Posted on 08/31/2002 3:07:33 AM PDT by ovrtaxt
Friday Aug. 30, 2002; 11:16 p.m. EDT Limbaugh to White House: What About Salman Pak?
Is the Bush administration using all the ammunition at its disposal to convince the American people that war with Iraq is imperative?
Not according to conservative media giant Rush Limbaugh, who chastised the White House Thursday for not spotlighting the issue of Salman Pak, the hijacking school run by Saddam Hussein just south of Baghdad where the 9-11 hijackers likely trained to attack America.
"It's unbelievable that somehow this story remains sequestered," Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners. "I read this story last night and I was amazed."
"There is something called the Republican National Committee and there is the administration," the number one talk host complained. "And look, if I could find this on the Internet, I'm sure the web surfers in the basement of the White House or the Old Executive Office Building could find it too."
Limbaugh proceeded to read at length from a Nov. 11 report in London's Observer newspaper - one of the most respected broadsheets in Great Britain - detailing the accounts of two Salman Pak defectors along with corroborating testimony from a former UN weapons inspector.
Though the Observer's bombshell report has been largely ignored by both the press and the White House in recent months, the similarity between what transpired over the skies of New York and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11 and the drills at Saddam Hussein's hijacking school offers clear evidence of Iraq's involvement in Osama bin Laden's attacks on America.
The facts uncovered by the Observer have yet to be refuted by any subsequent media investigation. And should they be invoked by the Bush White House, the story could form the basis for a solid argument that attacking Iraq isn't merely a preemptive strike to keep Saddam from getting the bomb, but instead direct retribution against the lone head of state who both financed and helped plan the worst attack on the United States in its history.
NewsMax.com first reviewed the Salman Pak story nearly three weeks ago in a report headlined: "Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11."
Some excerpts:
With all the talk about how little evidence the Bush administration has tying Saddam Hussein to the 9-11 attacks, we're more than a little surprised at how quickly reporters, not to mention the White House, seem to have forgotten about Salman Pak.
That's the name of the Iraqi training camp located south of Baghdad where, according to the accounts of at least two Iraqi defectors quoted in the New York Times last November, terrorists from around the world rehearsed airline hijackings aboard a parked Boeing 707 that bore an eerie resemblance to what transpired on 9-11.
"We could see them train around the fuselage," one of the defectors, a five-year veteran of the camp, told the paper. "We could see them practice taking over the plane."
And that's not all.
A few days before the Times report, the London Observer revealed that one of the defectors, a colonel with the Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat, had drawn an even more direct link to 9-11.
The former Iraqi agent, codenamed Zeinab, told the paper that one of the highlights of Salman Pak's six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands. Like the Sept. 11 hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five, he explained.
Zeinab's story has since been corroborated by Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of Unscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, who actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times.
"He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the Observer reported. "The Iraqis, he said, told Unscom it was used by police for counterterrorist training."
"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer explained. "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?"
Unlike the other parts of Salman Pak, Zeinab told the Observer that there was a foreigners' camp that was controlled directly by Saddam Hussein.
"It was a nightmare! A very strange experience," the Iraqi agent said. "These guys would stop and insist on praying to Allah five times a day when we had training to do. The instructors wouldn't get home till late at night, just because of all this praying."
A second defector said that conversations with the hijacker-trainees made it clear they came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco.
"We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States," he added chillingly. "The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States. We were repeatedly told this."
Though the Bush administration has been largely silent about Salman Pak, former CIA Director James Woolsey is apparently convinced it was used to rehearse Sept. 11-style hijackings.
In late November he told Fox News Channel's Laurie Dhue:
"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."
Another intriguing coincidence: Salman Pak's hijacking school reportedly opened for business in 1995, the same year al-Qaeda agents in the Philippines hatched a plot to hijack 12 airliners and slam some of them into U.S. landmarks. (End of NewsMax excerpt)
Despite the compelling case of Salman Pak, the shockingly flat-footed Bush public relations team remains mum on the most potent justification for hitting back at Baghdad.
No wonder support for Bush's Iraq attack has dropped to just 51 percent in the latest Gallup poll.
You are obviously making a concerted effort to justify War with Iraq on the basis of Facts which can be commensurated with Scripture. I respect that -- at least I respect the Scripturo-Centric Ethic.
This is a Regimen which is too often forgotten in the modern American "Church". We condemn the philosophy, "If it feels good, do it" -- but if we ever FAIL to appeal to Scripture for EVERY SINGLE political position we advocate, the we are just DOING THE EXACT SAME THING.
I love America... but America could come and go before I will consent to see the Church fail to appeal to Scripture Alone to justify every single Moral Position we advocate.
If we ever lose sight of Scripture -- if we ever appeal to "feelings" or "common sense" or "realpolitik" -- then we are just another False Religion.
God Forbid. For God will not be mocked.
Judgment Falls First Upon The House Of the Lord.
If our Judgment is not always and only founded upon Scripture Alone... then our Blood be on our own Heads.... and upon our Children.
Thanks for your exhaustive post. I disagree with some portions. I also think that other portions commensurate with "the_doc"s own Post on the subject of "Just War". And I wholeheartedly agree with you on some parts. ("Salman Pak" seems pretty damning to me, as I have said).
I'll respond in full when I respond to "the_doc". Thanks for your patience.
By the way... the vastly-disproportionate Membership of Orthodox Presbyterians in Operation Rescue may have left a permanent impression in my young mind, those ten to fifteen years ago. But in the spirit of Due Charity, I will say this...
The current "Operation Save America" (i.e., the new incarnation of "operation rescue") National Director Flip Benham is a Good Methodist (I will always give Honest Charity, even when it chafes my hide). Assuming he is not a Whitfield-Derived " Calvinist Methodist" (which is possible), he might even be a Good Wesleyan... admirable for his adherence to Wesley's Morality, if not Wesley's Poor Theology.
For all that the Orthodox Presbyterians have (as usual) provided the Shock Troops (and due credits to Reformed Baptists and Traditional Catholics for their contributions), it is only fair for me to observe that the Current National Director, Rev. Flip Benham, is truly a Good Methodist.
Indeed, he may be the only Good Methodist left.
Good for you, MHGinTN. Every form of Chemical Contraceptive is an Abortifacient. Many Christians are not aware of this.
Every form of Chemical Contraceptive violates the Sixth Commandment. Many Christians are not aware of this.
As to "Mechanical" Contraceptives -- whether "condoms and sponges", or Medically "having your tubes tied", or Roman Catholic "Natural Family Planning" (which is, in my view, a biologoical mechanism, but still a Mechanical Contraceptive)... I have not yet made my decision.
I have not yet completely made up my mind on the question of "mechanical contraceptives" which do not directly violate the Sixth Commandment against Murder, whether condoms or vasectomies or "Natural Family Planning". To my mind, all of these represent a form of Mechanistic Birth Control. The Roman Catholic FReeper "Polycarp" has been a great comfort to me in affirming the abortifacient nature of all Chemical Contraceptives... but if and when I make up my mind on the matter of "mechanical contraceptives" which do not kill, I'm not likely to fall in line with the Roman Catholic position.
My choice, as I see it, is between "Thou Shalt Not Kill" Ethic which would permit non-lethal contraception, or a "Go Forth And Multiply" Ethic which would disavow any form of contraception at all. I am respectfully not likely to give credence to what I see as the "Roman Catholic moral half-way house" of Natural Family Planning.
Grist for the mill. I haven't made up my own mind yet. (I am single, I have some leeway at the moment).
But I applaud your education of Christians on the Abortifacient nature of all Chemical Contraceptives. The American Church is in dire need of Moral Instruction.. and in dire need of instruction upon the facts of the case.
If the Evangelical United Brethren ever re-connect with their Spiritual Founder, Saint Martin Luther, on the Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, we'd share our Table with them.
Heck, we permit Reformed Baptists to Sup at our Table... indeed, even to Preach.
Maybe we're alone in our ambivalence (grin), but I think you're on the ball. If a Christian does not "struggle" with any Question of War, he isn't much of a Christian.
I agree with you RnMomof7. Amen and Amen. When the US bodybags come home -- and those also of 17-year-old Iraqi draftees, torn from their mothers by the dictates of an Evil State only to die in the blast of American Bombs -- I can only say "Amen".
A Christian can never be "comfortable" with War.
AT BEST we can be resigned to the Facts of Necessity.
And we still gotta look Jesus Christ in the eye, and give Him our reasons.
If we can't do that, we're nothing.
The Neo-Conservative Imperialists can crusade for their "protection of middle east stability" and "world oil supplies" and "a new world order", and we understand that such are their reasons.
But those better not be our Reasons.
Our reasons better be founded on the matter of 3,000 Americans being burned to death on September 11.
Otherwise, we have no business looking Jesus Christ in the face and telling Him we're gonna kill a bunch of people.
At least I couldn't.
Like OP , this now reform believer was an "operation Rescue " participant ..Where was Ted Kennedy?
MH..You will not find any stronger PRO life advocates than Bible beliving Christians. Please do not confuse us witth the "mainline" apostate Protestant churches..
Another Thanks ...You say it so much better than I could
LOL..Well I frequently have my foot in my mouth..the surgery is painful:>)
Part of the problem is that we are tending to use traditional courtroom standards of proof. We Americans automatically tend to play devil's advocate. This may be why the CIA has disparaged our Czech intelligence colleagues even though the Czechs have angrily retorted that they are sure of the fact of Atta's meeting with Iraqi intelligences.
(Another much weirder example of a willingness to discard evidence which technically falls short of ironclad proof is the fact that the UN weapons inspectors apparently accepted the Iraqi explanation that Salman Pak is a counter-terrorist training site. [Oh, great.]
The problem is, there is almost always something "wrong" with the evidence. But this is a completely normal phenomenon of God-ordained Satanic meddling. This should remind us that some feeble-minded jurors in American courtrooms can't vote to convict obviously guilty parties.)
Besides, we'd like to have a lot more than the usual circumstantial evidence (especially since we have so many Americans who will oppose even an obviously appropriate military response). We want to have the proverbial smoking gun--and genuinely smoking guns are hard to come by.
For various emotion-charged reasons, we furthermore wanted to find the "gun" right after it was fired. The passage of time makes it less smoky in our perception. (We have become dulled to the mounting evidence. We have gotten sidetracked in arguments in the UN about an oddly different matter.)
In the next place, we tend to expect not only a smoking gun but an outright confession. And we are not going to get this. The Sean Penn types are going to believe Saddam's protestations of innocence--largely because terrorists have historically claimed responsibility for acts of terrorism.
Ah, but we live in an ugly new world. A lot of time passed before we could get solid evidence that Al Qaeda was terribly interested in taking glorious responsibility for 9/11! And Saddam is content for various reasons to disavow any connection. In short, it seems that the exigencies of the terrorists' situation are such that they have to be content with more post-incident secrecy. The nation-states which sponsor terrorists realize that they can't hide from the wrath of the United States if they brag about the incidents of terrorism.
(I think that this may explain the shootdown of TWA 800. For various reasons, our own government has covered up what really happened [there has been new info on this today, BTW], and the terrorists declined to take organizationally-specific credit.)
In the final analysis, I think we have to get beyond all the smoke-and-mirrors issues. With all due respect to St. Thomas Aquinas, I think we need to default to the well-known and completely unapologetic Texas approach which points out that Saddam just needs killing.
I am going back over old threads a bit, RN... catching up on loose ends.
I still have some Theonomic issues to work out with "MHGinTN" and "the_doc" (MHG is a fairly new friend of mine. "The_doc" is a very old -- well, not THAT old -- and very treasured friend). Suffice it to say that if the Lord says, "Blessed are the Peacemakers", I am content to play "Peace-makers Advocate" -- a Skeptic towards War, all War, all Killing.
Anyway, it's always nice to find a fellow Rescue Operative. Without demeaning the Justification of LEGITIMATE JUST-WAR ANTI-TERRORIST Operations, I am not too surprised to find in you a fellow Skeptic towards War... all War.
Operation Rescue was highly Idealistic. We weren't very Pragmatic. We did a terribly bad job of listening to Constitutional "Shadows of Penumbras" and "going along to get along" and all that incrementalist rot.
We had a very simple idea... Killing People is Bad.
That was the extent of Operation Rescue "theology". It wasn't very complex. We asked very little of the American Church. All we asked was that they believed that Killing People is Bad, and that they acted like they believed it.
I guess that was too much too ask.
I was Sixteen years old when I joined Operation Rescue. Well, I guess I'm Smarter now. I guess I'm Wiser now. I guess I'm more Cynical now.
I quit Operation Rescue over ten years ago. I guess I deduced that it doesn't do you a bit of good to stand up for God's Law when the rest of the "Church of Christ" is screaming, "We have no King but Caesar -- Send in the Lions!!"
It was sickening. It was like "Kristallnacht" and "Reichstag", all rolled into one. The fact that the Orthodox Presbyterians were more bloodied and bruised by the Rescue Betrayal than any other Denomination probably accounts in great extent for my Membership with them today.
I am highly skeptical of Caesar.
I am highly skeptical of the American "Church of Christ."
And I think I have my reasons.
"No King But Jesus".
This Creed is FORGOTTEN.
I bump this again, because I want to know the answer. I know that there is no "proof" that the 9/11 terrorists passed through Salam Pak, but there is evidence that non-Iraqi muslim terrorists did indeed train there (seperately from the Iraqis).
Why don't we know any more? Has anyone even attempted to say this isn't true? This alone was enough to take out Sadaam. Period.
ping
Funny how this thread keeps coming up form time to time. Since Jayna Davis wrote her book, this Salman Pak thing is just the beginning. She points to evidence that Iraq was involved in the OKC bombing too. TWA800? Probably...
You're freaking me out, man.
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