World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #10 Security Watch

Lowry: The CIA's record leading up to Sept. 11 was one of failure By Rich Lowry Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 09:07:06 AM MDT

The new report from the CIA's inspector general about the spy agency's pre-9/11 failings could be titled, ''What We Did During Our Holiday From History.'' The stretch between the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks was supposed to be a shiny new era of globalized peace and prosperity, to which an intelligence service was considered quaintly irrelevant.

The CIA conformed to the zeitgeist by remaining quaintly irrelevant. George Tenet presided over the agency, failing his way to the second-longest tenure of any director of central intelligence, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a $4 million book advance. He made the Peter Principle work for him not just by advancing to his level of incompetence, but by benefiting from it handsomely.

Congressional Democrats pushed for the release of the scathing IG report, completed back in June 2005, to embarrass the Bush administration. But most of the failures identified in the report took place during the Clinton administration, which set the CIA's skewed priorities and selected Tenet in the first place. President Bush should be embarrassed only because he didn't fire Tenet upon taking office or after 9/11, while Bush also has failed to undertake a serious retooling of the sclerotic bureaucracy that is the CIA.

Tenet took terrorism seriously, ''sounding the alarm about the threat to many different audiences,'' in the words of the report. Maybe he should have gone on a lecture tour. Where Tenet fell down was in managing his agency. The thought may be father to the deed, but without the actual deed, the thought is only political cover in after-the-fact memoirs.

Tenet insists that he had a ''robust plan'' against al-Qaida. In reality, he only thought he had. He directed that such a plan be formulated, but according to the IG report, it never happened. Worse, Tenet did not ''work with the National Security Council to elevate the relative standing of counterterrorism in the formal ranking of intelligence priorities.''

In Tenet's defense, he operated within the context of a Clinton administration that basically was uninterested in intelligence. Tenet notes that the intelligence community lost 25 percent of its personnel in the 1990s and ''tens of billions of dollars in investment compared with the 1990 baseline.'' He implored the administration for funding increases in 1998 and 1999, but had to go ''outside established channels to work with then-Speaker Gingrich to obtain a $1.2 billion budgetary supplemental.''

Even with more resources, his managers repeatedly moved funds from counterterrorism programs to other needs, without ever raiding other programs to fund counterterrorism, according to the IG report. What could be more important than counterterrorism? Analytic resources were poured into addressing more pressing matters like the Balkans and the environment.

After 9/11, Clinton officials and Tenet argued whether the CIA had been granted the authority to kill Osama bin Laden, with the Clintonites, in a bout of retrospective bloodlust, insisting that it had. The IG report finds that restrictions on the CIA killing bin Laden had been ''arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed'' for a brief period in late 1998 and early 1999 (how Clintonian). But CIA managers refused ''to take advantage of the ambiguities,'' and even if they had, the agency didn't have the covert-action capability to kill bin Laden. Such was life during history's holiday.

What's more scandalous is how the CIA has escaped serious reform even today. Two CIA directors in a row have resisted the IG report's recommendation for an accountability board to evaluate the pre-9/11 performance of CIA officials. That word - not ''board,'' but ''accountability'' - raises hackles at Langley, where everyone is above-average at fighting al-Qaida. Even though as many as 60 CIA employees knew that two of the hijackers were in the U.S. before 9/11 and no one managed to get the word to the FBI, CIA Director Michael Hayden thinks holding anyone accountable for that or other failures would be ''distracting.'' And so the band plays on.

HRF: Harassment by Russian Authoritie s Another Attempt to Avert Investigation of Politkovskaya’s Murder

Human Rights First

For immediate release, October 5, 2007

Harassment by Russian Authorities Another Attempt to Avert
Investigation
of Politkovskaya’s Murder

NEW YORK—Human Rights First criticized the Russian government’s
harassment of organizers and participants in events planned to mark the

first anniversary of the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, calling
this interference another in a long list of official attempts to hinder

a credible investigation of the journalist’s murder.

A representative from Human Rights First, who traveled to Russia to
take
part in the commemoration, has witnessed the government’s efforts to
intimidate participants first-hand.

In advance of events scheduled for October 5-6 in Nizhny Novgorod,
police raided the offices of the organizers, seizing several computers.

Hotel reservations for several guests were cancelled due to a purported

water leak, and a room booked for a press conference was suddenly
rented
for another conference. On October 5, traffic police towed away a
minivan used by organizers to transport guests. Participants reported a

heavy police presence at hotels and near the offices of human rights
organizations.

“The Russian authorities are reminding us of the importance of
Politkovskaya’s work in their own way, by trying to silence those who
have gathered to commemorate her life,” said Byrnes. “Instead of trying

to uncover who was behind the murder, police are using their resources
to harass local activists and intimidate foreign visitors.”

Human Rights First is concerned that the Russian authorities are trying

to shift responsibility for Politkovskaya’s murder to unnamed forces
outside the country. Ten suspects have been arrested in connection with

the investigation. Despite the fact that the suspects included current
and former members of Russia’s Federal Security Service, Prosecutor
General Yuri Chaika claimed that “only individuals located outside the
territory of the Russian Federation could have an interest in getting
rid of Politkovskaya.”

“We call on the Russian government to carry out a prompt, thorough,
impartial and transparent investigation into Politkovskaya’s murder
that
takes into account the clear evidence of the involvement of individuals

with close ties to the security services,” said Maureen Byrnes,
executive director of Human Rights First.

Politkovskaya’s investigative journalism had made her many enemies
inside Russia. Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in her apartment on
October 7, 2006, was seen by many in the Russian human rights community

as a colleague and ally. She worked closely with several human rights
organizations to gather information about violations in Chechnya and to

help the victims of the conflict.

“Few acts have done more to create the climate of uncertainty and
insecurity for Russian human rights defenders than Politkovskaya’s
assassination and the government’s refusal to adequately investigate
it,” said Byrnes. “Official attempts to put a slanted interpretation on

this tragic event are not consistent with the pursuit of justice.”

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/hrd/2007/alert/373/index.htm

PA religious leader: “Muslims are masters of the world”
*******************************************************

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook October 7, 2007

One of the defining principles of Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood is
their
insistence that the only truth is Islam and that the world is destined
to be
enlightened only when ruled by Islam.

A similar Islamic supremacist ideology was expressed recently in an
article by a
Palestinian Authority religious leader who was appointed last year by
Mahmoud
Abbas as member of the Supreme Fatwa Council: “Muslims are masters of
the world,
its leaders and teachers, even if the West rejects this.”

“The Muslims and their societies are more advanced and more sublime
than the
West and its societies are more perfect in value system and humanity.
The fact
that there are those who believe that these are Western values it is a
delusion
and false, since the Muslims are masters of the world, its leaders and
teachers,
even if the West rejects this.”

This continues the ongoing social-religious evolution that PMW has been
reporting for some time, in which the radical Islamic ideology of Hamas
is being
adopted by the Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas.

See PMW’s recent report on the newest PA schoolbooks, “From Nationalist
Battle
to Religious Conflict”

The following was written by Dr. Hamza Dhib Mustafa, member of the
Supreme Fatwa
Council, appointed by Abbas in August 2006:

“To what does the publication of the declaration of human rights in the
West
testify in 1948? Didn’t Islam issue something much greater 14 centuries
ago?

“Despite these rights, reserved for humans, we see chilling and
embarrassing
operations from the states who claim to be democratic, or is it
possible that
they classify themselves as one of the states of the First World, since
what did
the United States do in South America? What did America do in Iraq and
Afghanistan? And what does the Israeli occupation do to our Palestinian
people,
by occupying its land, the requisition of its property and its
banishment to
everywhere on the face of the earth?

READ FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2007/oct/g4.htm

Jewish refugees from Arab countries
***********************************

Yossi Ben-Aharon October 7, 2007

One of the topics to be discussed at the November meeting of Middle
East leaders
in Washington is the Palestinian refugee issue. UN Security Council
Resolution
242, which remains the sole agreed basis for an Arab-Israel peace
agreement,
contains a reference to “a just solution of the refugee problem.” It
makes no
reference to Palestinian refugees. The omission was not accidental,
because the
council understood there was also the problem of Jewish refugees from
Arab
countries.

Over the years, Arab and Palestinian spokesmen have presented a strong
case
regarding the plight of the Palestinian refugees. They have argued that
the
Palestinians are the original owners of the land, the Jews were foreign
invaders
who took it by force, and as a result, the Palestinian refugees became
the
innocent victims of the Arab-Israel conflict. Hence, they insist on the
“right
of return” of the Palestinians to the land and properties they left in
1948.

This narrative ignores another aspect of the story. Shortly after the
November
1947 Partition Plan was passed by the UN, a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms
took
place in several Arab countries. By May 1948, the situation of Jews in
these
countries became untenable. The Arab invasion of Israel triggered a
massive
movement of populations in opposite directions. Jews fled to Israel and
Arabs
fled to the countries bordering on Palestine. In making their case, the
Arabs
have consistently refrained from acknowledging the mass exodus of some
800,000
Jews from Arab countries. Jewish communities had lived in the Arab
world long
before the advent of Islam - and before the Arabs gained their identity
as a
people.

Successive governments of Israel have embraced a proposal to conduct a
survey of
Jewish property which was confiscated by Arab governments, or left
behind by
Jews who were expelled or who emigrated to Israel. The idea is to
prepare a
dossier for negotiations on the refugee issue and addressing possible
claims for
restitution by both sides.

Referring to the refugee issue in a recent statement in the Knesset,
Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni said: “Clearly, a Palestinian state is the sole,
complete
solution for Palestinians everywhere, the integral national solution to
the
refugee problem.”

Unfortunately, she made no mention of the Jewish refugees from Arab
countries,
thus missing an opportunity to call the world’s attention to the fact
that there
were two refugee crises and both should be addressed.

READ FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2007/oct/g5.htm

Rafsanjani - Mafia barber? **************************

October 5, 2007

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/sick_on_lehrer.php

By Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi & Elio Bonazzi

The Columbia University controversy provided the mullahs of Iran with
the
opportunity to stage yet another of their famous Uriah Heep-ish
diplomacy
theatrics. On the evening of September 25th, The NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer
invited a couple of Iran experts to comment on Iranian President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University and the U.N. and to
generally
deconstruct the nature of the Islamic Republic.

One of these experts was Gary Sick, who during the clamor of the 1979
Khomeinist
revolution, played a key role as Middle East analyst for the NSA. Sick,
who
supported the overthrow of the Shah and Khomeini’s takeover of Iran,
has ever
since been one of the more instrumental figures in helping the Islamic
regime
keep up appearances with the West. Sick’s Gulf/2000 Project was in fact
established at Columbia’s own School of International & Public Affairs
in 1993.
It has also been mainly financed by the oil industry, and it actively
promotes
dialogue with Tehran ‘s regime.

For those of us who have been studying the mullahs for a lifetime,
Sick, in his
interview with Judy Woodruff, bizarrely tipped his hand about which
horse he
backs inside the regime. Sick vehemently claimed: “(I) suggest that the
leadership in Iran - the grown-ups, as I would put it - have every
reason to be
upset by what he (Ahmadinejad) has done. He has destroyed the image of
Iran that
had very painfully been built up over years after the death of
Khomeini, through
Rafsanjani and then Khatami. And Mr. Ahmadinejad has come along and
undermined
that tremendously.”

The grown-ups he is referring to are obviously Rasfanjani and Khatami
and their
coterie. Are they actually any better than Khamenei, Ahmadinejad &
Company?

This is where our story begins.

The 1979 revolution turned the Rafsanjanis from pistachio farmers into
moguls.
One Rafsanjani brother became the chief of Iran’s entire copper mining
industry;
another one annexed the state-run television. Meanwhile, a
brother-in-law became
the governor of their home province of Kerman , and one of the cousins
became
the head of the nearly half-a-billion-dollar a year pistachio business.

Rafsanjani’s son and one of his nephews got the best possible jobs at
the
Iranian National Oil Company, while another son took charge of the
entire Tehran
metro construction project which is said to have cost close to a
billion
dollars. Conducting business through various non-profit organizations
and front
companies, the family is known to be running Iran ‘s biggest oil
engineering
company, a Daewoo automobile assembly plant and Iran ‘s private
airline, among
others.

Inside Iran , however, Iranians have always parodied Rafsanjani’s name
in order
to describe the man’s true nature by referring to him as Rassman-Jani,
which
means “certainly murderous.”

For almost three decades, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been one of
the two
top authorities inside the Islamic regime’s principle pecking order -
Khamenei,
the supreme leader, is the other. Rafsanjani was Khomeini’s eyes and
ears until
the latter’s death in 1989. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who Khomeini assigned
to command
the war towards its end, continues to have access to many of Iran ‘s
state
secrets.

He served as president of the Islamic Republic from 1989 to 1997, and
he would
have remained in that job indefinitely, had he not been implicated in a
court
case that momentarily strained Germany’s diplomatic relations with
Iran, leading
to a near collapse of European/Iranian geopolitics.

In April 1997, a German court convicted four men in the 1992 massacre
of
dissident Iranian Kurdish leader Sadegh Sharafkandi and three of his
colleagues
in Berlin ‘s Mykonos Restaurant. The court found that the killings were
ordered
by the “highest state levels” of Tehran’s regime. The judges convicted
two men
of murder and two others of being accessories to murder on September
17, 1992.
Presiding Judge Frithjof Kubsch said the men had no personal motive but
were
following orders. Kubsch said the gangland-style murders had been
ordered by
Iran ‘s Committee for Special Operations, to which Iran’s president and
spiritual leader belonged. Prosecutors had contended that Iran ‘s
powerful
spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ali Akbar
Hashemi
Rafsanjani had personally ordered the killings. Germany said it was
expelling
four Iranian diplomatic staff. “The participation of Iranian state
agencies, as
found in the court verdict, represents a flagrant violation of
international
law,” the German foreign ministry said in a statement.

The regime had to do some quick fancy footwork and re-create itself so
that it
did not lose face with its European allies. Rafsanjani figured he ought
to step
down and an election was staged. A serious cross section of Iranian
society had
already shown it’s profound animosity towards the mullahs and Islamic
rule in
general. So in an orchestrated effort, Khamenei announced his
candidate, a
fossilized, ultra-conservative mullah and the Speaker of Parliament
(Majles),
Nategh-Nouri, knowing full well that there was no way that the voters
would vote
for him. However, the dark horse Hojjat ol-Eslam Mohammad Khatami and
his
administration rode in as bona fide moxie capable enough to reform the
regime
from within.

Khatami, who loves foreign travel and hobnobbing with the global
glitterati,
became the toast of western liberal societies. As president, he was to
travel
the world, smile, discuss Montesquieu and Hannah Arendt, and have
everyone buy
into his claim that the Islamic republic is progressive and democratic.
His
western supporters portrayed him and his administration as the
“Glasnost
Mullahs” who would extend democracy and address the demands of Iranians
who
would no longer suffer the demagogy of the hardliners.

WHO WAS KHATAMI REALLY?

Khatami’s landslide victory, however, did not stop the wave of murders
of
journalists and intellectuals that had begun from early on in
Rafsanjani’s
presidency. These became known as the “chain or serial murders.” In
addition,
real opposition magazines and newspapers were banned and forcibly
closed down
and journalists imprisoned. In spite of the repression of internal
dissent,
Khatami continued to be courted and invited by the major European
powers for
state visits.

On the other side of the Atlantic, and during the Clinton years, the
mainstream
media, left-leaning Washington-insiders and members of the so-called
“realist”
school of foreign policy also helped to promote the Islamic Republic’s
propaganda. They did this by repeating and magnifying the big lie about
Iran ‘s
conservatives, who were now calling themselves “reformists.”

In November 2006, Rafsanjani publicized a letter proving the very real
discussion of the development of the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
Throughout both
Rafsanjani and Khatami’s presidencies the regime’s nuclear program was
developed, all the while keeping the western powers, the U.N. and the
I.A.E.A.
at bay. Under Khatami, another slick Hojjat ol-eslam, Hasan Rowhani,
averted the
attention of the British, Germans and French who were negotiating the
nuclear
concerns.” In early 2006, Rowhani himself admitted in front of a large
group of
clerics in Tehran that his job was to dupe the European negotiators
while buying
time for the further development of the nuclear program.

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, a native of Iran, is an activist and writer.
Elio
Bonazzi is an Italian-born political scientist. Husband and wife, they
are based
in New York .

READ this BLog:

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/sick_on_lehrer.php

October 8, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News - UnitedStatesAction.com

(Pakistan) 130 militants, 45 soldiers killed in Pakistan clashes (updated) - 2 days of fighting in
North Waziristan - soldiers still missing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071008/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanafghanistanunresttoll_071008182454

(Pakistan) Support Network in Pakistan Accused of Helping Taliban, Others Sneak Across Border
to Attack U.S.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wopaki075405263oct07,0,1518944.story?track=rss

(India) Security beefed up at religious places following al-Qaeda threat — to Hardiwar and Dehradun
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/180661.php/Security-beefed-up-at-religious-places-following-al-Qaeda-threat

India for joint SAARC mechanism to combat terror
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/08saarc.htm

(Afghanistan) Afghan news agency visits German hostage - German engineer & 5 Afghans kidnapped
by Taliban-linked militants in July
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071008/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunrestgermanykidnap_071008203610

(Afghanistan) Australia suffers first combat death in Afghanistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071008/wl_nm/afghan_australia_death_dc_1

(Iraq) Car bombs kill 24 in Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_071004234053

(Iraq) Britain to cut Iraq force to 2,500
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq

(Iraq) Khawaarij and Jihad: Is Al-Qaida’s Network in Iraq Doomed to the Fate of the GIA?
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/10/khawaarij_and_jihad_is_alqaida.php

(Lebanon) Terror cells ‘planned to bomb ISF headquarters’
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=85876

Lebanon arrests 30 militants who allegedly plotted to attack Arab, European ambassadors
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/08/africa/ME-GEN-Lebanon-Militants.php

Israeli president brands Iran ‘center of global terror’
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/10/08/afx4196931.html

Israeli cash ends up in Hamas’ hands - Money transferred by Discount Bank to Bank of Palestine
went to Hamas
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3457290,00.html

UAE freezes $1.3 million of suspected terrorist funds - 17 bank accounts “frozen in line with
U.N. resolutions,” says central bank official
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071008/137/6lop3.html
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL08228953.html

Morocco holds five as terror suspects
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Africa&set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=nw20071008205750670C843186

http://conservativeculture.com/2007/10/ohio-jihad-gets-new-leader#comment-84704

Oct 8, 2007 at 10:17 am

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2FF54039-1EB7-40E8-8C99-7BF82DAE23F9
HAMAS in the House
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, October 08, 2007

The Ohio State Capitol in Columbus will be the setting for a curious convocation later this month when it hosts an event featuring several well-known Islamic extremists as part of an “interfaith” conference entitled, “The Many Faces of Islam”. The conference, which is to be held in the atrium of the Statehouse on Sunday, October 28th, will feature two well-known speakers with multiple connections to the HAMAS international terrorist organization, a host of convicted terrorist leaders, and colleagues who fled the US to avoid prosecution on terrorism-related charges. The event is sponsored by the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio.

One of the featured speakers at the conference will be Anisa Abd El Fattah, the chair of the National Association of Muslim American Women based in Columbus. Fattah is best known for co-authoring two books with current HAMAS spokesman Ahmed Yousef, The Agent: The Truth Behind the Anti-Muslim Campaign in America and Al-Aqsa Intifada. Yousef fled the US in 2005 to avoid prosecution in the Fawaz Damra terrorist support trial and reappeared in Gaza as the official spokesman for HAMAS, a position he still holds. One recent report in Asharq Alawsat described Fattah’s co-author Yousef as “The Smiling Face of HAMAS”. President Clinton identified HAMAS as a Specially Designated Terrorist Organization in a January 1995 executive order.

Both Yousef and Fattah worked together at the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), where Fattah served respectively as both president and director of public affairs. Yousef and Fattah also co-edited the UASR’s quarterly publication, the Middle East Affairs Journal. As UASR director of public affairs, Fattah issued a press statement in March 2004 condemning the assassination of HAMAS founder Sheikh Yassin and saying that Yassin, who had ordered numerous suicide bombings targeting civilians and was responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent men, women and children, was a man of peace.

pass it on…

[Excellent photos]

http://edgar1981.blogspot.com/

Sunday, October 07, 2007
Islamafascists walk through centre of London demanding Israel’s destruction

A demonstration of about 400 Islamafascists - organised by the Iranian Government sponsored “Islamic Human Rights Commission” marched through central London today calling for death to Israel. Waving banners of Ayatolla Khomeini and Hezbollah flags, the Islamafascists were ‘celebrating’ Al Quds Day, which was introduced by Khomeini as an annual day where all Muslims demand the ‘liberation of Jerusalem’ and the destruction of Israel. The Islamafascists were joined by the inevitable group of Neturei Karta ‘Jews’ and a small handful of useful idiots from the far left (who would be sure to be among the first to be exterminated under an Islamic regime).

We joined a counter-demonstration at Eros (Piccadilly Circus) that consisted mainly of Iranian dissidents opposed to the Islamic regime. The march was supposed to come past Eros at 12.00 but was delayed. A couple of us decided to take a walk down Piccadilly to see what was going on. We eventually came to the start of the march just past Green Park station. What amazed me was that, on what should have been a lovely Sunday afternoon for London’s tourists and shoppers alike to enjoy the centre of town, the police not only allowed this demonstration but actually closed the whole of Piccadilly and the streets around it for what turned out to be several hours. Anyway, when we got to the demonstrators we held up some Israeli flags; the police told us to put them away (although, to be fair, they did tell us that there was a counter-demonstration we could join). But it is a bit ironic that the Islamafascists are allowed to carry Hizbollah flags and placards inciting terrorism (all funded by a regime that is killing British soldiers in Iraq) but the police would not allow an Israeli flag to be held up for ‘fear of inciting them’. I cannot begin to describe how disgusting were the scumbags on this march. Their contempt for Western values and hatred of Israel, was accompanied with a barrage of vicious anti-semitic abuse. Make no mistake this lot (despite the Neturai Karta idiots walking alongside them) were openly calling for death to Jews (not just Israel). They chanted “Kill, kill kill the Jews at us when they saw us with the Israeli flags.

We decided to return to the counter-demo at Eros. We were the only two people with Israeli flags. Although the Islamafascist demo was organised by an Iranian funded organisation, its sole message was anti-Israel, so it was a bit disappointing that the only other counter-demonstrators there were those who wanted to get across their anti-Iranian government message (and nothing else). If ever there was a cause for the entire Jewish community to be out in force it was this one. In many respects what happened today characterised everything that is wrong with the Western approach to Islamafascism:

1. The fact that, presumably in the ‘interests of free speech’, the authorities allowed this disgusting hate-fest to take place. We the taxpayers had to pay for its policing, and thousands of ordinary Londoners and tourists were massively inconvienced by the disruption.
2. That the authorities seem to think that the freedom to call for the death of millions of non-muslims is important; and that the offence that this causes in the streets of London is irrelevant. After all it’s the Muslims’ ‘right’ to incite hatred - but nobody has the right to even slightly upset Muslims.
3. The fact that these scumbugs were, simply allowed to walk through our streets spewing their hatred totally unchallenged (as I say our two flags were the only ‘opposition’). The thousands of non-political passers-by presumably think it is normal for people to be demanding the destruction of Israel. It is just another part of the process of deligitimisation of Israel.
4. The fact that a march like this (focusing uniquely on the destruction of Israel) can take place with a total absence of any organised Jewish opposition. Nothing from the Zionist Federation; nothing from any of the Youth Groups or students; not even a mention in the Jewish Chronicle that it was happening.

At the end of it all I was very pleased we went. We actually made a difference because we made sure that our Israeli flags were seen.

Update: another report at Harry’s Place and a couple of videos here.

posted by Edgar Davidson @ 5:58 PM 10 comments links to this post

http://democracybroadcasting.blogspot.com/

Iran, Israel Clash at IAEA Conference

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Israel accused Iran of lying Friday while Tehran challenged the international community to send U.N. inspectors to probe its arch-rival’s nuclear capabilities, in a rare and unusually bitter direct confrontation.

U.N. officials at a 148-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency said they had no memory of the two hostile nations ever engaging each other directly at previous meetings and said that development - and the unusually harsh tone of their statements - in part reflected Middle East tensions.

On Thursday, the conference criticized Israel for refusing to put its nuclear program under international purview, with the United States alone in supporting the Jewish state.

Israel also voted against the resolution, while 53 nations backed it and 47 abstained. The remaining nations were absent for the highly unusual vote - only the second in the 16 years the issue has been on the agenda of the IAEA conference.

On Friday, a resolution that in part sought to expand IAEA powers to prevent nuclear proliferation passed by a comfortable margin, though Iran was among the nonaligned states voting against it.

Labels: iaea, Iran nuclear, israel nuclear, middle-east conflict, united nations

“How I became a Muslim extremist” BBC News Video

Watch BBC-TV’s Panorama programme featuring Islamist whistleblower, Shiraz Maher, a former member of the Muslim extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (”HT”) which campaigns for an Islamic state.

While at Cambridge University he even tried to recruit Kafeel Ahmed into HT, who was later alleged to be part of the attack on Glasgow airport.
Shiraz has now ‘come-out’ and now wants to expose HT for the organisation it is.

HT Britain is trying to market itself as a conciliatory and moderate organisation that condemns violence as a means to achieve political ends.

With access to other former HT insiders, and HT literature the group wanted to keep hidden, Shiraz reveals that HT Britain’s conciliatory approach was merely a crude facade that concealed the same radical and extreme views.

HT believes that democracy is incompatible with Islam, that the state of Israel should be destroyed, and that Shariah law should be imposed over the entire world - with violence being used to achieve this.

Labels: hizb ut tahrir, islamic militancy, muslim extremism, muslim

Michelin families leave Algeria

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7032102.stm

Last Updated: Saturday, 6 October 2007, 20:28 GMT 21:28 UK

Michelin families leave Algeria
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French tyre company Michelin has said it is evacuating families of French nationals working for the firm in Algeria because of security concerns.

The move comes after nine people, including two French nationals, were injured in an attack on a convoy of foreign workers in September.

Al-Qaeda’s North Africa wing said it had carried out the attack.

Michelin said its Algeria operations would continue and that none of its employees were leaving.

Bus attack

A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that families of staff who had settled in Algeria were being - or had already been - evacuated to France.

The BBC’s David Bamford says some other European companies have adopted the same policy as it becomes clear that the return this year of Islamist-inspired violence in Algeria may not be a short-term phenomenon.

In the mid-1990s, many Westerners were abducted or killed, forcing a mass evacuation, he says.

In a recent video, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, called on militants in North Africa to “cleanse” their lands of Spanish and French.

In March, a Russian gas pipeline worker was killed in an attack on a bus.

High Level U.S. Debate Stalled Syria Air Strike (back)

October 5, 2007

‘...questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.’

U.S. Was Concerned Over Intelligence, Stability to Region

The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States .

In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria . They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea .

One U.S. official told ABC’s Martha Raddatz the material was ‘jaw dropping’ because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.

Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if notyears.

’ Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources,’ said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.

U.S. Cautious After Flawed Iraq Intelligence

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Source: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3695754&page=1

Confronting the Terror Threat (back)

September 25, 2007

by David E. Kaplan

‘I predict that in one to three years, we are going to be confronted with a new and devastating type of terror The heart of the battle is often less against the actual perpetrators of terror than the mindset that protects them. ‘

It began with Imagine, John Lennon’s immortal song. The audience loved it. Some joined in singing quietly, others hummed. If some had forgotten the lyrics, most recalled the tuneŠ and the message.

Thunderous applause was followed by silence. No one was under any illusion - all knew what was to follow. Facing the audience on stage was no longer a troika of musicians but General Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Avi Dichter, Minister of Internal Security, Shabtai Shavit, a Former Head of the Mossad, Boaz Ganor, the founder of the Institute of Countert-Terrorism and Prof. Uriel Reichman, Founder and President of the Interdisciplinary Center , Herzliya. The venue was the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and the occasion, the launch of the seventh annual International Conference on Counter-Terrorism.

If people could ‘Imagine,’ they could also recall that John Lennon, the iconic musician of a generation now middle-aged, had been brutally cut down by four flat-tipped bullets into his back.

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Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411479752&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Do We Want Another 9/11? (back)

October 5, 2007

by Ronald Kessler

In their efforts to demonize the American intelligence community, Democrats and the media are playing with our safety.

The latest example is the way these critics are minimizing and distorting warnings from Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, about how defenseless America would become if warrants were required to intercept terrorists’ calls and e-mails even when those communications are in foreign countries.

The issue should not be controversial. Going back to the founding of the National Security Agency in 1952, the government could intercept calls and e-mails of targets situated in foreign countries without a warrant. But because most such communications now pass through U.S. switching systems in fiber optic cables, a Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) court judge ruled on May 31 that intercepting such communications requires a court order.

Obtaining a FISA court order requires an average of 200 man hours of preparation. Often, people who speak Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu have to be pulled off tracking leads to possible plots to help prepare the applications. Moreover, by the time an order is obtained for a new targeted phone number, the call is finished.

Because of the ruling, tens of thousands of calls and e-mails were not being examined. Any one of them could have contained clues to an al-Qaida plot to detonate nuclear devices in Manhattan and Washington . As FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has told me, these are al-Qaida’s twin goals.

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Source: http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/FISA_act/2007/10/05/38477.html?s=al&promo_code=3AF5-1

America’s Elegant Decline (back)

October 6, 2007

by Robert Kaplan

Beware pendulum swings. Before 9/11, not enough U.S. generals believed that the future of war was unconventional and tied to global anarchy. They insisted on having divisions to fight against, not ragtag groups of religious warriors who, as it turned out, fought better than state armies in the Muslim world ever did. Now the Pentagon is consumed by a focus on urban warfare and counterinsurgency; inside military circles, the development of culturally adroit foreign-area officers (FAOs) and the learning of exotic languages have become the rage. My own warnings about anarchy (’The Coming Anarchy,’ February 1994 Atlantic) and my concentration on FAOs and Army Special Forces in recent books may have helped this trend. But have we pushed it too far? We may finally master the art of counterinsurgency just in time for it to recede in importance.

History suggests that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be imperfect guideposts to conflicts ahead. The quaint Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 gave no intimation of World War I. Neither World War II nor Korea prepared us for Vietnam , which was more similar to the Philippine War of 1899–1902 than to its immediate predecessors. The ease of the Gulf War provided no hint of what an ordeal the Iraq War would be. Today, while we remain fixated on street fighting in Baghdad, the militaries of China, India, South Korea, and Japan are modernizing, and Russia has maintained and subsidized its military research-and- development base by selling weapons to China and others. Though counterinsurgency will remain a core part of our military doctrine, the Pentagon does not have the luxury of planning for one military future; it must plan for several.

‘Regular wars’ between major states could be as frequent in the 21st century as they were in the 20th. In his 2005 book, Another Bloody Century, the British scholar Colin Gray, a professor of international politics and strategic studies at the University of Reading, explains convincingly that these future wars will not require any ‘manifestation of insanity by political leaders,’ nor even an ‘aberration from normal statecraft,’ but may come about merely because of what Thucydides recognized as ‘fear, honour, and interest.’ Wars between the United States and a Sino-Russian axis or between the United States and a coalition of rogue states are just two of the scenarios Gray imagines.

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Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200710u/kaplan-burma

Chertoff Outlines Security Goals by 2009 (back)

October 4, 2007

by Eileen Sullivan

Reaching a new agreement with Canada to share air passenger information by the end of 2008 seems futile, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the White House in an internal report on his department’s priorities.

An Oct. 3 memo to the president’s chief of staff — marked ‘For Official Use Only’ and obtained by The Associated Press — outlines the department’s goals and the likelihood they will be met by the end of the Bush administration in January 2009.

An agreement that would expand the amount of information the U.S. and Canada share about air travelers is one goal Chertoff does not foresee happening ‘due entirely to Canada’s reluctance to move forward on this initiative,’ he wrote.

This issue and an immigration overhaul are the only two goals Chertoff cites as unlikely to be met. Congress failed to pass immigration legislation this year.

The document says most of the priorities Chertoff set in July 2006 are on track to be completed by the end of 2008. They include increasing the number of Border Patrol agents from 14,900 today to 18,300 and screening 50 percent of air passengers using a behavior analysis program that identifies suspicious acting travelers.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/chertoff_missed_goals_2;_ylt=Ap9f4lWMhMlXDej.IYONUyYTv5UB

Creating and Maintaining Homeland Security Fusion Centers (back)

October 2, 2007

by Jim Kouri

(This article is based on a report received by the National Association of Chiefs of Police Public Information Office.)

In general, a fusion center is a collaborative effort to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. Recognizing that fusion centers are a mechanism for information sharing, the federal government — including the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), who has primary responsibility for governmentwide information sharing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) — is taking steps to partner with fusion centers.

Most states and many local governments have established fusion centers to address gaps in information sharing. Fusion centers across the country vary in their stages of development — from operational to early in the planning stages.

Officials in 43 of the centers Government Accountability Office analysts contacted described their centers as operational, and 34 of these centers had opened since January 2004. Law enforcement entities, such as state police or state bureaus of investigation, are the lead or managing agencies in the majority of the operational centers GAO contacted.

However, the centers varied in their staff sizes and partnerships with other agencies. At least 34 of the 43 operational fusion centers contacted reported that they had federal personnel assigned to their centers. Products disseminated and services provided vary.

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Source: http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=7749

Germans Relying on Pakistani Interrogation Methods (back)

October 7, 2007

by Holger Stark, John Goetz and Matthias Gebauer

German prosecutors attempting to prove a salesman guilty of al-Qaida membership have been relying on the results of his interrogation in Pakistan . He says his testimony was extracted by means of torture.

Aleem Nasir was interrogated in Pakistan and then picked up by the German police when he landed in Frankfurt .

When Aleem Nasir returned from Pakistan on Aug. 25, an unusual VIP service was waiting for him at Frankfurt Airport : A police car took the dealer in semi-precious stones directly to a clinic in Mainz , where he was given a blood test and his hand and arm were photographed. The 45-year-old, who lives in Germersheim in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, was far from overjoyed about this unexpected medical examination. After all, the investigators were hoping for a diagnosis that would hardly be favorable to him: They were hoping to prove him a terrorist.

The enforced medical examination had been requested by the Office of the Federal Prosecutor, which had been given carte blanche by Ulrich Hebenstreit, an investigative judge at Germany ‘s Federal Court, in early August. According to a court order written with apparent haste, the examination was intended to prove that Nasir had spent time in an al-Qaida training camp in northern Pakistan. It was alleged that he had attempted to mix ‘250 grams (8.8 ounces) of potassium nitrate with red phosphorus’ and ‘injured his right hand and arm’ when the dangerous concoction exploded.

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Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,508931,00.html

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