BOMBSHELL, but really we knew this, didnt we?

[Peregrinator]

Only a diseased mentality can argue that wiretaps, spying, Pat Act is not needed in the WOT

I don't think anyone is arguing that, except maybe the guy you quoted.

 

[busybody..]

I still dont see him arguing that



BTW, did you know Borders and WaldenBooks will NOT stock a magazine that has the MooseLimb cartoons in it?

Did you know that the stores have sent STORE WIDE instructions that ALl Muslim related books Must be on the TOP SHELF!

Did you know NYU was gonna have a discussion on the Cartoons and CANCELLED it after certain "threats" were made??????????????



Yes, CENSORSHIP is here

We are afraid of the MOOSELIMB HOARDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afraid of what they will do to us and we are caving in


And before you throw SHIT at me

The two BOOKSTORES and NYU all said their policy is becuase they cant ASSURE SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SHAME ON US FO CAVING

It can only get worse

 

[Peregrinator]

I was kidding. I think what he's arguing is not that the PA is unnecessary, but that among its justifications is a myth.

Throw shit at you? I've been on this bandwagon for months. I hate those big chain bookstores. I'll have to see if Powell's, The Greatest Bookstore On Earth has the cartoons. What magazines were they in?

 

[busybody..]

I know what he was saying, even if you didnt, until I pointed it out

BTW, in case you really truly believe that its ONLY a small majority of them that are CRAZED


You are wrong, it is world wide and WE are facing a WAR OF CIVILIZATIONS


Read this and tell me they are not insane


Albanian Muslims Seething Over Mother Teresa
Albanian Muslims are seething over plans for a statue of Mother Teresa: Planned Mother Teresa statue irks Albania Muslims. (Hat tip: Van Impe.)

SHKODER, Albania (Reuters) - Muslims in Albania’s northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican.

The dispute is unusual for Albania, where religion was banned for 27 years under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and where religious harmony and mixed marriages are the norm. Seventy percent of the population are liberal Muslims, the rest are Christian Orthodox and Catholic.

But Muslim groups in Shkoder rejected the local council plan for a Teresa statue, saying it “would offend the feelings of Muslims.”

“We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place because we see her as a religious figure,” said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder’s mufti or Muslim religious leader. “If there must be a statue, let it be in a Catholic space.”




Maybe it would be easier for everybody if some sheikh somewhere just made a list of things that don’t offend the feelings of Muslims.

 

[busybody..]

Borders Customer Care
100 Phoenix Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108-2202
888-812-6657

ccare@bordersstores.com


March 30, 2006

Dear Borders representatives:

After reading this, please forward it to the appropriate Borders executive. Be advised also that I am circulating this message far and wide, and posting it online on my blog:

http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/?entryid=366

I have been a loyal Borders customer -- now a Borders Rewards customer -- for quite a few years. I spend many hundreds of dollars annually in your store.

However, I have just learned that Borders and its affiliated Waldenbooks have banned the next issue of a publication, Free Inquiry, from your magazine shelves, because that publication is reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad on inside pages. The reason given by Borders is alleged fear of violence from radical Muslims, and desire to "protect" customers and employees.

Your company's craven policy of capitulation in the face of the mere hypothetical threat of terrorism is absolutely appalling -- a complete moral abdication that only encourages those threatening our rights and liberties.

I am a writer, and the editor of The New Individualist, a news and cultural magazine. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I am the first editor in the nation to dare to print one of those "offensive" cartoons of Muhammad right on the cover of our Winter 2006 issue. I therefore have no doubt that our magazine, which is still available only by subscription, would have been banned by Borders, too.

Let me be clear: I did not publish the cartoon to offend Muslims. I did so as a profound matter of principle: to stand up to those who are trying to annihilate our First Amendment rights. I did so because here, in America, nobody can be permitted to get away with coercion and intimidation against anyone's freedom to write and speak and publish. I did so because I learned many years ago, as a child on school playgrounds, that when you surrender to bullies, you grant them dictatorial power over your life.

By its public declaration of pre-emptive surrender, Borders has given the bullies of our age a clear message: Your intimidation works. Your bullying works. Your coercion works. Your terrorist threats work.

Borders has set a morally irresponsible and frighteningly dangerous precedent. It has told fanatics everywhere that all they need to do in order to obliterate First Amendment rights is to growl menacingly -- at which point a leading bookstore chain in America will clear its shelves of anything that could possibly offend the thug of the moment.

Having now encouraged the use of violence and intimidation, which magazine or book are you next prepared to expunge from your stores? Will you remove books about abortion, for fear of provoking some "right to life" fanatic? Will you eliminate Jewish magazines or black publications, for fear of upsetting neo-Nazis and skinheads? Scientology has been known to intimidate critics; are you about to bow to their demands for "proper" treatment in magazines and books, by eliminating all critical material? Or if some investigative journalist probes organized crime, will you hide his work in the back room, for fear of retaliation from the Mob?

You have given a sorry example of where such capitulation begins. But where does it end?

Not only is your policy ethically disgusting and counter-productive, it is completely nonsensical. With many thousands of book and magazine outlets in this country, there is absolutely no reason for Borders to believe that its stores, staff, and customers would be singled out for harm. Yet despite all of this, Borders does stand out: as the first and most gutless of them all. It is the first American bookstore chain to adopt a policy that I have labeled "anticipatory capitulation": advance surrender in the face of a mere hypothetical threat.

Terrorism and fanaticism are the gravest menaces of our age. Our nation is dispatching thousands of soldiers abroad to meet that threat to our liberty and our modern way of life. But after 9/11, it should be clear that all of us -- not just our soldiers -- are on the front lines of this war.

If we value our rights and freedoms, all of us must stand together and resolute in the face of threats, intimidation, and violence. The worst possible message we can give to terrorists or to anyone else willing to initiate force is that we do not stand united against them -- and that their tactics work.

I exhort you to rescind immediately this contemptible cut-and-run policy. Until and unless that happens, be advised that I will no longer be shopping in your stores, and that I will encourage everyone I know to do likewise.


Sincerely,

Robert Bidinotto, Editor

The New Individualist
www.newindividualist.com

 

[Peregrinator]

I can't think of Albanians as representative of anything.

 

[busybody..]

RACIST!

 

[Peregrinator]

RACIST!

Nope. Keep trying. Someday, if you call me a racist every time I say anything, you may actually be right.

Of course, you could start by understanding what the word actually means, but then you'd have to admit your own racism, and that might bruise your cute little ego....

 

[busybody..]

You can hide behind any TECHNICAL definition you want

Your sentiments are the same as mine

No amount of contortions can hide that FACT

And

Your response to that posting was sill at best!

 

[Peregrinator]

You can hide behind any TECHNICAL definition you want

Your sentiments are the same as mine

No amount of contortions can hide that FACT

And

Your response to that posting was sill at best!

You're mistaken.

 

[busybody..]

You can hide behind any TECHNICAL definition you want

Your sentiments are the same as mine

No amount of contortions can hide that FACT

 

[busybody..]

Why the Media is part of the ENEMY

And we were already told this by CNN

They HAVE to lie about the BAD guys to maintain access

Remeber this


TIME's Michael Ware: Shilling for Jihadist Access
by Joe Katzman at March 30, 2006 11:10 PM

Hugh Hewitt interviewed TIME Magazine's Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware, whose idea of a good way to cover Iraq is to embed/liaise with the al-Qeada affiliates and Ba'athist fascists of the so-called "insurgency." The transcripts are up, and Hewitt writes:

"Parts of this interview trouble me a great deal. Ware is quite obviously a courageous, battle-hardened and determined reporter, but his answers to a variety of questions leave me concerned that the pressure of his circumstances will impact his reporting, and may have already impacted the candor of his assessment of the jihadists and the "insurgents." His refusal to answer other questions of historical judgment and relevance - were the Soviets better off under Stalin or Khrushchev, for example - tell me he is aware of the deep problems with his analysis of Iraq under Saddam and post-Saddam, and that he refuses to engage in any conversation that will inevitably expose that analysis as indefensible.

But the major problem comes from the threat of distortion born of fear, the same problem that we learned plagued CNN under Saddam, but learned only after Saddam was toppled."

Commentary and key excerpts here, or go for the full transcript and MP3 file. Reading the interview, one cannot reasonably come to any other conclusion. He is shilling and soft-pedaling for fascists and terrorists, consciously telling less than the truth in order to preserve his ability to cover a war from the enemy's point of view.

Ware has a history here - and when you combine his self-censorship because the jihadis might read it with his frank acknowledgement of the role that the insurgents told him to his face they wished him to play, it's incredibly damning. Now contrast Ware's 2005 Tal Afar reports with the actions of and letter from its mayor recently. No doubt his unsubstantiated charges about US soldiers "manhandling" Iraqi women were also a great interview-smoother with his Islamofascist "contacts".

The operative word here is traitor. To his profession. To his country.

 

[busybody..]

so the next time you hear about the "evils of the US and its soldiers"

remeber, it is being told to you

From the terrorists via their mouthpiece


OUR OWN MEDIA!

 

[Peregrinator]

You're mistaken.

Still, even when you repeat yourself.

 

[busybody..]

the next danger facing the US


http://www.mexica-movement.org/granmarcha.htm

 

[busybody..]

Whose backlash?

RealClearPolitics has an excellent lineup of columns weighted to immigration this morning, foremost among them Victor Davis Hanson's "What backlash?" He writes:

If many thousands of illegal aliens marched [last weekend] in their zeal, many more millions of Americans of all different races and backgrounds watched--and seethed. They were struck by the Orwellian incongruities--Mexican flags, chants of "Mexico, Mexico," and the spectacle of illegal alien residents lecturing citizen hosts on what was permissible in their own country.

If the demonstrators thought that they were bringing attention to their legitimate grievances--the sheer impossibility of deporting 11 million residents across the border or the hypocrisy of Americans de facto profiting from "illegals" who cook their food, make their beds, and cut their lawns--they seemed oblivious to the embarrassing contradictions of their own symbolism and rhetoric. Most Americans I talked to in California summed up their reactions to the marches as something like, "Why would anyone wave the flag of the country that they would never return to--and yet scream in anger at those with whom they wish to stay?" Depending on the particular questions asked, polls reveal that somewhere around 60-80% of the public is vehemently opposed to illegal immigration.

When schools were dismissed due to student walkouts and traffic disrupted, Americans began to see the wages of their own indifference to the problems of illegal immigration. Insidiously over the last 30 years we have allowed an entire apartheid community to grow up in enclaves in the American Southwest and occasionally beyond--one by language and psyche that may well feel more romantically attached to the Mexico it left and won't return to the United States it sought out and must stay in.

 

[busybody..]

Did Saddam Hussein Assist Palestinian Terrorist Groups More Than Previously Thought?
On January 7, I discussed the potential disclosure of up to 2 million documents from Saddam Hussein's intelligence apparatus and whether it would lead to a reassessment of his ties to Islamic terrorist groups. I expressed hope that the documents would be "seriously examined, analyzed, and released to the public" and that "counterterrorism experts with knowledge of terrorist groups and individuals, from inside and outside government, should be invited to review the evidence." The first group of 600-700 have been released by the Director of National Intelligence and are available from the website of the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office at Ft. Leavenworth. Concurrently the U.S. Joint Forces Command released the unclassifed version of its "Iraq Perspectives Report" (large Acrobat file), a two-year effort in which information from interviews with senior Iraqi military and political leaders and thousands of official Iraqi documents were analyzed to determine the forces and motivations behind the Hussein regime's pre-war and wartime decisions. (EDIT: The U.S. House oversight subcommittee which reviewed UBS's currency violations this week will hold a hearing next week on this report.)

The IPR authors carefully tried to authenticate the statements in the report. "Some things we did not use in the study because we could not find multiple ways of identifying was it true or not true. We explicitly excluded them...Then there's the plausibility factor of does it make sense militarily, is this possible the way they described it? Some of the stories were not so we left those off."

More evidence of Saddam's ties to terrorist groups has already emerged from these releases. One of the docs from Saddam's intel stash apparently points toward funding of Abu Sayyaf, the Filippino-based terrorist group. One paragraph on page 54 of the IPR has drawn attention to Saddam's possible ties and cooperation with Islamic terrorist groups, especially those with a Palestinian focus. We already knew that Saddam had funded Palestinian suicide bombers through an account in Rafidain Bank in Jordan, but this paragraph extends the possible range of such assistance. Even those in the CT community (official and otherwise) and the "terrorism press" who are highly skeptical of claims of the value of the intel docs are intrigued by the following paragraph:

Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 "good men racing full with courage and enthusiasm" in the first year. Beginning in 1998, these camps began hosting "Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, 'the Gulf,' and Syria." It is not clear from available evidence where all of these non-Iraqi volunteers who were "sacrificing for the cause" went to ply their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home upon the completion of training. But these camps were humming with frenzied activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the "Heroes Attack." This training event was designed in part to prepare regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to "obstruct the enemy from achieving his goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province.
The authors don't cite their sources, and I hope more of the details behind this paragraph emerge.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who along with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra has pushed for the release of the intel docs, cited this paragraph this week in remarks on the Senate floor. And he said this about the intel documents:

As a caveat, while Congressman Hoekstra and I are excited about the fact that DNI decided to release these documents, the pace of the release is, let us say, unsatisfactory to this point. We have, with the blogosphere, the Internet, the opportunity to put these documents out there and have almost instantaneously translated postings about what these documents contain. During the time the Director of National Intelligence Negroponte has had these documents--this is 3 years ago--less than 2 percent of the documents have been translated. At this pace, my grandchildren may know what is in these documents. We need to get these documents out. Mr. President, 600 over a little over a 2-week period is almost the same pace as translating with the people they had over in DNI Negroponte's shop. We need to get these documents out quicker. Why? Because if we look at what is in these documents, there is important information in understanding the connection between Iraq and terrorist organizations and the threat we were facing...
Obviously questions of authenticity and the chain of custody of the intel docs have to be carefully addressed, just as the IPR authors did in their work. Reporter Stephen Hayes, while championing their release, recently cautioned readers about this. "Determining which documents are authentic and which are not will be an incredibly important task. This will be difficult task too, since many of the documents have no known chain of custody. There was a bustling black market for forged documents in Baghdad after the war. How will we determine which documents are real and which documents are not?"

So the quest continues. I understand that a number of non-governmental CT experts, including at least one of our Contributing Experts, have been asked for their assistance, as I hoped in January. We should hope that the authentic and supported documents from Saddam's intel stash are eventually disclosed, with final conclusions about all commections or the lack thereof, before too long.

 

[busybody..]

In my continuing effort to bring you info on the document dump

I give you the following


You all do owe me BIG TIME




Special Report
State-Sponsored Terrorism, Anyone?
By Laurie Mylroie, with Ayad Rahim
Published 3/31/2006 12:09:26 AM
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has finally begun to release documents from the huge cache it has captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and they are being posted to the website of the Army's Foreign Military Studies Office. One of the most interesting reports to appear is an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) review of Iraqi efforts to establish ties with the Saudi opposition in the years following the 1991 Gulf war. (Document # ISGZ-2004-009247; the Arabic original is available here. For the full text of our translation, click here.)

One section of this report has already been widely cited, because it mentions a meeting between the IIS and Osama bin Laden: on February 15, 1995, the IIS met with bin Laden in Sudan, and he made two requests of the Iraqis that 1) they broadcast the speeches of a radical Saudi cleric; and 2) they coordinate in attacking foreign forces inside Saudi Arabia.

That, of course, is startling news. Yet the document's significance is much broader. Bill Clinton introduced a novel concept into the U.S. understanding of terrorism which has far out-lived his presidency: namely, that states had become irrelevant and that even very major attacks were now the work of groups and "networks," unaided by states. This document, however, suggests otherwise: states remain important, and their resources far out-strip those of individuals and groups. This document also suggests that the much-ballyhooed division between "secular" and "Islamic" figures is, in fact, non-existent.

Mohammed al-Mas'ari and the CDLR
This undated review was apparently written in early 1997 (January 11, 1997, is the last date that appears in the document). It shows that Iraq was actively pursuing contacts with opponents of the Saudi government and begins by describing Iraqi efforts to establish ties with the "Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights," an Islamic group somewhat less radical than bin Laden, but also more popular at the time.

Muhammad al-Mas'ari, who was seeking asylum in Britain, headed the CDLR. In September 1994, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, a Sudanese official, arranged for the IIS to meet in Khartoum with one of Mas'ari's representatives, who proposed "joint co-operation" with Iraq and presented a "work plan." Subsequently, Sanusi visited London to meet with Mas'ari himself. In December, Sanusi traveled to Baghdad, where he met Saddam's son, Uday, and the IIS director. They discussed "in detail the Saudi opposition" and "studied the recommendations that Sanusi proposed on behalf of Mas'ari." The Iraqis agreed to Mas'ari's request that they broadcast opposition programs into Saudi Arabia, even as they sought closer ties with him, independent of the Sudanese.

The IIS established another channel to Mas'ari through a Saudi diplomat, Ahmad Khidhayyar al-Zahrani, who, although posted to the United States, requested political asylum in Britain. The British turned him down, and following an offer from the Iraqis, as the British were about to deport him, Zahrani took refuge in Baghdad. He spoke with Mas'ari from Iraq a number of times; their last conversation was on January 11, 1997. Mas'ari said that he could not leave Britain with his asylum application pending, but he would visit Iraq soon. Zahrani also contacted another Saudi figure in Britain, Saad al-Faqih.

This section of the report ends, "We are thus following up this issue to achieve the goal of establishing the nucleus for the Saudi opposition in the country." (It is unclear whether "the country" refers to Iraq or Saudi Arabia, as Ayad Rahim notes.)


Bin Laden and the Reform and Advice Committee
Bin Laden is the second major figure described in this report. In 1994, while based in Sudan, he established the "Reform and Advice Committee," which had an office in London. Al Qaeda was then a small, very secretive organization and is not mentioned in this document. Apparently, the IIS did not know of its existence. (U.S. intelligence was equally ignorant. As late as August 7, 1998, when two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed nearly simultaneously, al Qaeda was not even on the official U.S. list of terrorist groups; it was added subsequently.)

During his visit to Baghdad, Sanusi also reported on Sudan's efforts to establish contact between bin Laden and Iraq. Bin Laden had fears that his enemies would denounce him as an Iraqi agent, but he agreed to meet Sanusi. The Sanusi-bin Laden meeting led to a direct meeting between the IIS and bin Laden in Khartoum, in which bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the speeches of Shaykh Salman al-Awdah and carry out "joint operations against the foreign forces in the Land of Hijaz."

Baghdad approved the first request, but the report says nothing about Iraq's response to the second. Bin Laden, the report explains, was forced to leave Sudan for Afghanistan in July 1996, and "the relationship with him continues to be through the Sudanese side," even as the IIS is seeking "a new channel in light...of his current whereabouts."


The IIS Station in Yemen and Stations Elsewhere
As in Sudan, Iraq's ambassador to Yemen was an IIS agent. Both countries were major centers of Iraqi intelligence activity, but the station in Sana'a did not enjoy the same degree of support from local authorities as that in Khartoum. As the report notes, "the Yemeni side did not keep the promise it gave" to work together to cultivate the Saudi opposition.

In an effort to establish relations with Saudi Hizbullah (a Shia organization), the IIS met several times with the leader of Yemeni Hizbullah. However, the IIS suspected his ties to Iranian intelligence and dealt cautiously with him, lest Iran's involvement lead to the Saudi government's learning about Iraq's activities with the Saudi opposition.

The report also notes IIS efforts to develop ties with Saudis through its stations in New Delhi, Islamabad, and New York, none of which proved fruitful.


Implications
Were British authorities aware of the efforts of Iraqi intelligence to establish contact with Saudis resident in Britain? Were they aware that Ibrahim al-Sanusi, who presided over a "Popular Arab and Islamic Conference," held in Khartoum on a biannual basis, was essentially acting as a front for Iraqi intelligence?

Why did bin Laden ask for Iraqi support in attacking foreign [i.e. U.S.] forces in Saudi Arabia? The most evident explanation is that he wanted to do so, but lacked the capability to carry out such an attack on his own.

Finally, the report suggests that states have a continuing importance, while ideology is not as important as many would have it. Once approached by Iraq, Mas'ari and bin Laden both sought things from that country. Iraq's resources outstripped theirs in almost all respects. Mas'ari seemed to have had no objection to working with Baghdad; bin Laden's concern appeared to center on how others might perceive him. Ideology -- whether the Saudis were "secular" or religious -- was irrelevant to the Iraqis, as was the Sunni-Shia divide, although a practical concern -- Iran -- inhibited them from contacting Saudi Hizbullah through the Yemeni branch. Sudan played an important role in facilitating Iraq's contacts with Saudi oppositionists, but efforts to establish such ties in Yemen were unsuccessful, largely because the Yemeni government did not cooperate with Baghdad.

***

Below is additional commentary from Ayad Rahim, translator of the Iraqi intelligence report discussed above by Ms. Mylroie:

ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING THINGS in this document for Iraqis is the openness with which the Iraqi regime acknowledged that it engaged in terrorism, and particularly in its embassies. Iraqis have long considered the Baath regime a terrorist organization, the intelligence services its external terrorist arm, and the embassies as posts for the intelligence services (the dreaded mukhabarat). When an Iraqi came anywhere near an Iraqi embassy, he shuddered with fear. And God help you, if you actually had business to conduct in an embassy. You fretted about it for weeks, dared not go alone, posted friends outside, in case you lingered too long, then recovered from the humiliation. Since the fall of the regime, machine guns, weapons-silencers and torture implements have been found in abandoned embassy safes.

The document is also a reminder of how a gang of thugs took over a rich country, yet saw themselves as a legitimate enterprise, and conducting themselves accordingly. They addressed each other with honorifics and had a code of conduct and a core of beliefs, such as the myth of an Arab nation, with sections, ultimately to be united. They put together delineated reports about their doings, sent them up the line of command, and wrote in flowery language -- albeit not very elegant.

An amusing phenomenon suggested in this document is Saddam's Iraq granting people political asylum. While Iraqis fled the country in droves, seeking legitimate asylum elsewhere (an estimated four to five million ended up abroad, more than a million of them, forcibly driven out), the regime went searching far and wide, inviting "Arabs," purely for their terrorist utility. Meanwhile, as actual Iraqis feared going to Iraq and had the doors of Iraqi embassies and consulates literally and figuratively slammed in their faces, their Arab "brothers" were being lavished with scholarships, the royal treatment and exorbitant sums of money, at their expense.

Finally, to Iraqis, the notion that Saddam wouldn't deal with Islamists, because he was "secular," is laughable. Iraqis, who witnessed on television Saddam's dealings with any and all terrorists, have considered him the world's biggest terrorist and have seen him ride whichever wind would prevail for him. During his war with Iran, he "became" Shi'a -- among other things, posters of Muhammad's family tree were circulated showing Saddam and his sons as descendents of the Prophet. In the '90s, he had a revelation, and called for "a campaign of faithfulness," putting the country on a fundamentalist track. Alcohol was banned, extreme tribal ways were advocated for dealing with women, and hundreds of women were beheaded in public (allegedly for prostitution, but actually for dissent), and their heads posted in front of their homes. Then there was his constant championing of "the Palestinian cause" and pan-Arabism, while hosting and sponsoring terrorist groups and conferences of every stripe and flavor -- with, as we see in this document, a process of give-and-take, in the mix.


Laurie Mylroie is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War Against America (AEI Press, 2001). Ayad Rahim, a journalist in Cleveland, hosts a radio program about the war and recently spent six months in his native Baghdad. This is the first in a series of reports they will be doing on the Iraqi documents.

 

[busybody..]

an important read


Iraq VP and Taliban representative meeting II
"Both in One Trench"

ISGP-2003-00014127

Ray: Sammi provides us with a follow up meeting between a Pakistani cleric and the Vice President of Iraq. The main topic is establishment of a secret relationship between the Taliban and Iraq through Iraqi Intelligence apparatus for the purpose of assisting each other against the United States. Context: before the Taliban took full control of Kandahar, there were several factions fighting to gain power. There is another document at the FMSO website in which Saddam and his ministers discuss Afghanistan and how the different factions are vying for control. These meetings lend very strong support to the conclusion that the Taliban sought Iraq's support to not only take and maintain control in Afghanistan but to be an allie against the U.S. and that Iraq chose to support the Taliban.



Sammi: Translator’s notes:
-The diary is 76 pages on the computer screen. Many screens cover 2 pages in the diary. -The diary belongs to someone called Khaled Abd El Majid and covers events taking place in 1999 since the diary is for the year 1999 (Page 3/76).
-On page 5/76 he has a note reminding him of a “Meeting with Mr. Taha Yassin Ramadan” with the house’s phone number. Ramadan is the vice-president of Iraq from March 1991 to the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
- There are two important meetings with a Pakistan Islamic cleric named Fadl Ur Rahman. His plan is to establish relations between Baghdad and the Taliban. The second meeting is taking place on 28/11/1999.
-The Pakistani is not from Taliban but in contact with them.
-The diary is hand written which makes it sometimes difficult to read.
-Since Arabic is written from right to left, the meeting starts on page 20/76 and ends on page 17/76.
-In 28/11/1999 Ossama had already struck the two US Embassies in Africa and officially declared war on America.
- In 28/11/1999 Ossama was already in Afghanistan, hosted by the Taliban regime.

This is the translation of the second meeting.

Meeting of Mr. M. O. M. with Sheikh Maulana Fadl Ur Rahman on Sunday 28/11, 7:45 PM

Words of welcoming.

-We are aiming to arrange a meeting between you and Mr. President Leader (translator’s note: this is how Iraqi officials call Saddam). But in the beginning we were instructed that Mr. Vice-President will meet you. (translator’s note: this is the proof that the “Vice-President” of the first meeting was the VP of Saddam, Taha Yassin Ramadan)

-: I personally met Hekmatyar (translator’s note: an Afghani warlord fighting the Taliban) and he asked us to interfere for the possibility of closer relations with the Taliban. And he sent us emissaries concerning this issue. (translator’s note: On the original document Fadl Ur Rahman is not is saying this sentence for the simple reason that Fadl’s name is quoted at the beginning of the following sentence. It is probably M.O. M.the Iraqi official. It is not mentioned where the meeting of M.O.M. and Hekmatyar took place)

- Fadl Ur Rahman: I am the one who started with this issue, the relation between Taliban and Iraq and it is our idea. The brothers in Afghanistan are facing the pressure of America, and are struggling against America and aim to have some connections between Afghanistan and Iraq and it is a good start to establish the relations with Iraq and Libya and our association has taken this responsibility upon her. I already met with Mr. the Vice-President and the previous head of the directorate may God rest his soul (translator’s note: apparently the head of the directorate passed away) and both proposed that Hekmatyar and the Taliban should get to an agreement. I spoke with the Taliban about this issue and they started meeting with delegations from the Islamic Party and I met Mullah Omar and his reply was positive.
As a front (translator’s note: front as party) our stand is that there should be an agreement between the Taliban and the rest of the opposition, Shah Ahmad Massoud and Rabbani.
And Mullah Omar said that we are looking towards this and that (not clear) and (not clear) and Ahmad Al Kilani and Jalal Al Din Hakkani do not oppose us. Therefore Hekmatyar is on the positive way but we are in a war situation and that needs a lot of trust and there are hurdles to this because he fought us and killed us and he has problems with the opposition in the North and with us. After repeated contacts we will reach an agreement but in the form of steps. Concerning the relations with Iraq he said that they are our brothers and Muslims and are facing pressures from America, like us and like Sudan and Libya. And he (Mullah Omar) desires to get closer relations with Iraq and that Iraq may help us in reducing our problems. Now we are facing America and Russia. He requested the possibility of Iraq intervening to build a friendship with Russia since Russia is no more the number one enemy. And we request Iraq’s help from a brotherly point of view. They are ready for this matter and they prefer that the relation between Iraq and Taliban be an independent relation from Hekmatyar’s relation with the Taliban.
We want practical steps concerning this issue and specially the relationship with Taliban and (not clear but could be Iraq).

An Iraqi (most probably M.O.M.): I want to discuss three points.
The first is the relation with Taliban. It should be understood that this issue is completely independent from the mediation requested by Hekmatyar to get to an agreement with the Taliban. Developing the relation with Taliban is essential and this development requires meetings to create a common ground of understanding. We already believe that there are no points of disagreement between us and the Taliban because we are both in one trench facing the world’s oppression. But the details of the relation and its management are linked to the facts of the international situation. I find that by simply meeting with you (Fadl Ur Rahman) is a step forward in the relation with Taliban because we know well how much they trust you and what you represent for them. And when you relay our point of view for them they will understand it. For the future we think that we will arrange relations between us, as an intelligence service, and them in a SECRET (translator’s emphasis) way to establish the strong base of this relation. In the meeting (translator’s note: future meeting) and after reviewing the Taliban’s point of view, we would discuss the possibility of us making an effort to stabilize the situation between Taliban and Russia. We could discuss the subject through the intelligence channel. We look forward to security and stability in Afghanistan, the control of the Taliban and the construction of a political system according to the political and ideological choices of the Taliban. We look forward to assure the Russians that Afghanistan does not constitute a threat to Russia. Afghanistan is a country that wants to live in independence and by dialogue it is possible to reach common grounds to finally get to the result hoped for.

The second point is the subject of the agreement between Hekmatyar and the Taliban.
We proposed it for a single reason related to our psychological stand concerning Taliban. We hope that they will win and control. We felt that Hekmatyar hopes that Taliban will control the situation and his intentions are true. Because when he sees the different political and military parties in Afghanistan he knows that the best choice is Taliban.
(translator’s note: the Iraqi continues to expand his view on how all parties should come together through trust and negotiations.)

The third point which is important for us is outside Afghanistan. It is the spiritual relation which ties us with the Association of Islamic Scholars and we know your role in supporting the Iraqi cause and the effect you have on the Pakistani street. In the coming two weeks we are going to a confrontation with America because the US has put all its weight in the security Council to publish the Dutch-British resolution. We refuse this resolution and view it as a life long embargo. We look to our Muslim brothers in particular to support us and especially our brothers in the Association of Islamic Scholars to organize protests in Pakistan against the resolution when it is made official. We ask our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to do this effort. We are trying and we have contacts with Muslims all over Asia and especially in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and India. We hope that during the two coming weeks you will ask our friends in those associations to demonstrate.

Fadl Ur Rahman: Concerning the relations between the Taliban and Iraq I was informed that they are going to start those relations in a SECRET (translator’s emphasis) manner and they are waiting for the answer and I will inform them that you will answer them through the embassy (translator’s note: could be through the Iraqi embassy of Kabul, if they had one or Islamabad-Pakistan). Concerning the agreement with Hekmatyar we are going to proceed with this issue. Concerning the third point the Association of Islamic Scholars has a popular voice in Pakistan and we will always side with Iraq and we hope that the new government (probably the Pakistani government) will have a positive stand with Iraq.
Last July we received information that America wants to attack Afghanistan because of Ossama Ben Laden so we did a (not clear) and agreed to contact Taliban to be sure and they said it was true. We received information about CIA and US commandos reaching the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and they started dropping bombs on Afghanistan and they used the Pakistani airfields to bomb important positions in Kandahar. We as a Muslim people do not accept the American presence on our soil. A representative from the US embassy came and told me “You said that America was your enemy, how can you say that we are your enemy and the enemy of Islam?” So I told them that you took Russia’s role in bombing Afghanistan and you are bombing Muslims. Then they said that they wanted Ossama so I told them that Ossama is in Sudan and that he was in Afghanistan during the rule of Rabbani and I added that they do not have a treaty to hand over criminals, as they pretend, with Afghanistan. And they are proposing to form a council of Muslim scholars from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Islamic countries to study the issue of handing over Ben laden and what is the Islamic position about it.
I also told them that we have the Kashmiri problem and you are putting pressure on us to solve this problem through dialogue and without weapons. Also (not clear) you request dialogue between Palestine and Israel so how is it that concerning Ossama you use military force. The issue here is not Ossama Ben Laden but your interests require you to find a submissive government in Afghanistan to transform it into a trade zone in Central Asia.


All original tranlsations by "Sammi" are copyrighted intellectual property of "Sammi" for purposes of print media publishing. Free use for internet sources.

 

[busybody..]

Court documents reveal al-Qaida tutorial
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
New York Daily News
WASHINGTON - Call it al-Qaida 101.

Over the last three years, captured Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has given his CIA jailers a tutorial on the inner workings of his network's clandestine tradecraft - and how to keep members in line. Mohammed's terror seminar is detailed in a 58-page summary of his CIA interrogations that was entered last week in Zacarias Moussaoui's death penalty trial.

Lesson one is loyalty.

For command and control of its fanatics, al-Qaida has revived the almost medieval rite of "bayat," described as a "solemn spiritually bonding commitment to obey the commands of a single leader, or emir."

That emir, of course, is Osama bin Laden.

To become "made" in al-Qaida, a member would vow to bin Laden, "I listen to you, to listen and obey, and to die in the cause of God," Mohammed told his interrogators.

Lesson two: Keep it simple.

Mohammed scoffed at the bureaucratic system in Western intelligence agencies.

"I know the materialistic Western mind cannot grasp the idea ... but we do not submit written reports to higher-ups," he said.

Mohammed said he would travel for days to brief bin Laden. "I conducted the Sept. 11 operation by submitting only oral reports," Mohammed boasted. "Sometimes I scratched my notes on a small piece of paper 10-cm long," the size of a playing card. "But in the end, the operation was a success."

Secrecy is also vital to al-Qaida's survival.

"When four people know the details of an operation, it is dangerous," Mohammed explained. "When two people know, it is good. When just one person knows, it is better."

The vow of "bayat" allowed Mohammed to send most of the 19 members of the Sept. 11 teams to the United States without telling them why.

He said one top operative helping the hijackers was sent to the United Arab Emirates and told to send them money. "I never told him anything about the nature of the (Sept. 11) operation," Mohammed wrote.

As an example of the "need to know" rule, Mohammed said that 10 of the "muscle" hijackers on Sept. 11 were trained by butchering sheep and camels with Swiss army knives. They were also taught when and how to assault an airplane cockpit.

To make sure even the hijackers didn't know what was being planned, they also learned to hijack trains and blow up trucks and buildings.

Another rule was to keep your enemies guessing.

"We sent meaningless letters of a few lines. We spoke nonsense on the telephone," Mohammed said, assuming someone was watching and listening.

Mohammed conceded that sometimes simple wasn't good. He admitted his frustration in trying to teach Muhammad al-Qahtani to use telephone codes and e-mail. But Qahtani was valuable because he was one of the few al-Qaida members who had a U.S. visa.

When Qahtani arrived at a Florida airport in 2001, he acted so suspiciously that he was sent back on the next plane.

Mohammed concluded that Qahtani was "too much of a bedouin" - a desert tribesman - to function well in the West.

 

[busybody..]

JOHN KERRY WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEM A VETO



Did Russia Help Saddam During the War? (Mark Kramer, April 2, 2006, Washington Post)


Reports in the Russian and Western press in March 2003 indicated that Gen. Vladislav Achalov, the former commander of Soviet airborne forces who supported the attempted coup in Moscow in August 1991, visited Baghdad shortly before the March 2003 invasion, accompanied by another retired Russian general. Photographs taken at the time confirm that the two generals were awarded medals by the Iraqi defense minister on behalf of Saddam Hussein. Achalov has since acknowledged that he traveled to Iraq at least 15 to 20 times in the years leading up to the war.

Press reports from March 2003 and afterward also indicated that other GRU officers were working with the Iraqi regime on a daily basis before and during the war, often through Abbas Khalaf, the former Iraqi ambassador to Moscow who sent numerous reports to Iraqi leaders citing GRU and diplomatic sources. In addition, a GRU "working group" known as Ramzaj, which posted daily assessments on a Russian military Web site, was widely described in the Russian press as aiding the Iraqi government. Although Ramzaj's forecasts and some of its information proved to be wildly off the mark, the reports in major Russian dailies and respected trade publications lend strong credence to the assertions in the Iraqi documents that Titorenko and some Russian military intelligence officers aided the Iraqi efforts to withstand the U.S. invasion.

If Titorenko did provide illicit assistance, his motive may have been largely financial. When the Volcker commission issued its final report on fraud and corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program last October, it listed the ambassador and his son as having received allocations of some 23.7 million barrels of oil worth well over $1 million in total.

The commission's report listed numerous other Russian politicians and political entities, including Russian President Vladimir Putin's then-chief of staff Alexander Voloshin, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Yegor Stroyev, the Russian Communist Party, and the pro-Moscow government in Chechnya, as recipients of large oil allocations worth many millions.

However, it is unlikely that Titorenko's apparent actions and the GRU cooperation were authorized at high levels. Russian opposition to the war -- motivated mostly by the enormous profits Russian companies and elites had been reaping from the oil-for-food program -- was much stronger than many U.S. experts had anticipated. But this opposition does not necessarily mean that Putin or then-Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov would have condoned transferring information that might cost American lives and would stand a high chance of eventually being detected.




We'll never get all the facts straight, but it nicely demonstrates the utter insanity of the Democrats' transnationalist argument that the UN should be allowed to determine when we go to war.

 

[busybody..]

Shouldnt THIS be on every front PAGE of the papers?

Will it be?

Had this shown that SH was NOT involved, THIS would be

In fact it DOES show what Bush said all along, that SH was a danger and it was only a matter of time before we would get HIT from him



[How come the Media esp. the European one, has not covered any of the released documents - Just a question - who are they trying to cover ?]

March 2001 Document: Saddam Regime Recruits Suicide Terrorists to Hit US Interests (Translation)
Pentagon/FMSO Iraq Pre-War documents ^ | April 5 2006 | jveritas

Posted on 04/05/2006 10:38:07 PM EDT by jveritas


Page 6 from document BIAP 2003-000654 is a Top Secret letter dated March/11/2001 six months prior to 9/11/2001, proves that not only Saddam Regime supported terrorists organization like Hamas and Al Qaeda as we have learned from other documents but also they were recruiting Suicide Terrorist Bombers to hit US interests. Saddam Regime was a TERRORIST REGIME and there was no other way but to destroy it after 9/11.


Beginning of the translation of page 6 from document BIAP 2003-000654

In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate

Top Secret

The Command of Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Force Base

No 3/6/104

Date 11 March 2001

To all the Units

Subject: Volunteer for Suicide Mission

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

Air Brigadier General

Abdel Magid Hammot Ali

Commander of Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Force Base

Air Colonel

Mohamad Majed Mohamadi.

End of translation of page 6

 

[busybody..]

another NEWS item that is very important

but you wont see it


Terror Attacks Stopped in Italy
Italian authorities disrupted RoP plans to attack the Milan subway and a famous church in Bologna: Subway Terrorist Attack Thwarted. (Hat tip: Dodgeblogium.)

Italian authorities have thwarted planned terrorist attacks on a Bologna church and the Milan subway, according to the ANSA news agency.

Interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu reportedly revealed the plots at a political rally in Sardinia. “There was a terrorist (plot) that was to be carried out in our country and the monitoring and prevention action of our forces allowed us to thwart it,” he said.

Mr Pisanu said the plot involved seven people. Three of these had been expelled from Italy, two had been arrested, one was under surveillance and one was at large. He did not say when the operations took place.

The Bologna basilica which was among the planned targets contains a 15-century fresco Muslim groups have interpreted as insulting to Islam. They believe it depicts Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in Hell being devoured by demons.

 

[Peregrinator]

What's RoP?

 

[busybody..]

Its sarcastic for Religion of Peace

what is YOUR reaction to the two items above?

Dont you really believe they BOTH deserve WIDE attention and dissemination?