity since mid last year.  The January 13th one combined a larger than average civilian death toll, 18, with a stated high-profile target, Al Qaeda's #2 Zawahiri, causing not only the Pakistani media to cover the attack more but also, and more importantly, the US media to cover the incident and the subsequent protests. The Pakistani people have been simmering an anti-Musharraf feeling for a long time, and this incident's allowing a lot of ugly rhetoric to be exposed directly to the American people.

To emphasize the anti-American and anti-Musharraf effect it's having in Pakistan, one only needs to refer to this quote from Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, carried in Al Jazeera, as an anti-American protest he lead was turned away by authorities from Bajur province:  "If this unity prevails, we will also remove Musharraf." [Al Jazeera, Ireland Online]

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who's currently in Washington meeting with Administration officials and other leaders said yesterday there was no evidence of an Al-Qaeda presence in the village. Aziz said "we have not found one body or one shred of evidence that these people (suspected terrorists) were there." Aziz has requested US to clear airstrikes with the Pakistani government beforehand also continuing the Musharraf government's policy of being limp wristed in their lip service to securing Pakistani sovereignty. Aziz is to meet with President Bush tomorrow. [IHT] Musharraf's government's definitely on-message and appear to be sufficiently pro-America for our military's objectives, but like our own country, Musharraf's domestic battle is getting more difficult. All of the alternatives to Musharraf are decidedly anti-American.

Monday, January 23, 2006
Thousands rally against US
INAYAT QALA: Thousands of angry Pakistanis protested on Sunday against a US air strike that killed civilians, chanting “Long live Osama Bin Laden!” as anti-American rallies in the country entered their second week. About 5,000 demonstrators assembled on a dry riverbed in a mountain market town near the site of the January 13 attack. They also burned effigies of US President Bush. ap
[Daily Times]

Thousands hold anti-US protests in Pakistan over attack, Boston Globe, 01/21/2006
Pakistanis Want US Envoy Expelled, Musharraf Under Fire, Islam Online, 01/23/2006

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The AP is reporting today that Pakistani officials are saying that there were al Qaeda operatives killed or believed to be killed in the Damadola bombing:

  • Midhat Musri al-Sayid Umar aka Abu Khabab al Masri, 52, Egyptian, explosives and poisons expert, suspected of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 soldiers in the USS Cole attack, 2000 (info from seattle post-intelligencer)
  • Abu Obaidah al-Masri, an al Qaeda chief responsible for attacks against US troops in eastern Afghanistan
  • Abdul Rehman al-Maghribi, Moroccan, a relative of Zawahiri, possibly son-in-law, who distributed PR statements, cds, and videos and kept in contact with Arab journalists - a possible source for a Zawahiri videotape trackback
  • Khalid Habib, another al Qaeda chief in charge of the Afghan-Pakistani border, who was invovled in the planning of an assassination attempt on Musharraf and was associated with Abu Farraj al-Libbi - another Musharraf assassination planner taken out by Hellfire, hmm: pattern?

As per usual, not all sources quote the full AP article (by Munir Ahmad), so here're two interesting paragraphs left off ABC News's reporting:

"Provincial authorities said al-Qaida sympathizers took the bodies of the foreign militants believed to have been killed to bury them in the mountains near the Afghan border, thereby preventing their identification.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the bodies may have been taken by a local pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Faqir Mohammed, who also is being hunted by authorities. Authorities believe he and another prominent pro-Taliban cleric survived the attack Friday."

Since there aren't any reports about new martyrs from the jihadi sites, one can't be sure if this is pr to cool off the foreign press (like ours) who'll more or less ignore acts like this if it's in the scope of actually killing al Qaeda members.

Here's a quote from Xinhua's news agency more or less claiming the same thing:

But National Assembly member from Bajur Sahibzada Haron ur Rashid rejected the government claim and media reports about the killing of foreigners and said only locals died in the attack.

"Reports about the killing of foreigners are being spread to mislead the public opinion to cool down anger among the local people," he said.

Again, my belief is that Musharraf has internal issues to resolve, particularly his PR with the local people, and the struggle between his ISI and military, in allowing this footprint-less encroachment of sovereignty. Another theory is that Musharraf's in holding pattern - keeping a tenuous balance between his constituents, military, and political party - that's allowing the US to go after Al Qaeda with the least amount of blood on Musharraf's hands. My opinion is that the internal turmoil's going to get the best of him and without successes on our part, we'll further lose Al Qaeda within the folds of Pakistan.

Top al-Qaida Operatives Believed Killed, ABC News/AP, 01/19/2006
Update 14: Top al-Qaida Operatives Believed Killed, Forbes, 01/19/2006
Pakistan probing reports of al-Qaeda members' death, Xinhua, 01/19/2006


Pakistani tribal villagers offer prayers at graves of people who were killed by U.S. strikes in Damadola on Saturday Jan 14, 2006 in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajour. Pakistani intelligence agents were hunting Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 for the graves of four al-Qaida militants believed killed in a U.S. missile strike whose bodies were reportedly whisked away by their comrades who survived, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair)

Supporter of Pakistani religious party Jamat-i-Islami takes part in an anti-U.S. rally Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006 in Peshawar, Pakistan to condemn last week U.S. airstrikes in the Pakistani tribal territory of Bajour which killed 18 people. An al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of the terror network's No. 2 leader were among three top operatives believed killed in a U.S. missile strike, Pakistani security officials said. (AP Photo /Mohammad Zubair)

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Two quotes that sum up the Pakistan situation quite well from a recent TIME article, "The Blunt Instruments of War,"one because it's from a Pentagon official who seems to get the gist of the problem of the region and the second because it's from Bruce Hoffman, an highly knowledgeable analyst on terrorism:

"I've seen intelligence reports that have the top al-Qaeda leadership all over a huge geographical area out there," says a senior Pentagon official. A lot of the intelligence, he notes, "comes from people who are deliberately trying to deceive us."

Operations that kill innocents make things worse. "It alienates precisely the population whose support you need," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Rand. "And it provides propaganda to our enemies--that our violence kills innocent women and children, so how is it different from theirs?"

They're fairly straightforward and highlight the exact two problems that the US has in prosecuting it's war against terror or, even simply, getting Al Qaeda:

1. We've got poor information and our "allies" either aren't helping or can't help us get the information (and, therefore, I'd argue, aren't our allies).  Sounds like his analysis is very similar to early retribution disinformation that various Afghani warlords gave us in 2002.

2. Our public perception is our Achilles Heel, for both the domestic and international audience: our PR is really wearing into a thin gauze-like material that's almost on par with "faith"

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Like Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh, Ayman al-Zawahiri was busy, probably back soon, according to news reports today, and not killed in the UAV strikes yesterday.

"Al-Zawahri was not there at the time of the attack," the Pakistani official told Reuters.

Maybe the official could clue us in to where he actually is?

The airstrikes yesterday morning destroyed three houses in a near-Afghanistan Pakistani village, killing upwards of 30 people.  Pakistan's information minister condemned the attack as thousands of locals protested the attacks.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed did not directly blame the U.S. for the attack, which killed at least 17 people, but he said the government wanted "to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur." (USA Today/AP)

Sure, he's got that power. He added:

"The US ambassador will be called to the foreign office." (Al Jazeera)

A Pakistani intelligence source said he had been told by US officials the strike was ordered based on information that al-Zawahiri and Mullah Mohammad Omar, the ousted Taliban leader, had been invited to a dinner to celebrate this week's Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. They had no confirmation, however, that either had been there at the time of the attack at about 3am on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday). Mullah Dadullah, a senior Taliban commander, said no Taliban commander had been at the dinner.  (Al Jazeera)

"I know all the 18 people killed. There was neither al Zawahri nor any other Arab among them. Rather they were all poor people of the area," Haroon Rashid, the area's National Assembly representative, was quoted as saying by the Afghan Islamic Press, a news agency based in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar. (Reuters)

"This is a big lie. ... Only our family members died in the attack," said Shah Zaman, who lost two sons and a daughter. "They dropped bombs from planes, and we were in no position to stop them, to tell them we are innocent." (AP)

President Musharraf made vague references to some incident and the Pakistani people continue to show their displeasure with the official government's attitude of putting a blurry filter on America's action in the FATA area.  Not that the Pakistani military has any more control of the area to speak of, either. 

President Pervez Musharraf, addressing local government officials in Swabi, a town to the north of Islamabad, made an oblique reference to the attack.

"There was an incident in Bajaur. We are looking into it, who did it -- people from outside have come," he said, without pointing a finger directly at the United States.

A military spokesman at U.S. Central Command in Florida said there had been no official report of an attack in Pakistan.

Anger has been building in Pakistan over repeated U.S. intrusions, and on Saturday hundreds of protesters chanted anti-American slogans at Inayat Killi [sic Inayat Qala] village, near Damadola. (Reuters)

Villagers in Damadola denied hosting al-Zawahri or any other al-Qaeda or Taliban figure, saying all the dead were local people. On Saturday, more than 8,000 tribesmen staged a peaceful protest in a nearby town to condemn the airstrike. (USA Today/AP)

"Americans have killed innocent women and children and now they are diverting attention of the world from this cruel act through the baseless claim that al-Qaeda leaders were targeted," Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid, a lawmaker from the hard-line Jamaat-e-Islami party told the protest rally.

"This is in fact real terrorism to target innocent people, the children and the women," Haroon said. He rejected the U.S. TV reports that Ayman al-Zawahiri or any foreigner was in the area.

"Hundreds of people took part to pull dead bodies out of the rubble soon after the air strike and the people did not see any foreigner killed in the attack," the lawmaker told the huge rally. He said that the issue of the attack would also be raised inthe parliament and that he had sent a motion to the National Assembly, of which he is a member.

Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid said all the victims of the attack were local people and condemned it as "open terrorism".

"The people will continue peaceful protests against such attacks," said Rashid.

"The people also condemn President General Pervez Musharraf's policies, which have led to such incidents. We want the (Pakistan) government to avoid pleasing the Americans." (AP)

Musharraf continues to be in a rough spot with his outlier constituents who're the real problem.  The people in the cities, modern as they are, are quite happy to ignore that the UAVs fire into what's considered redneck territory.  The anti-Musharraf, pro-Islam leaning political groups (JI, above, for example) will continue to use events like this to claim that he's giving away Pakistani sovereignty and try to shake his rule.  There've been reports that smaller gatherings have been violent.

The AP seems to be the root source of the report that Zawahiri wasn't there, with USA Today and The Age directly taking excerpts.  Also, I've updated my Google Earth placemark for this incident to include the town of Inayat Qala.

 

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Google Earth pointer to Damadola, Pakistan, where Ayman Al-Zawahiri is reported/rumored to be killed, today, in a Predator strike.

"Pakistani military sources told American ABC television that five of those killed were "high level Al-Qaeda figures", and their bodies are undergoing forensic tests for identification."

"One official said intelligence indicated a strong possibility that Zawahri was in the Pakistani village at the time of the airstrike, but there is no confirmation that he was killed.

Pakistani officials say U.S. aircraft, apparently CIA Predator drones, fired as many as 10 missiles at the residential compound. Reports indicate as many as 30 villagers, including some women and children, were killed.

The attack came in the Bajur region of Northwest Pakistan, along the Afghanistan border.

The CIA Predators carry as many as four Hellfire missiles. While some remains were reportedly recovered from the site of the attack, there was still no confirmation Friday night that Zawahri was among the dead. An intelligence official told NBC that it does have a sample of Zawahri's DNA." - MSNBC

"A doctor in the area told The Associated Press that at least 17 people were killed in the attack, but other witnesses at the scene said the death toll was higher." - CNN

Getting Zawahiri, the titular head of Al Qaeda, would mean that the most important and articulate public face of the overarching terrorist organization would be gone.  In my opinion, this would signify that we've entered officially into the "Nuisance Times," to borrow a word from the inimitable John Kerry (who ill-fatedly decided that treating the terrorist threat as a crime to be prosecuted was the right way to go) - the disparate terror groups who've been using the umbrella name of Al Qaeda will no longer need to do so nor have any reason to adhere to the specific Al Qaeda agenda. 

It's fairly clear that the American public along with their duly elected representatives in the Congress have all but forgotten about the pursuit of Al Qaeda and reports like this in the past weeks, months, or years have become a "nuisance" and more of a concern for a process of traditional legal prosecution rather than a proactive awareness on their parts. Without a singular face for the American public to point to and ask "what he mean by?" the unofficial drain on our collective psyches will become an official status as the variety of retroactive Islamists start vying for their own regional causes (the explosions in Dhaka on 12/25, for example).  With our short-term focus, attempting to rally people to keep up support for fighting a multifacted, multiagendaed Islamist threat will be very real difficulty - a reality that's been the problem from day one within our military and intelligence organizations.  Now, it's with our public.

The second prong of Zawahiri's death would be that of a sign to the Jihadist/Islamist groups - there's no focal leader to dole out poorly made videos espousing broad blandishments that have kept disgruntled muslim youth cheering on the "movement."  Without Zawahiri, the role of top propagandist will be delegated to the individual Islamist organizations - something that'll cause regionalization, specialization, and ultimately, a disconnection from an overarching goal.  The question is, when Zawahiri dies, will the idea of the Caliphate be only Bin Laden's? 

Another possibility for these events is simple hype/disinformation.  Without any ability to confirm whether or not the strikes were aimed at Zawahiri or have actually killed Zawahiri, the reporting with his name attached could be an attempt to flush out denials.

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Did I misspeak about Jose Padilla being unknighted as an "enemy combatant"?  Maybe!  (and hold onto that t-shirt, Jose!)

In a major setback to the government this week, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit refused both requests and questioned the government's motives in seeking to move Padilla to Florida and vacate the earlier ruling.

The administration's actions create "an appearance that the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of our decision [in the Padilla case] by the Supreme Court," writes Judge J. Michael Luttig in a 13-page order released on Wednesday.

"We believe that the issue [in Padilla's case] is of sufficient national importance as to warrant consideration by the Supreme Court," Judge Luttig writes.

The CSM reports 12/23/2005 that the US government is slowly losing traction on the tactic to avoid the Supreme Court questioning the Presidential abilities to designate someone an "enemy combatant."  A few weeks ago, the government un-designated Jose "Dirty Bomber" Padilla as an "enemy combatant" and ordered him sent to a Miami prison to face criminal charges (conspiracy), thus releasing him from a 3.5 year hold in a Navy brig.  The appeals process wound Padilla's case through the system regarding the legality of the designation that placed him effectively outside the legal system until the only place that it could be taken would be the Supreme Court.  There, the government would be directly confronted to legally justify an extra-legal situation.  This question is way too hot to have that much scrutiny, especially when the consequences of losing would be having to go through a legal system which requires proof of past acts for convictions.  There's just no way to convict someone of the crime of maybe thinking of blowing up an apartment building with a leaky neutron bomb - we'd have to wait until it happened.  Even then, like Germany, our legal system might arbitrarily release terrorists or simply give them slap-on-the-wrist sentences (under 10 years).

Luttig's the same judge who wrote the opinion upholding the detention of Padilla and said that the appeals court was concerned that the administration might be seen as having intentionally made the enemy combatant case moot "not as legitimate justification but as admission of attempted avoidance of review."  I can't figure this out - do the judges want the case to be brought before the Supreme Court because, in their eyes, the only legitimate way to fight this out is in their arena, or are they actively steering the case towards the Supreme Court in order to press the legitimacy of Presidential powers?  It's not clear that those options are mutually exclusive, either.  It seems that courts want to assert the "check and balance" power of the Judiciary and that's fine, but at what point does it become a burden to the other branches?  Is it something spectacular, like this case, or is it smaller things?  When do they bound, blind eyes of Justice actually become a detriment?

The court said that while a president's power to detain an enemy combatant should not be taken lightly, the government cannot "yield to expediency with little or no cost to its conduct of the war on terror,'' an impression the court thought the government could not afford. 

Other posts:

Other references:

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The Arab news service Al Arabiya is claiming that Al Qaeda is denying Rabia's death:

"An official from the Al-Qaeda group has denied, in a telephone conversation with the Al-Arabiya channel, that Hamza Rabia has been killed," a presenter on the Arab satellite channel told viewers.

The Al-Arabiya presenter cited the caller as saying that five people were killed in an explosion in the tribal region but these were two local men, two Tadjiks and an Arab called Suleiman al-Moghrabi. [Can't find anything on this name]

Fox News this morning quotes the National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley

"At this point we are not in a position publicly to confirm that he is dead. But if he is, that is a good thing for the war on terror .. There are conflicting reports as to what happened," he said. "But obviously, the details of these kinds of things are things that is best left for the Pakistanis to talk about." "President Musharraf has been very aggressive in dealing with the Al-Qaeda and Taliban presence in Pakistan," he said.

'We have helped him in terms of providing intelligence and cooperating with his forces, and obviously this (Rabia's death) is something that would be an important thing for Pakistan, an important thing for the United States.'

What's Hadley saying here?  Is he trying to downplay it for our consumption or to assuage potential Pakistani blowback?

While the AP is reporting that "Pakistan's information minister [Sheikh Rashid Ahmed] said on Saturday that Hamza Rabia's remains were identified in DNA tests and that the key associate of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri had died Thursday in a rocket attack near the Afghan border." Ahmed is also quoted as denying that it was a missile that killed Rabia, but a bomb blast of Rabia's own making. [Pak Tribune 12/04/2005]

Musharraf Confirms Rabia's Death
US incursions into Pakistan: Going where they won't

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A Newsweek article, Women of Al Qaeda, to be published in their 12/12/2005 issue, profiles the women who’ve recently chosen to become suicide bombers in the name of Islam. This is a summary.

  • September, 2005 – Unnamed woman, suicide bomber that killed 5, wounded 30, Tal Afar, Iraq, near Syrian border
  • October, 2005 – unnamed woman and husband attack an American patrol in Mosul
  • November 9, 2005 - Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, 35, the would-be Jordanian bomber whose bomb belt failed to go off while her husband’s, to whom she’d been married for less than a week, did. Her three brothers and sister’s husband died fighting against the Americans.
  • November 9, 2005 - Muriel Degauque, 38, blew herself up attacking Iraqi police, Baqubah, Iraq

The article postulates that the use of women suicide bombers will make American soldiers suspicious of women, particularly pregnant women, and searching them “invasively” will create popular anger - "It's a win-win proposition for the terrorists," Mia Bloom author of “Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror

Recruiting women as suicide bombers is seen as a late stage / entrenched tactic, "It comes when the battle escalates to all sectors of society. It happens after men become activists in guerrilla groups, fight and die, perhaps in suicide attacks. Then the widows or family members —seek vengeance, or want to give their life in the same cause." – Haizam Amirah Fernandz, a Madrid-based analyst. The article as well as Mia Bloom also proposes that the trend of violence is empowering to these women, especially the modern Palestinian ones chosing that route.

Women fighters and terrorists are nothing new, Palestinian women being engaged in attacking Israel since the 1970s. The first suicide bomber, 27 year old Wafa Idris, killed an Israeli civilian and wounded 140 in January, 2002.

The article states that there’s been much religious legal debate as to using women as suicide bombers and not until January 2004 did a Palestinian Hamas woman, Reem al-Riashi, mother of two, carry out a mission.

Religious scholars who endorse suicide attacks have come up with a paradise for women as an alternate to the male bombers popularized “72 virgins” – as related by Thauria Hamur, 26, captured before completing her mission she said women martyrs would “become the purest and most beautiful form of angel at the highest level possible in heaven.”

Groups which've used women suicide bombers:
  • Liberation Tigers in Sri Lanka (non-Muslim)
  • Chechnya’s “black widows”
  • Palistinan “army of roses”
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The story's making the rounds and Musharraf's acknowledging the strike, and there's some more info on Rabia's status:

From ITN, 12/03/2005

Rabia's death was confirmed by President Pervez Musharraf as he arrived in Kuwait on an official visit.
He added: "Yes indeed, 200 percent. I think he was killed the day before yesterday if I'm not wrong."
But the Pakistani military has not found the body and are relying on intelligence reports and intercepted messages between al Qaeda members.
Rabia, in his 30s, took over the number three spot, behind bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, after the capture of Abu Faraj Farj al Liby in Pakistan in May, US and Pakistani security officials said.
Rabia was involved in plots to attack the United States and his death was a serious blow for al Qaeda, according to a US counterterrorism official in Washington. [Highlights mine]

200 percent. That's a lot of extra polling, there. I'm waiting for an internal Pakstani poltical backlash on Musharraf's cooperation with the US and probably a bit more effort on the part of Wazristani malcontents to make life difficult for the Pakistani government.  Oh, and guys?  They're still there, don't stop.

MSNBC has a great picture of "tribesmen" holding a piece of the alleged attacking Hellfire:

Are these guys more pissed at Musharraf for allowing American ordnance to fall on Pakistan or at America for making ordnance rain?

Thanks to Jack for bringing this to my attention.

There's a bunch of info on-line about what attacks Rabia planned against the US.  This New Yorker piece from 07/26/2004 The Terror Web is pretty sobering, impling that plans for attacks take years to come to fruition and that the Madrid 3/11 [2004] attacks were planned before 9/11 and would've happened whether or not the Iraq war or Spain's involvement occured.

Also, some of the articles on the net imply that the Al Qaeda computer expert, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was caught in Lahore in mid 2004 along with three laptops had the names of the people who have been targets of the Predators over the last few months.  The computer files uncovered in Pakistan contained surveillance information of five financial sites in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J. which caused the raising of our terror alert in August.  Time magazine was told that the laptops "[i]ncluded in information obtained on three laptop computers and 51 discs seized in a July 24 raid in Pakistan were details of how al Qaeda operatives thought of using speedboats and divers to carry out attacks in New York harbor before the November presidential election... terrorists have also considered using tourist helicopters in some New York operations."

From a timeline perspective, in June 2004, the Pakistani Army was already failing in Waziristan as Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan was captured.  About a year later, Predator drones were flying into Waziristan taking out people listed on those hard drives.  A year's lag's not too bad, actually.

Speaking of Al Qaeda hard drives, here's a really neat September 2004 article from Alan Cullinson of the Wall Street Journal in the Atlantic Monthly about the contents of Al Qaeda hard drives he'd gotten his hands on just after the fall of Kabul in 2001 (he'd published a series in '01/'02 in the WSJ with more info).  It has transcriptions of a few e-mails from 1998-2001 from Zawahiri to his cells in Yemen, Abu Musab al Suri to OBL, and Mohammed Atef to Zawahiri.

A bit from the 04/11/2001 e-mail from OBL to Mullah Omar congratulating him on destroying the ancient stone Bamiyan Buddahs: "Among the most important such false gods in our time is the United Nations, which has become a new religion that is worshipped to the exclusion of God. The prophets of this religion are present in the UN General Assembly … The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who contradict its religion."

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We're finally going after Al Qaeda where they've been hanging out since Tora Bora - In Pakistan.

  • Top al-Qaida officer reportedly killed MSNBC, 12/03/2005

    Hamza Rabia, an Egyptian Al Qaeda ["Nawaab" or "Nawab"], planner of assassination attempts on Musharraf 12/14/2003, 12/25/2003, and chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, was killed in a Predator drone attack on a safehouse in Asorai/Asoray, a suburb of Mir Ali, North Waziristan, Pakistan. Mir Ali's about 20 miles from the Afghanistan border and North Waziristan's most likely where Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been having free reign under the aegis of Pakistani sovereignty.

    Rabia was killed along with 2 Pakistanis and 2 other Arabs in between 1:45a and 2a, local time, Thursday. Witness claim there were an unknown number of missiles, identifiable via the US markings on the debris, even though the Predator carries only two Hellfires and the Wikipedia reference picture doesn't seem to have a bunch of markings.

  • Early last month, around 11/05, the Guardian reported that suspected Arab militants accdentally blew themselves up while making bombs in a tribal village named Mosaki, 12 miles east of Miranshah, North Waziristan. Miranshah happens to be just about 12 miles west of Mir Ali so, since I can't find Mosaki on a map, I'm assuming it's a suburb of Mir Ali.

    The above MSNBC article refers to this "accidental blast" as a failed Predator drone attempt on the late Hamza Rabia.

  • On May 9, 2005, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that two people were killed when a carbomb went off in Toorikhel, a suburb of Mir Ali. One was Samiullah Khan, a local warlord, and the other body was burned beyond recognition. The Washington Post reported on 05/15 that a Predator drone took out Haitham al-Yemeni, an Al Qaeda deputy of Abu Faraj al-Libbi in the suburb of Toorikhel. MSNBC reports that Pakstan denies that a Predator attack took place.  Note the Pakistani media's emphasis here - local warlord who causes trouble eliminated but Al Qaeda, who're seen as a US priority, not mentioned.

That's 3 Predator attacks within a fairly narrow 20 mile distance from the Afghani border (and about 120 miles SE from Kabul) on Al Qaeda operatives within the last 8 months or so. Predator attacks, each time explained first by Pakistani press as "accidents" with no mention of US attacks on Pakistani soil. Musharraf's got to be nervous back in Islamabad if the people get word that we're flying drones and shooting 5 foot long missles of death everywhere.  His people seem to have been able to capture Abu Musab al Suri in Quetta, Balochistan province, but that's not Waziristan.  Musharraf's taking his time with "cleaning up" the Waziristans.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (North and South Waziristan are two of 7, 20% of which span Afghanistan's border) are essentially not under any of Pakistan's control and have always been very, very pro Al Qaeda and Taliban. Over these last three years, the areas have been a source of untameable unrest for Musharraf (ariana, an Afghani publication).   Gunfight at the Waziriztan Corral, by Kaushik Kapisthalam in April 2004 notes:

On March 17th, the local administration decided to send in about 700 Frontier Corps paramilitary troops to confront the fighters holed up in a village called Kalosha, near Wana. But apparently a smaller number of heavily armed locals and foreign fighters ambushed the government troops, killing at least 15 and taking dozens of paramilitaries and civil officials hostage. After this, regular Pakistan Army troops were dispatched to cordon off the area, but the militants were able to break the cordon and escape with the vehicles and arms belonging to government forces.

Many credible reports talk of wholesale switching of sides by the Frontier Corps soldiers. In addition, tribal antipathy to the Pakistani army spread to other agencies as well. There is also a report that said “150 soldiers of the army and paramilitary forces refused to take part in the action, including at least one colonel and a major.”

And in May 2004's Pakistan's Papier-Mache Army

In a nutshell, around 10,000 men from Pakistan army’s XI Corps, supported by artillery and attack helicopters as well the local Frontier Corps paramilitaries bungled a simple mop up operation in their own tribal zone against a few hundred lightly armed tribal fighters. The Pakistani troops lost at least 150 troops, gave up many hostages and created a cordon that was more like a sieve, allowing the fighters to slip away.

And in June 2004, from Strategypage.com

After a lot of pressure from the US, Pakistan decided to target militant bases in South Waziristan. Under the overall command of the Peshawar based XI Corps of the Pakistan Army (PA), the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) was first sent into the region in March 2004. The initial push was aimed at a militant strong hold at Kaloosha village just outside Wana, the provincial capital of South Waziristan and minutes from a major Pakistan army base. Some 2,000 FC troops belonging to the South Waziristan Scouts (SWS) were sent on a probing raid. It was a disaster. The militants, backed up by tribals, estimated to be around 200, were able to corner the SWS in a classic guerilla trap. The army quickly moved a regular army brigade, Special Service Group (SSG) commandos with Artillery and AH-1 Cobra helicopter support, to rescue the trapped SWS men. When the smoke cleared the militants were found to have escaped with a dozen army hostages (some of whom were later executed). Western reports said that the PA lost some 150 men in the Kaloosha debacle, while managing to eliminate some 25 rebels most of whom appeared to be locals.

And Iraq's likened to Vietnam.  That incident was headed up by 27 year old Nek Mohammed, South Waziristan's own Afghani/Taliban veteran and local hero. Shortly after the Pakistani Army's retreat, in June 2004, a Predator drone idled by and killed him.  The Pakistani Army publicly took credit for that, too.

US 'concern' at Pakistan strategy, BBC News, 05/03/2004

Lieutenant-General David Barno said Pakistan must eliminate a "significant number" of militants along the border. "There are foreign fighters in those tribal areas who will have to be killed or captured," he said.
Night raid kils Nek, four other militants: Wana operation, DAWN 06/19/2004
Musharraf worried about Wana operation fallout, DAWN, 06/21/2004

The fun thing about this "soft border" with Afghanistan is that Musharraf said this, May 17, 2005: “Soft borders are not a solution” ... with regards to Kashmir and India.  Sure is looking like it is, for us.  If Musharraf can't go successfully into those areas, the least we can do is toss a few missles over there and have Al Qaeda run into areas where Musharraf can throw out a net.

Added bonus: Locations of some of the cities mentioned

Waziristan map courtesy of the BBC, Some references taken from CRS Report to Congress: Terrorism in South Asia, August 2005; Locations from Falling Rain Genomics
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'Dirty Bomb' Suspect Padilla Indicted, SF Gate/AP, 11/22/2005

Jose "Dirty Bomber" Padilla has been indicted in Miami with criminal charges of being "part of a conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and provide material support to terrorists abroad. " These charges are different from what he's been widely accused of doing ever since being nabbed in O'Hare airport in 2002 returning from Pakistan and held since as an "enemy combatant": planning to blow up hotels and apartment buildings with a radiological device. 

This indictment's a pretty significant since it seeks a ruling against Padilla as something less than testing the edges of the "enemy combatant" designation - there's no push to prove that Padilla was on-ground in Afghanistan/Pakistan fighting against US troops, etc.   The next step for Padilla contesting the ec designation would've been the Supreme Court.  Padilla's no longer an "enemy combatant."

Also, Padilla's lawyers can argue against more "classic" charges such as conspiracy and material support. I'm looking for the text of the indictment (which charges 4 other suspects, too) and will post it when it's unsealed by AG Gonzalez later this morning (now, I think).

Padilla'll probably be transfered from his Navy brig cell in South Carolina where he's sat for 3 years to Miami shortly thereafter.

Edit:  SF Gate updated their AP article, so I'll update this:

"The others indicted are: Adham Amin Hassoun, Mohammed Hesham Youssef, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, and Kassem Daher. Hassoun also was indicted on eight additional charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice and illegal firearm possession. Hassoun, a Palestinian computer programmer who moved to Florida in 1989, was arrested in June 2002 for allegedly overstaying his student visa. Prosecutors previously described him as a former associate of Padilla.

Padilla has been held at a Navy brig in South Carolina. Following the indictment, which was handed up last Thursday, President Bush sent a memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordering Padilla transferred to the federal detention facility in Miami."

Also, I just pulled today's indictment, the President's 11/20/2005 memo to the SECDEF releasing Padilla from EC-ness, and the brig transfer memo.  I'll post quotes soonish.

From the President to the SECDEF, in a memo dated 11/20/2005:
"I hearby determine that is in the interest of the United States that Jose Padilla be released from detention by the Secretary of Defense and transferred to the control of the Attorney General for the purpose of criminal proceedings against him...  This memorandum supersedes my directive to you of June 9, 2002 [Ed: When I declared him EC], and, upon such transfer, your authority to detain Mr. Padilla provided in that order shall cease."  EC no more! Turn in your t-shirt.

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Software design and development gives one a nice artificial sandbox to exert power and, might I add, easily lose and find sanity.  That's a topic for another day.  Today, NPR woke me up at 6:20 to tell me 65+ people were blown up in mosques in Iraq.  Shia, near the Iranian border.

Guardian NY Times Al Jazeera

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at two mosques during Friday prayers in Khanaqin, Iraq, near the Iranian border and about 90 miles NE of Baghdad.  Khanaqin's mostly Kurdish.  The Sheik Murad mosque and the three story Grand Khanaqin Mosque got housed and they're digging people out of the rubble.  About 75 people dead so far, with 75 injured.  A third suicide bomber targetted a bank in town.

I'd make a Google Earth kml, but what's the point? (semi-intentional pun)  I've wanted to make a list of attacks on Shi'a for a while, but I don't have the motivation right now.

Also, in Baghdad, two car bombs (a white van and a white truck) blew up about 30 seconds apart near what was the intended target - al-Hamrah Hotel, where some international reporters live/work (first one to rip the blast barrier to the hotel, second for the hotel - the second one fell into the crater created by the first and never made it to the hotel). Blast barriers stopped the trucks from doing damage to the hotel, but a bunch of residential buildings collapsed with 6 people dead, at last report.  For some reason, all the reports mention how many cars were damaged, too: about 30.  I don't know why I find that odd.  Maybe because I keep hearing Dominque de Villepin saying anything under 100 burned cars a day is normal.

  • Nov. 2, 2005 - A suicide bomber blows up a minibus in an outdoor market packed with shoppers ahead of a Muslim festival, killing about 20 people in Musayyib, a Shiite town south of Baghdad.
  • Oct. 31, 2005: A car bomb explodes on a bustling street in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, killing 20 people.
  • Oct. 29, 2005: A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates explodes in a Shiite farming village northeast of Baghdad, killing 30 people.
  • Sept. 29, 2005: Three suicide attackers detonate car bombs in the mostly Shiite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, killing at least 99 people.
  • Sept. 19, 2005: A car bomb rips through a market in a poor Shiite neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, killing at least 30 people.
  • Sept. 14, 2005: A suicide car bomber strikes as day laborers gather to find work in the heavily Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad, killing at least 88 people.
  • Aug. 17, 2005: Three car bombs explode near the Nadha bus station in Baghdad and at the nearby Kindi Hospital, killing up to 43 people.
  • July 16, 2005: A suicide bomber detonates explosives strapped to his body at a gas station near a Shiite mosque in Musayyib, blowing up a fuel tanker and killing about 100 people.
  • March 10, 2005: A suicide bomber blows himself up at a Shiite mosque during a funeral in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 47 people.
  • Feb. 28, 2005: In the deadliest single strike since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a suicide car bomber attacks mostly Shiite police and National Guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125. Some of the dead are at a nearby market.
  • Feb. 18, 2005: Suicide bombers attack two mosques, killing 28 people, while an explosion near a Shiite ceremony kills two other people.
  • Dec. 19, 2004: Car bombs tear through a Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station, killing at least 60 people in the two Shiite holy cities.
  • Aug. 26, 2004: A mortar barrage slams into a mosque filled with Iraqis preparing to march on Najaf, killing 27 people.
  • March 2, 2004: Coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives strike Shiite shrines in Karbala and in Baghdad, killing at least 181 people.
  • Aug. 29, 2003: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Although officials never gave a final death toll, there were suspicions it may have been higher.
Including today, that's near 700, just this year in Iraq. (From the San Jose Mercury News/AP)

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from Pak Tribune, in Quetta, Pakistan 10/31, in the evening:

“QUETTA, November 04 (Online): Law enforcing agencies have arrested two Al-Qaeda suspects during a raid on a house in the city of Quetta. The arrests took place on Oct 31 after Iftari time during a raid by law enforcing agents at Al-Madina Utility store at Gawalmandi Chowk.”

"After an exchange of firing Al-Qaeda leader Mustafa Setmarian Nasar and an Afghan national who is said to be a member of Jaish Mohammad were arrested while another AL-Qaeda suspect Sheikh Ali Mohammad Al Salam was killed."

I took a peek at GEO TV, Pakistan's satellite news channel, and they had an interview with a top security official who said that the op was on Tuesday and was based upon a tip and that both individuals arrested were foreign nationals.

Who is Mustafa Setmarian Nasar?

Mustafa Setmarian Nasar is also known as Abu Musab al-Suri (he's of Syrian descent, with Spanish nationality since 1987) wanted in Spain and a suspect in the London 7/7 bombings.  Mostly a writer or propagandist for al Qaeda, he's claimed to have receieved training in explosives, special operations, and guerilla tactics "in Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt."  Iraq, huh?  During the mid 90's, he was in the UK as "a European intermediary for Al-Qaeda" and was closely associated with the Algierian Armed Islamic Group (GIA), editing their underground jihadi exile magazine.  After a split with them, he went off to Afghanistan where he swore allegiance (bayat) to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. He fought in Afghanistan against the Americans and went into hiding thereafter, fighting the jihad via his writings.

A sample, on the use of chemical/radioactive weapons:
I believe now that the American administration has revealed the evil and wickedness of its forces during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not a far cry from justice to adopt the slogan, 'Dirty Bombs for a Dirty Nation.' This is practically equal treatment.  Let the American people - those who voted for killing destruction , the looting of other nations' wealth, megalomania, and the desire to control others - be contaminated with radiation! We apologize for the radioactive fallout.
  • MSNBC's background on al-Suri
  • Evan Kohlmann's profile (pdf) of Abu Musab al-Suri.

There're some interesting avenues for analysis here: catching a pr guy for al Qaeda can result in knowing more about their network, catching any guy in Quetta means that the local police are (possibly) "doing their job," catching a guy in Quetta (see below) might mean that said guy is on the outs with the local sympathies (my personal favorite), and (a slightly more obscure one that combines the last analysis jump-point) catching an ex-GIA guy could mean that the shout out the "Zawahri" letter gave to the "Algerian brothers" isn't what it seemed (apart from the fact that letter doesn't seem to be what it seems).

Where is Gawalmandi Chowk in Quetta, Pakistan?

Quetta (map), a city of about 700k, is in Baluchistan province (a 350,000 km2 area, with about 6.5 million people (1998)) in southwest Pakistan.  It's a somewhat 2nd tier Pakistani city as far as size goes (~10th largest).

It's frustrating looking for maps for an area that seems to be described as quaint, historical, and picturesque.  I guess no one spends any time in town.  There are sparse maps on-line for Quetta and there aren’t any that I can find that show either the Pashtoonabad or Khartobad areas of the city.  And no luck at all finding Gawalmandi Chowk. (major intersection)

Another fun note about this city is that it's ethnicity's quite mixed: Afghanis (Pustuns), Pakistanis, Punjabis, Iranians, a melting pot city if you will.

So, the search proceeds to look at Taliban-y/al Qaeda-y connections in Quetta, what with it being a huge Taliban supporter in the late 90’s to pretty much now and under 45 miles from Afghanistan.  It's not very hard to find references to Quetta or Baluchistan wrt to the Taliban.  There's even pretty recent info:

01/29/2005 “16 Taliban held in Quetta,” Rediff
01/28/2005 “Pakistan police arrest 23 Afghans,” USA Today

“"Yes, we have arrested 16 suspects in different raids conducted in Pashtoonabad and Kharotabad areas of the city," DIG of Police, Quetta Rafi Pervez Bhatti said.” (Rediff)

Pashtoonabad is frequently cited as region that has Kashmiri Jihadi sympathy and Taliban madrassas, particularly Dar-ul-Loom (also Darul Uloom, “House of Sciences” – a phrase equivalent to a center of higher learning, is too generic to be definitive) a Hanafi school located in the area.

09/01/2001 “Pakistan’s Role in the Kashmir Insurgency,” Peter Chalk, Jane's Intelligence Review, Rand Corporation commentary

The fun one is looking at who the local government's made of.  Here's a random one:

Elected representative Maulvi Noor Muhammad Hussain of the Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal Pakistan (MMAP) party – a group that wants to enforce the Sharia
http://www.na.gov.pk/baluch.htm (see if you can tell which ones are Talibani - yeah, I know, not scientific, but then you can look at their MMAP designation)
http://www.khyber.org/people/pol/MaulviNoorMuhammad.shtml
http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/sa/sa_apr03/sa_apr03mia01.html

What do you know, Maulvi Noor Muhammad’s mailbox is at the Dar ul-Uloom in Pashtoonabad.

It's a bit speculative to say that Abu Musab al-Suri was on the outs with the ex-Taliban sentiment of the town and was ratted out to local police, but a "border town" like Quetta's sort of opaque to me.  More to keep eyes on.

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In light of last weekend's "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" played before seeing "Waiting...," I've an idea for a new game: "Six Degrees of Bin Laden."

Give me a place, name, or mineral and I'll come up with a relationship path to OBL. (And yes, Bert to Bin Laden is still way too easy).  Colorado you say?

Ok, and I'll raise you the non-obvious, putting aside the 1949 Greeley, CO/Sayyid Qutb/Muslim Brotherhood connection (Greeley; Qutb; Zawahiri; OBL) and the list of prisoners at the ADX Florence, CO supermax prison (Ramzi Yousef, for one; his uncle, KSM; OBL) .  This week's installment will be Jamaat al-Fuqra.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Arabic for "community (or party, organization) of the impoverished," is a militant Pakistani Islamist group "formed by a Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani [alt. spelling: Jilani, also Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Jilani Hashemi or Hashmi], in New York in 1980, on his first visit to the US" - via a group also known by the distinctive name of "Muslims of America" or "Muslims of the Americas" - that has a presence in Colorado and Virginia, apparently.  The objective of the group, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, is to purify Islam of percieved Western influence via violence.  Hallmark targets in the 80's were Hindus, Hindu temples, and Hare Krishnas (Seattle, Denver, Philly, KC).

JF is linked to the 1993 WTC bombing (Clement Rodney Hampton-el), to members DC shooter ex-NOI John Allen Muhammad and shoebomber Richard Reid, and to the Daniel Pearl murder (Pearl was abducted while going to interview Gilani about Reid in Pakistan).

Jilani's reported to have preached at a Brooklyn mosque in 1980 recruiting for the Afghani jihad, has worked with Pakistanis ISI, and has been placed in Sudan at the same time as OBL (December 1993).  Jilani pulled Clement Rodney Hampton-el ("Dr. Rashid") out of the streets of NYC and onto the Afghani battlefield. 

Colorado;Jilani/JF;OBL QED

Colorado connections stem from Sheik Gilani's visits to the state in the late 1980s. A Rocky Mountain News article of Feb 12, 2002 ("Al-Fuqra Tied to Colorado Crimes") cites that Jilani or Jilani's followers looked into purchasing property in downtown Buena Vista, 101 acres 12 miles east of Buena Vista near Trout Creek Pass which was raided in 1992, and an incident involving a Colorado Springs rented locker containing explosives, pipe-bombs, handguns, manuals, surveillence maps, etc.

Fuqra popped onto the radar after a 1990 killing of a Tuscon, AZ progressive Imam, Rashid Khalifa, but only after the Colorado Springs locker was opened in 1992, and then in 1993 when Hampton-el was caught after the first WTC bombing.  Operating for more or less 10 years in the US is a good lead time for them.

Checking into some of the Fuqra members charged in the 1992 raid, we get a better picture of what occured in Colorado:

From "Fuqra member's hearing set April 2," Pueblo Chieftan, 1992

The small religious sect consists of black Muslims who believe their faith is superior to other Islamic religions. The leader of the local sect, James D. Williams, 39, was living on a 101-acre compound near Buena Vista.

That compound was the site of an intensive search by more than 60 law-enforcement officers last October. Among property seized during that search was a hidden cache of about 30 guns.

The compound Williams owns also was home to four Muslim women and more than 20 children. That property is being foreclosed on and will revert to the original owners if Williams cannot come up with the $87,000 he owes on the property.

Oddly, apart from the Colorado articles (RMN, local CO papers), most of the other sources are ever so slightly less reputable: FromTheWilderness, panic from Freepers, and the Moonies' WashingtonTimes.

An article apparently from the New York Times of January 2002, "Rural Muslims Draw New, Unwanted Attention" is about the Red House, VA compond where some familiar names appear: Vincente Pierre, who'd jumped bail in CO was picked up there along with his wife Traci Elaine Upshur. 

Searching on Suhir A. Ahmed  -- a Ph.D quoted in that article, the national spokeswoman for Muslims for the Americas, the Gilani-established group (who, incidentally, received her doctorate from Quranic Open University, a Gilani-established school, 70 miles east of Fresno, CA in a town named "Baladullah," or "City of God" in Arabic) -- leads to the Muslims for the Americas website: holyislamville.org.  Do a whois on that and check the street address in York, SC.  Yeah.  The compound in Red House, VA is on Sheikh Gilani Lane.  Theme?

So who is this guy, this Sheik Gilani?  According to his followers, he's a decendant of both Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain ("al-Hasani wal-Husani," in Arabic).  That'd make him a double-Shi'a, right?  Wrong.  He's got enough sufism in his teachings to lead towards his own offshoot, his own sect, of Islam.  And that, my friends, is flirting with the haram.  I've got a bit of reading on his philosophies (particularly "Quranic Psychiatry" and his claims of curing cancer - a sure sign of real ultimate power) and will definately get back with some analyses.  Or, at least some snide remarks.  Is it him or is it his followers who've got a penchant for violence?

Gilani was arrested and held a few weeks after Pearl went missing, but was released shortly thereafter and still resides in Lahore, Pakistan.

Sheik Gilani, CBS News, 03/12/2002

Google: International Qur’anic Open University
Locations of Fuqra compounds:
Hancock, NY
Red House, VA
Tulare County, CA
Commerce, GA
York, SC ("Islamville")
Dover, TN
Combermere, Canada

They're purported to have a classic cell structure, where each group doesn't know the exact details of the others and where the cells each cover a certain geographic region, set up by Gilani himself from his Lahore headquarters.  The Colorado group called themselves "Mohammed Soldiers 5" implying that they were the 5th cell.

Finally, Fuqra appears in the State Department's publication Patterns of Global Terrorism from 1996-1999, but not in subsequent issues.  I believe the Muslims of America group and JF are not considered terrorist or terrorist-linked organizations anymore or they've dropped off the radar.

Some future "Six Degrees of Haramiat": "Baladullah, Fresno County, CA's charter school system" to "Florida's USF Sami Al-Arian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad"?

[Edit:  If you've got Google Earth, I've started to make a placemark & overlay list on my Earth page ]

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Yes, tomorrow is the opening of the UN's 60th General Assembly in New York and there'll be lots of hot things to come from that (the non-definition of "terrorism" already abandoned as a topic, UN reform, speeches from Bush, Sharon, Musharraf, Ahmedinejad, and Putin, among other delectable UN wordplay) but the most anticipated sparks will be outside the UN at the George Galloway vs. Christopher Hitchens debate tomorrow at 7p EST. 

Hitchens has already shown himself (on the Daily Show, most recently, contrary to the opinion of Jon Stewart fans) to be a strong and eloquent advocate for pro-Iraq war rationale (albeit he has reservations about the execution, as does anyone with a TV or brain) and should be well positioned to make sweet, sweet love to the darling of the Left's Galloway, an unabashed Bush basher and UK MP for his own breakway anti-war "Respect" party who'll hopefully rehash his wonderful performance given in the Senate Investigations Subcommittee of May 17, 2005 (video).

Some select quotes:
"Bush, and Blair, and the prime minister of Japan, and Berlusconi, these people are criminals, and they are responsible for mass murder in the world, for the war, and for the occupation, through their support for Israel..." -  Galloway, Al Jazeera, 06/20/2005

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong - and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies ... Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported." - Galloway responding to Senator Norm Coleman, 05/17/2005

"[Christopher Hitchens is a] drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay and useful idiot" - Galloway upon spotting Hitchens, just before the 05/17 Senate hearing

"[That] was unfair." - Hitchens responding to the above Galloway comment.

I am one of those who believe, uncynically, that Osama bin Laden did us all a service (and holy war a great disservice) by his mad decision to assault the American homeland four years ago. Had he not made this world-historical mistake, we would have been able to add a Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan to our list of the threats we failed to recognize in time. - Christopher Hitchens, A War to be Proud Of, Weekly Standard, 09/12/2005

Tasty!  I sincerely hope Hitchens can drop some knowledge on Galloway before the seasoned entertainer (er, "member of parliment") panders to what seems like will be a self-selected and stacked audience.  Ah, it's just too much to ask to have logic interfere with showmanship!

New York is truly the center of the Hottness Based Community.
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The Cybercast News Service is reporting that Al Qaeda's gearing up for the terrorist season starting around October - November, this year's Islamic month of Ramadan, as per a September 2nd report by noted terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky issued on GIS, a government-only information source.  The report claims there're plans for a large attack or series of attacks on western countries - with Italy seemingly being mentioned most - that will dwarf 9/11 and draws together information from increased recent chatter, Zarqawi messengers, as well as interpretations of the August 8th video message from Ayman al-Zawhiri.

Bodansky's report states that "concrete preparations for the consolidation of Islamist-jihadist springboards against the heart and lair of the Great Satan are being completed -- for Western Europe in the Balkans, for Russian and Eastern Europe in Chechnya, and for the United States in the tri-border area in Latin America."

The report also mentions that hurricane Katrina is an encouragement terrorists and poses a strategic opportunity.  Stratfor, on the other hand, believes that Al Qaeda's MO is to attack when ready, not around a specific event, and therefore thinks the Bodansky timing analysis is questionable.

I'm not sure where the "tri-border area" is with regards to the US, but I'm keeping an eye on this one.  Hopefully the report itself will pop up in the next few days.  There're a few other reports and think tank reports to read relating to this, and I'll post more.

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Everone's favorite enemy combatant (no, not me) US-born, New York-native Jose Padilla* has today lost in a federal appeal in the 4th Circuit courts and is now, again, an enemy combatant, sitting in solitary.  Further, Judge Luttig writing for the three-judge panel court (Luttig appointed by Bush, the other two by Clinton), said that Padilla's even more an enemy combatant than Saudi-born, Louisiana-native Yaser Hamdi.**

Padilla v. Hanft, 09/09/05 (pdf)

*
  • on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2000, was recruited to jihad by Al Qaeda
  • trained and fought in Afghanistan in 2001, escaped to Pakistan
  • met with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and accepted a mission to go back to the US and blow up buildings
  • arrested May, 2002, suspected of a "dirty bomb" plot
  • designated an "enemy combatant" June 2002 and held in solitary confinement in a naval brig in South Carolina
  • won a federal ruling that in February 2005 that said he couldn't be held indefinately and that the government has to charge him with a crime or free him

**
  • captured on the battlefield in 2001 in Afghanistan
  • freed in October 2004 and sent to Saudi Arabia and gave up his US citizenship as conditions for his release
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Ever since reading Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, something's been bouncing around in my head:  Ever since the Marines set foot on Tripoli around 1800, we (the United States) have been fighting Muslims (Barbary pirates). 
America's rise to power stems from fighting on Muslims.
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Morrocan Man Sentenced on Terror Charges, AP/Yahoo, 08/19/2005
German court convicts 9/11 suspect, UPI/WorldPeaceHerald, 08/19/2005

This is an interesting case of Munir Motassadeq, a Moroccan-born German man who's accused of assisting the 9/11 hijackers. It brings up a lot of issues from how the US interacts with foreign courts, in this case German, to how the US's concerns for information secrecy might have freed this guy and on to the efficacy, in general, of the legal system's prosecution of terrorism.  I follow a bunch of this stuff, but I comment very little, unfortunately.

For example, Motassadeq was convicted of 'assisted murder' in 02/2003 and given 15 years - a sentence which was overturned by appeal and he was freed.  Freed?  I'd have thought the US would've wanted this guy, at the very least, in Gitmo pronto, but free he was for about a year.  Another Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, a friend of Motassadeq, was acquitted in a seperate trial (with identical charges) in 02/004.  Free.  The prosecutor's request for appeal for Mzoudi was thrown out.

There were various reports of the levels of political pressure and non-pressure to have Motassadeq retried, as he has been, as well as accusations (by the German prosecutors) that the US wasn't being forthcoming enough to convict Motassadeq.  International cooperation on terrorism, people, please?  Kuno Boese, a terrorism expert at a Berlin university said "That's good. We can't be the laughing stock of our EU neighbors any longer."

Found guilty of belonging to a terrorist cell, Motassadeq was found innocent of over 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder. Whether there's an appeal, how this case affects Germany's legal system and other legal implications for prosecuting terrorism are still open questions. 

Spain is currently trying 24 Syrian-born Spanish men accused of being Al Qaeda members (It's Liberty vs. Security in Spanish Terror Trial, LA Times, 08/10/2005), 3 of whom are accused of assisting in 9/11, with a verdict to appear in September.  Some info and key people in this trial: Pedro Rubira, Spain's lead prosecutor; Jacinto Gil, a defense attorney; investigating judge Baltasar Garzon; key defendant, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alleged head of the Spanish Al Qaeda cell, 'Soldiers of Allah'; co-defendant Driss Chebli - Barakat & Chebli are accused of arranging a 07/16/2001 planning meeting w/ Mohd Atta in Spain and having taken video tape of the WTC; co-defendant Taysir Alouni, an Al Jazeera reporter. Spain has a max of 40 years prison time for terrorist activites and no death penalty - the prosecutors are seeking sentences totalling tens of thousands of years.

Further, last month the EU put into effect a Europe-wide arrest warrant for Al Qaeda suspects.  Good, right?  Germany found it unconstitutional and let Mamoun Darkanzali, a Syrian-born German, go free from the extradition Spain sought for the trial mentioned above. (EU: Commission says Europe-Wide Arrest Warrant Still Valid, AKI, 07/18/2005)  Darkanzali was accused of being a member of a terrorist cell and "providing logistics support and financing the network, including the purchase of a cargo vessel that he and two others bought in December 1993 for its leader Osama bin Laden."  Free.
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Saudi's Prince Bandar bin-Sultan is resigning his post as Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the US after over 20 years of service.  That's it for you, Media, no more hand-holding pictures! (Yes, I know that was Prince Abdullah, not Prince Bandar)  Ignoring that "Bandar Bush" sounds suspiciously like a cartoon elephant, the Saudi's have decided to put Princeton, Cambridge, and Georgetown educated Prince Turki al-Faisal - former Saudi chief intelligence officer (aka "top spy") in the 1980s, former Ambassador to the UK,  son of the former King, and brother of Prince Saud - in the US as the Ambassador replacing Bandar, who is the son of Saudi's Defense Minister.  Lots of neat connections there. 

Seems like in the wake of 9/11 we're getting hints that the US wants stronger intelligence ties (or at least the impression of) with the oil-rich, terrorist-rich Kingdom.  Maybe we can get Osama Bin Laden's son out of Iran, make him a Pakistani citizen and replace their Ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodi (Yes, that link's to an interview with Oprah.)  Al-Jazeera doesn't have much commentary on the implications of the chief spymaster being put in Washington, but let me throw in a quote for you to chew on while you don your red white and blue dishdasha:

Turki, 60, met several times with Osama bin Laden in the context of Saudi support for Muslim fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He later mediated between the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Saudi government. [Bloomberg]

One can only hope that this appointment will, at the very least, cause Michael Moore to, once and for all, get even more red faced and explode.
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Today, Arundhati Roy - one of my very favorite leftist heros for almost innumerable reasons - defined what it means to be an enemy combatant: "anybody who harbors thoughts of resistance" and then promptly declared herself to be an enemy combatant.  Apart from the immediate observation I had of this comment, first, she's a few years too late picking up the mantle and second, I seriously doubt she has a t-shirt declaring her as such (as I do), I don't think she really would want to be an enemy combatant.  Ideologically, though, I think we both are - though her definition is too broad and dramatic to be of any real use.  There's a great quote from her conclusion speech today that I'll have to transcribe for later.  It's sort of like moral aromatherapy: the smells feel nice in your head.  Also, I have the damn t-shirt. Anyway, that's a tangent.

She presided over the World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul, Turkey where people came to describe the horrors they've seen and experienced and to condemn the invasion of Iraq.  As expected, they delivered their condemnation.  This exercise was styled after Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre's International War Crimes Tribunal held in the 1960's against the Vietnam War.  Being a prominent writer, playwright, and emotionalist (in my head) one would've thought I'd be right up there but for some reason, this didn't appear on my Outlook calendar.  I'm a bit disappointed, actually, since I was looking forward to an international trip.  The oddity of all this is how such conclusions play into the body of statements and laws called "international law."

As with Russell's forebearer of the UN's ICC, the World Tribunal on Iraq came out with a list of condemnations they've entitled "Preliminary Declaration of the Jury of Conscience World Tribunal on Iraq" in which they find the US, UK, governments of other countries, private corporations, the corporate media and UN guilty as charged.  Some of their recommendations include reparations, withdrawal, nullification of laws, war crimes proceedings, calls for actions against the private corporations and the military.  Unlike Russell's tribunal, they didn't condemn the US of genocide.  Wussies!

One of the charges against the US/UK governments is "Using disproportinate force and indiscriminate weapons systems".  I don't think they'd've been pleased if the US/UK decided to use nuclear or chemical weapons on the Iraqi military which would've been a "proportinate force" considering almost every nation and the UN were convinced that Saddam's Iraq had wmd at the time.  Ah well, gotta have a clear conscience somehow.  I'm not a Pespi product drinker and therefore my conscience is clear (A recommended boycott list includes Pepsi - go me!)

Edit:
Here's the statement I wanted to quote from Arundhati Roy:

Surely, we have the right to express an opinion, and surely, if that opinion is irrelevant, surely, if that opinion is full of false facts, surely, if that opinion is absurd, it will be treated as such, and if that opinion is, in fact, representative of the opinion of millions of people, it will become very huge.

They're not mutually exclusive states.

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cackling ladies
whisper and whoop, orgasm
slip into ipod bliss
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old fat women pass
monochromatic two-piece
slow Bantha shuffle

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Taliban chief: Bin Laden alive and well, AP/usatoday, Today
An interview in Urdu with a Taliban military commander conducted near Spinboldak, Afghanistan, 300 miles southwest of Kabul or 50 miles south of Kandahar, and broadcast on Pakistan's GEO television network claims that Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are alive and well.  This adds to my theory that OBL is being given active safe haven in western Pakistan.  This article in the Christian Science Monitor has some good background on OBL's whereabouts and why the "in and out of Iran" theory's specious.

Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Usmani, the interviewee, was designated as a military successor/replacement Taliban leader for Mullah Omar, October 16, 2001, as Mullah Omar bailed during the defense of Kandahar.  He's been previously reported as having hijacked an Indian airlines flight in 1999 as well as the contact between the Pakistani ISI and the Afghan Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), a group linked to the attempted assassinations of Pakistani President Musharraf (brief from South Asia Terrorism Portal).  He's also the one behind attacks against Shi'a in Quetta, Pakistan, very close to Spinboldak. One odd report says that he may be in US custody as early as 1999.

As with Zarqawi speeches that are broadcast (one was, as recently as last month, on Radio Tajdid in the UK), these sorts of interviews are more a morale booster to keep their fight 1) going and 2) in public.  Yes, that there's enough doubt that OBL is alive is one aspect, the other aspect being an affirmation that he and Mullah Omar are actually alive, but these are secondary, depending on your point of view.  The Taliban is advertising publically via this interview and, since it was in Urdu, probably targetting a Pakistani audience for a replenishment of its forces.

This is the second time that Usmani stated that both OBL and Mullah Omar were alive, the first being in November 2002 during a release of an OBL audiotape, when it was mentioned that OBL was possibly travelling with Mullah Omar in Pakistan under the aegis of HuM.


More information about Spinboldak, Afghanistan:

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Abdullah Al Muhajir, aka Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber," has been denied review by the Supreme Court.  His lawyers wanted to bypass the government's scheduled July appeal of a February ruling by a South Carolina judge that "Bush has no authority to have Padilla held as an enemy combatant."  The government appealed and that appeal is pending.  Padilla's lawyer argued for a bypass of procedure and wanted the Supreme Court to address the issue.  No go.

This has been a very interesting case for both the terrorism aspect and the enemy combatant status.  I'll be following up with more information about Padilla and about the classification as some historical background as I write more about the convergance of terror & the law.
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Calif. father, son held in al-Qaida investigation, MSNBC - Looks like Pakistani madrassa trained people (aka al-Qaeda sympathizers and potential terrorists) were caught in Lodi, CA. MSNBC references an FBI Agent affadavit (pdf), too. This one seems to be a cut and dry case of some people caught out in a lie. It's good the FBI keeps track of talking to these guys otherwise they may have had to wait until something actually happened. Complication: they're American citizens. How hard can the book be thrown at these two for lying?

The media's got some good ones, what with the al-Arian case (Florida CS professor accused of assisting Palestinian terrorist organizations) going on. Financial aid and comfort to terrorists? Probably, but they've got to prove it.

The USA PATRIOT Act's provisions are up for renewal soon (December 2005) and there's a bunch of debate going on in Washington as to it's extent. The Senate Intelligence Committee approved a proposal for giving "Administrative subpoena" powers to the FBI - allowing, in certain cases, requests for records from, say a hospital, without first going through a judge. (Senate Gives FBI More Patriot Act Power, ABC News)

Jack mentioned something about allowing the FBI free rein to infiltrate mosques in the US. To me, it seems like an idea that's missing the mark. The FBI, as per above, has to pretty much wait until someone's broken a law somewhere before jumping into action. Enforcement of the law isn't usually an invasive or proactive thing and long drawn out court cases show exactly how quickly justice is meted out.

From the MSBNC article: "Umer Hayat [the father] wore a concealed FBI listening device for the meetings, one source told the Bee [Sacremento news paper], an account confirmed by some of his relatives." The FBI used an informant to get more info to make their case. Much easier than a plant.
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