Evidently, the will of the voters still doesnât count here in California â at least not to Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan. I canât remember if I voted for this knucklehead, or not. Regardless, this is without a doubt one of the most self-serving, feel-good-for-the-moment-cause-developers-are-evil-people decisions I have ever seen. The Davis Enterprise reports:
At issue is the âfateâ of 17,000 acres of land in Yolo County, California called the Conway Ranch. This is one of those pieces of land that the "greens" have been mulling over for years. So much so, that you would think that they own the land. Well, they donât and it ainât for sale. But wait, it gets even better.
All buckled in? Itâs going to be a bumpy ride.
A survey underwritten by the owners of the Conaway Ranch found that opposition to the county's efforts to acquire the property ranges from 50 to 73 percentage points countywide depending on the question asked.
Funny use of the word acquire. The word they are trying to avoid is âcondemnâ or âsteal via eminent domain.â
At 39 percentage points, Davis residents support the county's acquisition attempt more than residents in any other Yolo County city. A town hall meeting called by the ranch owners, the Conaway Preservation Group, will be held in Davis on Thursday, Aug. 11, with the time and place to be announced.
On Friday, Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan said he could not comment on the specifics of the poll because he had not seen it. But McGowan made clear that even if county voters did not support the board's action to buy the ranch, he was still convinced it was the right thing to do.
"We need to do the right thing regardless," he said. "In the long run people will appreciate what we are trying to do or our grandchildren will. We are doing the right thing for the right reasons and I cannot imagine a scenario that would dissuade me."
McGowan said people should know by now that Yolo County electeds past and present are committed to protecting agricultural land and open space. Real estate investors do not share that commitment. "Yolo County can pass the test of good stewardship over and over," he added firmly. "There's a reason why national parks are not owned by private entities," he said.
One point that the good Supervisor is missing is that the County does not own the land --- a handful of local real estate investors do.
Respondents were then read the following description of the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' involvement in the county's eminent domain action:
"The Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians, which owns the Cache Creek Casino in Yolo County, has agreed to finance the county's eminent domain action to acquire the ranch."
Hmmm. A Sovereigh Nation, which owns a casino, is fronting the county the money??? What could possibly go wrong here? The tribe wasn't recently granted approval for a massive expansion to their resort / casino, were they? Hmmm.
#1
I can't go pheasant hunting in a casino, at least not with a shotgun. Dmnt, why don't they do something useful and repave Mace and Tremont Rds. out there instead, that way I won't drive off the county roads in the winter when I'm trying to avoid those packs of lane-hogging bicyclists.
Posted by: Armchair in Sin ||
07/26/2005 19:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Davis = UC Davis college town, very Green, beautifult town, that would shrivel without the taxpayer-paid college. In a nutshell, easy to say "take it" when you don't own any proerty yourself, and you aren't paying for taking it, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2005 20:21 Comments ||
Top||
Thinking about the terrible shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, shot to death in London by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber, recalls some rules of intelligence and analysis that we should always keep in mind:
1. The Law of Imperfect Precognition: Sometimes there is no "right choice." Throw the dice.
2. The Law of Imperfect Postcognition: Not even hindsight is ever really 20-20.
3. The Law of Colliding Interests: Five different people can each make a rational decision and still wind up in a melee.
4. The Law of the Rational Onion: There is always another layer of analysis that contradicts everything you've already concluded. At some point, you just have to stop.
5. The Law of Models: There is a real reality out there, whether you can see it or not. And it bites.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/26/2005 12:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Intelligence is finite. Today, there are just more people.
Yesterday, I tuned the radio and on France Inter (one of the main French radios) they were broadcasting one of those debates where people phone to the radio and are answered by "experts".
And when I tuned the radio theere was a guy of the public making a short speech just praising Irakis for their courage in going to vote and telling about his indignation for France not supporting democracy in Irak but instead calling the terrorists "resistants".
Of course the expert or so called expert tried to defuse the effect of this guy intervention telling thta the "resistance" was not homogeneous and that some of them ere good guys and so on.
And of course they insured the following question by a person in the public would be inocuous (difference between sunnites and shiites).
It was still a bit of comfort to notice that there are some people in France who have not lost their sense of decency and that this time we had managed to get some air tilme in the MSM
#1
In france, there is a widening gap between our so much educated "elites and experts" and people gut feelings.
It is a very dangerous situation, because our arab-origin french feel vindicated by the french "official" posturing(and thus make no effort at self restraint), while at the same time, the rest of the population keeps them more and more in suspiscion and contempt.
Believe me, criticizing the french foreign policy is a BIG taboo and a line no journalist(for lack of term describing french news employees!) will ever cross.
#2
Shameless plug : to the possible french speakers here (who knows?), don't listen to Skyrock, France culture, or RFI... listen to the main independent conservative radio, Radio Courtoisie, on the net @ http://www.radiocourtoisie.com/.
Classical music, jazz, and great talk shows from 18 to 21 GMT week days.
Favorites : 2 tuesday per month Claude Reichmann (http://www.claudereichman.com/); 2-3 friday per month JG Malliarakis (http://www.europelibre.com/); and every wednesday, Serge de Beketch (http://www.francecourtoise.info/).
Radio courtoise, independent since 18 years, no commercials, no sponsors, no agenda, free speech only. The voice of non-idiotarian rightwing France.
Talking to journalists in Lahore on Monday, President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan was not the headquarters of Al Qaeda because most of the linkages between Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts in Pakistan had either been broken or weakened. A Foreign Office spokesman said the same day that Pakistanis could not be involved in the latest Red Sea bombings in Egypt. What can we say about these remarks?
We can understand Islamabadâs reaction. The Egyptian government has not approached Pakistan to investigate the Pakistani passports found at Sharm al-Sheikh. If it had, the police in Pakistan could have confirmed in a matter of hours whether they were fake or not after checking out the home addresses listed in them. Indeed, the fact is that Pakistani passports can be easily obtained in the global terrorist underworld and Pakistan has been reporting a record number of âlost passportsâ at home and from its diplomatic missions abroad. So the passports do not prove much. The names are all Pakistani-sounding but they could be names assumed by the suicide-bombers.
The hunt for the âPakistanisâ is on and the initial findings have been inconclusive. The Bedouin camp supposed to be hiding two Pakistanis finally yielded nothing, and now the Egyptian authorities are less certain about the involvement of the Pakistanis and donât wish to give the impression that Pakistanis are involved in terrorism outside Pakistan. The truth is that the banned jihadi militias with links to Al Qaeda have been used so far inside Pakistan and Pakistanâs neighbourhood. The killing fields of Afghanistan and Kashmir are a bit fuzzy as far as the planning behind the scenes is concerned, but attacks inside Pakistan â which nearly killed the president and the prime minister â were Al Qaeda-related and carried its suicide-bombing stamp. Pakistan has been known more for training foreign terrorists than for sending its own terrorists to distant lands.
Pakistan has done its bit to roll back the empire of Al Qaeda in Pakistan, but terrorism is still continuing in the guise of sectarianism. Suicide bombing is being used frequently by sectarian terrorists with known links to Al Qaeda. Al Zawahiri is an Egyptian and virtually running whatever is left of Al Qaeda. His speeches are still being broadcast by Al Jazeera, and the world knows that he never stopped believing that Al Qaeda should attack Egypt as the âenemy nearer homeâ. After 1997 he was not happy with Ikhwanâs decision to abandon the violence in Egypt. Has he attacked Egypt finally? Is he using Pakistanis? Thus far the truth is Pakistanis donât go to Egypt often. Even the radical ones have stayed away from Cairo because President Mubarakâs Egypt has been a tough place to visit. If the Sharm al-Sheikh bombing is compared to the Taba attack of last November, the difference must be noted. Taba was a part of the anti-Israel hits of a piece with the blast at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa in 2002. The latest attack is not against Israel. It is against Egypt.
Al Qaeda style has changed too. Its central command has weakened but groups swearing loyalty to it are operating all over the world. The Taba bombing was owned by Al Azzam Brigade, named after the radical Palestinian thinker who taught at Islamabadâs Islamic University and was killed in Peshawar after he fell out with Al Zawahiri. This time in Sharm al-Sheikh the stamp of Al Qaeda is clear, but the group responsible for the act could be Egyptian â signalling a revival of violence that had declined after the Luxor attack. Pakistan has no Egyptian connection, although after 1981 many radical Egyptians had come to Peshawar. Al Zawahiri himself is alienated from the radical organisations in Egypt. Did he use Pakistanis because of that? This mystery will not take long to unveil.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2005 22:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Pakistani national curriculum. Note that this is NOT the madrassa system. This is the stuff taught in the SECULAR school system
The fault lies elsewhere
By Kaiser Bengali
ADDRESSING the nation in the aftermath of the London bombings, General Musharraf has rightly said that England too needs to do more to deal with the problem at hand. Evidently, he was responding to the British prime ministerâs pointed accusations of the role of Pakistani madressahs in the bombings.
The sense of outrage expressed by British, US and western leaders is certainly understandable; what, however, cannot be so is their collective amnesia of their own role in first introducing terrorism in Afghanistan in the 1980s and, in the process, building the terrorist network in Pakistan; of which the madressahs were an integral part.
Now, when the menace of terrorism is affecting their own societies, western governments are continuing to rely on the same traditional allies that had been their instruments in spawning terrorism until recently. The West certainly needs to do more, but what it needs to do is to introspect and try to fathom the underlying institutional factors spewing militancy and terrorism in states run by their own client regimes.
The bombings in London and the involvement in it of men of Pakistani origin with alleged links to religious seminaries in Pakistan has refocused international and national attention on madressahs in the country. However, madressahs comprise only a part of the problem. After all, just about one per cent of school students are enrolled in madressahs, while over 70 per cent of them are enrolled in public schools. The larger problem is, as such, the education system as a whole. Defining the education system, however, is the political superstructure that has come to be dominated by the military-mullah nexus that was patronized by the West â particularly in Pakistan â up until the end of the 1980s.
Education in Pakistan reflects the prevalence of social inequality in the country and suffers from a situation akin to apartheid. There are two broad streams of education, characterized basically by the medium of instruction. One stream uses English and the other uses Urdu. Elite English-medium schools represent one end of the spectrum and madressahs the other end.
However, the bulk of the students occupy the middle: non-elite English medium schools and Urdu medium schools. They follow the official curricula that may be described as secular, but with a heavy stress on âIslamic Ideologyâ. Income is the primary determinant of the type of school a child goes to. Upper income households generally send their children to English-medium schools and lower income households send their children â if at all â to Urdu-medium schools or madressahs.
Education plays a key role in shaping concepts, ideas, opinions and worldviews. In this respect, education in Pakistan has been conspicuous more for its role in indoctrination than in promoting pedagogy or learning. The element of indoctrination begins with the teacher.
The National Education Policy 1998-2010 considers the teacher as âthe focal point for dissemination of information on fundamental principles of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran, and as applicable to the development of an egalitarian Muslim society. For this purpose, an extensive in-service training programme will be conducted. The curricula of pre-service teacher training shall have a compulsory component of Islamic education ... This concept shall be interwoven in all the subjects of professional training institutionsâ
The guidelines for training programmes are explicit in that âPakistan being an ideological state, all efforts towards the reconstruction of curricula have to be based on Islamic foundations of lifeâ. Training in selection of content is required to emphasize âunderstanding the process of Islamization of the curriculum in Pakistanâ.
The aims of teacher education, as described in the Curriculum and Syllabus of the Primary Teaching Certificate (PTC), include: to inculcate the spirit of Islam and develop the qualities of tolerance, universal brotherhood and justice, to help teachers understand that an educational system is the action plan for translating a nationâs philosophy into practice, to acquaint the teachers with the ideological basis of education in Pakistan and to sensitize them to their key role in nation-building and social development, to acquaint teachers with Islamic world-view, Islamic epistemology and Islamic approach to teaching, and so on.
The curricula, syllabi and officially prescribed textbooks for students are loaded with sermonizing and moralizing in the name of Islam. The National Education Policy 1998-2010, which informs the curricula, syllabi, textbooks and teaching methods, states thus: âEducation is a powerful catalyzing agent which provides mental, physical, ideological and moral training to individuals so as to enable them to have full consciousness of their purpose in life and equip them to achieve that purpose. It is an instrument for the spiritual development as well as the material fulfilment of human needs. Within the context of Islamic perception, education is an instrument for developing the attitudes of individuals in accordance with the values of righteousness to help build a sound Islamic societyâ.
It goes on to amplify that: âThe only justification for our existence is our total commitment to Islam as our sole identity ... the National Educational Policy should take into consideration the development of an integrated educational system in which our Islamic values, principles and objectives must be reflected not only in the syllabi of Islamic Studies, but also in all the disciplinesâ
With specific reference to the curricula and textbooks, it states thus: âCurricula and textbooks of all the subjects shall he revised so as to exclude and expunge any material repugnant to Islamic values, and include sufficient material on the Quran and Islamic teachings, information, history, heroes, moral values, etc., relevant to the subject and level of education concerned.
The framework provided by the ministry of education to the curriculum wing decrees âThe highest priority has been assigned to the revision of the curriculum with a view to update the entire course contents so that the ideology of Pakistan could permeate the thinking of young generation and help them with necessary conviction and ability.â
The statement of objectives of the Curriculum of Early Childhood Education designed for children aged 3-5 years states thus: âto mature in children a sense of Islamic identity and pride in being a Pakistani.â The result is contents of textbooks with titles such as âFreedom or Deathâ and âMartyrâ.
The curriculum for Class 1-5 Urdu language lists the following as some of the purposes of teaching the national language. The student should: be able to lake pride in the Islamic way of life, and should try to acquire Islamic knowledge and to adopt it; read religious books in order to understand Quranic teachings, listen to events from the Islamic history and derive pleasure from them, and know that national culture is not local culture or local customs, but it means the culture whose principles have been determined by Islam.
It continues thus: Students should be made aware that they are members of the Muslim nation and that is why, according to Islamic values, they must aim to become honest, virtuous, patriotic, serving humanity and daring mujahids and that the ideology of Pakistan should be presented as the absolute truth and never made subject to dispute or debate, and there should be no concept of distinction between the worldly and religious way of life, instead learning material should be produced according to the Islamic point of view.
The learning of language itself is designed to serve religious purposes. Thus, the image that the child develops is that there is a special place for the Muslims and the âIslamicâ way of life, which overrides the right of all citizens to be viewed as being equal and to take pride in their own beliefs and ways of living. In view of ideologically motivated suggestions from the education policy and the curriculum, it is not surprising that the textbooks have a markedly communal and chauvinistic attitude.
History books too have been distorted to suit the purposes of indoctrination. Pakistan Studies textbooks, which contain the history portion, do not mention the ancient pre-Islamic civilizations and cultures of the Indus valley (Moenjodaro, Harappa, Taxila, etc.). They commence with the first Arab invasion of Sindh by Mohammed bin Qasim, which is treated as the beginning of history for all practical purposes. They also largely bypass the Buddhist, Hindu and British periods in the history of the South Asian subcontinent and jump to the movement for Pakistan led by the Muslim League.
The specific ideological basis of this structuring is to make children regard the Muslim eras as the only relevant and glorious part of history. The pervasive attitude that is promoted through the textbooks is that only Muslims can be good, courageous and patriotic; thus, cultivating a kind of petty chauvinism.
Clearly, education in Pakistan is crying out for reform. First, however, the West has some critical choices to make. It can no longer command the privilege of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. If a part of the education system in Pakistan is identified as a factor in world terrorism, it also needs to be recognized that the problem cannot be looked at in isolation from socio-economic and political factors.
The essential prerequisite of effective reform of education in Pakistan is the dismantling of the overarching âPraetorianâ apparatuses dominating the country. If the West wants to make the world safe for itself and for all the peoples of the world, it will have to abandon its client regimes and support the process of democratization of societies in Muslim countries. It will also have to accept the fact that democratization will bring nationalist forces to the fore, which may not play the tune required by western financial and commercial interests. The choices are stark, but they can no longer be avoided.
Posted by: john ||
07/26/2005 15:20 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Students should be made aware that they are members of the Muslim nation and that is why, according to Islamic values, they must aim to become honest, virtuous, patriotic, serving humanity and daring mujahids and that the ideology of Pakistan should be presented as the absolute truth and never made subject to dispute or debate
"Daring mujahids" ?
Posted by: john ||
07/26/2005 17:58 Comments ||
Top||
The bombings two week ago in London concentrate the mind on three questions, all of them exceedingly difficult, and the first two of which profoundly complicate the all-important third.
"We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" ["Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist] said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."
The first difficult question is: Is this the authentic voice of Islam? And it is a question that no non-Muslim can presume to properly answer. If I answered, "Emphatically yes, this is the authentic voice of Islam: and it is also the voice of our enemy," men would rise in righteous anger at my presumption. But when our leaders -- non-Muslims to a man -- pronounce in solemn tones, just as confidently, "No; Islam is a religion of peace," there are no charges of presumption.
What we can say confidently, while yet avoiding the presumption, is that those who believe that "civilization" should be "brought" to us by the gruesome massacre of London commuters, or Spanish commuters, or New York office-workers, believe this because, over and above it, they believe the claims of Islam. In short, we non-Muslims (while we are still free to speak our minds) can appropriately say that our enemies strike against us in the name of Islam; they find their inspiration, their motivation, their justification, in the precepts of this great religion which has stood as the adversary of our once-unified civilization for many a long century. It may be that they have perverted the teachings of this religion; it may be that they have misunderstood some of its ambiguous teachings; but it may also be that they are faithfully applying those teachings. Again a non-Muslim is in no position to judge of this.
The second question goes to the very heart of the theoretical framework American leaders have sketched as a solution to the problems of the Muslim world. In brief, it calls into question the whole solution itself, and may force us back to the drawing broad, so to speak, if we are serious about facing it. The question is this. If it is demonstrated, as now seems pretty clear, that the perpetrators of the London bombings were British citizens or legal residents, will there be any reflection on what this means for the neoconservative theory that democracy is the cure for Islamic terrorism? If, in other words, the perpetrators of these bombings were citizens or long-time residents of one of the world's most stable and historic democracies, and thus partakers of all liberty and equality that is offered as the panacea for the troubles of the Muslim world, what does it say for the plausibility of said theory that London's first suicide bombers were reared up in the very cradle of Western liberal democracy?
Just maybe, it says that there is something unique about Islam that confounds our facile universalism, something unique and ancient about Islam that renders nugatory the easy platitudes so dear to us, something unique and ineradicable that reveals (yet again) that there are deeper things to stir the hearts of men than material prosperity and free elections.
But here is the really pulverizing question -- pulverizing not least because it is so muddled by the difficulty of the foregoing two. But being muddled, it is no less important. By now, every free nation in the world still possessed of its senses knows it must face this self-interrogation: Are we or are we not going permit (or perhaps continue to permit) the emergence, within our midst, of totalitarian Islam? Again I deliberately leave open the question of whether "totalitarian Islam" really means "Islam in the modern world" or merely "a perversion of Islam in the modern world." But to repeat: The people of the free nations of the world, the citizens of the West (or her descendents if in fact the West is no more), are now confronted with sufficient evidence that the efforts to call totalitarian Islam into existence in every free nation are well underway; that such efforts will be materially supported from the home bases of totalitarian Islam, and may be spiritually supported by the very nature of Islam as such*; and that those efforts can, at least to some degree, be encouraged or discouraged by the actions of our own governments.
The instinct of most of us is not even to face the question, to decline the self-interrogation altogether, and get on with our barbeques and reality shows; but face it we must, because ultimately the threat it signifies is neither fleeting nor mild, but rather persistent and existential.
The answer we should give is this. We -- whatever other free nations choose to do or not do -- are going to put certain considerable obstacles in the way of totalitarian Islam; we at least are not going to encourage its development on our shores; we at least are going to say, in the manner republics "say" things publicly, such that it is clear to the leaders of this movement, its sympathizers and facilitators, both here and abroad, to the world at large, and most importantly to ourselves, that we will not tolerate totalitarian Islam. Rather, we will place very substantial burdens and abridgements, of varying social, political and legal character, upon those holding the beliefs associated with totalitarian Islam. We will make the price for sympathy with it very high indeed. We will not extend to it our beloved constitutional and civil rights; we will not, to the extent possible, let its sympathizers and facilitators, much less its foot soldiers and officers, into our country, and we will deport with dispatch those already here; we will exclude its representatives from service in our government, status in our society, safety under our laws; we will, in short, prohibit totalitarian Islam, in thought, word and deed.
Now we will, to be sure, make every effort to distinguish between our real enemies and those merely linked to them by accident of birth or confession. We have always been a generous country, and we will take heed not to forsake that generosity now, not least because we know that extending it to the right people will help us in this war immensely. We will be discerning, and when failing to discern, genuinely contrite. But we will give no quarter to our enemy. We will make him fear: fear that we are onto him, fear that we have turned his neighbors against him, fear that we have made him our agent without his knowing, fear that perhaps this radical Islam thing may be more trouble than it's worth -- or better: fear that, after all, it may be a little off in its apprehension of the duties of man to God.
And make no mistake: this is no mere matter of Free Speech. The Islamist being struck at is generally not the Islamist attempting to exercise his constitution right to free speech; it is rather the Islamist who, having given his allegiance wholly to totalitarian Islam, has acted to systematically conceal this fact. We will not merely abridge his freedom of speech; we will also abridge his freedom of thought.
Now often the way a republic speaks is through legislation, and if legislation is called for, let our politicians find some time in their busy schedules to actually legislate. This is tough stuff: no one said it would be easy. If we must write laws to exclude totalitarian Islam from First Amendment protections under "clear and present danger" precedents, let it be done. If we must write laws to exclude totalitarian Islam from Equal Protection considerations, let it be done. Would such things be delicate business? Indeed it would: among the most delicate we as a people have ever undertaken. But that, friends, is the burden of self-government. And even if legislation along these (admittedly a bit shocking) lines is never enacted -- even if it is never even really considered -- we as a people must face the question I posed above: Are we or are we not going permit the emergence, within our midst, of totalitarian Islam? We must face it and answer, such that most everyone understands, No.
Paul J. Cella III edits the weblog, Cella's Review.
* I know this sort of talk makes many people, even some of my own political allies and friends, very nervous -- heck it makes me nervous. But I will not close this question; will not even pretend that it is a question we infidels can close. The true answer, I fear, is quite indifferent to our nervousness.
#2
Blair Ignored Most Obvious Lesson of 9/11
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/26/101845/102
by leveymg [Subscribe]
Tue Jul 26th, 2005 at 07:18:45 PDT
Roll up known cells, and keep "friendly" Intel agencies on a very short leash.
leveymg's diary :: ::
Tony knows damned well why 9/11 happened. During the summer of 2001, the CIA, the Saudis, and the Israelis were running several loosely-coordinated penetration operations against al-Qaeda and each other inside the US. Other intelligence services were watching. The President was given the option of rolling up the UBL cells - but, for his own reasons, Bush declined to issue that order.
So, in order to keep the game going, US counter-terrorism accepted the risks of allowing the 19 to enter the country -- the regular "gumshoe" FBI were intentionally kept out of the loop, and the Bureau liaison at CTC was ordered not to put out alerts. Not knowing what the hell else to do, FBI HQ basically stalled all ongoing CT investigations. The WTC and Pentagon attacks proceeded unhindered.
The lessons were clear. All those double-agents, agents provocateur, consensual monitoring, and simulations created a huge opportunity for someone to put together a workable operational plan. You remove the opportunity by rounding up everyone who might be taken down. You watch the rest very closely. You lock out opposing intelligence services, and keep allies on a very short leash.
Tony Blair ignored these obvious lessons, and the London Bombings occurred as a result. The second wave of attacks - with the unexploded minitions - were something else, something perhaps more sinister.
The buildup to 7/7 involved several US double-agents. This is almost pathetically obvious. Just read between the lines below, you'll see exactly what happened.
*********************
Effort here to charge London suspect was blocked
By Hal Bernton and David Heath
Seattle Times staff reporters
The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.
British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.
But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.
snip
"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street."
snip
At the time, however, federal prosecutors chose not to indict Aswat for reasons that are not clear. Asked why Aswat wasn't indicted, a federal official in Seattle replied, "That's a great question."
more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20023 ...
***********************************
Pakistani American Aiding London Probe
Man in U.S. Custody Has Ties to Al Qaeda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20 ...
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 25, 2005; Page A14
It is safe to assume that most people would not react to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in quite the same way as Mohammed Junaid Babar.
SNIP
Thus began the strange jihadist odyssey of Babar, 30, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Yankees fan who said he gave up a $70,000-a-year job as a computer programmer to join al Qaeda operatives in plotting attacks against U.S. soldiers and targets in Britain.
Now in U.S. custody after pleading guilty to terrorism charges last year, Babar has proved invaluable to U.S. and British investigators probing this month's attacks on the London transit system, numerous officials said. He has identified at least one of the suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, through photographs and has provided other details that may be helpful in unraveling the plot, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources.
The revelation that Babar is linked to the July 7 London attacks, which killed at least 56 including the four suicide bombers, is only the latest connection to emerge between the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and al Qaeda.
In addition to his connection to the London bombers, Babar has admitted in court proceedings to supplying bomb-making materials to a Pakistani cell in the United Kingdom that had plotted to blow up restaurants, pubs and train stations there. (When the cell was broken up in 2004, British authorities discovered more than 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the same material used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.) Furthermore, Babar said in federal court in Manhattan during a plea hearing last summer that he spent much of 2003 and early 2004 in the Waziristan province of Pakistan, supplying money and materials -- including night-vision goggles, sleeping bags and other items -- to "a high-ranking al Qaeda official" for use in the fight against U.S. and Northern Alliance forces across the border in Afghanistan. He also admitted to setting up a jihad training camp in the region, a court transcript shows.
Babar also is believed to have links to Issa al-Hindi, the operative involved in surveillance of financial buildings in the United States before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"This guy's connection to different cells and plots just seems to be expanding," said one U.S. law enforcement official, who declined to be identified because parts of the case are classified. "He is the fish that is getting bigger."
Although his arrest and prosecution last year in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York went largely unnoticed, U.S. counterterrorism and law enforcement officials say they have long recognized Babar's importance as a link to major al Qaeda players.
In an interview last fall, Frances Fragos Townsend, now the White House national security adviser, pointed to the Babar case as an example of a major prosecution. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey also said in an interview during the same period that Babar's case provided a lesson on the importance of greater surveillance powers for the government, citing evidence that he checked e-mail at a library despite having access in his home.
SNIP
U.S. counterterrorism officials said Babar first hit their radar screen in late 2001, after the incendiary comments he made to ITN were broadcast. But it was not until April 2004, after Babar had returned to New York and was put under surveillance by the FBI, that he was arrested.
Babar has told authorities that he recognized Khan, one of the London bombers, as a person he met in Pakistan and that he accompanied him to a jihad camp in the area, sources said.
Although Babar could face as many as 70 years in prison, he is likely to receive a lesser sentence for cooperating with U.S. authorities, and a sentencing date has not been scheduled, officials said.
**********************************
Not a word in The Post today about the other guy in Seattle who the US arrested and Ashcroft let go. Haroon Aswat and a confederate ended up as a central figure in the London bombing. ((http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...
The Seattle Time story, updated version here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20023 ...
These revelations show how deeply entwined US intelligence operatives have become in the London cells. It also shows that MI-5 and DHS have a long way to go before they learn how to prevent international terrorist attacks. Obviously, allowing double-agents to run around the world isn't the way to do things. If I were a British MP, I would demand answers of Mr. Blair. If I were Mr. Blair, I might recall the Ambassador from Washington.
#3
"Are we or are we not going permit the emergence, within our midst, of totalitarian Islam? We must face it and answer, such that most everyone understands, No."
A shift from Democracy to a more Authoritarian regime must be the last choice to defeat any form of totalitarianism. Diplomats make careers out of maintaining a perception of the status quo. And Western leaders have traditionally lacked the political will to overcome the diplomats tactics. The homegrown obstacles to such a shift will be even more prevalent then the homegrown enemies.
#4
Consider the practice of republican Rome. In times of war, a dictator was chosen to lead (a return to totalitarianism to meet a crisis that representative government was less able to deal with). In WWII certain "rights" and privileges were suspended. Perhaps, in this (officially undeclared as opposed to actually) undeclared war, it's time to consider more stringent methods against declared and undeclared internal and external enemies than our democracy would ordinarily tolerate.
Speculating about issues that have to do with Intelligence can be a slippery slope. Nevertheless there are a few points relating to both the Sharm sl-Sheikh and London bombings which deserve some degree of contemplation.
Ihab al-Sherif, Egypt's envoy to Iraq arrived in Baghdad in the beginning of June. On june 12th security officials in Israel were warning that "terror cells, which apparently are linked to al-Qaeda, will attempt to attack tourist hubs along Sinai's beaches via truck or car bombs and suicide bombers" (www.ynetnews.com). The intelligence was so solid that Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israelis who enter Sinai 'would be making a big mistake,' and Almagor Terror Victims Association an Israeli advocacy group was requesting the government to close the border and prohibit Israelis from going to Sinai.
Ihab al-Sherif, as we know, was kidnapped by a purported al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq. Before he was executed he was videotaped explaining the divisions of Sinai 'under the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement', pointing out an area that "stretches from Taba to Sharm el-Sheikh" in which Israelis and other foreigners may travel without a visa, adding "You can say it represents about 20 percent of Sinai. " While, sure, one need not necessarily kidnap an ambassador to find this out, it is not actually in the Camp David Accords (which affirm Egyptian sovereignty over the peninsula), and the group has released the videotape for broadcast as apparently a justification for both their killing of al-Sherif and for the bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh.
While the kidnapping of Ihab el-Sherif is not obviously related to the bombings, nor is it necessarily obvious that his assignment to Iraq intensified the Israeli Intelligence community's expectation of attacks in Sinai, it is by no means illogical.
One thing that is not speculation at all is that, in this instance, Israeli Intelligence was uncannily accurate, and this seems often to be the case. The exactness about both the type and timeframe of the attacks cause the earlier reports (Associated Press, Stratfor.com) that Israeli Intelligence also anticipated the July 7th London bombings to deserve slightly more scrutiny.
There is further reason to suppose that the Israelis may have had information about the planned London bombings, given that the man believed to have blown himself up on the Underground train at Edgeware Road visited Israel two years ago, staying only one day. A one-time, one-day visit, in and of itself, would attract the attention of Israeli Intelligence. Two months after his brief visit, two other Britons attempted to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel, one of them successfully, while the other failed to detonate his explosives, ran away, and was found dead in the sea a week later.
On the same day of the attack and attempted attack, Israel released to the press the passport photos of Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif. Hanif was identified as the one who blew himself into a milion pieces, Sharif was the one who fled.
How these identifications were made so immediately, and why the Israelis had copies of their passports on hand, literally within an hour of the incidents, must have to do with aspects of forensics well beyond my grasp. Also eluding my comprehension is what Omar Sharif could possibly have been doing for a week in Israel before deciding to drown himself.
The well-known Israeli interrogation tactic of âwaterboardingâ (whereby the suspect is held underwater to the point of near-drowning), however leaves the door open to speculate that Sharif was neither successful in his attack, nor in his escape. He was quite possibly apprehended, questioned, and, as regularly happens in waterboarding, did not survive his iterrogation.
While the above scenario is certainly questionable, to suppose that Israel would have intensely investigated the lives and connections of Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, in London and elsewhere, is not open to question.
Just as with their information about the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, Israel gathers Intelligence based both on leads and likelihoods; the leads and likelihoods appear to exist for Israel in relation to the London attacks, there is no reason to suppose then, that the intelligence did not also exist.
What do Islamist terrorists want? The answer should be obvious, but it is not.
A generation ago, terrorists did make their wishes very clear. On hijacking three airliners in September 1970, for example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanded, with success, the release of Arab terrorists imprisoned in Great Britain, Switzerland, and West Germany. On attacking the B'nai B'rith headquarters and two other Washington, D.C. buildings in 1977, a Hanafi Muslim group demanded the canceling of a feature movie, Mohammad, Messenger of G-d, US$750 (as reimbursement for a fine), the turning over of the five men who had massacred the Hanafi leader's family, plus the killer of Malcolm X.
Such "non-negotiable demands" lead to wrenching hostage dramas and attendant policy dilemmas. "We will never negotiate with terrorists," declared the policymakers. "Give them Hawaii but get my husband back," pleaded the hostages' wives.
Those days are so remote and their terminology so forgotten that even the American president now speaks of "non-negotiable demands" (in his case, concerning human dignity), forgetting the deadly origins of this phrase.
Instead, most anti-Western terrorist attacks these days are perpetrated without demands being enunciated. Bombs go off, planes get hijacked and crashed into buildings, hotels collapse. The dead are counted. Detectives trace back the perpetrators' identities. Shadowy websites make post-hoc unauthenticated claims.
But the reasons for the violence go unexplained. Analysts, including myself, are left speculating about motives. These can concern the terrorists' personal grievances - such as poverty, prejudice, or cultural alienation. Alternately, they can respond to international politics:
Pulling "a Madrid" and getting governments to pull their troops from Iraq.
Convincing Americans to leave Saudi Arabia.
Ending U.S. support for Israel.
Pressuring New Delhi to cede control of all Kashmir.
Any of these motives could have contributed to the violence; as London's Daily Telegraph puts it, problems in Iraq and Afghanistan each added "a new pebble to the mountain of grievances that militant fanatics have erected." Yet none of these issues is decisive to giving up one's life for the sake of killing others.
In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a (Islamic law). Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide 'caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."
Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming "The caliphate or death." A biography of Abdullah Azzam, one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.
Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious Caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, G-d willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that declares "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.
Or, as Mohammed Bouyeri wrote in the note he attached to the corpse of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker he had just assassinated, "Islam will be victorious through the blood of martyrs who spread its light in every dark corner of this earth."
Interestingly, Bouyeri was frustrated by the mistaken motives attributed to him, insisting at his trial: "I did what I did purely out of my beliefs. I want you to know that I acted out of conviction and not that I took his life because he was Dutch or because I was Moroccan and felt insulted."
Although terrorists state their jihadi motives loudly and clearly, Westerners and Muslims alike too often avert their eyes. Islamic organizations, Canadian author Irshad Manji observes, pretend that "Islam is an innocent bystander in today's terrorism."
What the terrorists want is abundantly clear. It requires monumental denial not to acknowledge it, but we Westerners have risen to the challenge.
#3
Sorry bigjim-ky -- they're too busy burning Israeli flags and spitting on people outside of one of Daniel Pipes's speaking engagements to answer you with angry gibberish right now. Theyâll get right back to you after solidarity speaker Jodie Evans from Code Pink is done explaining how radical Islam is the new feminism.
#4
No such thing as a liberal, BigJim! There's only normal people (like the MSM, Teddy, Turbin-Durbin, Mikey Moore, et al) and rancid, rabid, right-wing, Rantburg-reading, reality-denying, Bu$hilter-loving-liars. Either you're with 'em, or agin' 'em.
I read Rantburg.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/26/2005 12:30 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It also requires major denial to pretend that Islam is a peaceful religion and that the problem we have is only with a minority of Moslems.
Islam is a submit-or-die cult, and to be a good Moslem is to strive towards the submission or death of all mankind. Not very different from Nazism -- and did anyone argue that "moderate" Nazis would take care of the problem for us?
#6
"The attempt to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a has begun", and that was 14 centuries ago. It's time the western world stomped it out.
Posted by: Neutron Tom ||
07/26/2005 20:07 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
