The GUILD - Jan. 31, 2003 - Do they stand with us or with terrorists? Contact European nations

Jan. 31, 2003

[mountaineer]

Some European nations' leaders oppose the United States' policy regarding Iraq, while others offer firm support. It has been suggested that we might boycott tourism and the agricultural products of countries like France and Germany, for example, who oppose President Bush's efforts.

Some also have suggested offering words of support and thanks to those nations that have chosen to stand with us. The eight nations whose leaders endorsed a letter of support of the U.S. were: the United Kingdom, Spain, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the Czech Republic:

Washington, 31 January 2003 (RFE/RL) -- With an array of European countries voicing support for U.S. policy on Iraq, President George W. Bush moved closer to securing a broad "coalition of the willing" to back possible military action against Baghdad.

Yesterday, leaders from Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Portugal signed a letter expressing support for the tough U.S. stance on Iraq, which the United States accuses of hiding weapons of mass destruction. Slovakia later said it supported the letter and today government leaders in Latvia, Romania, and Slovenia said they also back the contents of the letter. source

In any event, contacting foreign countries takes some doing. This thread attempts to provide some practical suggestions.

[lodwick]

uh...oh. doh.

I never listened to that lib'ral station now that we have a conservative option here.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Within the twinkling of an eye they are in the hands of God.

[mountaineer]

I almost hate to mention them, but can't help but wonder: how long will it take for the Clintons to horn in on this national tragedy?

[mountaineer]

On another pressing topic, has a former Clinton advisor found the Iraq-Al Qaeda link?

Feb 1 2003
The Western Mail - The National Newspaper Of Wales

THE story of how an ex-Swansea student's identity was stolen could help provide evidence of a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, it was claimed last night. After years of painstaking re-search, former Bill Clinton defence adviser Laurie Mylroie claims Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the New York World Trade Centre in 1993, was an Iraqi agent.

Mylroie, who advised Bill Clinton on Iraq during his 1992 presidential campaign, is convinced that Yousef stole the identity papers of Abdul Basit, who studied computer-aided engineering at Swansea Institute of Higher Education in the 1980s. Yousef was sentenced to 240 years for terrorism plots and the 1993 attack which severely damaged the World Trade Centre's underground car park and killed six people.

Mylroie, whose book The War Against America details her belief that Iraq and Al-Qaeda are inextricably linked, is pleased that President Bush is now connecting Iraq with the September 11 attacks.

She said, "Al-Qaeda acts as a front for Iraqi intelligence. Al-Qaeda provides the ideology, the foot soldiers and the cover, and Iraqi intelligence provides the direction, training and expertise."

To confirm her suspicions that Yousef had stolen Abdul Basit's identity, she travelled to Swansea to speak to institute lecturers who had taught him. She said, "The crucial factor in deciding that Basit and Yousef were two separate people was their height. His teachers put Basit at about 5ft 8ins tall while Yousef was a six footer. The two lecturers with whom I met had a very clear memory of Abdul Basit.

"They described him as quiet and not quite the person who would run up $18,000 in unpaid telephone bills as Yousef had. He was also not the sort of person to play a leading role in organising others in two major bombing plots (the first World Trade Centre attack and a plan to blow up 12 US airliners).

"Abdul Basit's teachers also said they observed no strong political or religious views in the student. He went to the Swansea Mosque on Fridays but was not considered an extremist."

Mylroie says her research has shown that Basit was one of a number of Kuwaiti students murdered when Iraq invaded their country in 1990. Their passports and belongings were stolen and later used to provide Iraqi agents with false identities, she claims.

It is thought Yousef was even given text books Abdul Basit had loaned and not returned from Swansea Library to complete his cover. When finally arrested in Pakistan after fleeing the US, the library books were discovered in his hotel room along with maps and guns.

Mylroie says the capture of Abdul Basit's identity and the subsequent attack on the World Trade Centre was a precursor to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Mylroie says at Salman Pak, a short distance from Bagdhad, US intelligence planes have taken photographs of a parked Boeing 707.

She says Iraqi defectors and captured Al-Qaeda agents have said this plane has been used by terrorists for "familiarisation" with western airliners in preparation for attacks and hijacks.

Mylroie is not the only American defence expert to have concerns about the links between Ramzi Yousef and Iraq. Last year, Paul Wolfowitz, the hawkish US deputy defence secretary, sent James Woolsey, a former CIA director, to Swansea to search for information about Abdul Basit and Ramzi Yousef. source

[Timeout]

Typical post on DU today:

Bush replaced a man (NASA head) who LOVED the space program, with a SKEPTIC who wanted to run it into the ground. If you want to pray, pray for those crew members who were killed by their president's disdain for their work.

Crazed by hate.

[mountaineer]

They just don't give up, do they? Bush killed Paul Wellstone, now the astronauts. These people are insane.

Speaking of insane, I'm keeping an eye on international news sources for photos of the inevitable Muslim celebration of the death of the Israeli crew member.

[lodwick]

Nice catch on the Iraq/alqueda linkage.

You will not travel far to find the celebrations, sadly.

[habs4ever]

Was not the Israeli, Ramon, also the lead pilot or squadron leader who took out the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981? Israel will rightly mourn a national hero.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

You are correct about Ramon. He is a national hero. He is also the son of Aushwitz survivors.

Let us also pray for those left on the space station. This must also be catostrophic for them.

I urge everyone to please put out their flag today.

[mountaineer]

Ramon was one of the fighter pilots who destroyed the unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, a senior government official confirmed last month, speaking on condition of anonymity. The attack, in which eight F-16 warplanes obliterated the French-built Osirak reactor near Baghdad, was a milestone for Israeli aviation because the planes flew over enemy Arab territory for hours without detection. The pilots flew in a tight formation to send off a radar signal resembling that of a large commercial airliner. Ha'aretz Daily

[mountaineer]

Doug and Betty Haviland hold a small U.S. flag quilt given to them following the death of their son Timothy Haviland in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, Aug. 7, 2002, in their Ames, Iowa, home. The Haviland's neice, Laurel Clark, was one of seven astronauts on board the space shuttle Columbia that broke apart in flames over Texas, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

[lodwick]

God bless and hold you guys

[Timeout]

Have you seen this?

Judge William Young, at the sentencing of Richard Reid:

"Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you....This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before.....

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature.....And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice. ....You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. ....

And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely....We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.

Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.

Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down."

Hear, Hear, Judge Young!

[lodwick]

Saw it once - loved seeing it again. Thanks.

What a day.

[mountaineer]

The feds turn up the heat (to at least a simmer - don't forget to stir occasionally!) on Martha Stewart:

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors have stepped up their insider-trading investigation of Martha Stewart, reinterviewing witnesses and meeting with her lawyers in recent weeks, sources close to the case say.

The recent burst of activity has renewed speculation, after months in which the case had appeared to lose momentum, that Stewart could eventually face such criminal charges as insider trading or obstruction of justice.

The Securities and Exchange Commission already has signaled that it will file a civil complaint that could cost Stewart heavy fines and her job as chief executive of her company.

The 61-year-old chairwoman and CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (MSO) came under suspicion after selling 3,928 ImClone Inc. shares worth about $228,000 on Dec. 27, 2001. The day after she sold her stock, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would not review the biotech company's application for a promising cancer drug, Erbitux. The stock plummeted on the bad news.

Investigators suspect that Stewart received a tip from her friend ImClone founder Samuel Waksal and that members of his family were unloading their own stock as well. Stewart, through her lawyers, has denied any wrongdoing. Waksal is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to fraud and insider trading. He faces up to 65 years in prison but could get far less under sentencing guidelines. full story at FOX news.

[lodwick]

I wish they'd spent half the time looking at the PIAPS commodity trade.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Another reason to love Walmart.

I was in Walmart today and instead of the normal music they have playing, they were broadcasting a live newscast about the Columbia Tragedy. I thought that it was a wonderful courtesy to their shoppers.

[Timeout]

Same here...WalMart had the newscast on overhead. Nice touch.

I don't know why I do this to myself, but I've just spent a little time over at DU. Ouch...what haters they are. To their way of thinking, Bush crawled out on the launchpad two weeks ago and loosened a few heat shield tiles on the Shuttle just so he could get some good PR. I also noticed their main page is all vanities...no news articles/editorials for discussion. Just their own, individual, stupid opinion posts. It's just a cesspool of hate. I wonder if a newbie coming to FR sees us the same way?

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Unfortunately I have had some outsiders look at Free Republic. They see us as racists, conspiracy theorists, and intolerant.

Except for the Guild, we are intelligent and funny.

[lodwick]

Props to you guys for going on with your lives!

Like a slug, I was glued to the very first shuttle thread today, which must now be approaching 3K responses.

I am dying here. ;-)