This is one of the most interesting Anti-Islam posts I have ever seen. I happen to disagree with about 80% of it, as I know Muslims who would be and ARE outraged at some of the fringe elements in their religion. Nevertheless, agree or disagree, this video is certainly thought provoking...
Over the last several months chatter coming from al Qaeda operatives have warned that Muslims should leave U.S. cities in advance of a dirty bomb attack which would be carried out by Adnan G. El Shukrijumah.
We have a copy of what may have been is the initial NFL theat below.
Now, a new warning that the specific target of the attack will be NFL football stadiums this weekend. The Department of Homeland Security has downplayed the veracity of the threat.
Reports indicate that the threat was made on an Islamic website, but I am unaware of where the threat was posted. Who posted the threat and where it was posted would be a key issue here. There are literally thousands of Islamic websites in which all kinds of threats are made on a daily basis. But certain users are known to be connected, while most others seem to be teenage Muslims full of bluster and living out their snuff fantasies.
A source, using his handy "Combat Terrorism" toolbar, found this on a thread posted on a non-Islamic forum which has been taken offlline. It reads:
On Sunday, October 22nd, 2006, there will be seven "dirty" explosive devices detonated in seven different U.S. cities; Miami, New York City, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland and Cleveland. The death toll will approach 100,000 from the initial blasts and countless other fatalities will later occur as result from radioactive fallout.
The bombs themselves will be delivered via trucks. These trucks will pull up to stadiums hosting NFL games in each respective city. All stadiums to be targeted are open air arenas, excluding Atlanta's Georgia Dome, the only enclosed stadium to be hit. Due to the open air, the radiological fallout will destroy those not killed in the initial explosion. The explosions will be near simultaneous, with the cities specifically chosen in different time zones to allow for multiple attacks at the same time.
The 22nd of October will mark the final day of Ramadan as it would fall in Mecca. Al-Qaida will automatically be blamed for the attacks. Later, through Al-Jazeera, Osama bin Laden will issue a video message claiming responsibility for what he dubs "America's Hiroshima".
In the aftermath civil wars will erupt across the world, both in the Middle East and within the United States. Global economies will screech to a halt. General chaos will rule.
Now it sucks to have to say this... To even feel that it could be possible... But is this a real threat or a scare tactic put out there to make us think more about terrorism just before the elections?
To say I told you so. The current mia culpas coming from the right almost cry out for it. I could point out that all of us who criticized this war were called traitors, Bush Haters and worse. But not by these twoguys.
So I am going to resist the temptation to do what many on the Right have done... I am not going to push anyone's nose into the pooh. It's pretty clear that they are already beating themselves up enough. For Allahpundit, I have no such inclination. He has been one of the biggest cheerleaders of this inept administration from day one, and he, and Dean Esmay and Michelle Malkin and all the rest of the Booster Squad, will have to live with their own concience, if they have one.
The administration has been in denial since September 12, 2001. It is clear that they not only bungled 9/11, but Iraq as well, is clear... The fact that:
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 --Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Sunday vehemently denied that she ever received a special CIA warning about an imminent terrorist attack on the United States, angrily rebutting new allegations about her culpability in U.S. policy failures before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by al Qaeda.
She said it was "incomprehensible" that she would have ignored such explicit intelligence or appeals by senior CIA officials.
Rice, talking to reporters aboard her plane shortly after leaving Washington Sunday night en route to the Middle East, also dismissed as "simply ludicrous" other reports in a new book by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that she supported replacing Donald H. Rumsfeld and that the president had to intervene to get the secretary of defense to return some of her telephone calls.
Rice was responding to reports in Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," that detail disarray within the Bush administration over its troubled foreign policy. The book describes a special meeting requested on July 10, 2001, by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black to get Rice to focus on increasing intelligence pointing to an impending attack on U.S. soil. The book describes both men as frustrated by Rice's polite but inattentive response, allegedly brushing them off.
Rice acknowledged Sunday that the White House was receiving a "steady stream of quite alarmist reports of potential attacks" during daily meetings from Tenet during that period. But she said the targets were assumed to be in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel and Jordan. She said no reports mentioned the United States.
"What I am quite certain of, however, is that I would remember if I was told -- as this account apparently says -- that there was about to be an attack in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible," she told reporters.
Rice said her staff is now going back to check if there even was a meeting on July 10, 2001. Philip Zelikow, who was executive director of the 9/11 Commission and is now one of Rice's top advisers, stayed behind in Washington to try to reconstruct the sequence of events, she said. Rebuffing descriptions in the book that she was inattentive, Rice said she was concerned enough about a potential attack in the United States -- even without specific intelligence warnings -- that she had a meeting on July 5, 2001, with White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to urge him to hold a terrorism intelligence briefing for the Federal Aviation Administration and other domestic agencies.
National Security Council counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke also attended the July 5 meeting, she said. In addition, she asked that then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft be shown the terrorism threat reporting, since the Justice Department oversees the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI then held several briefings with their special agents, she said.
They continue to deny how badly they bungled 9/11, is no surprise. The surprise is that some on the Right are finaly starting to acknowledge that possibility... Well some anyway....
While the jury is out on whether Israel or Hezbollah attained their war objectives, a quick anecdotal poll of Russian, Chinese and Indian analysts suggests that in the eyes of the wider world the real loser is the United States.
Together with the bloody mess in Iraq, the mess in Lebanon is a set back for American prestige and influence. In India, where President George Bush is more liked than in almost any other Asian country, there is concern that Hezbollah has outwitted him on all counts.
President Bush says Hezbollah has been defeated as it will no longer be a state within a state because south Lebanon will be occupied by non-Hezbollah troops.
In contrast, although Chinese, Russian and Indian analysts hail from very dissimilar countries they are reaching similar conclusions that Hezbollah’s position has been strengthened.
Within Lebanese politics, Hezbollah’s prestige will be so unassailable that its Christian, Sunni and Amal Shiite rivals will not be able to criticize it openly for some time to come. Nor will any Arab government be able to castigate it for fear of angering the street.
Therefore, the most likely prospect is that Hezbollah’s fighters will be integrated into the Lebanese army instead of being asked to disarm. That will make them very influential because of their experience in fighting Israel. Their addition might also make Shiites the overall majority in the army. As such, a mere militia will have access to all the modern panoply, including command and control skills, of a national army.
Like I said... What alternate Universe does Bush live in? Bottom line... Hezbollah did not blink...
What do these photos show? When you look at their attire, you notice a couple of things. One isn't their sartorial splendor. It's that they look like anyone else in Lebanon. They blend in perfectly with anyone else walking around in that neighborhood, so if Israelis hit this particular heavy weapons position, the news report will claim that there were only seven or eight civilians hit - on the basis of the appearance of the clothes. The facts are substantially different. It would show that seven or eight Hizbullah terrorists were eliminated in a raid that successfully took out a heavy weapons position.
Okay, now someone want to explain to me how clothes would survice and huge weapon systems would be obliterated from the scene?
They show Hizbullah terrorists operating a heavy caliber machine gun in the middle of a densly populated area. Let's not forget that Hizbullah has had six years to prepare for this conflict, and knows the terrain well, and blends in perfectly with the civilian population, so that accurate counts of civilian casualties is simply impossible.
I got it, someone must have waded through the blood and guts and took the AK-47's out of the hands of those dead children...
These arguments border on ridiculous. The Israelis blew up some children. Did they do it deliberately? I am certain they did not, but all this bullshit justifying it is turning my stomach. It's a war, in war mistakes are made. ON BOTH SIDES. The true test of morality is whether one accepts their mistakes, makes ammends for them and makes every effort NOT to repeat them. This justification of Israeli carelessness does nothing to encourage that morality.
Israel is suppossed to be BETTER than Hezbollah...
Okay, I wake up this morning to the news that the Israeli Military has killed a bunch of civilians hiding in a basement:
QANA, Lebanon (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed 54 civilians, including 37 children, on Sunday, prompting Lebanon to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice she was unwelcome in Beirut and fuelling world pressure for a ceasefire.
The raid on the southern village of Qana was the bloodiest single attack during Israel's 19-day-old war on Hizbollah. Rescue workers dug through the rubble with their hands for hours, lifting out the twisted, dust-caked corpses of children.
The U.N. Security Council met for an emergency session to discuss Lebanon at the request of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan said he hoped council members would realize "how dangerous the situation is and how it can't escalate and get out of hand and the urgency for them to act."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep sorrow" at the bombing, but vowed the war against Hizbollah would go on. He told Rice the army needed another 10 to 14 days to press its offensive, a spokesman at his office said.
As anger convulsed Lebanon and the Arab world, several thousand protesters chanted "Death to Israel, Death to America" outside the United Nations headquarters in downtown Beirut and some smashed their way into the building.
Rice, who was in Israel, said she was saddened by the Qana air raid, but stopped well short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Her mediation drive in tatters, Rice will leave for Washington on Monday to work on a U.N. resolution that could achieve what the White House called a "sustainable" ceasefire.
It also said the Qana raid showed the critical need for Israel to take "the utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.
Then I see Condi Rice spinning the fact that the Prime Minister of Lebanon has canceled talks with her... To hear Condi talk, it was her idea, but no matter...
The next thing I see, is an orgry of justification for the Israeli attack by conservative blogs, based on this:
Graphic images smuggled out from Lebanon show how Hezbollah is waging war amid suburban homes.
A stream of images, obtained exclusively by the News Ltd, depicts how the extremists are using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy calibre weapons.
Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly melt back into suburbia, the fighters carrying automatic assault rifles ride in on trucks laden with cannons.
The photographs from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut were snapped by a visiting journalist caught in the midst of the war, then smuggled out by a friend.
I go expecting to see images of Hezbollah terrorist using women and children as shields. Those pictures must have been taken down (sarcasm intended). What I saw was a bunch of pictures of urban street fighters in SURPRISE, an urban environment!
But the line that takes the cake for me in all this, is this one from Wizbang:
"These pictures illustrate what may have happened in the bombing that killed 54 Lebanese civilians. How many of the civilians were actually terrorists? We may never know."
Well... its probably a safe bet that at least 34 of them were not...
I find myself agreeing some with Digger in his post on the subject. I do not sympathize with Hezbollah, and I agree that Lebanon should have evicted the Hezbollah terrorist a LONG time ago. I also agree with Israel's right to defend herself. To suggesst that Israel should just let terrorist sit accross the border and shell their cities would be ridiculous. As Digger says,
"If someone was launching missiles into cities in America I can guarantee you there would be action and while civilian deaths of those who are truly innocent are always a travesty, there's nothing that can be done about it when you allow evil to flourish amongst you with no complaints."
But that does not mean we should not be concerned about the innocents dying in this war. That does not mean we should dismiss the deaths of 34 children as simply collateral damage. It does not mean Israel should be exempt from standards of acceptable warfare. Condi Rice is NO Collin Powell. She seems ill equipted to handle this type of crisis, and there I dissagree with Digger... It IS a crises.
There needs to be an international Peace Keeping Force in Lebanon. Hezbollah MUST be dissarmed. Israel must take more care in determining the legitimacy of targets, and the U.S. must show more leadership in dealing with this issue. At the moment, this conflict is contained. A few more images of mangled children and it may not be...
The Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced on Sunday that its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons.
In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, said the weapons were the result of a three-year effort.
According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group has managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.
The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.
I mean, let's for a moment assume it is true... Anyone want to guess at the Israeli response? I can assure you of one thing... It wont be cowering in a corner. Can you say Nuclear option?
Seems a witness has come forward making that claim:
U.S. officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi man raised fresh questions about the events surrounding the end of Iraq's most-wanted militant.
The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, told AP Television News on Friday that he saw U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the victim's nose.
When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said he would check. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said Saturday he was unaware of the claim.
"We frequently receive allegations which prove to be unsubstantiated," Gordon said.
The Iraqi, identified only as Mohammed, said residents put a bearded man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived. He said the man was found lying next to an irrigation canal.
"He was still alive. We put him in the ambulance, but when the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead.
A dishdasha is a traditional Arab robe.
A similar account in The Washington Post identified him as Ahmed Mohammed.
No other witnesses have come forward to corroborate the account of a man resembling al-Zarqawi being beaten. U.S. officials have only said al-Zarqawi mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.
Could have happened... Am I going to cry about it. No... The man was a BRUTAL sadist and murderer. Whatever happened, he got what he deserved. But I doubt this claim. I am pretty sure if the bastard was still alive when they found him, our troops would not have done what is alleged, if for nothing else, because of his value as an intelligence assett.
Iran or Ireland? Lets see... They both start with "IR"
I live in Latin America. As such, I am intimately aware of US dirty tricks over the last half century. I know people who were victims of CIA dirty tricks... None of this comes as a surprise to me...
It was just another St Patrick's weekend in Washington. The Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern presented shamrock to President George Bush, the Northern Ireland political parties continued to bicker over who is responsible for the latest impasse, and green beer was drunk by the gallon.
This weekend, however, a new cloud hangs over the legacy of the Troubles and the alleged role played in a number of deaths by both American and British security agencies.
The claim - if true - threatens a new political storm over how and why FBI officials and MI5 operatives conspired to supply deadly bomb-making equipment to the Provisional IRA in the early 1990s, mechanisms the paramilitary organisation later shared with Palestinian fighters.
Today in Iraq the same technology is being used by insurgents to kill and maim British and American soldiers.
Six months ago, when The Independent on Sunday first broke the story, the Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, was forced into a humiliating retraction.
For weeks his officials had claimed that bombs which killed eight British soldiers in separate attacks in Basra had been supplied to foreign fighters by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Our story showed that the technology, far from being new, had in fact first been used in Newry, Co Down, in 1992 to murder a policewoman and maim her male colleague.
Kevin Fulton, a former soldier who infiltrated the IRA on behalf of the security services, made an astonishing claim: that he had flown to New York, met FBI and MI5 agents and was given money to buy an infra-red device to be used to set off IRA bombs.
The security services - already successful in preventing radio-signal bombs - believed that by supplying the equipment they could then introduce counter-measures.
"They knew the IRA was looking at the technology. By supplying the equipment, they thought they could stay one step ahead of the IRA," Mr Fulton told the IoS yesterday.
Following our article in October, an investigative journalist from the American magazine Atlantic delved deeper. And in an article to be published next week, Matthew Teague claims FBI sources have confirmed Mr Fulton's trip to the United States.
March 17, 2006 -- Government investigators conducting undercover tests at 21 U.S. airports were able to get bomb materials through screening machines at all of them, ABC News has learned.
The investigators sent through components of an improvised explosive device and common household chemicals, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress. Undercover agents carried a small amount of material that would need to be properly combined on the other side of the checkpoint to create a bomb. The material got past screeners and X-ray machines in every one of the 21 airports tested.
From Rusty, I got this link to a CBS affiliate's showing of part of the video. Rusty will likely be one of the first in the Blogspere to get the unedited video, so check back often.
Jill Carroll is an attractive, intelligent and dedicated young women. It breaks my heart to see her crying like that. The cowards who took her must be real hero types... Disgusting...
We used to call this, "Selling Woof Tickets." The term refers to talkin smack without being able to back it up.
(CNN) - An Arabic-language satellite TV network broadcast a videotape Monday of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the first glimpse of Osama bin Laden's top aide since a missile strike attempted to kill him more than two weeks ago in Pakistan.
Al-Zawahiri refers to the January 13 strike in the video, aired by Al-Jazeera. He speaks of the Pakistani village of Damadola and the 18 people who were killed in the attack.
"Their claim was to target this poor man and four of my brothers. The whole world discovered the lies as the Americans fight Islam and the Muslims," says al-Zawahiri, who is dressed in white in the video.
He adds, "I will meet my death when God wishes."
Al-Zawahiri directs a message to President Bush.
"My first message is to the butcher of Washington, Bush: You are not just defeated and lying about it, but you are, with God's help, a loser. You are bad luck to your people. You brought them disasters and catastrophes, and you will bring them even more disasters."
Al-Zawahiri also taunts the U.S. president, saying, "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses enjoying their care with God's blessings and sharing with them their holy war against you until we defeat you, God willing."
On the other hand, no matter how much the Bush administration tries to marginalize the fact that these murderers have not been captured or killed, it's gotta hurt every time one of these clowns turns up on TV with a taunting message.
Rusty has been fighting his own war on Terror for two years now, and it has finally paid off:
Two years ago today I started blogging by warning in my very first post, If you think this is offensive, just wait til I really get going! What a way to celebrate my blogoversary!!!
The long awaited moment has arrived that I can reveal some of the details of The Jawa Report's involvement in the capture of a would-be terrorist. Some of you already know some of the details as I have talked about them from time to time in a cryptic manner. I don't want to overemphasize our role in the wannabe terrorists capture, nor do I wish to claim that the man now in custody would have been able to accomplish his stated goal of building and detonating a nuclear bomb in the United States--clearly he did not have that capacity--but this website did play a role in his capture.
Congrats to Rusty on helping capture a terrorist, and for making it to two years blogging!
Crooks and Liars has a post, about Michelle Malkin's recent post on a bunch of Middle Eastern Guys buying a large number of prepaid cell phones.
If you're interested in viewing the results of mixing sickly paranoia with abject stupidity -- or if you want to catch a glimpse of what our country will look like once the most rabid Bush followers have full reign over it -- I highly recommend this genuinely disturbing post from Michelle Malkin. Michelle thinks that she has an important expose of a just-uncovered dastardly terrorist plot by the throngs of Middle Eastern sleeper cells inside our country. The plot she uncovered calls for The Terrorists to purchase disposable cell phones from Walmart -- all in order to evade President Bush's illegal eavesdropping program which was traitorously disclosed by the New York Times.
The post goes on to explain that there is no investigation, etc. etc.
Now I am not sure I don't agree with Michelle at least from the perspective that a Large Purchase of disposable cell phones by "individuals," should raise some suspicion, regardless of their ethnicity. Now the bit about the New York Times commiting treason for revealing NSA spying, etc. is typical Right Wing Nuttery. Especially considering the fact that the NSA can monitor anything going out over the airwaves, whether it is prepaid or not, and I am sure the Terrorist know this as well as I do.
I think we on the left need to be careful about protesting too much, things that might be obvious. If I were a store clerk in the same situation, I would probably be concerned enough to make a call... Whether the dudes buying them were good ole boys driving pickups with Rifle Racks, young homies wearing blue or red bandanas on their heads, or "Middle Eastern," looking cats, they probably watch THE WIRE too. Hehe...
Because a bunch of Congresscritters have decided to take the opportunity to tack a whole bunch of other notions on to the original concept of the Patriot Act -- most notably, fighting drugs.
According to TalkLeft, some representative with more chutzpah than sense has decided that the national problem with methamphetamines (in particular the crystal meth variant) is on the same scale as terrorism, and has tacked on to the Patriot Act a whole section to deal with it.
In fact, along with wire taps, library records, and sharing of intelligence among agencies, now the fight to keep all Americans safe from another 9/11 requires that we strictly regulate cold medicine.
This has gotta go, folks. This is politics run amok. This is (most likely) one congresscritter with a bee in his bonnet and more clout than sense or integrity trying to ram through his own agenda under the aegis of fighting terror. If the Patriot Act is to have any meaning and value, it needs to preserve its focus on actually fighing terrorism. If Mr. Sensenbrenner really thinks that Sudafed is a grave threat to the American people, let him file his own bill to control it.
It does not workRob... It's a plain and simple fact, it simply does not work... People who are tortured will say anything you want them to say to get it to stop. This is a well known fact in the intelligence community.
If torture were something that worked, I am sure most Americans would agree to its use, if it saved lives. There is absolutely no proof that it does. In fact, MOST evidence points to the contrary.
Last week, I heard repeated for the nth time the charge that the war on terror is a failure. Why did we invade Iraq, and more importantly, why is Osama Bin Laden still out there somewhere? Where is he? And how can we say we're winning the war if he's still unaccounted for?
I can see that argument. There's a part of me (the liberal, emotional, vindictive, touchy-feely part of me) even sympathizes with it. I want to see his ugly, bearded head on one of the spikes on the White House fence. But my intellect dismisses it as a non-issue.
Osama Bin Laden is not THE enemy. He is not who we declared war against. He is not the be-all and end-all of our foes, and even if he were to surrender today, that would not put an end to the struggle.
Jay Tea Wizbang
Eh, are these the same people who supported and continue to champion a war based on, "Saddam Hussein is a bad, bad man... and needed to be removed from power?" Well, I don't know, maybe I am missing something, but I see the dude who ordered the murder of thousands of Americans as being a pretty bad chap too, and "rendering him irrelevant," while convienant for those who want to deflect from the embarrassment that we have not captured him, does not make it so..." Neither do I see us, "thoroughly stomping," anyone. If we have, then the terrorist that Osama continues to at least provide inspiration for, must be roaches, 'cause for every one we "stomp," ten more seem to appear. Jay Tea was once someone I respected, as at least inserting logic into his arguments, now he is nothing more than a well written apologist for a failed policy and a disgraced administration, one that does not quite know it has been disgraced.... YET...
O'DONNELL: "And, finally, the president has made the case that winning the war in Iraq is central to winning the war on terror and making sure that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda cannot take harm the United States. Is that true, if we win there, will that help?"
SCHEUER: "No, ma'am. The war in Iraq has broken the back of our counterterrorism effort. I'm not an expert on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, but the invasion of Iraq has made sure this war will last decades ahead and it has transferred bin Laden and al Qaeda from being man and an organization into being a philosophy and a movement. We've really made sure that the war against us is going to be a long and very bloody one. Iraq was an absolutely disastrous decision."
Read the whole thing, and watch the video. Of course our Brothers on the Right will just say that this is Left Wing Propaganda, Treason and Harmful to the moral of our troops.
Well let me tell you something. It just might be, because my moral is harmed every time I see another body count from Iraq. My moral is harmed every time I hear about the number of dead Iraqis. My moral is harmed every time I hear about another incidence of terrorism in Iraq. Hell my moral is harmed by knowing that Iraq has become not only a rallying point for global terrorism, but also a training ground that is 100 times more effective than Afghanistan. You see in Afghanistan, the terrorist did not get a chance to practice on the best of our technology and people. In Afghanistan they did not get a laboratory on U.S. Tactics. In Afghanistan they simply LOST...
I've read a sizable number of blogs where a former Democrat is now a Republican based on 9/11 and the increased "leftism" of the Democratic Party afterwards. Sometimes the stories are interesting. Sometimes not. Other times they are light-hearted and other times dead serious. Either way, I always find myself chuckling slightly and shaking my head. Not that I disrespect what the former Democrat went through or still going through. I just always say to myself:
You really think a Democratic president would have handled 9/11 differently?
9/11 always seems to be at the crux of the Democrat now Republican story. I've always believed that any President of the United States, regardless their party affiliation (with the exception of some novelty, yet strangely lovable third parties), would not have just sat back after 9/11 and done nothing militarily. I think it is nuts to believe otherwise. When you ascend to the Office Of The Presidency, there are some things that are accepted. One of those things is if you are attacked on your homeland, you retaliate and retaliate strongly. Politicians are screwy bunch of mofos but they aren't that stupid.
The Republicans have done a super duper and most stellar job of defanging and neutering the Democratic Party. I do think they will regret going so far (although the Democrats made it easy). But I think people flip-flop in American politics as things go. That's the ways and wiles of a democracy.
Read the whole thing, it is in response to a Democrat who suppossedly switched sides after 9/11. Makes me wonder if he is considering switching back now, after the dissaster that Bush has made on his so called "War on Terror."
Read the whole post on Palm Trees in the Ghetto. I find the attitude that a Democratic President would have somehow been weak in the face of the 9/11 attrocity is ridiculous. No one can truly be certain of how a Democratic President would have reacted. But I am fairly certain of one thing, the War in Iraq has made our world far more dangerous and increased the likely hood of terrorist attack.
I agree in principle that mainstream Muslims need to continue to work to eliminate extremism from their ranks, and to educate their youth on the evil of this philosophy. We need to do more to encourage them to do so. This type of push back, only serves to reinforce the arguments of those who would argue, "See, they hate you. Nothing you do is going to change their mind."
We need to start a dialogue with progressive Muslims. We need to encourage them to speak up, and support the efforts of those who do. The inflammatory rhetoric from some quarters about Islam only serves to push the young and impressionable, into the arms of the Terrorist.
When I was a young man, I remember the recruitment techniques of street gangs like the Crips and Bloods. What they offered was a rhetoric based on "Us vs. Them," and a sense of belonging. This is what we are fighting against, and until we offer young Muslims an alternative to that, a sense of belonging... Islamic Terrorism will continue to be attractive.
Think of the positive effect if more non Muslim Americans simply reached out to the Muslim Community, tried to include them, broke down some of the barriers which currently exist, and made them feel like Americans, instead of Muslim Americans.
As for the Right Wing Rhetoric, I will take it a bit more seriously when the Right spends as much energy condemning Right Wing hate groups, including those who bomb Abortion Clinics and disparage Gays and Lesbians. I will also be impressed with they tone down their rhetoric and match their rhetoric about caring for the people of Iraq, by demonstrating some compassion and soladarity with Muslims right here in the U.S., who are as much a victim of Islamic Terrorism as non Muslims are.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
The report appeared to confirm long-standing allegations that the United States has held "secret detainees" in its war on terror, according to Amnesty and human rights lawyers.
"We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of U.S. secret detentions around the world," said Sharon Critoph, a researcher at Amnesty International who interviewed the men in Yemen.
In its report, Amnesty urged the United States to provide details about these and other prisoners.
"The U.S. authorities must disclose the identities of all people who are being held in secret, where they're being held, and open these places up to international scrutiny," Critoph said.
U.S. officials have previously denied allegations of secret detention facilities, saying they hold terror suspects only at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In June, U.S. officials denied a suggestion from the U.N.'s special expert on torture, Manfred Nowak, that some undeclared holding areas could include American ships cruising international waters. Others have suggested "high-value" detainees could be held secretly in Diego Garcia, a British-held island in the Indian Ocean that the United States rents as a strategic military base.
Lawyers who represent detainees at Guantanamo have long believed that the CIA or other U.S. government agencies have used clandestine jails for terror suspects.
"The fact that there are underground CIA facilities somewhere where people are being tortured has been known for a while," said Michael Ratner of the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.
Amnesty interviewed Salah Nasser Salim Ali and Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah in a jail in Yemen in late June. The group also spoke to a Yemeni government official who said the men were being held in that country only because it was a condition of their release from U.S. custody.
Salah told the rights group that he was originally detained in Indonesia in August 2003 and then flown several days later to Jordan; Muhammad said he was detained in Jordan in October 2003 while on a trip to visit his mother.
Both men claimed they were tortured by Jordanian intelligence agents for four days and then flown to what they believe were underground jails in an unknown location.
But then you get that creepy feeling in your guy that American's do know. Just like the people living near the death camps in Nazi Germany knew... Just like the Serbians knew... Just like we all knew about what was happening in Rwanda.
But we don't want to know. What we want... Is to feel safe. What we want, is to believe the things our President tells us. We want to believe that we are the champions of Freedom around the globe. We want to believe that we are the guys in the white hats. We want to believe that wherever we go we will be met with flowers and candy. We want to believe that we are fighting on the side of right.
But it has been a long, long time since America has been purely on the side of right, that is unless you consider what is best for American Business and Political interest to be RIGHT.
I live in a region where for years, America propped up tin pan dictators and regularly overthrew constitutional governments, when it was in the best interest of American big business. Nothing we do today in the War on Terror is going to surprise me.
Our proud black ops warriors have been involved in torture and dirty tricks for years.
What is sad is that in the past, Americans could claim ignorance of some of these tactics and their results. Today we are more likely to turn a blind eye, despite being aware, because we have been fed four years of FEAR by our current administration. Mind Numbing, Nationalist Fear... A fear that almost any amount of evil is insignificant when compared with the possible consequences of one terrorist escaping.
Those of us on the left who question this policy, and the fallacy that created it, are often labeled terrorist supporters, traitors and worse. Our patriotism is called into question, and we are labeled. Well the greatest form of Patriotism is dissent, belief in the constitution, and the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and few would suggest that our Founding Fathers would have supported the kind of blatant disregard for our constitution as practiced under this administration, nor can I believe that they would support torture or the overthrow of sovereign governments as a preemptive measure...
How Far we have come... And yet looking back over the last 50 years, we really haven't come that far at all, have we.
Over the last several months chatter coming from al Qaeda operatives have warned that Muslims should leave U.S. cities in advance of a dirty bomb attack which would be carried out by Adnan G. El Shukrijumah.