Free Republic

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...

Anti-mafia police in the southern Italian city of Potenza are investigating allegations that the Calabrian mafia (N'drangheta) helped an Italian firm to sell radioactive materials to the regime of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. In his latest book, 'N'drangheta' an Italian historian and expert on the N'drangheta, Antonio Nicaso, explains that a now declassified CIA document supports these allegations. The unnamed Italian company on three occasions between 1979 and 1982 sold uranium to Saddam, who wanted to acquire nuclear weapons, the CIA document claims. Quoting the CIA report, Nicaso said the materials included 486 tonnes of yellowcake uranium, 33,470 kilogrammes...

Soon there will be the 30th anniversary of the (communist)-islamic Revolution in Iran. Time to remember history, as it threatens to repeat itself. Since 1943, when Iran joined the Allies in World War II, the land between the Caspian and the Persian Gulf has been one of America's central pillars in the Middle East , especially after 1945 in the struggle against Soviet Communism. For almost 3 decades the US relied on the two pillars of the Middle East: Israel and Iran. Both facing hostile Soviet-influenced Arab Socialist regimes. Carter's withdrawal of crucial military and political support to the Shah,...

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia (Reuters) - The chief torturer under the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" regime wept and prayed on Tuesday as he led the judges who will try him for crimes against humanity around the mass graves for some of its victims. Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, accompanied 80 judges, lawyers and other officials of a U.N.-backed tribunal to the 129 graves, uncovered after a Vietnamese invasion sent the Khmer Rouge back to the jungles in 1979. "I saw Duch kneel in front of the trees where Khmer Rouge soldiers smashed children to death," a policeman told reporters...

Before the U.S. House of Representatives, November 21, 1979 Although I was not in Congress when either the Lockheed or the New York City bailouts were enacted, I would have opposed both of those actions, as well as the proposed action regarding Chrysler, for many of the same reasons. Let me explain those reasons. In a nation that is sinking in a sea of debt, it is irresponsible for this Congress to be considering a measure that would add billions to that debt. The expansion of credit is one of the primary forms of inflation. It is not merely inflationary...

Barack Obama appears to have personally benefited from funds originating in Saddam Hussein's regime. It's a complicated connection, but one that deserves the consideration of Americans voters. Two similar figures, Nadhmi Auchi and Antoin S. "Tony" Rezko, served as the intermediaries. Both are Middle Eastern males of Catholic Christian heritage who left Baathist dictatorships for Western cities (Auchi from Iraq to London, Rezko from Syria to Chicago). Both became successful businessmen who hobnobbed with politicians and promoted Arab interests. Both have been convicted of taking kickbacks and both stand accused of other shady dealings. Auchi, born in 1937, is the...

While the remains of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and Washington, DC's Pentagon are "ground zero" for the horrible destruction wrought by foreign terrorists, the nation's forests, research labs, resorts and housing developments have long been "ground zero" for domestic environmentally-driven "ecoterrorists." There may be diabolical links between the two forces. There is a strong possibility that Animal Liberation Front (ALF) terrorists have come into possession of Anthrax as the result of having invaded laboratories that have been researching the disease. This certainly merits investigation as a source for the Anthrax attacks. The fact ...

Jimmy Carter the Criminal Liar! Carter & the Arab (oil) lobby - (Impeach) Lowlife Jimmy Carter's grudge against the Shah for not paying him money... - Carter's responsibility in the tortue of Americans in 1979 by the Mullahs of Iran - Carter FOR Islamofascism - How Carter brought us 9/11 Islamic massacre - Carter's crimes on Millions of Iranians - The Islamic apartheid that created a myth about (against) democratic Israel - His own admission on Israel's great equality, multi racial, multi culture free for all society - Jimmy Carter the Criminal - Carter's Crimes Against Humanity - 'Palestine'...

Saddam Surat # 4 - Was 9/11 Modus Operandi the Same as 1980 Saddam Subterfuge? Excerpt from Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall (2005:187)---"The Iranian revolution had a dramatic impact internationally, particularly when Iranian revolutionaries were held responsible for incidents such as the storming of the American embassy in Tehran on December 17, 1979, when the Revolutionary Guards took six-six American diplomats hostage. The following year the mounting tensions between Iran and Iraq spilled onto the streets of London when a group of six pro-Iraqi rebels from Khorramshahr in Iran's Arab province of Khuzistan seized control of the Iranian...

Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, international political systems have witnessed dramatic changes. The cold war was declared over after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Given the nature of these changes, terms such as critical engagement and constructive engagement became buzz words amongst foreign policy decision makers. A new world order was declared and in the UK, New Labour went as far as declaring "ethical foreign policy". In terms of threats that the world is facing it can be said that the world is now a less secure place to live in. The rise of extremist, fundamentalist Islamists who...

Energy Policy: It's tempting to make fun of Hillary Clinton's prophecy of oil prices plunging with her inauguration. But a female reincarnation of Jimmy Carter, reviving his disastrous energy policies, is no laughing matter.There's an overarching dream that animates many politicians of the left: to lead a government in peacetime that inspires the populace to sacrifice with the same zeal they would if they were living in wartime. President Carter was all set in the summer of 1979 to give a speech calling the country's energy challenges "as serious as war itself and deserving of the same sustained national effort."...

JIMMY CARTER THE CRIMINAL   Jimmy Carter - infamous worst ex US president that is largely at fault for the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran (by putting extra pressure on the Shah), ultimately resulting in 1) Islamic Republic of Iran's oppression of millions of Persians, and 2) the planet in peril at the hands of that nation's mullahs' nukes.   Jimmy Carter has his hands blooded in every single violent action being perpetrated by that Islamic republic on a daily basis since 1979, including the crimes against humanity like the massacres in the 1980's, the terrible persecution on minorities such as:...

DETROIT - A man charged with smuggling dlrs 12 million in bogus cashiers checks into the United States told agents the man named on the checks may belong to al-Qaida, authorities said Wednesday. Omar Shishani, 47, also told investigators during an interview that "if you want to know about terrorism, I can help you with that," Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Straus said during a hearing. Defense attorney Nabih Ayad denied his client ever made such statements. Shishani, who was born in Jordan but is of Chechen descent, was arrested last week after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a flight...

COLUMBIA University Presi dent Lee Bollinger yester day made some cutting crit icisms while introducing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - but that doesn't make the school's decision to offer a platform to the head of a violent terrorist state any less abject, squalid or shameless. "Abject, squalid, shameless" is how Winston Churchill described the resolution passed by Oxford University's prestigious Debating Union in 1933 - the year Adolf Hitler came to power - that "this House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country." And Columbia's event, like the 1933 Oxford resolution, sent (to quote Churchill again) a "very...

While Iran continues to deny that Israel has the right to exist, Iranian and Israeli representatives are holding clandestine talks in Europe to settle an old Israeli debt, Ha'aretz reported Wednesday. Iran is still owed hundreds of millions of dollars for oil it supplied to Israel in the years before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and representatives of the two countries, now sworn enemies, are holding contacts meant to settle the debt, according to the report in Haaretz. The report was attributed to anonymous Israeli and Swiss officials involved in the negotiations. Two mediation processes involving different parts of the...

(Michael P. Tremoglie is the author of the novel A Sense of Duty, available at http://www.geocities.com/nattybumpo1981/) The year 1979 was a catalytic year for the people of the United States of America. The events of that year set the table for what would culminate in World War IV, the war against Islamism ( or Islamo-Fascism as some call it), the first global war of the 21st century. The year began with the formation of an Islamic theocracy. On February 11, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran. This was the first time an Islamist government took control of a sovereign...

Saudi Wealth Fuels Global Jihadism Posted Oct. 27, 2003 By Kenneth R. Timmerman Generations of Muslims in the Middle East have been raised on the anti-Western, anti-Semitic theologies of Ayatollah Khomeini and in the Saudi Wahhabi system of madrassas (religious schools). This foundation set the stage for the rise of Osama bin Laden. Doaa 'Amer is a professional TV anchor who hosts Muslim Woman Magazine on IQRAA TV, a satellite channel broadcasting throughout the Arab world. As she tells it, her job is to educate the next generation of children to be "true Muslims." Readers accustomed to hearing Islam described...

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki. The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said. The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was...

Reza'i: Iranian Nation To Make 'Final Decision' in Confrontation With US IRNA (Internet Version-WWW) Bushehr, April 21, IRNA -- Secretary of the State Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei (Reza'i) said here late Thursday the Iranian nation will make the final decision in the challenge with the US. Addressing a gathering in this southern province, Rezai said the Iranian nation, as proved in 1979 Islamic Revolution, is decisive in defending their rights. He rejected the possibility of a US attack on Iran, saying under such crucial circumstances in which there is a possibility of economic sanctions, the Iranian nation will have the...

A top Iranian cleric in Tehran publicly acknowledged on Friday that “disciples” of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, took American diplomats working in the United States embassy in Tehran hostage in November 1979. “When you [the Americans] sent Imam Khomeini to exile on November 4 [1963], you didn’t think that disciples of the Imam would seize your embassy on the anniversary of that day and would take away your spies blindfolded”, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the powerful Guardians Council, told worshippers during his Friday prayers sermon in the Iranian capital. Islamist militants...

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) --The fugitive founder of a violent Puerto Rican independence group was killed in a gunfight with federal agents at a mountain farmhouse in western Puerto Rico, the FBI said Sunday. Filiberto Ojeda Rios, 72, opened fire on agents who were trying to arrest him at a house in the Hormigueros area of Puerto Rico on Friday, the FBI said. Ojeda Rios was killed, and an FBI agent was shot in the stomach and severely wounded, the agency said. Ojeda Rios was the founder and leader of Puerto Rico's radical Boricua Popular Army, which sought independence for the...

Behrouz Javid Tehrani is a 27 year old student activist struggling towards democracy in Iran. Mr. Tehrani has spent more than four years of his life in prison simply because of his belief in freedom and democracy. He was first arrested at the age of 22 during the July 9, 1999 student uprising. After his arrest he spent 10 months in solitary confinement inside cell block 209 of the notorious Evin Prison. This is the prison where political prisoners are taken to be tortured, have their spirits broken, and even murdered at the hands of the regime agents. It is...

After we had talked about all manner of jihadists for an hour — jihadists in Kashmir attacking India, jihadists in Afghanistan attacking America and today jihadists in Pakistan attempting to kill President Pervez Musharraf — I asked the high American official, “don’t you feel that you spend all your time just picking up the pieces for the wrongheaded policies when the West supported the jihadists as a tool against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan?” He sighed, nodded and replied, “That’s right”. Driving away from that conversation I was convinced more than ever that the various terrorist movements unleashed in this...

The Bible is full of praise for Persia (today's much-maligned Iran) and for its rulers. In the Book of Ezra, God speaks through the proclamations of Cyrus, the king of Persia, who declares, "The Lord God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem." Cyrus acceded to this divine command, and thus was the Second Temple in Jerusalem built. In other parts of the Old Testament, there is ringing praise of Cyrus as God's "anointed" and the "chosen" ruler, who freed Jews from their Babylonian...

Student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. The students were enraged that the deposed Shah had been allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment and they threatened to murder hostages if any rescue was attempted. Days later, Iran's provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country--and the fate of the hostages. Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The United States can designate foreign organizations as terrorist groups and bar Americans from financially backing them, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. "Leaving the determination of whether a group is a 'foreign terrorist organization' to the executive branch ... is both a reasonable and a constitutional way to make such determinations," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote for a three-judge panel. "The Constitution does not forbid Congress from requiring individuals, whether they agree with the executive branch determination or not, to refrain from furnishing material assistance to designated terrorist organizations." The ruling by the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to take the case of California death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang whose later work for peace won him Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Williams, who has been praised for his children's books and efforts to curtail youth gang violence, likely will be executed in December if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not grant clemency. The 51-year-old former gang member claims Los Angeles County prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors. Williams, who claims he is innocent, is in line to be...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- “Once captured, there is no comprehending what goes through your head,” said former Marine and Vietnam prisoner of war, Walter W. Eckes, 59, who spoke at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital’s 15th annual Prisoner of War/Missing in Action remembrance ceremony Sept 16. The first national commemoration for POWs/MIAs was July 18, 1979. Since then, Congress has passed yearly resolutions for the tribute. But in 1996, a presidential proclamation designated the third Friday in September as National POW/MIA Recognition Day. For the commemoration in 1991, the hospital planted a tree as a living memorial...

A group of former hostages is demanding that the CIA turn over a classified report that they say wrongly cleared Iran's new president of his role in interrogating them during the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran that began on Nov 4,1979. Incensed that the Bush admin failed to investigate properly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's role in the hostage crisis, they have launched a campaign ahead of his speech this week at the United Nations to hold the Iranian leader to account. A September 9 letter from four of the former hostages to the chairman and ranking member of the House International Relations...

WASHINGTON – Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad has been identified by at least six U.S. hostages as a ringleader in the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover. He has been identified by former Iranian President Bani Sadr as Ayatollah Khomeini's liaison with the hostage takers. He stands accused of the murder of a Kurdish leader in Vienna by officials in Austria who say they have compelling evidence and want an arrest warrant sworn for him And, as mayor of Tehran, he was one of the principal forces behind a campaign to recruit and train suicide bombers throughout the country. Nevertheless, he will be...

Analysis not final, officials say WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A CIA report has determined with "relative certainty" that Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was not involved in the taking of U.S. hostages 26 years ago, three government officials told CNN on Friday. The officials insisted on anonymity, saying they did not want to speak for the CIA about its report. Another U.S. official said the tone of the report is that there is no evidence to date that the new Iranian president was among those who held U.S. diplomats hostage. The officials cautioned that the analysis is not final. Two former...

Al Muhajiroun (Khavarej) is referred to a clandestine group of four who cooperated to assassinate four leaders at promptly the same time: Imam Ali who was a religious leader (the fourth Suni's Khalif and the first Shiite's Imam), Moavieh who was the leader of the land, Amro Aas who was a canning politician and a senior advisor to Moavieh, and - Of the four only one, namely Ibn Moljam, successfully carried out his assassination by wounding Imam Ali with a poisonous sword, during the Imam's pray. Imam Ali died of his wound on the third night, the 21st, of Ramadan....

When American bombs were raining down on what is left of Afghanistan, fellow Muslims in the neighbouring Islamic republic of Iran took out to the Streets. Contrary to our expectations in the West, they did not rally to denounce the 'Great Satan' - the name given to America by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Instead, ordinary Iranians, in one of the most extraordinary shifts in the geopolitical landscape since September 11, challenged their own hard-line Islamic clerics who swept Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from power in 1979. Tens of thousands of men and women also demonstrated, in several cities, after World...

Oil cartel OPEC's second largest producer, Iran on Wednesday said it expects crude oil prices to touch $70 a barrel by the end of 2005 due to demand-supply mismatch."Many experts expect oil prices to reach $70 per barrel at the end of this year. We think it may happen," Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Nejad Hosseinian said. He said oil prices were at an all time high as "demand is higher than supplies. (For producers to) increase supplies of crude will take time."India, which depends on imports for 73 per cent of its oil needs, is already facing a huge burden...

TEHRAN: Iran confirmed on Sunday that hardline president-elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad will attend the UN General Assembly in New York in September, dismissing any possible US visa restrictions in the wake of allegations of his role in the US embassy siege. “Yes, Mr Ahmadinejad and the accompanying delegation will go to New York to take part in the UN world summit, he will also meet with the Iranians there,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. Asefi again denied US allegations about Ahmadinejad’s possible role in the 1979 hostage-taking at the US embassy in Tehran following the Islamic revolution, a...

In 1947, Ruhalhah Khomeini, then a mid-ranking mullah in Qom, issued a “fatwa” (opinion) that made it incumbent on “the faithful” to murder Ahmad Kasravi. It took a group of eight “faithful” to plan and carry out the murder several months later. A jubilant Khomeini told his entourage that he had “eliminated that paragon of impiety” for ever. At the time of his murder Kasravi was one of Iran’s leading intellectuals. A veritable Renaissance man, he was a senior jurist at the high court, a distinguished historian, a magnetic orator, a master of the Persian prose, and a best-selling author....

The White House said Thursday that Iran's incoming president was a leader of the student movement that orchestrated the capture of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, but the United States still hasn't determined whether he took hostages as alleged by some of those who were held. Six former hostages have identified Iran's ultraconservative president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as one of their captors during the 444 days they were held. Bush said on June 30 that their allegation ``raises many questions.'' The U.S. government has been investigating since then. ``I don't think it should surprise anyone given the nature of the regime...

"As soon as I saw his picture in the paper, I knew that was the bastard," retired Army Col. Charles Scott, 73, a former hostage told the Times. "He was one of the top two or three leaders." Added Scott, "The new president of Iran is a terrorist." Scott is one of at least six former hostages who have stated that they believe the men are one in the same. This is being viewed as an issue that can further complicate an already very complicated situation, as the U.S. seeks to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons and from continuing...

In south Tehran there is a huge walled cemetery dedicated to the martyrs, the young men who died fighting in the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. This vast city of the dead, complete with its own subway station and shops, does not share Arlington National Cemetery's sublimely stoic aesthetic of identical tombstones, row upon row. In Tehran's war cemetery, each of the fallen is remembered individually with his own martyr's shrine, a sealed glass cabinet on a stand. The cabinets are filled with faded photos of men forever young, some in helmets or red bandannas, some carrying...

N.C. Hearing Opens on 1979 Klan Killings By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago Signe Waller, right, is comforted by Cory Wechler, a friend, on stage as she reads her prepared statement, Friday, July 15, 2005, during the public hearing of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Greensboro, N.C. Waller was at the November 3, 1979 anti-Ku Klux Klan rally when a violent confrontation between Communist Workers Party members and the Ku Klux at Morningside Homes in Greensboro, left five CWP members dead, including her husband Dr. Jim Waller. (AP Photo/Lynn Hey) GREENSBORO, N.C. - The widow...

WASHINGTON - If the newly elected Iranian president turns out to have been a main participant in the holding of American hostages in Teheran, he won’t be the first top Iranian official with a role in the 1979 crisis. The current Iranian environment minister, Massoumeh Ebtekar, was the chief interpreter and spokeswoman for the radical students who took over the US Embassy and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Dubbed “Sister Mary” by the American press because her heavy head scarf resembled a nun’s habit, Ebtekar gave almost nightly interviews during the standoff, denouncing the hostages as spies and...

A photo has emerged which it is claimed links the President-elect of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the taking of 60 American hostages during the US embassy siege in Tehran in 1979. A London-based Iranian news agency which opposes Mr Ahmadinejad is circulating the photograph, which it says was taken by the Associated Press news agency on the first day of the hostage crisis. In the picture, a man which the Iran Focus agency claims it has identified as Mr Ahmadinejad, is seen holding the arm of a blindfolded US hostage. The possible role of Mr Ahmadinejad in the embassy takeover,...

TEHRAN, IRAN – The ritual burning of the US flag is not going to stop. Nor will the chants - especially on Iranian revolutionary anniversaries - of "Death to America." Unlike every other presidential candidate who hinted at a thaw in relations, to appeal to the majority of Iranians who say they want better US ties, hard-line president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran "has no significant need" for the US. But beneath the anti-US façade is a nation that has much in common with its stated nemesis - from an ambitious self-image and public reliance on the divine, to a habit...

Roya Hakakian's story of growing up Jewish during the Iranian Revolution. Revolution. Everything in Iran changed on February 1, 1979, the day Ayatollah Khomeini returned to our country a few days after the departure of the Shah. Suddenly, millions were demanding an end to 2,500 years of monarchy--including hundreds of young Jews who joined the revolution against the wishes of their elders, hoping to recast their identities as secular Iranians who could assimilate seamlessly into the fabric of the promised utopia. Khomeini quickly took on the status of an "imam," only a step away from prophet in the Shi'ite tradition,...

The Ten Commandments has had a place in Anglican catechesis since the first Book of Common Prayer (1549). Here is a portion of the form found in that Book:Question: You sayde that your Godfathers and Godmothers dyd promiyse for you that ye should kepe Goddes commaundementes. Tell me how many there bee.Aunswere: Tenne.Question: Whiche be they?Aunswere: Thou shalte haue none other Gods but me. II. Thou shalte not make to thyselfe anye grauen image, nor the likenesse of any thing that is in heaven aboue, or in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth: thou shalt not...

Traditional Anglican catechisms require candidates to memorize the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and to grasp the Anglican understanding of the Sacraments before being presented to the Bishop for Confirmation. This involves a commitment of time and effort consistent with the importance of Baptism and Confirmation. The Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Sacraments constitute the baseline of instruction in traditional catechisms. This piece is Part 1 in a series on the 1979 “Outline of Faith” and addresses only the use of the Apostles’ Creed in catechesis (religious instruction).First it should be noted...

On January 18 Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, told a placard-waving anti-war crowd: "The greatest patriots of this country are here today...The president said it'd be a cold day in Washington before this country turns against this war, but it is a cold day in Washington and here we are." Apart from Conyers nasty insinuation people who disagree with his leftwing views about war against the genocidal Saddam are not patriotic, what can we deduce from his presence? Well, for one, Rep. does not like America and prefers the company of totalitarians to that of genuine democrats. And how...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...