Any alleged terror plot has to be taken seriously, but the Justice Department is amassing a pretty lousy record when it comes to separating the amateurs from the pros.
So it is no surprise that the second trial of the Liberty City Six, formerly the Liberty City Seven, whom the government alleged were planning to take a bus from Miami to Chicago and blow up the Sears Tower ended yesterday with another mistrial.
The Justice Department made a collective fool of itself because Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (remember him?) pulled out all of the public-relations stops and equated these nimrods from the dirt poor Liberty City neighborhood of Miami with the foulest of the Al Qaeda foul.
Gonzo had asserted that the group represented a “new brand of terrorism” created by “the convergence of globalization and technology,” but these lads were clearly buffoons who didn’t even have the money to buy bus tickets to get to Chicago.
No matter, the government retried the six mistrial defendants (a seventh was acquitted) in the hopes that if it threw everything up against the wall something would stick. Alas, nothing did and the jury was excused after 13 days of deliberations.
Next up is the Fort Dix Six, a bunch of hard-drinking blue-collar bozos who asked cops for maps of military installations, had trouble finding lethal weapons, practiced jihadist attacks by playing paintball in the Pocono Mountains, went to a Kinko’s to have a videotape of their training sessions made into a DVD, and were infiltrated by not one but two informants, include a brainiac who knew the wide open New Jersey Army base “like the back of his hand” because he once delivered pizzas there for his family’s restaurant.
A modest prediction: The informants will bomb on the stand and the Fort Dix Six will walk.
From everything we can gather so far, there are few fans of a John McCain presidency in the Russian press - and the same can be said of President Bush. Asking what’s wrong with Bush’s Iraq strategy is the same as asking what the danger of a John McCain Administration would be. Galina Zeveleva of Russia’s Novosti News Service writes, “Bush continues to rely on force, thereby multiplying the army of terrorists more quickly than he can suppress them, while strengthening the conviction in Iran that possession of nuclear weapons is the only guarantee of its security.” Read the rest of this entry »
We just posted at WORLDMEETS.US something that anyone interested in global affairs simply must watch.
Nearly every year at the annual Arab Summit, Libyan despot Muammar Qadhafi gives a speech to the collected rulers of the Arab world who in stony-faced silence, sit and listen to him. Invariably - it is absolutely priceless.
With the most significant NATO summit in decades about to begin, among other issues, the problem of what to do about Afghanistan is high on the list. Chief among European concerns in this regard is the apparent lack of a strategy beyond killing members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. For France’s Liberation, Bernard Guetta writes of British plans that France should take part in:
“The Taliban have learned from the defeat they suffered in 2001 … They now realize that they will achieve nothing if they persist with their cocktail of jihad and Sharia; they have become less fanatical, more political, and we could in a word, seek a compromise with them.” As far as the Americans are concerned, Guetta writes, “This is where the French reinforcements could play not only a military role, but a political one as well. They could permit the assertion of a Franco-British pole in Afghanistan, which would be so significant that it could encourage George Bush’s successor to endorse this strategy.”
By Bernard Guetta
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
April 1, 2008
France - Liberation - Original Article (France)
Attention! Everything seems to plead - naturally - against sending more French troops to Afghanistan. But the Atlanticism of Nicolas Sarkozy is so compulsive, his foreign policy so confused, this war in particular - so close to being completely lost - that we have no choice but to conclude that to do so is merely an intolerable, dangerous, positive gesture toward George Bush. As it is, this decision is nothing but troubling, but beware! Contrary to the Iraqi adventure, the Afghan intervention was approved by the United Nations. It’s legal. It is, above all, legitimate, since the Taliban not only protected the organizers of the September 11 attacks, but seven years later, their victory would become a tragedy for this country and would complete the destabilization of neighboring Pakistan. Even worse, it would strengthen the networks of Jihadists giving them a territorial sanctuary and more importantly, nourish their myth about the inevitable defeat of the “crusaders” before the rising masses of Islam. Read the rest of this entry »
March 28th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
FM 3-24 is the Army and Marines’ counter-insurgency manual. It was written in part by one Sarah Sewall, who is now an adviser on the Obama campaign. In the Weekly Standard, Dean Barnett, not seeming to know this, blasts her along with Samantha Power as embodying “dovish idealism” in the course of his critique of the “Obama Doctrine.” It’s a lot of juvenile giggling over “climates of fear” (because serious people know that fear distracts us from the important task of killing people) and very little in the way of hard-nosed analysis.
In addition to pointing out some other bone-headed errors (”Her name is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, you dumb douche.”), Spencer Ackerman helps elucidate why the “critique” is substantively flat out wrong….
Some Americans will find this editorial more than a little ironic - especially coming from the French. Pierre Rousselin writes for France’s Le Figaro of the lessons that Europeans and Americans - particularly the three remaining U.S. Presidential candidates - should draw from the Iraq War: “With a few months to go until a change at the White House, debating the past is no longer appropriate. The important thing is to draw the proper lessons in order to avoid making the same mistakes again … the United States must make an effort to build a solid coalition of allies on which it can draw upon. And those allies must be prepared to play their part.”
Editorial by Pierre Rousselin
Translated By Kate Davis
March 20, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
Five years later, everyone pretty much agrees that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction - and the fall of the dictator, as welcome as it was - didn’t put the Arab world on the path to democracy.
In the battle, the United States has lost a large number of soldiers, wasted an enormous amount of money and, more importantly, squandered the sympathetic capital that was at its disposal throughout the world. Read the rest of this entry »
March 24th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Is it curtains for the bluff and bluster game played by President ex-General Pervez Musharraf and his mentor in the White House, President George W. Bush, for the past eight years? The first important decision the new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani took after being elected as prime minister was to order the release of the Chief Justice of the highest court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Justice Chaudhry and his family had been confined to his house since Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November last year and sacked 60 senior judges ahead of a Supreme Court ruling that could have invalidated his re-election as president. More here…
Now both Musharraf and Bush appear as pathetic caricatures extolling the virtues of democracy after working overtime to crush any dissidence to the totalitarian rule of Musharraf. The Pakistani president fearing that his days were numbered has started a media campaign that he would love to work with the new government and “promote democracy”.
If one reads carefully the US administration’s recent press release, it would appear that counter-terrorism is not really the main issue in engaging the Pakistan government!!! Imagine Musharraf was being promoted by the US government for eight years and given billions of dollars for the so-called “war-on-terror”.
Here is what the White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said: “We look forward to working with the new government in Pakistan. There’s lots of different areas where we can cooperate - not just counter terrorism, but across the board.”
The US State department Spokesman Sean McCormack said: “This (Gilani becoming PM) was the selection of the Pakistani political leadership and people. (Obviously…Bush & Co are still trying to somehow ensure that dictator Musharraf contiues as president.) We look forward to work with Gilani and his government. Beyond that, I don’t know that there’s much more to add other than our congratulations to his election as prime minister.” What a way to greet the return of democracy in Pakistan!!!
Why is the US administration not talking about seeking the new Pakistan government’s support for “war-on-terror”, or capturing al-Qaeda leaders or Osama-bin-Laden? Are these not the real issues? Or were these used as camouflage to ensure the survival of Musharraf all these years for some extraneous reasons?
These are serious matters which have not found proper space in the US media/blogs for some strange/unknown reasons, and may have long term impact on the US and its media’s standing/credibility in the world.
To give one example of the US backing dictators, who are despised by their people, and how this boomrangs: “The new Pakistan prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a former house speaker who until two years ago was jailed under what he claims were politically motivated charges, beat the pro-Musharraf candidate for the premier’s slot, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, by 264 votes to 42.”
But 4,000, well, that one seems to give us pause. For some reason the sight of three zeros makes us turn our necks long enough to pay attention, ask more questions and continue to find few real answers.
So here’s my question on the anniversary of this 4th set of three zeros: Was it worth it?
And more broadly, how has the Bush administration demonstrated that this war has:
been worth the cost in lives,
been worth diverting attention and resources away from domestic issues,
been worth diverting our attention away from other foreign policy issues,
and made us any safer?
The only tangible benefits seem to be that a bad dictator is gone and people have been freed. Fair enough. These are good things.
But Saddam was a bad guy who had no ties to al Qaeda. And, forgive me for being cruel, but it’s not up to us to make sure the entire world is free. If that were the case, we would have started with Darfur, not Iraq.
Another fact that seems to get missed in all these discussions…our intelligence estimates say that al Qaeda is stronger than ever before.
This is why more and more Americans don’t accept the premise that, if we stay there, things are going to get fixed and, if we leave, everything is going to go south. What we’re all starting to collectively realize is that the longer we’re in Iraq, the more chances there are for things to go wrong both there AND here. And what a continued presence in Iraq will most likely result in is we’ll have less say in how we’ll ultimately exit the country. Because we will exit at some point. We all know this. The only way we can control our own destiny here is to set realistic timetables and stick to them.
And yes, al Qaeda will claim victory, but I say let them think they’ve defeated us. Let them believe we’re tucking our tail between our legs. Let them put out their inane little videos. People, just because they say it doesn’t make it true.
Does anybody think if we pull out of Iraq that we’re going to stop tracking down al Qaeda heavies? Does anybody believe the broader fight against the Islamic extremists is going to stop? In fact, now we can start this shadow war in earnest and allocate our vast resources to that fight instead of continuing to throw billions down a hole in Iraq. Can you imagine how many top al Qaeda we could have captured by now using those resources that lay at the bottom of that hole?
Also, is it just me or have we forgotten that we won the war against Saddam and Iraq? Seriously, it was won. Saddam was defeated. We just haven’t been able to secure peace. The difference between those two things is very significant, and I think most of us are accepting the reality that there’s no way we’ll be able to stem the insurgent violence completely. So the fact that Bush and McCain continue to say that withdrawal means “defeat” just shows you how ass backwards our current foreign policy reasoning has become. Again, we all know we have to get out of Iraq at some point, so who’s truly setting us up to fail, the “Defeatocrats” or the “Republican’ts”?
It’s time to go. The sooner the better. Otherwise, we’ll be meeting back here in about a year and talking about the lives that were forever changed between now and 5,000.
What can be gleaned from the fact that on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, President George W. Bush and his ‘alter ego’ Osama bin Laden both gave speeches? Patrik Etschmayer writes for Switzerland’s Nachrichten, ‘Bush once again showed how brilliant he is at ignoring the reality of his own mistakes and giving the truth a whole new twist … This speech - which was an absolute denial of reality and self-deception - was not out there on its own for long, but was soon accompanied by one from his alter-ego on the Dark Side, when Osama bin Laden reportedly spoke again … Bin Laden’s message carries more than just a warning for Europe. It also shows that even for bin Laden, Bush is a man whose time has run out. … Both are voices from the crypt - but it seems that it will be bin Laden’s voice that will be heard the longest.’
By Patrik Etschmayer
Translated By Patrik Etschmayer
March 20, 2008
Switzerland - Nachrichten - Home Page (German)
It’s the fifth anniversary of the starting shot of the second Iraq War, and right on cue, two of the undead have chosen to speak. First, George W. Bush gave his speech on the anniversary of this enterprise; and from the other, reports are that Osama Bin Laden too has spoken once again.
Bush went first, however, and once again showed how impressive and brilliant he is at ignoring the reality of his own mistakes and giving the truth a whole new twist.
A wonderful example for his mental somersaults can be found early in the speech, when Bush says the following about the defeated Iraqi army and regime: “When the Iraqi regime was removed, it did not lay down its arms and surrender. Instead, former regime elements took off their uniforms and faded into the countryside to fight the emergence of a free Iraq.”
What he didn’t say was that the army and security forces had in fact surrendered, and then were released by the Americans - with the effect that in the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of unemployed soldiers and police - still armed - were ready to organize resistance to the occupiers.
Of the fact that the U.S. Army also failed to secure huge caches of Iraqi army weapons, which were then cleared out by insurgents in the tremendous power vacuum that existed at the time … not a word was mentioned.
Nor was any mention made of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction (the alleged existence of which was the main reason for the war), the fact that al-Qaeda only appeared in Iraq after the invasion, and that for four years the U.S. administration ignored every voice that criticized its actions in Iraq - and in the case of the generals that dared to speak up - it silenced them.
The perhaps too-late U-turn in Iraq, which in recent times has at least brought a degree of calm, was mentioned this way: “So we reviewed the strategy - and changed course in Iraq.” Four botched-up years of ineptitude rolled up into one sentence, which makes it sound as if some real achievement has been accomplished.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the Iraq War anniversary.
See the full video (with an accompanying text article) from here. Many key graphs, see this post for the text of the speech. Here is where he makes the Day One promise:
When you have no overarching strategy, there is no clear definition of success. Success comes to be defined as the ability to maintain a flawed policy indefinitely. Here is the truth: fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. And fighting in a war without end will not make the American people safer.
So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden- as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.
In order to end this war responsibly, I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove 1 to 2 combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them 16 months. After this redeployment, we will leave enough troops in Iraq to guard our embassy and diplomats, and a counter-terrorism force to strike al Qaeda if it forms a base that the Iraqis cannot destroy. What I propose is not - and never has been - a precipitous drawdown. It is instead a detailed and prudent plan that will end a war nearly seven years after it started.
The World Beyond Iraq
Fayetteville, NC
March 19, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery
Just before America’s entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress: “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war,” he said. “…But the right is more precious than peace.” Wilson’s words captured two awesome responsibilities that test any Commander-in-Chief - to never hesitate to defend America, but to never go to war unless you must. War is sometimes necessary, but it has grave consequences, and the judgment to go to war can never be undone.
Five years ago today, President George W. Bush addressed the nation. Bombs had started to rain down on Baghdad. War was necessary, the President said, because the United States could not, “live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” Recalling the pain of 9/11, he said the price of inaction in Iraq was to meet the threat with “armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”
At the time the President uttered those words, there was no hard evidence that Iraq had those stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. There was not any evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks of September 11, or that Iraq had operational ties to the al Qaeda terrorists who carried them out. By launching a war based on faulty premises and bad intelligence, President Bush failed Wilson’s test. So did Congress when it voted to give him the authority to wage war.
Five years have gone by since that fateful decision. This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War. Nearly four thousand Americans have given their lives. Thousands more have been wounded. Even under the best case scenarios, this war will cost American taxpayers well over a trillion dollars. And where are we for all of this sacrifice? We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained. The threats of a new century have roiled the waters of peace and stability, and yet America remains anchored in Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »
Having run through a series of rationales for the Iraq war that would have daunted a less arrogant man, George Bush finally settled on a real keeper in the fifth year of the Forever War: It was necessary in order to bring down the very terrorists who launched the 9/11 attacks.
While it took some time to debunk the earlier rationales, this one was an instant classic, a whopper so big and transparently false that it beggared belief.
This, of course, was because the Al Qaeda insurgents who have bedeviled the star-crossed American occupation were a product of the occupation itself and had only a tangential connection to Osama bin Laden and the men who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a farm field in Western Pennsylvania.
But we can thank the president for one thing: The phony connection between Al Qaeda in Iraq and 9/11 invites another and one that I offer with circumspection as we slouch into the sixth year of the war.
What Bin Laden was not able to do on that fateful morning and in the years since, Bush has done for him in some respects.
At first glance, that statement may seem shockingly inapt until you consider:
* Bush’s ability to play on America’s fears far better than The Bearded One ever could.
* Bush’s penchant for divisive politics has further exacerbated social divides in America.
* Bush’s pathalogical inability to level with Americans has further undermined their faith in goverment.
* Bush’s economic policies have exacerbated troubling long-term economic trends and helped plunge America into recession.
* Bush’s war has further destabilized arguably the most volatile region in the world.
* And Bush’s actions, including advocating torture and casting aside international treaties and conventions, have brought great shame on America.
How difficult will NATO’s upcoming annual summit be? According to this analysis from Russia’s Novosti news service, beyond the issue of getting more NATO troops to the danger zone in Afghanistan, there is the touchy subject of NATO expansion and the somewhat mysterious decision - made on March 6 - that neither Ukraine nor Georgia will be considered for admission this year. Novosti’s Andrei Fedyashin writes in part, “Germany could potentially ‘break lots of dishes’ … The U.S. and Britain have been unable to persuade Berlin to send German Army units to the south where there is a real war. … The Greeks are threatening to ruin the picture with an issue that seems extremely ridiculous … The Greeks are flatly refusing to permit Macedonia’s entry into NATO until it changes its name. Greece argues that Macedonia is part of northern Greece, is the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and that it won’t allow anyone to take that glorious name away from them!’
By Andrei Fedyashin
Translated By Igor Medvivev
March 3, 2008
Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)
MOSCOW: So, NATO foreign ministers at a working meeting in Brussels decided - for the time being - not to add Georgia and Ukraine to the Membership Action Plan. The plan represents something like a formal “road map” for NATO. By following the road signs and landmarks, potential candidates should eventually reach the gates of alliance headquarters in Brussels. But Ukraine and Georgia haven’t made it to the roadside yet. That decision was taken at a NATO meeting on March 6, which was called to discuss the upcoming NATO summit in April in Bucharest.
NATO, it must be said, hasn’t given up on plans to bring Yushchenko’s Kiev and Saakashvili’s Tbilisi into the alliance. Rather, this is a postponement. In practice it means that they won’t be any closer to NATO for at least a year, and so can’t become members for at least another four years. The arithmetic is simple: implementing the plan’s requirements usually takes a year or two, so another two years pass before candidates receive official invitations to NATO, which is usually done at the annual summit.
There are several reasons for the decision in Brussels. Although the U.S. is pressing for early admission, NATO veterans like France and Germany strongly recommended this delay, in order - to quote a German diplomat, “not to further antagonize Moscow, with which relations are bad enough due to the ‘Kosovo precedent,’ quarrels over new [U.S.] missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and differences over conventional arms control in Europe.”
European diplomats of “old NATO” didn’t hide their views that to alienate Russia further in order to please Tbilisi and Kiev, would be a serious mistake. Especially when in Moscow a new President - Dmitry Medvedev — is taking the reins of power. For whatever reason, in Europe he is widely perceived to be pro-Western, unlike Putin. So it is thought that accession provide a “good opportunity” to revive relations with Moscow, which have greatly deteriorated over the past four years.
All of these lines of reasoning are valid. But, there’s one more issue that now seems to outweigh all other considerations. That is the forthcoming NATO summit in Bucharest in April. The allies head to the summit so heavy with differences, simply no one wanted to squeeze the ” Georgia-Ukraine trifles” onto the agenda.
The thing is that this summit simply must be a success. After all, it is slated to be the largest in the history of the alliance. Moreover, it will be attended by all 26 heads of state and government. The invited participants include all the non-NATO countries of the anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan, financial donors such as Japan, in addition to officials from the United Nations and the European Union. Also waiting in Budapest will be outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin. The media are already emphasizing that this will be the first time that Russia will officially participate at a NATO summit.
We all know that the news media is breathlessly waiting for the other shoe to drop in Albany, but there is other big news today and I hope you’re sitting down as you read this: The Pentagon has concluded that there were no ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
In Pentagon-speak, there were no “operational links” between the bad man and the bad terror group found in a review of hundreds of thousands of captured Iraqi documents, which effectively undermines one of the biggest Bush-Cheney lies.
With President Bush’s would-be successors squabbling over Iraq, they are neglecting the main threat of terror that will face one of them taking office next January.
In Pakistan, Musharraf is on his way out as leaders of the two dominant parties agree to reinstate the judges he fired and try to strip him of crucial powers. (More on the nuclear dilemma here.)
“Afghanistan is slipping toward failure,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden warns. “The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy–security, counter-narcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance–have gone wobbly.”
The schedule of staying or going in Iraq is dominating the foreign policy debate in the presidential campaign, but Pakistan and Afghanistan are becoming more urgent.
“If we should have had a surge anywhere,” Sen. Biden wrote last week in the New York Times, “it is Afghanistan…In six years, we have spent on Afghanistan’s reconstruction only what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq.”
The border area between the two countries, according to Biden is “a freeway of fundamentalism: the Taliban and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in Pakistan, while Pakistani suicide bombers wreak havoc in Afghanistan.”
The Bush-Cheney strategy of relying on Musharraf’s unreliable assurances about rooting them out is collapsing, but this Administration is unlikely to face that fact.
Biden sums it up: “The next president will have to rally America and the world to ‘fight them over there unless we want to fight them over here.’ The ‘over there’ is not, as President Bush has claimed, Iraq, but rather the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Voters should be pressing Sens. McCain, Clinton and Obama to tell them what they are going to do about that.
March 7th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Within three weeks the world would observe the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the US-led forces. The extent of pain and suffering of the Iraqi men, women and children (as also those of the brave US and other soldiers ordered to perform a thankless job, and their families) is yet to be convincingly reflected in the international media. Even the brave soldiers remain unsung. Now an artist in Britain has begun a heroic effort in this direction.
“In 2003 (Britain’s) Imperial War Museum commissioned Steve McQueen as an official war artist. Steve, who won the Turner Prize in 1999 with his film tribute to Buster Keaton, went to Iraq and was embedded with the troops for 10 days. ‘They were great guys, and I wanted to open people’s eyes to what was happening’.
“He (Steve) thought of stamps. He would create a sculpture – in fact a cabinet of display panels – each one holding a sheet of stamps bearing the face of a soldier killed in the Iraq war. He came home to work on the idea. The Ministry of Defence wasn’t too keen. There is always tension when unconventional artists are sent to war zones. The MoD asked why he didn’t do landscapes. More problematically, they wouldn’t provide contacts for the next of kin of the war dead.
“It was Alex Poots, then shaping up the first Manchester Festival, who put Steve in touch with some 150 families. When approached, the bereaved were far from shocked and outraged. Many were happy to provide family snaps that went into McQueen’s work. The finished piece first went on display in Manchester Central Library. ‘Some 300 people turned up, bereaved families and their kids, meeting for the first time. They got to know each other. There were tears. It was wonderful.’ The display, called ‘Queen and Country’, has been on display at the Imperial War Museum in London, since last November.
“And the stamps? There is a move to take things further. Steve McQueen is urging the Royal Mail to issue them as actual postage stamps. But the Royal Mail is hesitating. The Arts Fund – the country’s major arts charity – is now throwing its considerable influence behind McQueen’s suggestion and asking the public to do the same, by signing a petition on their website. Their survey shows more than two thirds of the public do not think enough is done to recognise the sacrifice made by British troops killed in Iraq. Now’s the chance.”
Although the Iranian President was welcomed with great fanfare by Iraqi leaders a few days ago, Iranian intelligence officials are singing another tune. According to this news account from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, Iraq’s Intelligence chief Muhamad Abdullah Al-Shahwani has criticized the Iranian intelligence services for seeking to, ‘abort the experiment with the Awakening Councils,’ a collection of mostly Sunni groups that U.S. forces are backing to fight al-Qeada. Hinting at the root of the problem, Al-Shahwani said, ‘a number of senior Iraqi officials refuse to recognize the Awakening Councils and the positive role they have played in bringing new hope.’
By Karim Abd Zair in Baghdad and Nadal Al-Laithy in London
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
February 28, 2008
Iraq - Azzaman - Original Article (Arabic)
The head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Muhamad Abdullah Al-Shahwani , yesterday criticized the Iranian intelligence services for seeking to, “abort the experiment with the Awakening Councils,” which are battling elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq. For his part, an advisor to the Awakening Councils, Tamir Al-Tamimi, told Azzaman,” the Awakening Councils have been targeted by the Iranians, either directly or indirectly, through terrorist organizations that cooperate with Iran, such as al-Qaeda. Read the rest of this entry »
This is just one of the allegations in Roger Faligot’s book, The Chinese Secret Services: From Mao to the Olympic Games. This specialist in intelligence retraces the history of the ties between the Middle Kingdom and al-Qaeda. According to this review of the book from Le Matin of Switzerland, the author writes, ‘The first negotiations with Osama bin Laden’s entourage are alleged to have been held in 2006 in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province … What has China promised to prevent a suicide bomber from blowing himself up during the finals for the 100-meter dash? And most importantly, what confidence can we give any commitment undertaken by Osama bin Laden? The answer will come next August in Beijing.’
By Ian Hamel
Translated By James Jacobson
February 23, 2008
Switzerland - Le Matin - Original Article (French)
Tomorrow, the word “Guoanbu ” will be as familiar as CIA, KGB or General Intelligence . China has not only become a great world power, it has also erected the most important secret services in the world. They comprise two million spies who scrutinize your acts and gestures, especially if you’re an athlete, a sports journalist or an opponent of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. For the latter, China has also established a center for special intelligence equipped with a budget of $1.3 billion.
Security has become a national priority in the Middle Kingdom, which dreads nothing more than dramas like the one that occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989 ; demonstrations by Beijing’s Uyghur opponents (a Muslim minority from West China ); or protests by the Tibetans, during the global festival of sport next August. In The Chinese Secret Services. from Mao to the Olympic Games, China expert Roger Faligot reveals that General Chen Xiaogong, the new coordinator of military intelligence, negotiated with al-Qaeda to prevent terrorist attacks during the Olympics.
MAO’S GRANDSON
There relationship between China and the Islamist movement are long-standing. At the end of 1979 beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the Chinese decided to help the Mujahideen. Beijing provided Simonov sub-machine guns and Kalashnikov assault rifles, which have the advantage of using the same ammunition as Russian weapons. Within the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, there is a military attaché named Kong Jining. This commander, who supplied the Islamists with weapons of war, was none other than Mao Zedong’s grandson.
“The choice of such an agent shows the importance that the Chinese placed on operations in Afghanistan. These good relations have continued with the Taliban. At the end of 2001 …
Continuing the unhelpful theme of “just stop saying this stuff”, the RNC has chastised its terrified Tennessee representatives:
(CNN) – Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan formally denounced Thursday the Tennessee Republican Party’s use of Barack Obama’s full name in a recent press release questioning the Illinois senator’s commitment to Israel.
“The RNC rejects these kinds of campaign tactics,” RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said in a statement. “We believe this election needs to be about the critical issues confronting our nation.”
The problem, unfortunately, can’t be solved so easily. Like it or not, years of war have made Islam one of those critical issues — particularly for Republicans. When someone’s screaming from a nightmare, telling them to just hush up is unhelpful in the extreme.
For many, the name Hussein evokes Saddam, which brings Iraq, which leads to al-Qaeda, which results in… if we don’t stay vigilant, we’ll be fighting Islamic extremism in our very own cul-de-sacs!!!!
This is not the raving of some small radical fringe (my prior post on that here). It’s the logical, totally predictable result of a political tactic… and if you’re going tell scary stories at bedtime, you need to be prepared to deal with the resulting Things That Go Bump In The Night.
![The Telegraph, U.K.]](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00296/Peter_Brookes_296162a.jpg)
