Input: A number of extremist groups, under the cover of the Islamist movement, have become active in drug trafficking, gun running and anti-Indian activities.


Input: It is widely acknowledged that the Pakistani ISI has nurtured a number of extremist Islamist groups, such as the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami, in the port city of Chittagong, and put a number of secessionist rebels from India's northeast in touch with this terrorist network.

ISI

Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami

Chittagong

India


Input: As a result, north of the Andaman Islands, Bangladeshi coastal areas have become a nest of terrorists involved in the shipment of drugs and arms.

Andaman Islands


Input: A pattern of arrests and seizures indicate that arms are brought by the LTTE from Laos, Cambodia and Thailand into Chittagong, from where they are transported northward by land to Bhutan.

LTTE

Cambodia

Thailand

Chittagong

Bhutan


Input: The route from Kalikhola in Bhutan to Cox's Bazar passes through northern Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya, and on into Chittagong.

Kalikhola

Bhutan

Cox's Bazar

Bengal

Assam

Meghalaya

Chittagong


Input: Note


Input: India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands comprise more than 500 islands lying 1,000 kilometers east of Sri Lanka in the Bay of Bengal.

India

Andaman

Nicobar Islands

Sri Lanka

Bay of Bengal


Input: Stretching 750 kilometers from end to end, they reach from near the coast of Myanmar almost to Sumatra in Indonesia.

Myanmar

Sumatra

Indonesia


Input: The Ten Degree Channel divides the Andamans, which are the larger and more heavily populated northern islands, from the 20 or so Nicobar Islands in the south.

Ten Degree Channel

Andamans

Nicobar Islands


Input: On South Andaman, the most heavily populated island, is Port Blair, which is the capital and the only large town in the entire archipelago.

South Andaman

Port Blair


Input: Travel to the Nicobar Islands is forbidden to non-Indians, and they are also not allowed in some parts of South Andaman Island.

Nicobar Islands

South Andaman


Input: Ramtanu Maitra writes for a number of international journals and is a regular contributor to the Washington-based EIR and the New Delhi-based Indian Defense Review.

Ramtanu Maitra

Washington

New Delhi

EIR

Indian Defense Review


Input: He also writes for Aakrosh, India's defense-tied quarterly journal.

Aakrosh

India


Input: Zawahiri was associated with a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad known as the Vanguards of Conquest.

Zawahiri

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Vanguards of Conquest


Input: Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate Mohammed's taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders.

Zawahiri

Mohammed

Vanguards of Conquest


Input: By 1998, Zawahiri had determined that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.

Zawahiri

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

United States


Input: A key question is how they acquired the anthrax strain first isolated by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab in 1980.

Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab


Input: According to senior counter terrorism officials, both here and abroad, among the supporters of these militant islamists were people who blended into society and were available to act when another part of the network requested it.


Input: Al Qaeda, Anthrax and Ayman: Means, Motive, Modus Operandi and Opportunity

Al Qaeda

Ayman


Input: Homeland Security


Input: In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency (" CIA ") report publicly disclosed that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax.

Central Intelligence Agency

CIA

Mohammed Atta

Zacarias Moussaoui


Input: An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an " unbelievable " biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (" KSM ").

Newsweek

Taliban

Bin Laden

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

KSM


Input: He had been captured the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Rawalpindi

Pakistan


Input: In November 2003, a report by a UN Panel of experts concluded that Al Qaeda is determined to use chemical and biological weapons and is restrained only by technical difficulties.

UN

Al Qaeda


Input: In a statement issued June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Staff concluded that " Al Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September 11.

Al Qaeda


Input: According to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, al Qaeda’s ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats the United States is likely to face. "

George Tenet

al Qaeda

United States


Input: On August 9, 2004, it was announced that in the Spring of 2001, a man named El-Shukrijumah, also known as Jafar the Pilot, who was part of a " second wave, " had been casing New York City helicopters.

El-Shukrijumah

Jafar the Pilot

New York City


Input: Photographs from a seized computer disc included the controls and the locks on the door between the passengers and pilot.


Input: In a bulletin, the FBI noted that the surveillance might relate to a plot to disperse a chemical or biological weapon.

FBI


Input: The CIA reportedly has been quietly building a case that the anthrax mailings were an international plot.

CIA


Input: This is old news.


Input: It's just no longer bureaucratically impolite to openly contest the FBI's (former) theory about a lone, American scientist.

FBI


Input: Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall 2001 anthrax mailings in the US, and that the mailings served as a threat and warning.

US

US

Al Qaeda


Input: Princeton islamist scholar Bernard Lewis has explained that while islamists may disagree about whether killing innocents is sanctioned by the laws of jihad, extremists like Zawahiri agree that notice must be given before biochemical weapons are used.

Bernard Lewis

Zawahiri


Input: " The Prophet's guidance, " says Michael Scheuer, an al-Qaeda analyst who recently retired from the CIA and once headed its Bin Laden unit, " was always, Before you attack someone, warn them very clearly ... " The anthrax mailings followed the pattern of letters they sent in January 1997 to newspaper branches in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as symbolic targets.

Michael Scheuer

Bin Laden

CIA

Washington

D.C.

New York City


Input: The letter bombs were sent in connection with the detention of the blind sheik Abdel Rahman and those responsible for the earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

sheik Abdel Rahman

World Trade Center


Input: Handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized upon the capture of KSM, Al Qaeda's #3, included a feasible anthrax production plan using a spray dryer and addressed the recruitment of necessary expertise.

KSM

Al Qaeda


Input: What your morning paper did not tell you, however, was that the CIA seized a similar disc from Ayman Zawahiri's right-hand, Ahmed Salama Mabruk, 5 years earlier.

CIA

Ayman Zawahiri

Ahmed Salama Mabruk


Input: The computer disk was confiscated from him during his arrest by the CIA in Azerbaijan and handed over to the Egyptian authorities.

CIA

Azerbaijan


Input: Mabruk, at the time, was the head of Jihad's military operations.

Mabruk


Input: There is a risk that observers underestimate the time that Al Qaeda has had to make progress in such recruitment and research and development.

Al Qaeda


Input: Some may still think that even in the final stages of the 9/11 plot, Zacarias Moussaoui was going to fly a 5th plane into the Capitol or White House.

Zacarias Moussaoui

Capitol

White House


Input: Others argue that he was to be part of a second wave of airliners directed to targets on the West Coast.


Input: There is an e-mail by Moussaoui, however, dated July 31, 2001 indicating that he sought to take a crop dusting course that was to last up to 6 months.

Moussaoui


Input: In March 2003, Mohammed reportedly said that Moussaoui was not going to be part of 9/11 but was to be part of a " second wave. "

Mohammed

Moussaoui


Input: Although Ramzi Binalshibh provided him $14,000 in July, accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui told his trial judge that he had an al Qaeda mission that would have come after the terrorist attacks.

Ramzi Binalshibh

Zacarias Moussaoui

al Qaeda


Input: KSM explained that Moussaoui's inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat.

KSM

Moussaoui

Yazid Sufaat

US

Al Qaeda


Input: Zacarias Moussaoui, never the sharpest tool in the shed and thought by his superiors to be unreliable, has told the judge at his trial in a filing that he wants " anthrax for Jew sympathizer only. "

Zacarias Moussaoui


Input: Al Qaeda's regional operative, Hambali, who was at a key January 2000 meeting and supervised Sufaat, has been captured.

Al Qaeda

Hambali

Sufaat


Input: Hambali reportedly is cooperating to some degree.

Hambali


Input: KSM and Hambali sent al-Hindi (al-Britani), along with Jafar the Pilot, to case NYC targets for a second wave.

KSM

Hambali

al-Hindi

al-Britani

Jafar the Pilot

NYC


Input: It was as part of that surveillance in early 2001 that Jafar the Pilot studied tourist helicopters in the NYC area.

Jafar the Pilot

NYC


Input: Sufaat, according to both KSM and Hambali, did not have the virulent US Army Ames strain that would be used.

Sufaat

KSM

Hambali

US Army


Input: That would require someone who had access to the strain.


Input: But if experience is any guide, nothing would stand in the way of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri's decade-long quest to weaponize and use anthrax against US targets that was described by one confidante to an Egyptian newspaper reporter.

Ayman Zawahiri

US


Input: The islamist had been released from Egyptian prison and had known Zawahiri well for many years.

Zawahiri


Input: Emails from Zawahiri to Atef in the Spring of 1999 indicate that Ayman was a close student of the USAMRIID anthrax program.

Zawahiri

Atef

Ayman

USAMRIID


Input: He believed that the koran instructed that a jihadist should use the weapons used by the crusader.


Input: " What we know is that he's always said it was a religious obligation to have the same weapons as their enemies, " former CIA OBL unit counter terrorism chief Michael Scheuer has said.

CIA

Michael Scheuer


Input: The Wall Street Journal reported that a computer used by Zawahiri contains a June 1999 memo that " said the program should seek cover and talent in educational institutions, which it said were' more beneficial to us and allow easy access to specialists, which will greatly benefit us in the first stage, God willing.'''

Zawahiri


Input: Zawahiri was associated with a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad known as the Vanguards of Conquest.

Zawahiri

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Vanguards of Conquest


Input: Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate Mohammed's taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders.

Zawahiri

Mohammed

Vanguards of Conquest


Input: By 1998, Zawahiri had determined that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.

Zawahiri

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

United States


Input: A key question is how they acquired the anthrax strain first isolated by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab in 1980.

Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab


Input: According to senior counter terrorism officials, both here and abroad, among the supporters of these militant islamists were people who blended into society and were available to act when another part of the network requested it.


Input: A few days before Christmas 2003, after a renewed audiotape threat by Zawahiri of attacks, to include in the US homeland, the threat level was raised to orange or " high. "

Zawahiri

US


Input: After the alert condition had long since returned to yellow, Zawahiri in late February issued another audiotape.

Zawahiri


Input: He urged the President that brigades and brigades would be coming under the banner of jihad carrying death and seeking paradise.


Input: Zawahiri said that the US should expect another 9/11 on US soil.

Zawahiri

US

US


Input: According to some reports, Zawahiri is thought by intelligence to be somewhere near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Zawahiri

Pakistan

Afghanistan


Input: At one time, some thought he had been spotted in Iran.


Input: Wherever he is, authorities need to focus on the traceable connection between him and those he or Atef recruited.

Atef


Input: In October 2001, did the FBI profilers know of the draft message Khalid Mohammed had on the seized laptop (from 1995) that was signed " Khalid Sheik Bojinka "?

FBI

Khalid Mohammed

Khalid Sheik Bojinka


Input: The letter threatened to use biochemical weapons if the blind sheik was not released.


Input: (Khalid Mohammed's involvement dates back to Bojinka, as does Hambali's).

Khalid Mohammed

Bojinka

Hambali


Input: Use of biochemical weapons as blackmail and threatened retaliation for such detentions was an alternative scenario in the Bojinka planning.

Bojinka


Input: In May 2004, Patrick Hughes, Lieutenant General (Retired), Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, Homeland Security Department testified before the 9/11 Commission.

Patrick Hughes


Input: He explained that interrogations and other evidence revealed that Al Qaeda wanted to strike the US with a nonconventional weapon, most notably anthrax.

Al Qaeda

US


Input: The same week, the WTC head testified that while they had not received any briefing on the use of planes, they had taken steps to prepare for an attack using anthrax based on intelligence that had been received.

WTC


Input: Al Qaeda has had anthrax, the raw seed product in its unweaponized form, since at least 1997, when it was purchased by Bin Laden through the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (" Moro Front " or " MILF ").

Al Qaeda

Moro Islamic Liberation Front

Moro Front

MILF

Bin Laden


Input: Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's #2, is head of Al Qaeda's biochemical program.

Zawahiri

Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda


Input: The CIA has known of Zawahiri's plans to use anthrax for a half decade.

CIA

Zawahiri


Input: The confidante and right-hand man of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri admitted that Zawahiri succeeded in obtaining anthrax and intended to use it against US targets.

Ayman Zawahiri

Zawahiri

US


Input: Another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) was working for the Egyptian intelligence services and he confirmed the report in a sworn lengthy confession.

Al Qaeda


Input: Even Zawahiri's attorney in 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced.

Zawahiri

Bin Laden

Zawahiri

Al Qaeda


Input: A recently released islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri said that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.

Zawahiri

Zawahiri

Russia

Middle East


Input: The US Army recipe was not used, and obtaining the unprocessed Ames strain of anthrax used does not warrant the weight given it by some press accounts.

US Army


Input: There was lax control over the distribution of the Ames strain that was used, especially in light of the fact that transfers were not even required to be recorded prior to 1997.


Input: Significantly, the individual who isolated it nearly a quarter century ago (now retired), upon being contacted, does not even report that he necessarily sent the only copy of the strain to Ft. Detrick.

Ft. Detrick


Input: Senator Patrick Leahy at a Congressional hearing in the Spring of 2002 noted that the FBI had collected the Ames strain from 20 sources.

Patrick Leahy

FBI


Input: In Fall 2004, MSNBC, relying on an unnamed FBI spokesperson, reports that the FBI has narrowed the pool of labs known to have had Ames that was a match from 16 to 4 but can not rule out that it was made overseas.

MSNBC

FBI

FBI


Input: Al Qaeda's anthrax production plans on Khalid Mohammed's computer did not evidence knowledge of advanced techniques in the most efficient biological weapons.

Al Qaeda

Khalid Mohammed


Input: At least according to the public comments by bioweaponeer experts William Patrick and Kenneth Alibek, under the optimal method, there is no electrostatic charge.

William Patrick

Kenneth Alibek


Input: In the case of the anthrax used in the mailings, there was an electrostatic charge.


Input: Although there was a dominance of single spores and a trillion spore concentration, there were clumps as large as 40-100 microns.


Input: (Spores must be no bigger than 5 microns to be inhalable.)


Input: Many point to the trillion spore concentration as extraordinary.


Input: It is far simpler, however, to achieve a trillion spore concentration in the production of a few grams than in industrial processing typical of a state sponsored lab.


Input: The " trillion spore " issue was at the heart of a lot of mistaken theories of the matter concluding that state sponsorship was necessarily indicated.


Input: The reported finding at Dugway undermines the argument of both the " bomb Iraq " crowd and the liberals focused on Dr. Steve Hatfill who object to US biodefense research because they view it as being useful for offensive purposes.

Dugway

Iraq

US

Steve Hatfill


Input: USDA employee Johnelle Bryant first told us, in sensational detail, of Atta's inquiries about purchasing and retrofitting a cropduster.

USDA

Johnelle Bryant

Atta


Input: Khalid Mohammed then told interrogators that Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries about crop dusting may have related to Yazid Sufaat's anthrax manufacturing plans.

Khalid Mohammed

Zacarias Moussaoui

Yazid Sufaat


Input: Although the details of the documents on Mohammed's computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in aerial dispersal, they are fully consistent with the product used in the anthrax mailings.

Mohammed


Input: Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity.

Al Qaeda


Input: US-trained Malaysian biochemist Yazid Sufaat met with 9/11 plotters and two hijackers in January 2000.

US

Yazid Sufaat


Input: Sufaat was a member of Al Qaeda and a member of Jemaah Islamiah (" JI ").

Sufaat

Al Qaeda

Jemaah Islamiah

JI


Input: JI has ties with the Moro Front.

JI

Moro Front


Input: Sufaat used his company called Green Laboratory Medicine to buy items useful to Al Qaeda.

Sufaat

Green Laboratory Medicine

Al Qaeda


Input: (Green symbolizes " Islam " and Prophet Mohammed's holy war).

Mohammed


Input: Zacarias Moussaoui, who had a crop dusting manual when he was arrested, stayed at Sufaat's condominium in 2000 when he was trying to arrange for flight lessons in Malaysia.

Zacarias Moussaoui

Sufaat

Malaysia


Input: Yazid Sufaat provided Moussaoui with a letter indicating that he was a marketing representative for Infocus Technologies and allegedly provided him $35,000.

Yazid Sufaat

Moussaoui

Infocus Technologies


Input: The crop dusters were to be part of a " second wave. "


Input: After 9/11, Yazid Sufaat traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work for the Taliban Medical Brigade and to continue his work with anthrax.

Yazid Sufaat

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Taliban Medical Brigade


Input: As described in US News, a former reporter from the Kabul Times actually may have met Sufaat, without realizing it, while traveling near Kabul in October 2001, perceiving him as Filipino.

US

Kabul

Kabul Times

Sufaat


Input: The fellow was carrying papers from Zawahiri and bragging about his ability to manipulate anthrax.

Zawahiri


Input: Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 upon his return to Malaysia.

Sufaat

Malaysia


Input: Newsweek reported that a " second wave " involving biological attacks had been thwarted upon the arrest of Al Qaeda members who had been intended to provide logistical support.

Newsweek

Al Qaeda


Input: Various doctors, both foreign and American, are associated with Al Qaeda leaders or operatives, to include the doctors Abdul Qadoos Khan, a bacteriologist from Rawalpindi and Aafia Siddiqui, PhD, from Karachi.

Al Qaeda

Abdul Qadoos Khan

Aafia Siddiqui

Rawalpindi

Karachi


Input: Microbiologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives.

Abdul Qadoos Khan

Ahmed


Input: As of March 28, 2003, he was in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted " pre-arrest bail. "


Input: Yet all you read about at the time was the arrest of the son Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, who receives a stipend from the UN for being officially low-IQ due to lead poisoning.

Ahmed Abdul Qadoos

UN


Input: It was Khalid Mohammed who told authorities about Aafia Siddiqui, who has a PhD from Brandeis in neurology.

Khalid Mohammed

Aafia Siddiqui

Brandeis


Input: The Pakistani press reported that she was nabbed in Karachi after being spotted at the airport in late March or early April 2003.

Karachi


Input: If mistaken, how did those reports first come about?


Input: Understandably, Amerithrax is a confidential investigation.


Input: The Pakistan ISI and CIA rarely grant press interviews in connection with an ongoing manhunt.

Pakistan

CIA


Input: The CIA did not even allow the FBI access to KSM for 10 days after his arrest.

CIA

FBI

KSM


Input: As agent Van Harp, then head of the Amerithrax investigation said, the information coming from Khalid Mohammed is classified with the authorities releasing only certain limited information.

Van Harp

Khalid Mohammed


Input: While it's not easy to separate fact from fiction, Attorney General Ashcroft and Director Mueller have publicly confirmed Aafia is still being sought.

Ashcroft

Mueller

Aafia


Input: They would know.


Input: Her mother Ismat last saw Aafia and her grandchildren before they left in a minicab at the end of March.

Ismat

Aafia


Input: Aafia was on her way with her children to visit and uncle and a friend in Islamabad.

Aafia

Islamabad


Input: According to the Pakistan reports, Aafia Siddiqui was detained after being spotted at Karachi International airport (after she was followed to a relative's house).

Pakistan

Karachi

Aafia Siddiqui


Input: (Karachi is in the south).

Karachi


Input: The reports say she is suspected of having been a member of Al Qaeda's " Chemical Wire Group. "

Al Qaeda


Input: The family's lawyer advises me that Aafia did not have enough money to pay for airfare tickets for herself and the kids and called Ismat from the train station.

Aafia

Ismat


Input: That was the last Ismat heard from her.

Ismat


Input: Aafia never reached the uncle's house.

Aafia


Input: Perhaps something got lost in the translation, but the phrase " Chemical Wire Group " has appeared in all the english Pakistan and India papers.

Pakistan

India


Input: The family's attorney advises me that Aafia had no knowledge of chemicals (and that would not appear to be her training).

Aafia


Input: There still is a very hot pursuit of the " Atta-level " Floridian, Adnan El Shukrijumah, who Siddiqui is thought to have known and been assisting.

Atta

Adnan El Shukrijumah

Siddiqui


Input: His nickname is " Jafar the Pilot. "

Jafar the Pilot


Input: A senior DOJ official reports that Adnan has experience as a commercial pilot.

DOJ

Adnan


Input: He is said by one FBI agent to be " very, very, very " dangerous.

FBI


Input: He allegedly was at one or more meetings in the Summer of 2001 in Pakistan at which KSM and Sufaat were present.

Pakistan

KSM

Sufaat


Input: He may have been seen in Hamilton, Canada -- along with Egyptian al-Maati, who apparently also has received pilot training.

Hamilton

Canada

al-Maati


Input: The United States truly no longer has time for faulty analysis or politically-based preconceptions.

United States


Input: In early June 2003, a CIA report concluded that the reason for Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was in fact for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax.

CIA

Atta

Zacarias Moussaoui


Input: It has long been known Osama Bin Laden was interested in using cropdusters to disperse biological agents (since the testimony of millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam).

Osama Bin Laden

Ahmed Ressam


Input: The hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi appears to have contracted cutaneous anthrax in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Alhaznawi

Afghanistan


Input: It is reasonable to credit his statement that he got the lesion after bumping into a suitcase he was carrying at a camp in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan


Input: The lesion is further evidence of Al Qaeda's anthrax production program at Kandahar.

Al Qaeda

Kandahar


Input: The present evidence relating to Atta's alleged travel to Prague does not warrant a conclusion that Al Qaeda obtained the Ames strain from Iraq.

Atta

Prague

Iraq

Al Qaeda


Input: Iraq, however, remains a possible source of the Ames.

Iraq


Input: Former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek has said that a key Russian scientist assisted Iraq and that Russia had the Ames strain.

Ken Alibek

Iraq

Russia


Input: (His conclusion may have been based on the fake mobile biolab plans foisted upon the US by the Chalabi associate " Curveball ", which Alibek divined to be identical to Russian mobile lab design).

US

Chalabi

Alibek


Input: Zawahiri did travel to Baghdad in 1998 with an entourage to attend the birthday party of Saddam's son.

Zawahiri

Saddam

Baghdad


Input: The papers found at headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's secret police, show that an entourage from Al Qaeda group was sent to the Iraqi capital in March 1998 from Sudan.

Mukhabarat

Al Qaeda

Iraq

Sudan


Input: According to at least some reports, Bin Laden rejected the suggestion of a closer alliance -- preferring to pursue his own concept of jihad.

Bin Laden


Input: Two top Iraqi scientists, code named Charlie and Alpha, are helping the coalition to learn more about Iraqi's anthrax program, according to Dr. David Kay, head of the Iraq survey group in charge of the hunt for WMD.

Charlie

Alpha

David Kay

Iraqi

Iraq


Input: He has said that the Iraqis made surprising innovations in the milling and drying processes needed to weaponize anthrax.


Input: The media coverage has been seriously confused on the issue of motive and the reason Senators Daschle and Leahy would have been targeted -- tending to simplistically view them as " liberals. "

Daschle

Leahy


Input: Zawahiri likely targeted Senators Daschle and Leahy to receive anthrax letters, in addition to various media outlets, because of the appropriations made pursuant to the " Leahy Law " to military and security forces.

Zawahiri

Daschle

Leahy

Leahy


Input: That money has prevented the militant islamists from achieving their goals.


Input: Al Qaeda members and sympathizers feel that the FBI's involvement in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines interferes with the sovereignty of those countries.

Al Qaeda

FBI

Egypt

Saudi Arabia

Pakistan

Indonesia

Philippines


Input: According to a post she made on the internet, Aafia Siddiqui expressed the same sentiment in connection with US appropriations sought in exchange for the extradition of WTC 1993 plotter Ramzi Yousef from Pakistan.

Aafia Siddiqui

Ramzi Yousef

US

WTC

Pakistan


Input: Senator Leahy was Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI and Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign aid to these countries.

Leahy

FBI


Input: In late September 2001, it was announced that the President was seeking a blanket waiver that would lift all restrictions on aid to military and security units in connection with pursuing the militant islamists.


Input: This extradition and imprisonment of Al Qaeda leaders, along with US support for Israel and the Mubarak government in Egypt, remains foremost in the mind of Dr. Zawahiri.

Al Qaeda

US

Israel

Egypt

Mubarak

Zawahiri


Input: At the height of the development of his biological weapons program, his brother was extradited pursuant to a death sentence in the " Albanian returnees " case (now he faces retrial).


Input: It's hard to keep up with the stories about billion dollar appropriations, debt forgiveness, and loan guarantees to countries like Egypt and Israel and now even Pakistan.

Egypt

Israel

Pakistan


Input: Those appropriations pale in comparison to the many tens of billions in appropriations relating to the invasion of Iraq.

Iraq


Input: Al Qaeda had a motive in mind.

Al Qaeda


Input: In his Fall 2001 book titled Knights under the Banner of the Prophet, Zawahiri argued that the secular press was telling " lies " about the militant islamists -- to include the suggestion that the militant islamists were somehow the creation of the United States in connection with expelling the Russians from Afghanistan.

Zawahiri

United States

Afghanistan


Input: Zawahiri argued instead that they have been active since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt because of the Camp David Accord and the resulting peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Zawahiri

Anwar Sadat

Egypt

Egypt

Israel


Input: The anthrax letters were sent on the date of the Camp David Accord and then the date Anwar Sadat was assassinated as if to underscore the point to anyone paying attention.

Anwar Sadat


Input: Most of the " talking heads " on television, however, knew only that Daschle and Leahy were liberal democrats and did not know anything of Al Qaeda beyond what they read in the US newspapers.

Daschle

Leahy

Al Qaeda

US


Input: The FBI's profile includes a US-based supporter of the militant islamists.

FBI

US


Input: Attorney General Ashcroft explained that an " either-or " approach is not useful.

Ashcroft


Input: The media has tended to overlook the fact that when the FBI uses the word " domestic " the word includes a US-based, highly-educated supporter of the militant islamists.

FBI

US


Input: There is an emerging consensus that anthrax was contained in a letter to AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer -- in a goofy love letter to Jennifer Lopez enclosing a Star of David and proposing marriage.

AMI

National Enquirer

Jennifer Lopez


Input: A report by the Center for Disease Control of interviews with AMI employees (as well as detailed interviews by author Leonard Cole) supports the conclusion that there were not one, but two, such mailings containing anthrax.

Center for Disease Control

AMI

Leonard Cole


Input: (The letters were to different AMI publications -- one to the National Enquirer and another to The Sun).

AMI

National Enquirer

The Sun


Input: (News assistant Bobby Bender recalls the letter containing the items to have been addressed to The Sun.)

Bobby Bender

The Sun


Input: This tactic of letters is not merely the modus operandi of these militant islamists inspired by Zawahiri, it is their signature.

Zawahiri


Input: The islamists sent letter bombs in January 1997 to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C..

New York City

Washington

D.C.


Input: They were sent in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman.

World Trade Center

Sheik Abdel Rahman


Input: The former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya (" Islamic Group "), he was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda.

Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya

Islamic Group

Al Qaeda


Input: The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and a related plot.

WTC


Input: The purpose of the letter bombs -- which resulted in minimal casualty -- was to send a message.


Input: (There initially was an outstanding $2 million reward -- under the rewards for justice program, the reward now is up to $5 million.).


Input: There was no claim of responsibility.


Input: There was no explanation.


Input: Once one had been received, the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected.


Input: Sound familiar?


Input: Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to " Parole Officer. "

Leavenworth

WTC


Input: (The position does not exist).


Input: Abdel Rahman's son was captured in Quetta, Pakistan in mid-February 2003.

Abdel Rahman

Quetta

Pakistan


Input: That arrest in turn led to the dramatic capture of Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda's #3.

Khalid Mohammed

Al Qaeda


Input: Mohammed allegedly was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan.

Mohammed

Abdul Qadoos Khan


Input: Along with Zawahiri, Abdel Rahman and his two sons have had considerable influence over Bin Laden.

Zawahiri

Abdel Rahman

Bin Laden


Input: He reportedly treated them like sons.


Input: Although while in jail in the early 1980s, Zawahiri caused considerable tension by challenging the blind sheik's ability to lead a coalition of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Group, Zawahiri and OBL are Rahman's friends.

Zawahiri

Zawahiri

Rahman

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egyptian Islamic Group


Input: The imprisoned WTC 1993 plotter Yousef was KSM's nephew.

WTC

Yousef

KSM


Input: Thus, the leaders in charge of Al Qaeda's anthrax production program had a close connection to those imprisoned in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center.

Al Qaeda

World Trade Center


Input: According to the controversial " Feith memo, " which summarized purported intelligence showing an Iraqi/Al Qaeda connection, Osama Bin Laden had asked Iraqi intelligence for technical assistance in sending letter bombs a half year before the Al Hayat letters were sent.

Al Qaeda

Osama Bin Laden

Al Hayat


Input: Just because Al Qaeda likes its truck bombs and the like to be effective does not mean they do not see the value in a deadly missive.

Al Qaeda


Input: As Brian Jenkins once said, " terrorism is theater. "

Brian Jenkins


Input: A sender purporting to be islamist sent cyanide in both early 2002 and early 2003 in New Zealand and ingredients of nerve gas in Belgium in 2003.

New Zealand

Belgium


Input: There's even a chapter titled " Poisonous Letter " in the Al Qaeda manual.

Al Qaeda


Input: The " Federal Eagle " stamp used in the anthrax mailings was a blue-green.


Input: It was widely published among the militant islamists that martyrs go to paradise " in the hearts of green birds. "


Input: In the very interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described the codes used for the four targets for the planes, the masterminds admitted to the Jenny code, the code for representing the date 9/11, and used the symbolism of the " Green Birds. "


Input: Osama Bin Laden later invoked the symbolism in his video " The 19 Martyrs. "

Osama Bin Laden


Input: A FAQ on the Azzam Publications website explained that " In the Hearts of Green Birds " refers to what is inside.

Azzam Publications


Input: The mailer's use of " Greendale School " as the return address for the letters to the Senators is also revealing.


Input: A May 2001 letter that Zawahiri sent to Egyptian Islamic Jihad members abroad establish that Zawahiri used " school " as a code word for the Egyptian militant islamists in his correspondence.

Zawahiri

Zawahiri

Egyptian Islamic Jihad


Input: Green symbolizes Islam and was the Prophet Mohammed's color.

Mohammed


Input: By Greendale School, the anthrax perp was being cute, just as Yazid Sufaat was being cute in naming his lab Green Laboratory Medicine.

Yazid Sufaat

Green Laboratory Medicine


Input: " Dale " means " river valley. "


Input: Greendale likely refers to green river valley -- i.e., Cairo's Egyptian Islamic Jihad or the Islamic Group.

Cairo

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Islamic Group


Input: The sender probably is announcing that he is of either Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic Group or Jihad-al Qaeda, which is actually the full name of the group after the merger of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda.

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egyptian Islamic Group

al Qaeda

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

al Qaeda


Input: At the Darunta complex where jihadis trained, recruits would wear green uniforms, except for Friday when they were washed.

Darunta


Input: In a Hadith the Messenger of Allah explains that the souls of the martyrs are in the hearts of green birds that fly wherever they please in the Paradise.


Input: As to opportunity, though seldom reported, there is a wealth of " open source " information about possible Al Qaeda or Egyptian Islamic Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Group in the United States and Canada.

Al Qaeda

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egyptian Islamic Group

United States

Canada


Input: The public information mostly relates to those suspected sleepers who have been detained or who are at large and are being sought.


Input: Zawahiri's mission in the United States in 1995 was to do spadework for terrorism, not fundraising for charitable causes.

Zawahiri

United States


Input: He traveled under an alias and was accompanied by a former US Army sergeant named Ali Mohammed.

US Army

Mohammed


Input: What mosques exactly did they visit and who did they meet?


Input: Whatever your political persuasion, the FBI and CIA deserve our support.

FBI

CIA


Input: We are, after all, in this together.


Input: First, the nature of such an investigation is that we lack sufficient information to second-guess (or even know) what the FBI is doing.

FBI


Input: Media reports are a poor approximation of reality because of the lack of good sources.


Input: Second, hindsight is 20/20.


Input: Third, with the " new age " Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in charge of the investigation, it is not likely we could do better in striking the appropriate balance between due process and national security.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.


Input: Finally, the " Hatfill theory " seems to have been exhausted or at least lost public favor.

Hatfill


Input: The " Hatfill theory " accusing Dr. Stephen Hatfill was always highly dubious.

Hatfill

Stephen Hatfill


Input: The suspicion was founded on many false premises, and there was no reliable publicly known evidence indicating his guilt.


Input: The FBI's fixation on Hatfill (at least as rumored by some reporters) may have stemmed from a warning by one Senator that careers hung in the balance.

FBI

Hatfill


Input: Leahy's chief of staff apparently started with the strong predisposition that some right-winger was involved because two liberal democrats had been targeted.

Leahy


Input: The Hatfill theory -- to include ongoing interviews and ongoing 7/24 surveillance by 8 surveillance specialists -- is now the subject of pending civil rights and libel claims of uncertain merit.

Hatfill


Input: A suit against the New York Times and columnist Nicholas Kristof was dismissed in late November 2004.

New York Times

Nicholas Kristof


Input: The judge had agreed to delay the civil rights matter from proceeding until at least October 2004.


Input: The judge, frustrated by the apparent lack of progress, encouraged that the parties reach a negotiated compromise that would permit some limited discovery to proceed (and the judge has directed that the government to file an Answer to the Complaint).


Input: The Hatfill Theory ironically might best be understood as an Al Qaeda theory, with a coincidental Malaysian connection adding to the other circumstances.

Hatfill

Al Qaeda


Input: Given the regrettable leaks that he was under suspicion, it is only fair that the FBI leak with equal enthusiasm the fact that Dr. Hatfill has now been dropped as a suspect if and when that proves to be the case.

FBI

Hatfill


Input: A search of Dr. Ken Berry's residences likely will prove just about the last gasp of a biodefense insider theory.

Ken Berry


Input: Senior officials have been quoted in the press as saying that the searches were for the purpose of excluding him as much as including him.


Input: In Baghdad the fighting still continues in several areas, mostly in Sadr city and Adhamiya.

Baghdad

Sadr city

Adhamiya


Input: Baghdadis don't venture much out of their neighbourhoods any more, you never know where you might get stuck.


Input: There has been talk that the night curfew might be implemented again.


Input: My neighbourhood has been surrounded by American troops for three days now, helicopters have been circling over our heads non-stop.


Input: Fedayeen are now visible on the street and they have become bolder than ever.


Input: Yesterday there were tens of them putting road blocks on our street and setting up mortars, they only come out in the open when Americans leave the area, then they start firing mortars indiscriminately and shooting their AK-47's in the air.


Input: They are setting the road blocks at the exact same positions they were during the war last year, which indicates they are the same people.


Input: And there is nothing we can do about it really, people who are suggesting that we go out and fight them are living in dream land.


Input: Even the IP and ICDC have abandoned the neighbourhood, and those are trained and armed, so don't expect scared civilians to do anything except to hide inside and pray a helicopter or a tank doesn't bomb them, and also how are American soldiers going to distinguish the brave and valiant civilians from the Fedayeen?

IP

ICDC


Input: Everyone is apprehensive, there is some talk that April 9th and 10th are going to be bloody days.


Input: Most people haven't gone to work the last few days, although it seems that the rest of Baghdad is' normal' (if you can define what normal is).

Baghdad


Input: There are rumours about preparations by slum dwellers for another looting spree against banks, governmental and public property similar to the one that took place last April, and I have already overheard youngsters in my neighbourhood joking about it and saying things like " This time we will be the first to loot, we didn't get anything the last time ".


Input: Mosques are calling for donating blood, food, and medicine for Fallujah, and several convoys have already headed out for Fallujah, most of them returned later though.

Fallujah

Fallujah


Input: What irritates me is this sudden false' solidarity' between Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, we all know that they would be glad to get at each other s throats when they have the chance, and Shia clerics were describing Fallujan insurgents as' Ba'athists',' Saddamites',' Wahhabis', and' terrorists' just a few days ago.


Input: So what happened?


Input: I guess it's just the old new Arab' Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, me and my cousin against my enemy', or' The enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing going on again.


Input: Speaking of Fallujah, we have only Al-Jazeera to rely on for our news from there.

Fallujah

Al-Jazeera


Input: They have sent over their top reporter Ahmed Mansour to the town, and he is spouting all kinds of propaganda hourly reminding me of Al-Sahhaf.

Ahmed Mansour

Al-Sahhaf


Input: " They are targetting ambulances ", " American snipers are shooting children and pregnant women ", and " They are using cluster bombs against civilians " is all you get to hear from him.


Input: He did once make an unforgivable error when he mentioned that Fallujan militants were shooting at the Marines from the roofs of mosques and houses in Hay Al-Golan, but of course that is okay for Al-Jazeera.

Marines

Al-Jazeera

Hay Al-Golan


Input: Someone who called himself Abu Hafs from the Ibn Al-Khattab Brigades (another new group) was on Al-Jazeera describing the enormous casualties among the Marines and he sweared that American soldiers were mutilating the bodies of dead insurgents.

Abu Hafs

Al-Khattab Brigades

Al-Jazeera

Marines


Input: Over 300 Iraqis are reported dead and 500 wounded in Fallujah alone.

Fallujah


Input: Al-Iraqiyah tv said that ICDC were controlling Ramadi.

Al-Iraqiyah

ICDC

Ramadi


Input: Azzaman newspaper mentioned an announcement signed by Abdul Aziz bin Muqrin, an Al-Qaeda operative in Saudi Arabia on an Islamic website' the voice of Jihad', in which he stated that " although mutilating dead bodies is not originally permitted in Islam, but in this case it is allowed if Muslims use it against infidels to deter them from committing criminal actions ".

Azzaman

Al-Qaeda

Abdul Aziz bin Muqrin

Saudi Arabia


Input: He added that " America does not understand anything except the language of force and retaliation, they were kicked out of Somalia in humiliation after that soldier was dragged in Mogadishu for the whole world to see ", and that " the day will come when the dead bodies of Americans and Jews would be dragged, defiled, and stepped on in the Arabian peninsula together with their agents and supporters ".

America

Somalia

Mogadishu


Input: One week to elections day and the general atmosphere in the capital is eerie, yet strikingly familiar.


Input: I suspect the streets of Baghdad will look as if a war is looming this week.

Baghdad


Input: There is no doubt that many Iraqis regard the date of 30 January as a day of renewed hope, one they have been awaiting all their lives, but at the same time, many others are already dreading it.


Input: The interim government has promised security measures that would reduce the violence on the day of elections, but I fail to see how they will be able to protect all 5,000 (or so) balloting centres.


Input: Many voting centres have already been successfully attacked or destroyed in many areas.


Input: Now that the picture is clear, the two main competing lists seem to be the United Iraqi Coalition list and Allawi's Al-Iraqiya list.

United Iraqi Coalition

Al-Iraqiya

Allawi


Input: Ayad Allawi, and other ministers running on his list, have quite expectedly used their governmental positions in campaigning.

Ayad Allawi


Input: One minister reportedly handed out 100 dollar' gifts' to journalists attending a press conference for Allawi, a practice that brings back bad memories to many Iraqis.

Allawi


Input: Sheikh Naji Al-Abbudi, a spokesman for Sistani, affirmed the claims that the Grand Ayatollah is backing the United Iraqi Coalition list.

Sheikh Naji Al-Abbudi

Sistani

United Iraqi Coalition


Input: Indeed, Sistani's agents all over the country have been quite active in educating Iraqi Shia on the merits of elections, which has led to the assassination of at least two of them.

Sistani


Input: Al-Abbudi stated that " His Emminence " decided to openly support the list because " others " (obviously a reference to Allawi) have been abusing official state positions and media outlets in their campaigning.

Al-Abbudi

Allawi


Input: Again there is no official written statement from Sistani's office confirming this allegation, which I think is intentional.

Sistani


Input: Ahmed Al-Chalabi and defense minister Hazim Al-Sha'lan have been engaging in shrill public attacks over the media.

Ahmed Al-Chalabi

Hazim Al-Sha'lan


Input: Chalabi describing Sha'lan as a " Ba'athist " and a " former double agent for Saddam and the CIA ", while Sha'lan dismisses Chalabi as a " thief " and an " Iranian stooge who longs for his own origins by defending Iran ".

Chalabi

Sha'lan

Saddam

Sha'lan

Chalabi

CIA


Input: One remark made by Sha'lan on Al-Arabiya TV, that he couldn't say more about Chalabi because he would embarrass himself and the viewers almost made me roll on the floor.

Sha'lan

Chalabi

Al-Arabiya TV


Input: It was an extremely amusing episode, watching Chalabi looking smug and amused, contrasted with Sha'lan, all serious and barely keeping himself from swearing.

Chalabi

Sha'lan


Input: Fistfights, please.


Input: Hazim Al-Sha'lan, by the way, is the son of the late Sheikh of Al-Khaza'il in Diwaniya and has the potential to replace former information minister, M.S. Al-Sahaf, in his nonsensical media statements, which can be passed as jokes.

Hazim Al-Sha'lan

M.S. Al-Sahaf

Al-Khaza'il

Diwaniya


Input: The main Kurdish coalition list (PUK and KDP) is barely mentioned outside the Kurdish region.

PUK

KDP


Input: Even there, many Kurds look and act as if they are going to grab the chance to vote them out of power.


Input: I doubt that will be the outcome though.


Input: Many Iraqis, including conservative and religious Iraqis, are surprisingly rooting for the Iraqi Communist party, probably in an attempt to counter the influence of Islamists in the forthcoming National Assembly.

Iraqi Communist party

National Assembly


Input: The Communist party has the largest number of registered party members in the country and can be considered as the oldest popular political party in Iraq.

Communist party

Iraq


Input: Its support base is much larger than what it seems.


Input: Several candidates were assassinated and targeted these last two weeks, others have been forced under threats to withdraw and to follow the example of the Islamic party.


Input: Sectarian tensions are at their highest since April, 2004, with Sunni insurgents now openly attacking Husseiniyas and Shia mosques.


Input: I had an interesting conversation with a middle-aged taxi driver who used to live in Fallujah and is now at relatives in Amiriya, Baghdad.

Fallujah

Amiriya

Baghdad


Input: After asking me which tribe I belong to (thus assessing my sectarian background) he started hurling abuses at the Shia, calling them Persians, Majoos (fire worshippers), rabid dogs and a handful of other descriptions that I can't mention here.


Input: He described Allawi's face as that of a f*ed horse and he dismissed the whole government as a band of thieves and traitors.

Allawi


Input: I didn't argue with him but I asked him what he believed would be a viable solution to this mess.


Input: He said that resistance was the only commonsense solution.


Input: First driving out the Americans, then fighting the Shia back into submission (as in 1991).


Input: Sunni Iraqis contend that elections are impossible to hold under occupation.


Input: Leaving aside the fact that this views conflicts with other historical examples in the region, Sunnis have never offered an alternative choice, which eventually leads one to guess that the opinion held by the Fallujan taxi driver above is precisely what they are planning to implement.


Input: I had another conversation some months ago with a retired Ba'athist old-timer who claimed that Ba'athists have the means to stage a third coup d'etat and return to power within 10 hours of an American withdrawal.


Input: On sensing my incredulity to his statement he asserted that Ba'athist cells exist in all parts of the country and that they do have a central command, even though many have formed seperate cells (often under Islamic labels) with their own leaderships.


Input: He said that they have the training and the funding as well as the support of neighbouring and regional governments.


Input: I concur that Ba'athists and former security forces are capable of immediately controlling at least 5 out of 18 governorates, along with the capital, if Americans are to be removed from the picture entirely.


Input: But I also see that as a fatal misconception, which is doing Sunnis harm, because I don't believe the US is going anywhere so soon.

US


Input: Any government that assumes power after the elections also realises this, so not even Sistani is going to call the US to withdraw its troops, despite what he is saying now, not until they are ensured the insurgency is out of the picture, or that they have an alternative foreign power (in this case Iran) to back them up.

Sistani

US


Input: The only hope now is that, following the elections, the National Assembly would offer the hand of peace and reconciliation to the dissenting parties.

National Assembly


Input: I would suggest going for tribal Sheikhs rather than clerics, since they have the upper hand in their areas and can effectively root out any Ba'athists in their midst in return for a promise of sharing power and authority.


Input: Many of these Sheikhs have been disenfranchised and abused over the last two years.


Input: Very recently, US forces in Al-Anbar made a terrible blunder by accidentally killing Abdul-Razaq Inad Al-Gu'ud, Sheikh of the Al-Bu Nimr clan from the powerful Dulaym tribe.

US

Al-Anbar

Abdul-Razaq Inad Al-Gu'ud

Al-Bu Nimr


Input: Al-Gu'ud had favoured elections and was in good terms with the government.

Al-Gu'ud


Input: The Gu'ud family even accepted to be offered the seat of Al-Anbar governor some months back.

Gu'ud

Al-Anbar


Input: The Al-Bu Nimr in Ramadi and Al-Qaim rose in arms against Saddam in the mid-nineties following the execution of Thamir Madhlum Al-Dulaymi, an Air Force general belonging to their tribe.

Al-Bu Nimr

Saddam

Thamir Madhlum Al-Dulaymi

Ramadi

Al-Qaim

Air Force


Input: The revolt took two weeks to be suppressed by the Republican Guard.

Republican Guard


Input: Another bad step was the recent arrest of Sheikh Hassan Al-Lihabi, of the Lihaib tribe which is scattered between the governorates of Al-Anbar, Mosul and Salah Al-Din.

Sheikh Hassan Al-Lihabi

Lihaib

Al-Anbar

Mosul

Salah Al-Din


Input: Al-Lihaibi was running in elections and is now said to have withdrawn following this incident.

Al-Lihaibi


Input: I believe national reconciliation to be the only path forward to a new Iraq.

Iraq


Input: The Shia can not live without the Sunnis, and vice versa.


Input: Both have shared this country for the last 14 centuries and there is no possible way that one can live without the other.


Input: Even partition is not a possibility, there are no clear borders between the two.


Input: Remember Luis Posada Carriles?

Luis Posada Carriles


Input: Here's a Miami Herald interview with the relaxed terrorist and former CIA operative in a luxury condo, published yesterday.

Miami Herald

CIA


Input: (" At first I hid a lot.


Input: I thought the US government was looking for me.

US


Input: Now I hide a lot less. ")


Input: Because of such talk, Posada has been taken into custody by Immigration officials.

Posada


Input: I can't imagine they wanted to do this.


Input: Authorities would likely have been happy answering questions about Posada's whereabouts with an indefinite shrug.

Posada


Input: As recently as last week the official line stated they had no knowledge he had entered the country.


Input: But comfortable among the thugs, Posada overplayed his hand and embarrassed his old patron, the US government.

Posada

US


Input: And though he'd been a faithful servant, he was not such a player that he could get away with that.


Input: He should have taken a cue from another bomber some pesky dark-skinned foreigners want extradited, CIA operative Michael Meiring.

CIA

Michael Meiring


Input: Posada should have told any inquisitive journalist at his doorstep something like Meiring told the single American reporter who bothered following his bloody trail from the Philippines, that " If this harms me in any way, you will find my power then, and you'll find out who I am. "

Posada

Meiring

Philippines


Input: But then, maybe that wouldn't have saved him either, because Posada is not Meiring.

Posada

Meiring


Input: Posada can be given up, but Meiring can't.

Posada

Meiring


Input: Meiring's crimes are fresh, and wave the false flag which is the " War on Terror. "

Meiring


Input: They happened in the Philippines which, like Pakistan, is an important and vulnerable node for the business which intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations conduct with each other.

Philippines

Pakistan


Input: (Ask Terry Nichols about the Philippines.)

Terry Nichols

Philippines


Input: The bombings implicated Muslims, and exacerbated regional tensions which the Bush regime and its friends wearing the brass in the Philippine military sought to exploit.

Bush


Input: Posada's crimes, on the other hand, must seem like ancient history, especially to a people who don't know their history.

Posada


Input: And to those who don't even know their crimes, not even that.


Input: But will Posada be given up?

Posada


Input: I doubt he will be extradited to Venezuela, which is the only way that question could be answered with a Yes.

Venezuela


Input: I expect it will be determined that, under " Strong Man " Hugo Chavez, Posada could not be guaranteed a fair trial.

Hugo Chavez

Posada


Input: The hope may be that Posada can soon be offered to a post-Chavez Allawi-like puppet in Caracas.

Posada

post-Chavez

Allawi

Caracas


Input: Whether such an offer were accepted or declined would make no difference; justice would not be served then.


Input: But Posada's nearly 80 years old, and the Venezuelan people will ensure that's a vain hope.

Posada


Input: So instead Posada may be held indefinitely, in comfortable custody.

Posada


Input: An embarrassment to the US still, just not as embarrassing as having the old killer strut about Miami, gloating in his freedom.

US


Input: Meiring is more than an embarrassment.

Meiring


Input: His case threatens the consensus fiction of the " War on Terror. "


Input: So his name will remain unspoken.


Input: Another connection to Philippine terror and weapons smuggling-dating from the 1980s-is alleged in the book Disposable Patriot, by Jack Terrell.

Jack Terrell


Input: Terrell, a CIA asset originally recruited for the Contra effort, identifies the man attempting to recruit him into the Philippine scheme as Oliver North ...

Terrell

Oliver North

CIA


Input: I seem to recall the object was to smuggle explosives.


Input: I've read the book-it's a first person memoir with the ring of truth, especially since so much of the wider context has confirmed the allegations of Contra drug connections that led to Terrell becoming a target for discrediting by the TWIG counterintelligence group that ran interference for the Contra effort, staffed by covert ops types including Ollie North, Robert Owen, Vince Cannistaro and Buck Revell.

Terrell

Ollie North

Robert Owen

Vince Cannistaro

Buck Revell


Input: Peter Dale Scott includes an account of how Terrell's whistleblowing was stifled by them in his book Cocaine Politics.

Peter Dale Scott

Terrell


Input: ... same ole, same ole ...


Input: Due to the Judge in the 1983 case ruling that a CIA agent could not testify using a pseudonym, therefore opening him to cross-examination by Wilson, the prosecution had a problem.

CIA

Wilson


Input: They needed someone that could convince the jury they had been able to see all relevant documents in CIA files on Wilson.

CIA

Wilson


Input: Wilson was claiming that he had been working for the CIA when he sold the C-4 to Quaddaffi.

Wilson

CIA


Input: The prosecution was charging he was a rogue using his contacts from former service in both CIA and the' Office of Naval Intelligence'.

CIA


Input: Wilson had been able to show that he'd had more than 80 " non-social contacts " with the CIA since his retirement in 1971, leaving the prosecution's case in turmoil.

Wilson

CIA


Input: Then Charles A. Briggs came to the rescue.

Charles A. Briggs


Input: Third ranking CIA officer, Briggs signed a declaration on February 3rd, 1983, that on November 8th, 1982, he had authorized a search of CIA records " for any material that in any way pertains to Edwin P. Wilson, or the various allegations concerning his activities after February 28th, 1971, when he retired from the CIA. "

CIA

CIA

CIA

Briggs

Edwin P. Wilson


Input: The Briggs Declaration states that with one exception in 1972, Wilson did not work " directly or indirectly " for the CIA since retiring.

Briggs

Wilson

CIA


Input: Last week, Federal District Judge Lynn Hughes in Huston, Texas, threw out Wilson's two-decades old conviction.

Lynn Hughes

Wilson

Huston

Texas


Input: Judge Hughes wrote: `government knowingly used false evidence against him,' concluding `honesty comes hard to government.'

Hughes


Input: looks like it is rearing its head again in Louisianna ..

Louisianna


Input: Former Pastor, Deputy Implicated In Church Child Sex Abuse


Input: PONCHATOULA, La. --

PONCHATOULA

La.


Input: Sheriff's deputies in Louisiana made a third arrest Wednesday in the ongoing investigation of a case involving allegations of sexual abuse of children and animals at a Ponchatoula, La., church.

Louisiana

Ponchatoula

La.


Input: Austin Aaron Bernard III, 36, was arrested on a charge of aggravated rape of a child under the age of 13.

Austin Aaron Bernard III


Input: Police said Bernard confessed to detectives that he had sex with a young girl in November 2002 and admitted to knowing about sexual acts involving children and a dog that occurred at Hosanna Church.

Bernard

Hosanna Church


Input: Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's deputy Christopher Blair Labat, 24, was booked Tuesday on one count of aggravated rape and one count of crime against nature.

Tangipahoa Parish

Christopher Blair Labat


Input: On Monday, Louis Lamonica, 45, the former pastor of Hosanna Church, was booked with two counts of aggravated rape and one count of crime against nature after he walked in to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office and said he could implicate others in a situation at the church that reportedly occurred two years ago.

Louis Lamonica

Hosanna Church

Livingston Parish


Input: We have a similar case unravelling up here in the northwest with a murder of a family and missing children taken for some purpose.


Input: If I was Rummy I'd send Posada to Iraq to blow things up there.

Rummy

Posada

Iraq


Input: yeah, " things " ...


Input: Yesterday evening, the Posada story was featured in the public television news show in Germany (ARD, Tagesthemen).

Posada

Germany

ARD

Tagesthemen


Input: The newly released papers, showing him complicit in the airliner bombing, were mentioned


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Canada


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US of A


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Input: I also have a dating advice blog/site.


Input: I mostly deals with dating advice


Input: Please come and check it out if you get the time!


Input: I was searching for dog food info and found this post.


Input: I agree totally!


Input: Paul

Paul


Input: How Would You Like To Know How YOU Can Live In A Beautiful NEW House That Is Custom-Designed To YOUR Specifications ......... And At NO COST To You?


Input: You CAN Do It.


Input: And It's Not Hard To Do .... IF You Know HOW.


Input: Don't Let This Pass You By Without At Least Taking A Look.


Input: The Only Catch Is That You HAVE To Have An Income ABOVE $21,000 ...... And ...... You HAVE To Follow The Easy Instructions Provided To You.


Input: Get-A-Free-House.com


Input: When the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of men


Input: Just remember that death is not the end


Input: And you search in vain to find just one law abiding citizen


Input: Just remember that death is not the end-Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan


Input: Afraid I don't have time today to discuss these, but some stories need attention:


Input: From Wednesday's Mirror the headline, " Have 200,000 AK47s Fallen Into the Hands of Iraq Terrorists? "

Iraq


Input: (also see this thread on the RI discussion board):


Input: Some 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

US


Input: The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia.

US

Bosnia


Input: But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.


Input: Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense.

US

Department of Defense


Input: But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.


Input: And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.

UN

Amnesty


Input: It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq's police and army instead went to al-Qaeda.

Iraq

al-Qaeda


Input: Amnesty chief spokesman Mike Blakemore said: " It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles.

Amnesty

Mike Blakemore


Input: If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect. "


Input: American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.

US

Iraq


Input: But air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005.

Baghdad


Input: A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received " any weapons from Bosnia " and added they were " not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia ".

Bosnia

Iraq

Bosnia


Input: Nato and US officials have already voiced fears that Bosnian arms-sold by US, British and Swiss firms-are being passed to insurgents.

Nato

US

US


Input: A NATO spokesman said: " There's no tracking mechanism to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands.

NATO


Input: There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off. "


Input: This year a newspaper claimed two UK firms were involved in a deal in which thousands of guns for Iraqi forces were re-routed to al-Qaeda.

UK

al-Qaeda


Input: The Moldovan airline is Aerocom, and yes, it's one of Victor Bout's.

Aerocom

Victor Bout


Input: It's always a bang-your-head-against-the-wall moment, reading again the play the incompetence theory receives, even from some of the Administration's harshest mainstream critics.


Input: But then, even to talk of an " administration " may be misdirection at this point, given how little representative government means in the United States these days, and how much of " national security " has been privatized into a global gangland of drugs and guns.

United States


Input: Like the tens of billions of dollars that have been " lost " in Iraq, planeloads of arms don't just " vanish "; not when the Pentagon contracts the work to an international criminal of Bout's untouchable stature.

Iraq

Pentagon

Bout


Input: But Bout's name isn't likely to be mentioned in whatever coverage this story receives, before it sinks like so many others beneath the media's frothing triviality.

Bout


Input: Meanwhile, a decision's been reached in the trial of Toledo priest Gerald Robinson.

Toledo

Gerald Robinson


Input: And it's guilty:


Input: The Rev. Gerald Robinson appeared stony-faced as the jury's guilty verdict was read, and he blinked repeatedly and glanced at his lawyers before being led away in handcuffs.

Gerald Robinson


Input: The crime occurred in the sacristy adjoining the hospital chapel in downtown Toledo on the Saturday before Easter in 1980.

Toledo


Input: Investigators said the nun, Margaret Ann Pahl, 71, was strangled and then stabbed, with nine wounds on her chest forming the shape of an inverted cross, a well-recognized Satanic symbol.

Margaret Ann Pahl


Input: An altar cloth was draped over her half-naked body, which was posed as if she had been sexually assaulted.


Input: " It was about how he could humiliate her the most, " prosecutor Dean Mandros said in closing arguments.

Dean Mandros


Input: " He left a message for everyone to see ... maybe to God himself. "

God


Input: After the sentencing one of Robinson's tearful supporters " turned to Claudia Vercellotti, a local leader of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests [SNAP], who had helped reopen the case, and told her,' I hope you rot in hell!' "

Robinson

Claudia Vercellotti

Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests

SNAP


Input: From SNAP's statement on the Robinson conviction:

SNAP

Robinson


Input: More than ever, police and prosecutors have the tools and the will to go after horrific crimes, even when the defendants are seemingly powerful individuals or institutions.


Input: When victims and witnesses stay silent, nothing changes.


Input: When victims and witnesses speak up, at least sometimes a child is protected, the truth is exposed, and justice is done.


Input: The murder weapon, Robinson's letter opener:

Robinson


Input: Finally, from an email, a follow-up on the reopening of the investigation into the Atlanta Child Murders:

Atlanta


Input: Dekalb County Police Chief Louis Graham ... the man who reopened the investigations last year, is mysteriously stepping down.

Dekalb County

Louis Graham


Input: And of all the people who the county is getting to find a replacement ... is none other than Lee Brown, the original supervisor of the Atlanta PD, who was in office during the murders and the subsequent investigation.

Lee Brown

Atlanta PD


Input: SNAP is right in part.

SNAP


Input: Police and prosecutors have the tools.


Input: The will is another matter.


Input: Some do, individually.


Input: But institutionally?


Input: That's still the domain of those who don't.


Input: lots of important stories out there today jeff .... thank god and a few good souls for that conviction.

jeff

god


Input: Have you sent this to congress yet?


Input: talk about law enforcement not having the will ...


Input: CRACKDOWN ON POLYGAMY GROUP


Input: Small polygamous groups have existed in the southwestern US under the watchful yet fairly benign eye of authorities ever since a sect known as the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) separated itself from mainstream Mormonism in 1890.

US

Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

FLDS


Input: Now, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs has been added to the FBI's list of " Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, " a move that caps law enforcement's dramatic change of approach toward the polygamous group in recent years ... [because of] the impact that the group's practices, law enforcement officials say, are having on the most vulnerable within the sect, particularly children and women.

FLDS

FBI

Warren Jeffs


Input: When the FLDS under Mr. Jeffs (and his father before him) grew to some 10,000 followers in several southwestern communities with estimated assets of $110 million; when it became clear that government officials, school authorities, and police in those communities had become intertwined with the sect; when ex-members increasingly reported child and sexual abuse charges (mainly involving underage girls forced to marry older men); and when the sect began to use secluded compounds, state and federal authorities started to crack down more vigorously.

FLDS

Jeffs


Input: Specifically, Jeffs is charged in Utah and Arizona with sexual assault of underage girls and with arranging " spiritual " marriages for girls and older men.

Jeffs

Utah

Arizona


Input: At weekend press conferences in Salt Lake City and Phoenix, FBI and state officials said Jeffs " is considered armed and dangerous and may be traveling with armed bodyguards. "

Salt Lake City

Phoenix

FBI

Jeffs


Input: In the past, he has talked in apocalyptic terms about a violent end to the world, according to former members.


Input: As with Christian Identity and other hate-related philosophies tied to the Aryan Nations and the neo-Nazi Creativity Movement, Jeffs has preached racism as well.

Aryan Nations

Jeffs


Input: " The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth, " Jeffs has said as cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center's " Intelligence Report. "

Jeffs

Southern Poverty Law Center


Input: An editorial in the church-owned Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City earlier this year acknowledged that " the state's history, a conservative belief in free choice, and an unwillingness to stir up a hornet's nest in the national media have likely all contributed to the kid-glove approach lawmakers and law-enforcement officers have taken when dealing with polygamous communities. "

Deseret Morning News

Salt Lake City


Input: Maybe I'm missing something here, but how, exactly, does one' Loose' 200,000 AK47's?


Input: " There's no tracking mechanism in place " ?!?!?


Input: Never mind.


Input: No need to worry.


Input: I'm sure this kind of thing goes on all the time.


Input: We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming ....


Input: just go here, it s simply amazing


Input: The Raw Story


Input: i count like 14 explosive headlines.


Input: Then, of course, there is the evidence the jury did not hear about in the Robinson case ...

Robinson


Input: Funny how some things are squirelled away by well-meaning prosecutors ...


Input: Maybe because they hint at a larger conspiracy/network of abusers/satanic underground?


Input: I read of a case not long ago when some people were trying to get a polygamous judge taken off the bench for not obeying state law.


Input: Of course law enforcement has dragged it's feet when members are taking part in the activity themselves.


Input: Personally I don't give a damn what adults do to one another as long as there is no abuse invovled.


Input: It is the marrying off of young girls to older men often close relatives that enfurates me.


Input: Also these cults have multimillions yet the women and kids live in poverty so the leaders can live the high life.


Input: In the Warren Jeffs cult he reassigns wives if the husband displeases him or to reward the new husband.

Warren Jeffs


Input: Husbands marry mothers and teen daughters at the same time.


Input: a rare form of retardation is showing up in that group more than anywhere else in the world.


Input: It is genetic and the child needs to get the gene from both parents to turn into a vegetable instead of a thinking child.


Input: The doctor begs them to stop intermarrying but they say they have to keep the blood pure.


Input: look up fumarase deficiency for more info.


Input: Also look up the kingston family.


Input: One member actually was convicted of beating his teen daughter unconcious when she ran away from' marriage' to her father's own brother.


Input: no one was charged for forced marriage, only the beating.


Input: So we " lost " some weapon?


Input: It's a good thing too.


Input: We wouldn't want those terrorists to run out of shit to shoot at us.


Input: Then the war might stop & all those juicy profits would just evaporate.


Input: What's a few dead soldiers in comparison to keeping all those defense contractors awash in all that tax cash?


Input: They really are milking the incompetence angle though, aren't they?


Input: Just another big Iraq whoopsie daisy, huh?

Iraq


Input: Christ, you'd think America would get a bit tired of these guys treating her like she was populated with nothing but gullible idiots.

America


Input: I suppose that it's damn lucky for the GOP that she is populated with gullible idiots.

GOP


Input: US outsourcing special ops, intelligence to Iraq terror group, intelligence officials say

US

Iraq


Input: The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say ...

Pentagon

US


Input: A country deserves the leaders it has, my friends ...


Input: And MEK -- the Iranian (not Iraqi) terror group in question -- is itself unquestionably a cult:

MEK


Input: As the leaders like to boast, the Mujahedeen is a family affair.


Input: ('' We have three generations of martyrs: grandmothers, mothers, daughters.'')


Input: Most of the girls I was meeting had grown up in Mujahedeen schools in Ashraf, where they lived separated from their parents.

Ashraf


Input: Family visits were allowed on Thursday nights and Fridays.


Input: When Iraq invaded Kuwait, many of these girls were transported to Jordan and then smuggled to various countries -- Germany, France, Canada, Denmark, England, the United States -- where they were raised by guardians who were usually Mujahedeen supporters.

Iraq

Kuwait

Germany

France

Canada

Denmark

England

United States


Input: When they were 18 or 19, many of them decided to come back to Iraq and fill the ranks of the youngest Mujahedeen generation.

Iraq


Input: Though'' decided'' is probably not the right word, since from the day they were born, these girls and boys were not taught to think for themselves but to blindly follow their leaders.


Input: '' Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them,'' Nadereh Afshari, a former Mujahedeen deep-believer, told me.

Massoud

Maryam

Nadereh Afshari


Input: Afshari, who was posted in Germany and was responsible for receiving Mujahedeen children during the gulf war, said that when the German government tried to absorb Mujahedeen children into their education system, the Mujahedeen refused.

Afshari

Germany

German


Input: Many of the children were sent to Mujahedeen schools, particularly in France.

France


Input: The Rajavis, Afshari went on to say,'' saw these kids as the next generation's soldiers.

Afshari


Input: They wanted to brainwash them and control them.''


Input: Which may explain the pattern to their stories: a journey to self-empowerment and the enlightenment of self-sacrifice inspired by the light and wisdom of Maryam and Massoud.

Maryam

Massoud


Input: Link


Input: One has to wonder whether the bright fellows in our government and military who set up the deals with these people don't know what they are, don't care, or know perfectly well.


Input: Jeff,

Jeff


Input: SPLOID.com cited you on the topic of that priest conviction: http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/05/evil_priest_gui.php


Input: Umm ...


Input: Question Mark


Input: Jimmy Plant, Blogshares is a fantasy blogosphere trading game with pretend money.

Jimmy Plant


Input: That's all I know; I've had nothing to do with it.


Input: Bush successfully makes Satan look good in comparison.

Bush

Satan


Input: Or something like that.


Input: " Another generation of heavy metal has taken over, and -- sorry -- it ain't just about strippers and dope.


Input: Okay, it's partly about strippers and dope.


Input: And we'll get around to that.


Input: But more and more, as metal evolves into a huge international music that belongs to everyone, it has gotten to be something weirder.


Input: It's become a guardian of morality -- not church morality; real morality.


Input: Praise be: Given the void in responsible behavior among governments, police, educational establishments and religions, the task of guiding our youth down the path of righteousness has fallen to ... Satan "

Satan


Input: Hmmmmmm ....................


Input: The people who carry out these underground arms/drugs/sex trafficking deals are trauma based mind controlled slaves.


Input: The Moldovan airline is Aerocom, and yes, it's one of Victor Bout's.

Aerocom

Victor Bout


Input: The wikipedia entry for Aerocom is just a stub .. waiting for someone to put some information into it ....

Aerocom


Input: So ... put some information in there.


Input: You know, nature hates a void. :)


Input: Richard,

Richard


Input: i agree, Hmmmmmm.


Input: How are chants of death and suicide ... morality.


Input: What about Manson's tees bearing the message, " Kill your parents ".

Manson


Input: And were the Columbine killers acting out this " real morality " when they indescriminately murdered their classmates.


Input: They were death metal brainwashed fans, literally fulfilling the death metal paradigm, er ... morality.


Input: (not church morality, no that is phoney, love thy neighbor ... hell no, kill thy neighbor-now that is REAL MORALITY ?????)


Input: So, hmmmm indeed.


Input: I detect the hissing lisp of the lying serpent in this article.


Input: The deathly inversion of truth, ala satanism.


Input: I think the jury's still out on exactly who did the brainwashing when in regard to the Columbine killers.


Input: Perhaps we should look at the death metal phenomenon less as an invitation to violence than as a couter-cultural response to the over hypocrisy of a large percentage of the' Church-Morality' crowd, which gives a lot of lip service to loving thy neighbor, but doesn't apply that love very far beyond their own congregation.


Input: The last I checked, the Satanists have a long way to go to catch up with the death and destruction dealt out by self-proclaimed (though false) Christians.


Input: Irony is dead ... Long live Irony!


Input: That's it.


Input: I'm firing my editor.


Input: Well, it's not as simple and clear cut as all that.


Input: We're entering into some interesting and perhaps previously unexplored socio-political-spiritual territory here that may require further examination and serious introspection.


Input: The Kevin Coogan publication posted on the previous thread might serve as a good launching point for further discussion.

Kevin Coogan


Input: The following quote is from that Coogan article:

Coogan


Input: Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.


Input: Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.


Input: -Simone Weil

Simone Weil


Input: Starroute:


Input: I wouldn't wonder too hard.


Input: The answer is likely D: all of the above, due to this being a complex reality we live in.


Input: But to me, without question, they often know perfectly well.


Input: Here is a thought: When the appartently cognitively functional take actions that seem senseless and incompetent, it is a most certain sign that they have ulterior or hidden motives.


Input: They trust you and me to be befuddled by their actions, while they " do as they wilt ".


Input: To not buying the BS


Input: & here I am thinking that I really must be getting old.


Input: Since the article was specifically about " death metal " I guess the author missed this little tidbit or we just have waaaaaaaaaaaaay different definitions of morality:


Input: One man's relentless search for his missing son led him to uncover one of the most shocking crimes in post-war Italy-a tale of satanism and violence that has gripped the country for more than a year.


Input: In January 1998 Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino, both just 16, disappeared.

Fabio Tollis

Chiara Marino


Input: They had been drinking at a pub called the Midnight-the centre of the heavy metal scene in Milan-and they never came home.

Milan


Input: The police and many of their friends just thought they had run off together.


Input: But their parents refused to accept this.


Input: Michele Tollis, Fabio's father, began to attend metal concerts and festivals across Europe, handing out leaflets and quizzing Fabio's friends.

Michele Tollis

Fabio

Fabio

Europe


Input: Fabio and his friends were into the most extreme forms of heavy metal music-death metal and black metal, music obsessed with images of murder and satanism-and the role of this music is central to the story.

Fabio


Input: No one can contradict me when I say that heavy metal and satanism are closely linked


Input: Michele Tollis

Michele Tollis


Input: It emerged that Chiara, the girl who disappeared with Fabio, had a collection of satanic literature and paraphernalia in her bedroom.

Chiara

Fabio


Input: During this search, Michele Tollis became convinced that satanism had something to do with his son's disappearance.

Michele Tollis


Input: " No one can contradict me when I say that heavy metal and satanism are closely linked.


Input: They're inseparable, " he says.


Input: Yeah, I think Jeff wrote on one of his posts here in the past several months: " To hell with death ".

Jeff


Input: I wholly agree, and would expand that statement to include: " To hell with death metal ".


Input: The freaky thing here is that these bozos are seriously claiming the moral high ground?????


Input: Talk about a beat-your-head-against-the-wall moment!


Input: And for' Smartwolf' above, think about the inversion principle being employed.


Input: They are doing it deliberately.


Input: Do you really think GWB, and neocons in general are representative of true followers of Jesus of Nazareth?

GWB

Jesus of Nazareth


Input: (I know, ignorant question) Then why call them, or any other phonies' Christians', even if they themselves claim the appellation.


Input: They are merely imposters.


Input: Everything they claim is a lie, and this above all.


Input: So why even credit their claims?


Input: This only serves their purposes.


Input: They want to be identified as' Christians', and I fully suspect that for some of them, the motivation behind their subterfuge is more than mere political advantage, and has a lot more to do with the black magician's practice of the inversion principle.


Input: We need to be more' rigorous' about how we perceive these people.


Input: See them as they are, not for what they claim to be.


Input: ... the most extreme forms of heavy metal music-death metal and black metal, music obsessed with images of murder and satanism-and the role of this music is central to the story.


Input: Almost all of the avant guard art movements of the early 20th Century (except for Italian Futurism) were labeled' degenerate' by the National Socialists.

National Socialists


Input: Adolf Hitler even held an exhibition of' degenerate art' in 1937, while curating a parallel show of' Aryan' art across the street.

Adolf Hitler


Input: The German Expressionist movement was destroyed as a result.

German


Input: Here's a quick overview of the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibit of 1937:


Input: Ironically (or perhaps not), the notion of the' degenerate' and' degenerate art' was appropriated by the Nazis and its origins can be traced back to Jewish' intellectual' Max Nordau and a 1892 book he authored called Degeneration..

Max Nordau


Input: Nordau was also the co founder of the World Zionist Organization.

World Zionist Organization


Input: When the apparently cognitively functional take actions that seem senseless and incompetent, it is a most certain sign that they have ulterior or hidden motives.


Input: They trust you and me to be befuddled by their actions, while they " do as they wilt. "


Input: A question:


Input: Are the adherent of' Crowleyan Thelema' and others of similar ilk appropriating or appropriating from the appropriators to redirect' energy?'


Input: Does this reappropriation lead to or originate from the same place?


Input: Seems as if there is a clear distinction being made between the' imaginary' Whore of Babalon and the actually Whore of Babylon, which is this global system.

Babalon

Babylon


Input: Is the distinction accurate and valid?


Input: Does the distinction actually exist?


Input: This is where the socio-political aspect of this conundrum comes into play.


Input: Confused?


Input: Good.


Input: so, enemy, what's your point?


Input: Why don't you state it?


Input: My point is that these are all just questions and I am undecided as to the answers.


Input: Here's another interesting example:


Input: John Balance from Coil.

John Balance


Input: (Don't wish to use Wikipedia again, it's just easier than spending time looking up more obscure and detailed information.)


Input: Balance died in 2004 after a' fall.'

Balance


Input: He blended belief systems such as Shamanism, Christianity, Buddhism, Paganism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism and imbued Coil's vast output with a magickal current designed to have a functionally transcendent effect on listeners.


Input: Not 200,000 guns-the numbers do nt work:


Input: 5 kg per gun, 200,000 guns means 1000 tonnes, impossible for 4 containers.


Input: If the load was 99 tonnes there were probably less than 20,000.


Input: E@tG:


Input: Maybe if you formulate your questions a little more specifically it will help you in acquiring the answers.


Input: " I am, therefore I think " :)


Input: Reporting from the town where Susan Polk's trial is going on.

Susan Polk


Input: I went across the bay last night to attend a farmer's market and music event.


Input: Lo and behold, the Mormons were there with a booth.


Input: Two young men delivering information about the Mormon genealogy program.


Input: Just give your email and/or phone number to these guys and they'll track down your family.


Input: I was amazed at the spiel they delivered.


Input: Kindly young men, but utterly programmed and brain-dead.


Input: I resisted asking any questions that would have required either of them to think.


Input: It would have been too painful to watch.


Input: Has anyone read the letter purportedly from Ahmadinejad to George Bush?

Ahmadinejad

George Bush


Input: I don't know if this has been verified.


Input: But succintly making point after succint point, the text of the letter stands on its own merit, regardless.


Input: I like to imagine the thought processes going on in W's head if he were to actually read the letter, but it is hard to picture him actually reading this letter.

W


Input: As I read the letter, I considered the vast contrast between mind and morality of whoever wrote it, vs. that of the mind of the man who once said " Bring it on! "


Input: America, your condition is dire, dark and deep.

America


Input: Of the metal music farce, Ministry has definately made in-road into' Loose Change "-" Alex Jones " territory with their new record, Rio Grande Blood.

Alex Jones


Input: Important Kos Diary about bush's response to the gathering storm of scandals:

bush


Input: = Executive Orders-


Input: very creepy, very scary


Input: They have been accumulating for years, and basically give the president to sieze the government whenever he feels like it.


Input: But who would do a thing like that .... hey wait a minute


Input: == Why did Bush revoke Executive Order 13011 today?

Bush


Input: by exmearden

exmearden


Input: Fri May 12, 2006 at 08:27:46 PM PDT


Input: In scanning the whitehouse.gov site today, I noticed the following Executive Order:


Input: Executive Order: Amendments to Executive Orders 11030, 13279, 13339, 13381, and 13389, and *** Revocation *** of Executive Order 13011 ....


Input: I can't believe there are no serious metal fans who frequent RI.


Input: I'm wary of jumping into this fray without backup, that's for damn sure. :)


Input: I'm a regular poster but for some reason blogger won't let me in today ... but sign me TroubleFunk.


Input: Tronicus:

Tronicus


Input: Simply, the questions permeate the entire' Western (Mystery) Tradition' and perhaps' Eastern' as well, as they relate to the confluence of politics and spirituality.


Input: For example, is the system of Crowleyan Thelema a failed alchemical process?


Input: Or was it supposed to initially be a process of alchemical appropriation?


Input: Similarly, is invoking ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses a reaffirmation of an oppressive and hierarchical system?


Input: In my opinion, people can no longer afford to partition out and compartmentalize personal spiritual and political systems.


Input: The' high weirdness' and more hardcore political' factions' must perhaps integrate and arrive at a synthesis.


Input: In regards to death metal, the problem is, once again, a question of education, history and the vacuous lack of perspective in American culture.


Input: Shall we censor the works of poet Charles Baudelaire as well?

Charles Baudelaire


Input: Baudelaire was perhaps one of the first' death metal' artists.

Baudelaire


Input: Tronicus, if you're still checking this thread:

Tronicus


Input: A bit of a knee-jerk reaction from me there, and I apologize for my over-generalizations.


Input: My real problem is with literalist fundamentalists, of any religion.


Input: True believers are dangerous animals.


Input: I just get hung up on' Christians', as they're the dominant form where I come from.


Input: Also, I'm quite clear on the fact that those in power now (and, in general, most anyone at the top of a pyrimidal power structure) tend to use the dominant religion as a cloak to hide their true motivations and as a tool to control the masses.


Input: It boggles the mind that ANYONE can take at face value Bush's claims to be a christian, yet many seem to do just that.

Bush


Input: I seem to remember something about' by their works shall ye know them. "


Input: I do get my hackles up a bit when people haul out the old' Rock-N-Roll made them do it' argument.


Input: Whie I don't subscribe to the notion that the things we watch or listen to have no effect on our behavior (which I think is patently rediculous), it does bother me when people single out a specific group of people to pin the blame on.


Input: Sub-cultures (as the lable implies) do not develope in a vacuum.


Input: Again, I think the problem is people who sink to far into their own egos, and begin to take their personal metaphors a bit too literaly.


Input: These people are dangerous wether they're head-banging to' Canibal Corpse' or humming along to' Onward Christian Soldiers'.


Input: (The mixing of religion and militarism is a whole other topic ....)


Input: I have nothing but respect for people who adhear to non-violence, forgiveness, and charity, but it's important to remember that Christians (or' Smartwolves') do not have a monopoly on that particular lifestyle.


Input: Peace.


Input: The fact that the US government and media are having a hissy fit over Venezuela wanting to buy guns, and then 200,000 of the guns Chavez wants to buy go missing on their way to Iraq is definitely sus.

US

Venezuela

Iraq

Chavez


Input: I guess those guns will be located enroute to Venezuela or found in storage there by one of the US's local stooges and they then have a pretext to ramp the spin up a notch or two.

Venezuela

US


Input: What do the new al-Qaeda videotape and audio speeches of Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri tell us about the hopes of the remaining top leadership of the organization?

al-Qaeda

Bin Laden

Ayman al-Zawahiri


Input: Because the US and Pakistan have managed to capture or kill about 2/3s of the top 25 al-Qaeda commanders, the middle managers are not in close contact with al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden.

US

Pakistan

al-Qaeda

al-Zawahiri

Bin Laden


Input: The tape was a way to signal priorities.


Input: These are 1) Assassinate or overthrow Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military " president " who had made a coup in 1999 and has thrown in his lot with the United States against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Pervez Musharraf

United States

Taliban

al-Qaeda


Input: Musharraf has been trying to purge his officer corps of the substantial number of al-Qaeda sympathizers.

Musharraf

al-Qaeda


Input: His military intelligence has captured major figures like Abu Zubayda and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, as well as nearly 500 other al-Qaeda operatives, over 400 of whom the Pakistanis have turned over to the US.

Abu Zubayda

Khalid Shaykh Muhammad

al-Qaeda

US


Input: Musharraf held elections in October of 2002, in which center-right parties did well, but in which nearly 20 percent of parliament seats went to the fundamentalist religious party coalition, MMA.

Musharraf

MMA


Input: MMA also captured the Northwest Frontier Province, which probably shelters Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, and is in a joint government of Baluchistan Province, also on the Afghanistan border.

MMA

Northwest Frontier Province

Baluchistan Province

Afghanistan

Bin Laden

al-Zawahiri


Input: If al-Qaeda can kill Musharraf or instigate a military coup against him by Islamist junior officers, they can hope to catapult the MMA to power as political allies and hosts.

al-Qaeda

MMA

Musharraf


Input: They would thereby gain control of a major base for terrorist operations, which is also a nuclear power.


Input: All this is highly unlikely, as with most al-Qaeda crackpot schemes.

al-Qaeda


Input: But so was it unlikely that a small group of Arab mujahidin would virtually take over Afghanistan.

Afghanistan


Input: Response: The US must do whatever it can to strengthen the legitimacy of the Pakistani government.

US


Input: On the one hand, it should pressure Musharraf to take off his uniform and run for president in a fair election, and to repeal the contentious " Legal Framework Order " that essentially perpetuates his dictatorship.

Musharraf


Input: On the other, restrictions should be lifted on the mainstream Muslim League-N and Pakistan People's Party, who can defeat the MMA in fair elections if not hogtied by the secret police.

Muslim League-N

Pakistan People's Party

MMA


Input: On the other hand, the US should strong-arm India and Pakistan into a final settlement of the Kashmir issue.

US

India

Pakistan

Kashmir


Input: Al-Zawahiri attempted to use Musharraf's lack of progress in helping the Muslims of that Indian state as a justification for his overthrow.

Al-Zawahiri

Musharraf


Input: The Kashmir issue generates far more terrorism, and even the threat of nuclear war, than Iraq ever did.

Kashmir

Iraq


Input: 2) Target Israel and encourage the worst elements of the Palestinians by playing on the iron fist policies of the Sharon government.

Israel

Sharon


Input: Response: The US has succeeded in politically isolating Hamas, and started the process of cutting off its funding.

US

Hamas


Input: This terrorist organization can now only pull off far less sophisticated bombings and attacks.


Input: It should continue to be defanged.


Input: But Sharon's iron fist is simply not working as a means of establishing general peace, and the Bush administration will have to finally apply effective pressure on Sharon to stop his outrages in and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza.

Sharon

Bush

Sharon

West Bank

Gaza


Input: Sharon's hard line has worked in tandem with Hamas's terrorism to ratchet up tensions further and further, which spill over into the Muslim world and serve as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda in its search for agents willing to hit the United States.

Sharon

Hamas

al-Qaeda

United States


Input: Israel owes the United States at least this much, in this crisis, to cease militarily unnecessary provocations and establish genuine peace.

Israel

United States


Input: 3) Make Iraq another Afghanistan, using the Republican Right's own tactics against them.

Iraq

Afghanistan