America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions. The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime. In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials. Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan. advertisement Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph. His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime." Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made. Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party. John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity." Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture. The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money. A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime. The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage." At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters. The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street. While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility. "It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table." The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business. Additional reporting by Gethin Chamberlain. |
Sunday, February 25, 2007
US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
McVeigh had high-level help
According to Oklahoma bombing conspirator, ranking officials were involved in the attack
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:02/21/2007 01:03:43 AM MST
Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official "apparently" was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah.
The official and other conspirators are being protected by the federal government "in a cover-up to escape its responsibility for the loss of life in Oklahoma," Nichols claims in a Feb. 9 affidavit.
Documents that supposedly help back up his allegations have been sealed to protect information in them, such as Social Security numbers and dates of birth.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah had no comment on the allegations. The FBI and Justice Department in Washington, D.C., also declined comment.
Nichols does not say what motive the government would have to be involved in the bombing.
The affidavit was filed in a lawsuit brought by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue, who believes his brother's death in a federal prison was linked to the Oklahoma City bombing. The suit, which seeks documents from the FBI under the federal Freedom of Information Act, alleges that authorities mistook Kenneth Trentadue for a bombing conspirator and that guards killed him in an interrogation that got out of hand.
Trentadue's death a few months after the April 19, 1995, bombing was ruled a suicide after several investigations. The government has adamantly denied any wrongdoing in the death.
In his affidavit, Nichols says he wants to bring closure to the survivors and families of the attack on the Alfred B. Murrah Federal Building, which took 168 lives. He alleges he wrote then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004, offering to help identify all parties who played a role in the bombing but never got a reply.
Nichols is serving a life sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo. McVeigh, who carried out the bombing, was executed in 2001.
McVeigh and Nichols were the only defendants indicted in the bombing. However, Nichols alleges others were involved.
McVeigh told him he was recruited for undercover missions while serving in the military, according to Nichols. He says he learned sometime in 1995 that there had been a change in bombing target and that McVeigh was upset by that.
"There, in what I believe was an accidental slip of the tongue, McVeigh revealed the identity of a high-ranking FBI official who was apparently directing McVeigh in the bomb plot," Nichols says in the affidavit.
Nichols also says that McVeigh threatened him and his family to force him to rob Roger Moore, an Arkansas gun dealer, of weapons and explosives. He later learned the robbery was staged so Moore, who was in on the phony heist, could deny any knowledge of the bombing plot if the stolen items were traced back to him, Nichols claims.
He adds that Moore allegedly told his attorney that he would not be prosecuted in connection with the bombing because he was a "protected witness."
Moore could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
In addition, Nichols says McVeigh must have had help building the bomb. The device he and McVeigh built the day before the bombing did not resemble the one that ultimately was used, Nichols says, and "displayed a level of expertise and sophistication" that neither man had.
pmanson@sltrib.com
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Spain furious as US blocks access to Madrid bombing 'chief'
Exclusive: on the first day of the Madrid bombing trial, the splits that have emerged between Spain and the US over the War on Terror, which have their roots in the Iraq conflict, are laid bare
Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, who is being held in an secret location by the CIA
The al-Qaeda leader who created, trained and directed the terrorist cell that carried out the Madrid train bombings has been held in a CIA “ghost prison” for more than a year.
Spanish officials told The Times last night that they are furious to have been denied access to Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian-born terrorist who has been part of the al-Qaeda leadership since the late 1980s.
"This is Spain's most wanted man in the terrorist world - it is galling to know that he is in the hands of an ally and they will not help us," a Spanish official said.
Madrid’s anger became known on the day that 29 men went on trial in the Spanish capital in connection with the bomb attacks which killed 191 people in March 2004.
Setmarian, 49, who lived in Madrid, married a Spanish woman and holds Spanish citizenship, inspired and established Spain’s first Islamist terror cells.
Searches after the March 2004 bombings uncovered documents which appeared to link the terrorists to Setmarian and he his thought to have issued a coded order giving the go-ahead for the attack.
Setmarian was in Afghanistan in late 2001 when the Taleban regime fell and moved with his family to Pakistan where he continued to be active in al-Qaeda.
A tall man with a pale complexion and flame red hair, Setmarian travelled widely and was often mistaken for a Westerner. He was frequently described as having “Irish looks”.
During the mid-1990s he lived in London where he associated with Abu Hamza al-Masri and succeeded the radical cleric as editor of al-Ansar, a propaganda magazine for Algerian terror groups. He also associated with Abu Qatada, the extremist Jordanian cleric currently in prison in Britain.
His suspected role in the Madrid attacks and his knowledge of London meant that he was initially suspected of having played a part in the planning of the 7/7 suicide bomb attacks in 2005.
At the time of those attacks he was still at large in Pakistan where two of the London bombers are known to have received military and explosives training.
Setmarian, who pledged lifelong allegiance to bin Laden and the global jihad, has boasted on al-Qaeda websites of training thousands of foreign recruits at camps where he specialised in bombmaking and the use of poisons.
He was detained in October 2005 as he shopped for breakfast in Quetta, close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Pakistani intelligence agents shot Setmarian’s Saudi bodyguard dead but were under specific instructions to take Setmarian alive.
The FBI had offered a $5 million reward for his capture and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan stated in his recent memoirs that his country has received substantial sums in bounties from the US authorities.
Within a month of his capture Setmarian was handed over to the United States authorities and spirited away for interrogation at one of their secret prisons. His first stop was probably Bagram airbase, near Kabul, but his current whereabouts are unknown.
Setmarian’s wife and three children moved from Pakistan following his detention and are now believed to be living in Qatar where she is reported to be an English teacher at a private school.
Spanish intelligence agents were said to have been allowed to question inmates of Guantanamo Bay about Setmarian in 2002. But access to suspects in US custody was blocked after Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq following the Madrid bombs.
Spain has made repeated requests to both Pakistan and the US to locate and speak to Setmarian about the train bombings but to no avail. The Spanish courts have discovered that they cannot issue an extradition request because the man they want to talk to has not been officially arrested.
US acting like terrorists: ex-premier
A former Western Australian Labor premier has lashed out at the Australian and US governments over the treatment of terrorism suspects like David Hicks.
Peter Dowding says the US has acted like terrorists by "virtually kidnapping" suspects and using the "rendition" process to take them to countries outside the US justice system where they can be tortured.
Mr Dowding, who is campaigning for justice for Guantanamo Bay detainee Hicks, has told ABC TV Stateline in WA the Government stands condemned for endorsing the US actions.
"It's tolerating outrageous international conduct, the conduct of terrorists is really what the United States Government is engaged in," he said.
"It's tolerating kangaroo courts. Our Prime Minister and our Attorney-General, firstly I believe they have misled the Australian community and not told the truth about the circumstances of Hicks's position and they've done nothing to protect him.
"Moving these people into a position where the courts are not allowed to supervise their incarceration is an absolute outrage and our Prime Minister and our Attorney-General have accepted that that's appropriate conduct.
"It's not appropriate conduct for anybody, it doesn't matter whether they're bank robbers, we don't do that."
He says the activities of the US are also disturbing Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"We are behaving as best we can through our present Federal Government to offend our nearest neighbours, now that is a silly act which puts us in some jeopardy," he said.
"I would like the community to understand just how much jeopardy that puts us in."
Friday, February 16, 2007
Report: Bomb explodes in Tehran near last deadly blast; police clash with gunmen
Bomb blast in Iran, police clash with gunmen Reuters, 21 minutes ago
---
Bomb explodes in Tehran near last blast
AP 44 minutes ago
A bomb exploded in southeastern Iran late Friday, near the site where an earlier explosion this week killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, the state-run news agency IRNA reported.
"Minutes ago, the sound of a bomb explosion was heard in one of Zahedan's streets," the agency said. The report offered no further details, including whether there were casualties.
On Wednesday, a car blew up a bus owned by the elite troops in Zahedan, capital of the Sistan-Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Israel=Zionism=Terrorism? God Forbid!!
Part of Haitham's adventure
11. February 2007 ! Warning ! The following documentaries contain extremely graphic footage of atrocities that are accruing in Palestine, perpetrated by Zionists. If you may feel offended, consider how the people in these videos , who are not actors but experiencing these Zionist terrorism firsthand, feel.
To start, here is a light one (not less graphic!):
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Is it too cynical to suggest that the government may have inspired tales of counter-terrorism plots, mass kidnapping and tethered goats?
Scare stories
Richard Norton-TaylorIf we believed the media reports, the police and MI5 have thwarted a devastating plot to kidnap 25 targets, including a Muslim servicemen on leave. The Ministry of Defence had come up with a plan whereby soldiers would act as "tethered goats" to lure the kidnappers.
But the plot was nipped in the bud by what the Home Office described a "major counter-terrorism operation", leading to the highly-publicised dawn arrests of nine Muslims in Birmingham last week. The Maktabah Islamic bookshop was sealed. Other targets included the Blades Cyber Cafe, and the Khan General Store. The police described the arrests as "the foothills of a very major investigation". Yesterday, two of the nine men were released by order of a district judge.
Stories about mass kidnapping and tethered goats are not invented by journalists. They - we - are fed them by "sources" with an agenda and who, of course, remain anonymous. It is all very easy.
It is made easier because, officially, the security and intelligence agencies, the police, and the Home Office, make no comment about anti-terrorist operations, not least because of the danger of prejudicing the jury at any future trial. But the temptation to indulge in the dark art of black propaganda is too great.
Who inspired the lurid tales surrounding the Birmingham arrests will never be known. It is unlikely, however, to have been officers in MI5 or the police anti-terrorist branch in the forefront of the operation. Such stories can sabotage their investigations as well as the gathering of evidence. And it does not endear them to members of the Muslim community, on whose cooperation they say they rely.
Would the government be above inspiring such stories? Certainly, in the past, ministers, including Tony Blair, have played politics with security by praying MI5 and the police in aid of his demand, for example, that suspects should be held without charge for 90 days, as opposed to the present 28-day limit.
And if those arrested have to be released when the 28 days are up for lack of evidence, then the government can argue that this is further proof that 28 days are not enough. Maybe this is too cynical an observation. Whether it is or not, such scare stories are increasingly dangerous and, in the end, counter-productive.
Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security editor.
Friday, February 2, 2007
No Defense Against Persecution
Sarah Shields
February 01, 2007
Sarah Shields teaches Middle East history at UNC/Chapel Hill.
“Has anyone told you that you look like Gandhi?” my companion asked Professor Sami al-Arian. Al-Arian was sitting behind a plastic wall, wearing striped prison clothes and speaking into two telephones.
It was easy not only to see the resemblance, but also to feel it. Dr. al-Arian has a strikingly similar smile, Gandhi-like eyes and the same lean frame as he finished the first week of his hunger strike. More remarkable, after being both prosecuted and persecuted, he maintains his confidence in the rule of law, the American system of justice and the basic goodness of his persecutors. And he has come through it all with his good nature and sense of humor, despite his weakening condition.
Dr. Sami al-Arian has now spent four years in jail, three of those in solitary confinement while awaiting trial. In December 2005, despite years to prepare the case against him, and an estimated $80 million dollars of American tax money to pursue it, Dr. al-Arian was acquitted of eight of the 17 charges against him, including conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to murder and maim people abroad, conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organization (two counts), mail fraud (two counts) and obstruction of justice (two counts). After agreeing in a plea bargain to a single charge in exchange for being released and deported, more than a year after his acquittal he is still imprisoned. We visited him at Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia, where he is being held for contempt of court for refusing to testify in an unrelated matter.
The United States government was deeply embarrassed after this acquittal in a high-profile trial that was to have been a showcase for the USA PATRIOT Act. After being imprisoned under conditions condemned by Amnesty International, in lock-down 23 hours a day for 37 months before his trial, regularly shackled and strip-searched, denied religious services, refused adequate access to the documents necessary to prepare his defense (tens of thousands of pages of transcripts from years of electronic surveillance), after being brought into the courtroom heavily shackled and treated as a terrorist, al-Arian was gracious in victory.
For Sami al-Arian, the jury’s verdict reinforced the confidence he had always held in both the United States and her system of justice. Addressing the court, he thanked his attorneys and his adopted country:
This process, your Honor, affirmed my belief in the true meaning of a democratic society, in which the independence of the judiciary, the integrity of the jury system and the system of checks and balances are upheld, despite intense political and public pressures ... It's also my belief that an impartial and conscientious jury, as well as principled judicial rulings that uphold the values of the constitution, are the real vehicles that win the hearts and minds of people across the globe, especially in the Arab and Muslim world.
The American Civil Liberties Union wrote to the government arguing that a retrying Dr. Al-Arian “following the recent acquittal of all serious charges lodged against him would appear to be pointless and vindictive.”
As the government refused to preclude a retrial, and with exhausted attorneys and inadequate funds to pursue a defense against the remaining counts (on which two jurors remained unconvinced), the defendant decided to conclude a plea deal. Dr. Al-Arian pled guilty to one of the remaining charges against him solely in order to be finished with his ordeal. He agreed to deportation in return for the termination of all legal proceedings against him, and what Al-Arian believed was a good-faith commitment relieving him of the obligation to testify against others.
U.S. District Judge James Moody seemed unswayed even by the arguments of the prosecutors, and sentenced Dr. al-Arian to another 11 months jail, to be completed in April 2007. But it seems the government is unwilling to carry out this agreement.
In October 2006 U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg asked a grand jury to subpoena Professor al-Arian to testify in a case involving a Muslim think-tank. Pointing out that testifying had been explicitly deleted from the plea bargain, with the specific consent of the prosecutors in Florida, he refused. As he explained it to us last week, his refusal comes from two places. First, he considers it inconsistent with his faith and his values to testify. Second, he anticipates that any testimony would be used to create new “facts” to re-arrest him. His fear seems well-founded. At a hearing in 2000, a government attorney asked whether Dr. al-Arian believed that Islam could only be liberated through violence. Professor al-Arian’s response, of course, was “No.”
One of the 17 counts against him in 2003 was perjury: The government contends he lied when responding that violence was not required to liberate Islam.
Responding to being placed in civil contempt, al-Arian pointed out that he had “no contempt whatsoever for this honorable court, but all the respect in the world for it.” It seems, instead, that it is the government that has contempt for the legal system al-Arian has relied upon and admired for decades. Instead of respecting the plea agreement, Kromberg referred to it as a “bonanza.” Despite having been found guilty of nothing by a U.S. court, Judge Moody and Kromberg persist in their belief in al-Arian’s culpability. It appears that Kromberg’s attitude is based in part on Sami al-Arian’s religion.
Attorney Jack Fernandez requested that Kromberg delay al-Arian’s transfer to Virginia until the end of Ramadan. Fernandez quoted Kromberg’s response in an affidavit, "If they can kill each other during Ramadan, they can appear before the grand jury, all they can't do is eat before sunset. I believe Mr. al-Arian's request is part of the attempted Islamization of the American justice aystem. I am not going to put off Dr. al-Arian's grand jury appearance just to assist in what is becoming the Islamization of America." Gordon Kromberg has denied a request to recuse himself in this case.
It was both Sami al-Arian’s religious faith, and his faith in our system of government that got him arrested in 2003. Al-Arian actually believes what we say about freedom of worship, and has spent years trying to inform Americans about Islam. Stunned by the events of 9/11, he agreed to talk with Bill O’Reilly about Muslim responses to the tragedy. To his surprise, the FOX News host attacked him , relentlessly interrogating him about an investigation dating back to 1993, in which al-Arian had been found blameless years earlier.
Within days, Professor al-Arian had been fired from the University of South Florida, where he had taught for 15 years, despite his tenure. As opposition mounted, and the American Association of University Professors threatened sanctions against the University of South Florida, the university’s president got the help she needed: the FBI resurrected the old allegations and al-Arian was arrested.
It appears now that, despite being exonerated by a jury of his peers, Sami al-Arian has been found guilty—guilty of being a Muslim and a Palestinian. In the years since 9/11, more and more Muslims and Arabs have been accused of terrorism, their lives put on hold, their families divided, their freedom denied. In the face of new legislation suspending habeus corpus and stripping even U.S. citizens of their rights to a swift and fair trial, Professor al-Arian’s experience is a frightening foreshadowing of the futures of those who would count on American freedoms of religion, speech and dissent.
Dr. al-Arian continues to have faith in our system and in our country. He told the court at his sentencing:
As I leave I harbor no bitterness or resentment. Looking back at my three decades in America, I'm indeed grateful for the opportunities afforded to the son of stateless Palestinian refugees in a foreign country, while denied such opportunity in his country of origin and the countries where he was born or raised. I'm grateful that my five wonderful children were born and raised in a society that provided them with freedom and equal opportunities in order to reach their potential.
Sami al-Arian’s children, and my children, need the American system of justice to prevail. Time is running out for Professor al-Arian as he continues to refuse food to protest the injustice of his continuing imprisonment. Time is running out for justice if Americans refuse to insist on the enforcement of our constitution.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
European terrorism, lessons in history
12 January 2007
Given that an anti-tank missile was fired at the U.S. Embassy in Athens just before sunrise this morning, now is as good a time as any to link to some background information on terrorism in Europe that came via a three part BBC Timewatch documentary series detailing Operation Gladio - a Nato/Western intelligence-supported, far-right alliance responsible for perpetrating 'false flag' terrorism via 'stay-behind' networks of operatives whose primary objective was/is to incriminate the enemy of the day.
Documentary Series on Operation Gladio in Italy -- NATO/Western Intelligence supported 'false flag' terrorism
Part 1: Gladio part 1: The Ringmasters (wmv.46mb)
Part 2: Gladio part 2: The Puppeteers (wmv.46mb)
Part 3: Gladio part 3: The Foot Soldiers (wmv.46mb)
Danielle Ganser, whose book NATO's Secret Armies - Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe does a great deal to uncover the previously less exposed but still hidden hand of the far-right in major terrorist atrocities that are blamed on the, historically Communist/left-wing and, since the end of the 'cold war', Muslim, enemy of the day, also runs a web site with a bunch of related articles, some of which are in English:
NATO's secret armies linked to terrorism? [PDF]
ISN Security Watch, 15th December 2004
Able Danger adds Twist to 9/11 [PDF]
ISN Security Watch, 25th August 2005
The end of the 'age of oil' [PDF]
ISN Security Watch, 30th May 2006
Ganser also has a series of scientific papers:
FEAR AS A WEAPON
Title: Fear as a weapon
Subtitle: The effects of psychological warfare on domestic and international politics
Language: English
Author: Daniele Ganser
Date of Publication: Volume 9, Number 4, Winter 2005
Journal: World Affairs. The Journal of International Issues
Pages: 28-44
ISSN: 0971 8052
Free PDF:
If we think about weapons today, we often produce the pictures of guns, tanks, atomic bombs, aircraft carries and fighter jets in our minds. However, one of the most influential weapons is invisible to the human eye: Fear. The phenomenon fear is being studied by the military discipline “psychological warfare” (PSYWAR) and is being used also today on the global battlefields to discredit and weaken an enemy. This paper presents examples from the Cold War period when fear was used as a weapon in order to inform the reader how fear might be used as a weapon today.
===============================================
TERRORISM IN WESTERN EUROPE
Title: Terrorism in Western Europe
Subtitle: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind Armies
Language: English
Author: Daniele Ganser
Date of Publication: Volume VI, Number I, Winter-Spring 2005
Journal: The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Pages: 69-97
ISSN: 1538 6589
Free PDF:
Research into terrorism in Western Europe has for many years focused on the „Red Brigades“ in Italy, the „Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF)“ in Germany, the "Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)" in Spain, and the "Irish Republican Army (IRA)" in Ireland. New historical research shows, however, that next to these well known terrorist groups another set of secret units existed on the same continent: stay-behind armies controlled by NATO, the CIA and MI6, some of which seem also to have been linked to terrorism and crime. This new data, as presented in the paper, opens up a set of disturbing new questions on our understanding of the history of terrorism in Europe.
===============================================
THE BRITISH SECRET SERVICE IN NEUTRAL SWITZERLAND
Title: The British Secret Service in Neutral Switzerland
Subtitle: An Unfinished Debate on NATO's Cold War Stay behind Armies
Language: English
Author: Daniele Ganser
Date of Publication: December 2005, Volume 20, Number 4
Journal: Intelligence and National Security
Pages: 553-580
ISSN: 0268 4527
Free PDF:In 1990, the existence of a secret anti-Communist stay-behind army in Italy, codenamed ‘Gladio’ and linked to NATO, was revealed. Subsequently, similar stay-behind armies were discovered in all NATO countries in Western Europe. Based on parliamentary and governmental reports, oral history, and investigative journalism, the essay argues that neutral Switzerland also operated a stay-behind army under the code name “P26”. It explores the role of the British secret service and the reactions of the British and the Swiss governments to the discovery of the network and investigates whether the Swiss stay-behind army, despite Swiss neutrality, was integrated into the International NATO stay-behind network.
There is also another article, 9/11 Terror, lies and deception, in which Ganser takes on some of the issues surrounding the events of 11th September 2001.
'Never believe something until it is officially denied', goes the oft-quoted phrase. Well, if it's denial of Ganser's research you want, or denial of 'stay behind' networks, its denial you've got, straight from the horse's mouth.
The comments are open for discussion of the above.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
U.S. behind reign of terror sweeping Philippines
By Teresa Gutierrez
Cebu City, Philippines
Published Jan 9, 2007 11:38 PM
The International Action Center (IAC) sent a fact-finding delegation to the Philippines Dec. 7 to Dec. 19. The delegation was comprised of IAC National Co-Director Teresa Gutierrez, and Dianne Mathiowetz of the Atlanta IAC. Also on the trip were two representatives of BAYAN USA and a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement from New York City.
Jan. 8—Our trip coincided with the scheduled meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which was to take place the first week of December in Cebu City. ASEAN’s main role is to facilitate economic and political penetration of the area for imperialism. However, the Philippine government announced that the ASEAN meeting would be cancelled due to a reported typhoon that was to hit the island at the same time. It was evident, however, that the summit of 25 Asian countries was actually cancelled due to the political typhoon sweeping the country.
Major demonstrations and massive political sentiment against the president of the country, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, were the real reasons the summit was cancelled. As of this writing, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced that the ASEAN summit will take place here in Cebu City from Jan. 10 to 15.
One of the most outstanding developments revealed to our delegation was the tremendous wave of repression hitting the Filipino population. Since 2001, over 700 people in the Philippines have been killed or disappeared. The wave of repression against the people is so stark that every week since 2004 approximately two activists have been killed and one has disappeared.
This alarming situation was described to us repeatedly, confirming published reports by several sources. Amnesty International issued a report in August stating its concern over “continued violation of human rights in the country.”
In fact, during the two-week period since we arrived, a total of seven people have been reported missing or killed by the official newspapers of this country.
The findings of the “Stop the Killings in the Philippines Campaign,” published by the IBON Foundation, concluded that, “The pattern of assassinations and political persecution of activists, members of people’s movements, and leftist leaders in the Philippines has become an urgent international issue.”
IBON continued, “While killings and summary executions are not rare in the Philippines, this trend of political assassinations intensified in 2004 during the national elections, and has continued in the last two years—making it possibly the worst period for human rights violations since the Marcos era.”
Behind the wave of terror: U.S. imperialism
The wave of terror currently sweeping the Philippines is part and parcel of U.S. imperialism’s historical and bloody drive to dominate and control the South East Asian region, especially the Philippines. These aims are best capsulated in the words of U.S. Sen. Alfred Beveridge when he said in 1900, “The country that rules the Pacific, rules the world.”
U.S. imperialism invaded and occupied the Philippines and other countries of the Asia Pacific region at the beginning of the 20th century.
Indeed, East Asia is key to imperialist aims to control markets and make ever greater profits. Over 2.5 billion people live in this region—one-third of the world’s population—and their economies are 25 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. Southeast Asia is 9 percent of the world’s population and 5 percent of the global GDP.
The region is home to some of the most strategic countries in the world: China, Korea and Vietnam, which have all been at the center of imperialism’s war drive. Japan, an imperialist country, is a major rival to Wall Street.
According to the Institute of Political Economy, based in the Philippines, the U.S. currently has more than 386,000 U.S. troops deployed in 150 countries, including 70,000 troops in East Asia. There were 850 U.S. military bases in 138 counties as of 2005.
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are key nations to Washington, used in every way possible to maintain its domination in the area.
The task of these thousands of troops is to make sure that the main strategic objectives of the U.S. are protected in the region. Southeast Asia is of particular interest to the U.S. It seeks to maintain hegemony with its puppet regimes and exclude Japan and China, one reason why the Philippines is key to the U.S. It wants free access to major sea lanes and to deepen and expand trade and investment in the area.
Imperialism carries out these aims at the same time that it drives the Asian Pacific people further and further into poverty and despair. Eliza Griswold, a journalist, writes: “[T]he most pressing problem in today’s Philippines isn’t terrorism or even government corruption but poverty and a lack of social mobility. About 15 percent of its people live on less than $1 a day.”
The war on terror: a basis for re-colonization
The U.S. has operated military bases in the Philippines since 1947. After righteous struggles that shook the country, most of these bases closed in 1992. But with the advent of U.S. imperialism’s so-called war on terror, there is now a concerted effort to once again militarize the Philippines. The rebuilding of official U.S. bases in the Philippines is centered in Mindanao, a primarily Muslim area.
U.S. Navy Commander Adm. William J. Fallon—commander of the U.S. Pacific command—said last March 7, “Southeast Asia is the front line of the war on terror.”
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has not only become a key ally of imperialism, she is a puppet of Washington.
This so-called war against terrorism is in reality a war of terror against the people.
Victims of repression in the Philippines—those who have died as a result of these extrajudicial killings—are mainly people who are fighting against deadly economic policies or who are denouncing the repression: activists, students, labor leaders, journalists, members of people’s movements and leftists.
State terror reigns in the Philippines. The situation is so serious and so critical that even spokespeople of foreign chambers of commerce and transnational corporations have been forced to pay lip service against the repression.
On Jan. 6 the Macapagal-Arroyo administration announced that the government will spend about 10 billion pesos in 2007—a lot of money for an impoverished nation. About $200 million is earmarked for the purchase of attack helicopters and other military equipment, which is a sign that the repression will not only continue but intensify.
Repression breeds resistance
Since Macapagal-Arroyo assumed office in 2001, about 730 people have been killed. (IBON)
They include Bishop Alberto Ramento; Markus Bangit, an indigenous leader of the Malbong Tribe of Tomiangan, Tabuk, Kalinga and the coordinator of the Elders Desk of the Cordillera People’s Alliance; activist teacher Napolean Pornasdoro; Bayan Muna Party (People First Party) members Jayson Delen and Jimmy Mirafuente; Cris Hugo, the regional coordinator of the League of Filipino Students; and Nestle Union president and KMU leader, Diosdado Fortuna. The KMU is the revolutionary workers union in the Philippines and stands for the May 1st Movement.
More than 168 leaders and activists remain missing.
The IAC delegation met with the mother of one of missing student leader, Sherlyn Cadapan. Sherlyn was abducted with another student leader, Karen Empeño, and 55-year-old activist Manuel Merino.
The young women, both in their early 20s, are students at the University of the Philippines (UP). The three were abducted on July 26, 2006. They were volunteers of the Alliance of Peasants in Bulacan, Philippines.
Six armed men forcibly entered the house where the students were staying. Merino, who was staying at a house nearby, came to help the two young women. All three were forced into a vehicle and driven away. The young women’s parents believe that troops of the 56th infantry Battalion in Bulacan were the ones who abducted the three activists.
The commander of the 7th Infantry Division, based where the abduction took place, told the family that the young women were members of the New Peoples Army, the armed wing of the resistance in the country. The family believes that such statements indicate the military knows the whereabouts of the three.
The mother of Sherlyn Cadapan told me at a demonstration against proposed changes to the Philippine Constitution that she will not stop until she finds her daughter.
Despite the wave of repression sweeping the country, the movement is strong. The abductions and assassinations have not stopped the people’s struggle for self determination and freedom from imperialist domination.
Despite a heavy police presence in preparation for the scheduled ASEAN conference here, the movement organized conferences for Jobs and Justice and against Global Terrorism, as well as demonstrations in the streets, which IAC representatives participated in.
Many of the people who attended these events told of family members missing or dead. But the history of the will of the Filipino people to resist domination is as long as imperialism’s aims in the region. It will be the Filipino people who will ultimately prevail, as seen by the courage and commitment here.
Copies of the IBON Foundation report can be ordered at leftbooks.com.
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Monday, December 18, 2006
Reyes Should Have Known Better, But He’s Hardly Alone
Dec. 15, 2006 – 8:27 p.m.
Poor
The proud Texas Democrat spent most of last week under a media heat lamp that turned him into a poster boy for Washington’s ineptness in the Middle East.
That was unfair, in one sense: He’s not special.
Reyes’ evident ignorance about Islamic terrorists is common among members of the intelligence oversight committees and rampant in the ranks of new recruits to the spy agencies themselves, according to sources well-acquainted with both.
Reyes, however, had the misfortune to be the ascendant Speaker
As the fresh new face of the Democrats’ shaky grasp of national security issues, he’s fresh meat for a Washington press corps whose hands hurt from beating up on Republicans for their handling of the Iraq war and the elusive Osama bin Laden.
And give Reyes credit for this: After his inability to answer elementary questions about Islam turned him into a global laughingstock, he declined to resort to the cornered politician’s usual dirty tricks.
Reyes might have claimed, for example, that I misquoted him, or took his words out of context, or—a common dodge—mouse-trapped him with a “gotcha” question.
Instead, the five-term congressman, Vietnam vet and former Border Patrol officer turned out to be a stand-up guy, in contrast with the usual Washington standards.
“The CQ interview covered a wide range of topics,” said Reyes in an official statement hounded out of him by the television networks, “other than the selected points published in the story.”
That’s true. And indeed, I had planned to devote another column to my interview with Reyes, who says he’s going to run a far more muscular oversight committee than the Republicans.
But his widely televised remarks prompted intelligence insiders to come forward with additional — and depressing — tales that only served to remind that Reyes is hardly the only intelligence official here who can’t tell the difference between Sunnis and Shiites more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. soil.
Former Army intelligence Col. Rich Reynolds, who spent over two decades in the Middle East, told me he was startled recently to hear about several young CIA intelligence analysts at the CIA headquarters who were completely unfamiliar with Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The analysts’ current area of responsibility? Lebanon.
Likewise, a young intelligence analyst specializing in terrorist finances at the Department of Homeland Security was baffled a few weeks back by a question about hawalas, the ubiquitous Arab shops that work like an informal Western Union network to transfer money around the Middle East.
Experts think hawalas are one of al Qaeda’s prime channels for moving cash.
“What’s a hawala?” she asked.
Another young CIA analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a former White House National Security Council official who continues to work on intelligence matters, seemed totally surprised to learn that the terrorist group most responsible for killing Americans before 9/11 was not al Qaeda or a Palestinian faction but Hezbollah. The Iran-backed Shiite“Party of God” killed more than 300 Americans in suicide bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and 1990s.
For months, intelligence insiders, current and retired, have been telling me that the spy bureaucracies suffer from two major problems among many.
One is that the last of the Cold Warriors who spent careers conducting clandestine operations against tough Soviet and other opposition services have retired or are on the verge of retirement.
As with a baseball team in a rebuilding phase, the clubhouse is full of fresh faces.
U.S. intelligence is also losing top talent to higher paying Washington-area contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, Titan and Science Applications International Corp.
“[A]nd we end up leasing them back,” Ron Sanders, chief human capital officer at the National Intelligence Directorate, told National Public Radio last month — at a cost far above what the government was paying them for the same job.
Some experts think one way to stanch the bleeding would be for the intelligence agencies to put a cap on salaries that they will pay contractors.
In the meantime, according to multiple sources, the CIA, FBI and other agencies have found themselves promoting relative newcomers — people with three to five years experience — into supervisory roles in the battle against sophisticated terrorists, not to mention the espionage services of China, Russia, France, Israel and other “friendly enemies.”
All of which magnifies the importance of strong congressional oversight and expertise on the intelligence panels — and on the part of the members themselves, not just staff.
Retired CIA official Richard J. Kerr, who worked in four of the agency’s divisions during a 32-year career and headed two of them, frequently briefed the Intelligence committees, which he found a dispiriting affair.
“One of my complaints about the oversight committees is that they really know relatively little about the intelligence product, and never enough to know what they could do to improve it,” Kerr related in an e-mail last week.
“They are critics, but not critics of the substance.
“I have known only two members willing to come out to CIA to get detailed briefings,” Kerr continued. “They all repeat the same chestnuts — what we need is better coordination and sharing” among the 17 agencies of the so-called intelligence community.
“That ignores the problem that most intelligence failures are because there is insufficient information, or the analysts (and most importantly, their leaders) don’t ask the right questions.”
Jack Cloonan, a legendary former FBI counterterrorism agent, was incensed last week to read that
“There is absolutely no excuse, five years out from 9/11, to not know the difference [between Sunnis and Shiites], to not know that Osama bin Laden is a Sunni.,” Cloonan told ABC’s Jake Tapper Dec. 13.
“It’s just, frankly, unacceptable. There’s no other word to describe it.”
A number of readers who contacted me suggested that Reyes was failed by his staff, who failed to properly brief him in advance of my interview.
But Cloonan brushes that aside.
“You have to eat, sleep and drink this stuff,” he said. “People’s lives are at stake. I wish people would understand that.”
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Old Allies, Tagged 'Terrorist'
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By Anna Husarska
Saturday, December 16, 2006; A19
PHONSAVAN, Laos -- The United States has not had much luck in winning hearts and minds as it wages what President Bush calls the "war on terror." But it could at least make an effort to stand by those whose hearts and minds it won decades ago in other conflicts. Instead, it is turning its back on them.
The anti-terrorist laws introduced after Sept. 11, 2001, are keeping thousands of bona fide refugees from places around the world out the United States, on the grounds that their past participation in armed insurgencies, even those friendly to (and sometimes supported by) the United States, makes them a threat to American security. Perhaps no group is more harmed by this legislation -- with its absurdly broad definition of "terrorist activity" -- than the Hmong, a hill tribe of northern Laos.
Beginning in 1961, the Hmong were recruited by the CIA to halt the spread of communism in their country. The "secret war" waged here in northern Laos was a sideshow to the Vietnam conflict. The Hmong were the de facto ground forces in the U.S.-led air campaign.
And yet, unless Washington changes the legislation or issues a waiver, these former U.S. allies will never set foot in America. Unbelievable as it seems, their past heroic struggle on behalf of the CIA is now regarded as "terrorist activity."
I spoke to two dozen Hmong who fled from Laos to Bangkok in the past two years and who have been recognized as refugees by the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. Those old enough to have fought in the CIA's war stated their situation clearly: The United States had asked them to fight and supplied them with weapons, munitions, food and clothes. They were not part of any other group, terrorist or otherwise. They were part of the CIA.
In 1975, when the Communists won in Laos, the United States evacuated only the top officers, leaving most Hmong fighters behind. Fearing persecution and mistreatment by the victorious Pathet Lao, the Hmong felt they had two choices: hide in the mountains of northern Laos or flee across the Mekong to Thailand.
After the betrayal of 1975, the lobbying done by those already resettled and the Hmongs' CIA mentors resulted in substantial redress: Between 1976 and 2005, about 153,000 Hmong came to the United States.
Many of those waiting in Bangkok to follow in their footsteps spent almost three decades living a primitive, secluded life in the jungle of northern Laos. They told me that a few thousand Hmong are still there. Little is known about their lives. Journalists who attempt to visit their hideouts -- a few days' walk from Phonsavan -- often end up being detained by Laotian authorities.
One former CIA recruit, Xo Chia Vue, 64, hopes that once he is reunited with his two brothers and his son in Fresno, Calif., he can meet the two American pilots he rescued in the 1970s and perhaps the family of the pilot whose remains he helped evacuate after his plane crashed into a mountain in 1971.
But Xo Chia Vue, who spent 14 years fighting for the CIA, is barred from the United States and, like all other such combatants, is considered a "terrorist." Those who provide "material support" to these combatants -- for instance Xo Chia Vue's two granddaughters, who cooked for him in the jungle -- are subject to the same restrictions. This absurd law applies also to the Montagnards, Vietnamese allies of the U.S. Special Forces, now languishing in Cambodia. And -- theoretically -- it would seem to apply to those who helped overthrow Saddam Hussein.
The Bush administration has issued three waivers to this draconian law to allow some Burmese refugees into the United States. But waivers are partial solutions and are not available to those deemed "terrorists," only to "providers of material support."
As I spoke to Hmong refugees through a translator, I could sense their anger, even rage over this situation. "It is because I dedicated all my life to the Americans that now I have trouble," said Xo Chia Vue.
Here at least, American anti-terrorist legislation has served as a blueprint for losing hearts and minds.
The writer is senior policy adviser at the International Rescue Committee.
Friday, December 15, 2006
US Training Fatah in Terror Tactics
Underlying motive is to counter strength of Hamas, analysts say
- Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Thursday, December 14, 2006
(12-14) 04:00 PST Jericho, West Bank -- U.S. officials training Palestinian security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas are emphasizing urban anti-terrorist techniques as part of a systematic effort to bolster Abbas and his Fatah loyalists to counter the political success of Hamas, according to Palestinian analysts and officers receiving the training.
But one officer who has received the training says the purpose of the newly beefed-up force is to protect the Palestinian president from assassination.
The Presidential Guard, made up entirely of Fatah activists loyal to Abbas, has been increased to 1,000, up from about 90 officers under his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. A new black-uniformed rapid deployment force -- Al-Tadakhwal -- has recently been formed to respond to emergencies. The Presidential Guard is commanded by Gen. Munir Zobi in the West Bank and Gen. Haj Musbar in Gaza.
Officers have also received training from U.S. officials inside the Mukata, the presidential compound in Ramallah that contains Abbas' office and Arafat's grave.
The Chronicle has obtained a training manual distributed to officers of the Al-Haras Al-Rayassi, Abbas' Presidential Guard, during a two-week course held in Jericho earlier this year at which the chief instructor introduced himself as a U.S. Secret Service officer who served during the Reagan administration. The manual, titled "Advanced Protective Operations Seminar," is emblazoned with the logo of the Counterterrorism Training Group, which includes the U.S. government seal.
Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth after news of the training sessions leaked out that since Iran is helping arm and fund Hamas political and military activities, the United States wants to prevent "moderate forces" in the Palestinian territories from being eliminated.
"We are involved in building up the Presidential Guard, instructing it, assisting it to build itself up and giving them ideas. We are not training the forces to confront Hamas," Dayton told Yedioth. "Hamas is receiving money and arms from Iran and possibly Syria, and we must make sure that the moderate forces will not be erased," Dayton said.
But one of the officers trained by Dayton's team said the American general is being naive and does not understand internal Palestinian politics.
"Ever since the Hamas election victory, security has been tightened around (Abbas)," said the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The fear is that someone from Hamas will try to assassinate him, and we must be ready to deal with this threat. The main threat to the security of the president is from the militia of Hamas."
When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 with a mandate to handle its own policing, Arafat set up a string of 14 overlapping and often competing security forces -- each one controlled by a rival political or former guerrilla chieftain, but all of them ultimately loyal to him and his Fatah party. Arafat used these forces to control political opponents like Hamas and also maintain loyalty through patronage and the payment of salaries.
The United States had helped train the initial security forces, but ended its aid when the Palestinian uprising called the intifada began in September 2000. During the intifada, many trained security officers engaged in attacks on Israeli targets or joined the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah militant wing.
Earlier this year, after it assumed control of the Palestinian government following its success in January's parliamentary elections, Hamas announced the formation of its own security service, the Executive Force, and placed Jamal abu Samhadana, a prominent militant, at its head. Samhadana was killed in an Israeli raid in June.
Abbas had denounced formation of the new police force as unconstitutional, saying that only the Palestinian president could command armed forces. On Dayton's advice, the U.S. training program began again over the summer, but so far it has been limited to the officers directly responsible for the personal security of Abbas and his VIP guests, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Jericho last month.
Training seminars for the Presidential Guard are being held in various locations around the West Bank. A two-week course called the Advanced Protective Operations Seminar was recently held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Jericho, where participants were instructed in counterterrorism techniques. The manual from that course gave detailed advice on a range of security issues from airport and event security planning to securing motorcades, residences and offices. Suggested tactics included the use of "protective intelligence," "counter-snipers" and a "counter-assault team."
An official from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv traveled to Ramallah earlier this year to instruct about 60 Presidential Guard officers in securing vehicles and sites against bomb threats and suspect devices. The session, according to one of the participants, lasted about two hours and took place in a large meeting room close to Abbas' office in the Mukata compound.
"We are helping the Palestinian Authority security services to enhance their abilities, concentrating on the Presidential Guard," said a U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We are also helping the Presidential Guard take on expanded responsibilities, like security at the border crossings in Gaza."
The American effort is part of a broader international package of support to bolster Abbas loyalists as Hamas threatens to increase its parallel Executive Force to 6,000 men. Training for Fatah forces also is provided by Egypt, Jordan and Turkey. Britain, Spain and the European Union have provided communications equipment, vehicles and logistical support.
But there are fears the American assistance program could backfire.
"The U.S.' involvement in attempts to bring down the Hamas government has only made things worse for Abbas and Fatah," wrote Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, in a commentary titled "Guns and Poses."
"The U.S. believes that by giving Abbas more rifles and cash, it would be able to bring about regime change. But in the West Bank and Gaza, there is no shortage of weapons. Tons of explosives, rifles and missiles are smuggled across the Egyptian border nearly every day. What the Palestinians need is not more rifles -- which they never use to stop Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other militias anyway -- but good governance and credible leaders," he wrote.
"American meddling in Palestinian affairs is backfiring, because many Palestinians are beginning to look at Abbas and Fatah as pawns in the hands of the U.S. and Israel. This does not help Abbas and moderate secular Palestinians, who are facing the dangers of the growing power of Islamic fundamentalism."
Abbas' guard members wear distinctive green uniforms with a shoulder patch bearing the name of the force and the Palestinian flag. Each officer carries a semiautomatic Kalashnikov assault rifle and Motorola communications equipment. Plans to replace the outdated Kalashnikovs of the Presidential Guard with lightweight Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns were scrapped because of Israeli opposition.
"It's a great shame the Israelis wouldn't allow us to have the new equipment. In a hostage situation inside a building, the MP5 is much more effective than the Kalashnikov, which is too large to handle indoors and has a very strong recoil," said the Presidential Guard officer who had been through the training.
The Israelis, this officer said, have refused to permit the supply of new weapons, tear gas and flak jackets to the Presidential Guard, based on their experience in the past when the CIA trained dozens of Palestinian security officers only to watch in dismay as many of them joined the ranks of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades during the intifada.
"I'm not thrilled at the idea of the Americans training Fatah militias or the Palestinian police," said Yuval Steinitz, a former chairman of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "Until now, both Fatah and the Palestinian police have been a great disappointment to those who believed they could overcome terror as they promised they would. The opposite has happened. In the best case, they were simply passive. In the worst cases, they actually encouraged terrorism."
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Thursday, December 14, 2006
Pentagon Strategy: Keep 'War on Terror' Running 100 Years
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 13, 2006
The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against communism.
"We're in a generational war. You can try and fight the enemy where they are and where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," said Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
"But that's not enough to stop it. We've got to break the chain, and that's ... the ideology. We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking."
Gen. Schissler said he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening the will of the nation.
"I don't care about the politics. I care about people understanding the facts of what's our enemy is thinking about, what's our strategy to defeat them, and for [Americans] to understand that it will take a long fight, mostly because our enemy is committed to the long fight," he said. "They're absolutely committed to the 50-, 100-year plan."
"One of my concerns is how to maintain the American will, the public will over that duration," he said.
America's past wars lasted three to four years and sustaining support for longer wars "is very difficult," he said.
A Joint Staff briefing on the long war against terrorism states that since 2001, more than 3,000 al Qaeda terrorists are held in more than 100 nations, including 500 in Pakistan, while two-thirds of al Qaeda leaders are dead or in prison.
More than 17 terrorist attacks were disrupted since 2001, including three in the United States and two in Europe.
Al Qaeda's ultimate goal, the general said, is to set up an extremist "caliphate" stretching from western North Africa through southern Europe and along a path through the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia.
"We're pretty convinced that the extremists are not ever going to give up the fight," Gen. Schissler said, noting that they are driven by the concept of jihad that makes it a religious duty to wage terrorist war.
The current war on terrorism requires fighting with ideas. In the Cold War, "we didn't beat ...the communists by militarily taking them to the battlefield," he said. "We took them to the intellectual battlefield and beat them against their ideas, the ideology of communism."
One goal is to disrupt al Qaeda efforts to "radicalize" young people ages 19 to 25 through educational efforts. Another objective is to assist moderate Muslims who see extremism as unacceptable.
Ultimately, Muslim scholars, clerics and other religious and government leaders will have to "take a stand," albeit one that carries grave risks because of the extremists' harsh methods, Gen. Schissler said.
Monday, December 4, 2006
George Bush’s America
Posted on Dec 4, 2006
 |
| AP Photo / Chris O'Meara |
| Former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian smiles as he makes his way through the media with his wife Nahla, left, before entering the United States Courthouse Thursday afternoon Dec. 12, 2002 in Tampa, Fla. Al-Arian, who is accused of helping lead a terrorist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2005. The jury deadlocked on the rest of the charges. |
By Chris Hedges
The Democrats may have taken control of the House and Senate, but we still live in George Bush’s America. It is an America the imprisoned Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who has spent over two years in isolation, knows intimately. Dr. Al-Arian, who was a tenured professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida until being fired, was given the maximum sentence earlier this year for what the judge, in a case that bordered on the farcical, said was his support of a radical Palestinian organization.
The imprisoned professor, who will be deported when he is released, was to have spent 57 months in prison. But his time now seems likely to be extended since, despite plea bargaining that should have exempted him from further testimony, he has been called to testify before a secret grand jury in Virginia investigating Islamic organizations in the state. It is the newest twist in a case that has become emblematic of the repression meted out to America’s Muslim minority.
Al-Arian endured a six-month show trial in Florida that saw the government’s case collapse in a mass of contradictions and innuendo. During the trial the government called 80 witnesses and subjected the jury to hundreds of hours of often inane phone transcriptions and recordings, made over a 10-year period, which the jury dismissed as “gossip.” Out of the 94 charges made against the four defendants there were no convictions. Of the 17 charges against Al-Arian—including “conspiracy to murder and maim persons abroad’’ --, the jury acquitted him of eight and was hung on the rest. The jurors disagreed on the remaining charges by a count of 10 to 2 favoring his full acquittal. Two others in the case, Ghassan Ballut and Sameeh Hammoudeh, were acquitted of all charges, dealing another body blow to the government’s case. The May sentencing of Al-Arian contradicted the basis of the jury’s acquittal and the reasoning behind the subsequent plea agreement.
Following the acquittal, a disaster for the government, especially since then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had announced the indictment, prosecutors threatened to retry Al-Arian. The Palestinian professor, under duress, accepted a plea bargain agreement that would spare him a second trial, saying in his agreement that he had helped people associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad with immigration matters. It was a tepid charge given the high profile of the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida and the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department agreed to recommend to the judge the minimum sentence of 46 months. But U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. sentenced Dr. Al-Arian to the maximum 57 months. In referring to Al-Arian’s contention that he had only raised money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s charity for widows and orphans, the judge said acidly to the professor that “your only connection to orphans and widows is that you create them.”
“The cards were stacked against us,” said the defendant’s daughter, Laila Al-Arian. “The prosecutors showed gruesome videos of suicide bombings in Israel and tried to tie my father to them. He had nothing to do with these attacks. He has always condemned the killing of Israeli and Palestinian civilians. The trial was Orwellian. The government prosecutors would take events and statements that had nothing to do with my father and attempt to connect them to him. This was all about silencing a Palestinian activist, not combating terrorism.”
But all this has not stopped the government from continuing its harassing of Al-Arian. Judge Moody recently ruled that compelling Al-Arian to testify in the grand jury investigation of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., would not violate the plea agreement. Several people close to the case fear that the current attempt to make Al-Arian testify is part of an effort to charge him with perjury and set him up for a new trial. The assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, Gordon Kromberg, like many involved in the case, has made derogatory and racist comments about Muslims. When Al-Arian’s lawyers asked Kromberg to delay the transfer of the professor to Virginia because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan they were told “if they can kill each other during Ramadan they can appear before the grand jury.” Kromberg, according to an affidavit signed by Al-Arian’s attorney, Jack Fernandez, also said: “I am not going to put off Dr. Al-Arian’s grand jury appearance just to assist in what is becoming the Islamization of America.”
“Had he said this about any other ethnic or religious group it would have provoked widespread outrage,” said Laila Al-Arian.
And so, although Al-Arian is scheduled to be deported in April 2007, he could now be imprisoned for an additional 18 months. The federal government has placed him in contempt of court because he is refusing to answer questions before the Virginia grand jury.
This trial says legions about the place of Muslims in the United States following the attacks of 9/11. It is part of a ruthless campaign to strip Americans of fundamental rights because of their religious beliefs.
“The jury spoke a year ago when they acquitted my father and the other three defendants,” Laila Al-Arian said. “This is part of a government campaign to silence and intimidate all Muslims in America by persecuting their leaders. It is part of an effort to disenfranchise American Muslims.”
Conditions Of Detention...Unprecedented In The Military Justice System
Jose Padilla, fitted with blacked-out goggles, was videotaped by the government when he was allowed outside solitary confinement to see a dentist.
December 4, 2006Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect’s Isolation
By DEBORAH SONTAGOne spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant, Jose Padilla experienced a break from the monotony of his solitary confinement in a bare cell in the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, S.C.
That day, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert whom the Bush administration had accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack and had detained without charges, got to go to the dentist.
“Today is May 21,” a naval official declared to a camera videotaping the event. “Right now we’re ready to do a root canal treatment on Jose Padilla, our enemy combatant.”
Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla’s bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla’s legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.
Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla’s cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.
--MORE--
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Peace worker’s tales of war
Newbury News
December 2nd, 2006 by Neil Welch, December 1st
Human rights worker teams up with Newbury shop owner to raise funds for the woman who saved her life
A HUMAN rights worker who spent last Christmas in an Israeli jail has visited Newbury to help raise money for the woman who saved her life.
Sharon, 33, won’t give out her surname as she fears Israeli authorities will use the information to ban her from the country or lock her up again.
She gave a talk and showed a video at Friends Meeting House in Newbury on Wednesday to highlight the plight of Palestinians in Israel.
Sharon was put in prison after being banned from a peace conference in Bethlehem on December 21 last year, spending 11 days behind bars.
“It was ironic that I was trying to get to Bethlehem and they wouldn’t let me,” she said.
Although her time in prison was hard, she wasn’t subjected to the same abuse as some of her fellow peace workers.
“My colleague Vic was beaten by seven guards to try and convince him to get on the plane back. They just shouted at the girls,” she said.
“Another peace worker arrived on Christmas Day and bought decorations and chocolate coins – those were our presents.”
But this wasn’t the most difficult time in Sharon’s travails. On April 1, 2002, Israeli soldiers opened fire on her and nine other peace workers at a protest. She was left with near-fatal wounds.
“We had our hands in the air and were walking backwards,” she said.
“I was shot in the stomach.
“It was April Fools Day – and the first time the Israeli army had used live ammunition on human rights workers.”
Sharon said that despite the bloodshed, the hospital was nearly empty because the army wouldn’t let Palestinians out of their houses, even for medical attention.
“Children were spending the night in their homes with their dead parents,” she said.
It was in hospital that she met Abla, the nurse whose care helped save her life.
“Her dream was to study public health, and she couldn’t achieve that without outside help,” Sharon said.
Jacqui’s Convenience Store, on the corner of Berkeley Road and Blenheim Road in Newbury, is helping raise money for Abla, 29, with a collection tin.
The shop has raised around £170 so far, which has helped to put Abla through her first two semesters at Al Quds University in Jerusalem.
Jacqui Finch, who owns the store, said she was glad to aid the cause.
“It’s great to help Abla achieve what she has done so far,” she said.
“People are happy to contribute when they hear her story – even school children are putting their pennies in.”
Sharon, who is trained as a medic, works for the International Solidarity Movement, a group made up of Israeli, Palestinian and Western human rights workers.
She visits the Middle East around three times a year, and spends her time in the UK raising awareness of civilians’ plight.
And after spending last Christmas behind bars, she has no intention of relaxing with some turkey and a glass of wine this year.
“I’ll probably go and work in Lebanon for Christmas,” she said.
Posted in Press clippings, Bethlehem Region
UK home secretary threatens Scotland with with terrorist attack
By Paul Hutcheon
THE HOME secretary, John Reid, has sparked a row with the SNP by suggesting that independence would make Scotland more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.
The Labour MP said the creation of a separate Scottish state would "weaken" the UK's counter-terrorism strategy. He also said it was "fairytale" politics to claim independence would reduce Scotland's chance of being targeted by al-Qaeda.
The home secretary's remarks were made on a visit to Scotland last week, during which he briefed journalists on his thoughts about the SNP. They followed an earlier attack on the SNP at the Scottish Labour conference last weekend.
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The Labour heavyweight, still viewed as a potential successor to Tony Blair, blasted Nationalists' policies as "inadequate" on terrorism and globalisation.
Asked whether independence would increase the likelihood of a terror attack in Scotland, he said: "Independence will damage the network of security services that operate against terrorists. And in terms of resources to apply to counter-terrorism, in all of those areas you would be weaker."
Reid said separation would hamper Scotland's ability to contribute to anti-terrorism efforts.
"Are they going to have border guards at the Tweed to stop the terrorists? Or, are you just assuming the terrorists will say yes, we've been massacring children as well as adults, we've murdered people who are Christians and Muslims, yes we've slaughtered people from every background and every nationality but we won't touch the Scots?'. This is fairytale politics," he said.
He also claimed the SNP's opposition to the Iraq war would not save Scotland from making it onto al-qaeda's list of targets: "The naivety of those who believe that, somehow, if you run away from the terrorist that the terrorist won't come after you, is illustrated throughout history. The last big arrests on terrorism were in Canada, but Canada not only wasn't in Iraq, Canada opposed the intervention in Iraq."
Reid added that no part of the UK was safe from terrorist attacks: "In the UK, the first attack by Islamic terrorists was outside of London. It was actually in Birmingham. We know that they will attack wherever they can."