Free Republic

Recently there were seven new ’wonders of the world’ introduced. Here are at least some ‘Wonders of Islam’ among so many ‘WONDERFUL ISLAM’ 1) Muhammad raping (marrying) an “ape”Since non-Muslims are “apes & pigs” in their teaching, [specifically Christians are “pigs” & Jews are “apes”] How come 6 years old Jewish girl Aisha was “allowed” to be raped / “married’ to the “prophet”? 2) All in one: Evil smile, denial & threatsCheering towards thousands of non-Muslims dying, yet denying Islamic massacres on the infidels [such as the 9/11], still threatening more of the same, all in one breath. 3) Behold the “peace” of IslamThe...

FRIDAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE Well, this hasn't been what you would call an ordinary week off. There I am last Wednesday taking a hike in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona. I come back to the room and decide to check the email. There's a message from the White House marked "urgent." Well ... let me tell ya ... you're gonna want to open that message, and so I did. OK ... so this might be such a big deal for some folks out there, but it sure got my attention. The President was inviting me and a few...

WASHINGTON - The government needs broader access to airline passenger information to identify potential hijackers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in an article published Tuesday. "How do we thwart a terrorist who has not yet been identified?" Chertoff wrote in an op-ed article in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Post. "One way is by using more of the detailed information collected by airlines and travel agencies when an individual books a flight," Chertoff wrote. "These passenger name records contain information, such as travel itineraries and payment details, that can be analyzed in conjunction with current intelligence to identify high-risk...

NOTE: If you have security concerns,please respond with private message. Hijacking 4 airliners on 9/11 required a helluva lot of planning - especially as to "flight plans". It might have been "relatively simple" to hijack the planes ,and, since some of the hijackers had taken lessons,they could operate aircraft controls to some degree ; but how about the navigation? Think about it for a minute.You take over an aircraft,but cannot reliably predict how long the takeover efforts will require,and what your location will be when this occurs. You now have to change course and altitude precisely so you hit your...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2006 – In the so-called "Long War," information will be as important as ammunition, a senior military officer said. "It is clear ... in a global perspective how important information is and its ability to influence people and their ideas," Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. "We have to understand that." Odierno called the Jan. 19 Osama bin Laden statement claiming preparation for another terrorist attack and carried by all Western media as "information warfare, pure and simple." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has often spoken about...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2005 – A preliminary investigation of alleged improprieties conducted by U.S. military information operations activities in Iraq hasn't found any wrongdoing, the top U.S. officer in Iraq said today. "We concluded that we were operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures," Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said from his headquarters in Iraq during a satellite news conference with Pentagon reporters. Casey, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, was responding to a reporter's question on the status of the two-week-old review Navy Rear Adm. Scott R. Van Buskirk is conducting into U.S. information operations practices in...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2005 – Senior U.S. military leaders in Iraq are now investigating allegations that information about U.S. operations in Iraq was improperly placed in Iraqi newspapers, according to a Multinational Force Iraq news release today. "Recent news coverage concerning information operations in Iraq has generated concerns regarding military communications objectives and procedures," the release stated. U.S. commanders in Iraq consider information operations an important communications tool, the news release stated. "Serious allegations have been raised that suggest the process may be functioning in a manner different than is intended or appropriate," the news release stated. The issue surfaced...

PARIS, 19 Oct. (IPS) On the eve of the trial of the toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, some former members of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organsation (MKO) demanded that the leader of the outlawed Organisation and some of his close associates be also tried for “crimes against both the Iraqi and Iranian peoples”. “The toppled regime of Saddam Hussein actively supported international terrorism and committed crimes against Iraqi and Iranian peoples and the Mojaheedin Khalq Organisation, led by Mas’oud Rajavi, were at the top of the list of these terrorist organizations”, Behzad Alishahi, a former member of the group said in...

WASHINGTON - The prosecutor in the CIA leak probe repeatedly asked New York Times reporter Judith Miller how Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff handled classified information in their discussions, and asked whether Cheney knew of their conversations. In a first-person account released Saturday on The Times' Web site, Miller recounted her recent grand jury testimony, which focused on her conversations in 2003 with Cheney's closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Miller said she "didn't think" she heard covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's name from Libby. "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could...

(2005-09-23) — "Hours after a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that fewer than half of respondents believe the U.S. can win the war in Iraq, a second survey showed that more than 99 percent of Americans are not in Iraq, and almost as many form opinions about the war based exclusively on what they learn from CNN, USA Today and other news organizations. Of the 818 Americans telephoned by pollsters, according to an unnamed Gallup spokesman, roughly zero percent are currently stationed in Iraq, where about 150,000 U.S. troops spend their days providing security, hunting down terrorists, training Iraqi police and...

Vietnam’s communist government knows that it is impossible to monitor the country’s 5,000 cyber cafes, so it’s forcing the cafe owners to be its eyes and ears. Last July, a government directive informed cafe owners that they will have to take a six-month course so that they can better monitor their cyber customers. The Vietnamese government is justifying its move for reasons of “national security and defense” — that is, to protect itself against online journalists who, it says, “provide sensationalist news and articles while others even publish reactionary and libelous reports and a depraved culture.” Reporters Without Borders (RWB),...

An Arizona national guardsman serving in Iraq has been demoted for posting classified information on his blog, an army official said. Leonard Clark (40) was demoted from specialist to private first class and fined $1 640 said Colonel Bill Buckner, a spokesperson for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, on Monday. Soldiers in Iraq are allowed to maintain blogs but cannot post information about army operations or movements. They also are barred from posting information about the death of a soldier whose family hasn't yet been notified. "The intent of the policy is not to violate soldiers' rights, but to safeguard soldiers," Buckner...

WASHINGTON - An Army intelligence officer says his unit was blocked in 2000 and 2001 from giving the FBI information about a U.S.-based terrorist cell that included Mohamed Atta, the future leader of the Sept. 11 attacks. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said the small intelligence unit, called "Able Danger," had identified Atta and three of the other future Sept. 11 hijackers as al-Qaida members by mid-2000. He said military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI. The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks left the Able Danger claims out of its official report. In an interview...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed a judge Tuesday in central Tehran and then sped off, a judiciary spokesman said. Judge Masoud Moqadasi handled a case against an investigative reporter jailed in 2000 for reporting that intelligence officials murdered five Iranian dissidents in 1998, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said. The journalist Akbar Ganji remains in jail. Iran's Intelligence Ministry later blamed the murders of the dissidents on ``rogue agents'' in the secret service. As the judge drove away from his office, the gunman sped up to Moqadasi's car on a motorcycle and sprayed it...

WASHINGTON — Free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to help them filter and monitor the Internet activity of their citizens. Big technology names like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco have been criticized roundly in recent years for providing foreign governments with the tools they need to crack down on Internet use, but critics say they have not been able to do much more than complain. "These companies' lack of ethics is extremely worrisome," said Lucie Morillon, the Washington representative of...

Minister of Information Ali Younesi said that US is involved in forming networks for sabotage against Iran citing Abdul Malik terrorist networks as an example. "We have evidences to support link between Abdul Malik terrorist group with US and Israeli intelligence services," he said. "It is likely that US and Israeli intelligence services have infiltrated into certain terrorist networks in Arab states including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even European states. It is not unlikely that what happened in London is from that category," Younesi said. He said that certain extremist elements of al-Qaeda especially the financial supporters of the...

(Paris, May 19, 2005) -- An armed Iranian opposition group in exile, the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, has subjected dissident members to torture and prolonged solitary confinement, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 28-page report, “No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps,” details how dissident members of the shadowy Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) were tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies and undemocratic practices, or indicated that they planned to leave the organization. The report is based on the direct testimonies of...

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. oil-for-food probe violated the confidentiality of a witness by passing sensitive information about him to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his lawyer in preparation for a recent report, a former investigator claimed. The allegations were the latest in a dispute between the former investigator, Robert Parton, and the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Parton quit the committee in April, reportedly because he felt its March 29 interim report was too soft on Annan. The executive director of the probe, Reid Morden, said Monday the interim report did not violate...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - The new city attorney has issued a scathing report accusing the mayor and City Council of violating federal securities laws by hiding key information about the city's troubled finances. Mayor Dick Murphy disputed the findings and said City Attorney Michael Aguirre had no jurisdiction to investigate the alleged violations. "Mr. Aguirre's allegations are untrue, irresponsible and defamatory," Murphy said. "Mr. Aguirre is not the SEC. This is only Mr. Aguirre's opinion." The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors offices are investigating whether city officials concealed important information about San Diego's finances while selling more than...

I've been seeing a lot of coverage lately regarding the Iraqi elections, BUT missing from a lot of the coverage are the (printed) details of how many seats will be in the new Iraqi legislature -- as well as the details of the transition from this current elective process to an eventual Prime Minister of Iraq. Could those knowlegable FReepers out there (and I know there are a LOT of you too!) please lend their expertise to helping to inform me/others of some sort of a time table for the post-election Iraqi process? Much-obliged in advance....