It is true, as this Opinion Journal editorial says, that it is an article of faith on the left that there could be no connection between secular Saddam Hussein and the religious extremists in al-Qaeda. But there seems to be growing evidence from thosw who are digging through Saddam's massive intelligence archives that this connection may be stronger than anyone imagined.
One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.
It is still not absolutely confirmed that this Shakir in the Fedayeen is a different man than the one who had al-Qaeda connections, but it certainly the fact that the jury is still not in on the issue.
There's no single "smoking gun," but there sure is a lot of smoke.
The problem is we sometimes don't know precisely where the smoke is coming from, and especially not where it's burning.
What appears increasingly likely, is that top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarkawi was given sanctuary and medical treatment by Saddam. Zarkawi, who supposedly personally beheaded Nick Berg to show his fellow Islamofasicts what a macho man he is, may well be the world's most dangerous man right now.
US study: Majority use alternative medicine (if you include prayer)
Newspaper headlines across the world are saying today that a majority of Americans are trying to cure their diseases through alternative or unconventional medicine. This is true only if we stretch the terms a bit.
A new government survey of more than 31,000 U.S. adults nationwide, the most comprehensive assessment of the use of alternative medicine in the United States, found that 36 percent are using some kind of "complementary and alternative" therapy. That number jumps to 62 percent when prayer is included.
Including prayer is surely an unconventional categorisation to boost the result in favour of alternative medicine. Maybe technically accurate, but quite misleading.
A very interesting translated article about the double message given in a Mosque in Sweden. In Arabic, the imam sprouts hatred, and then a watered down (or completely different) version is repeated in Swedish, for outsiders.
It is Friday prayer in the mosque on Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm. Every week some 2 000 Muslims gather here to listen to Sheik Hassan Mousas sermon. He is the highest Imam in the mosque.
Friday May 14, when SvD visited the mosque, the Imam was talking about the torture pictures of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. Hassan Mousa speaks formal, classical Arabic and roars into the microphone. “What's wrong with you grandchildren of Mohammed? How long will you endure this humiliation of Muslims without reacting? American and British soldiers, grandchildren of Hitler, are torturing Muslims in Iraq.” The words sink like a carpet bombing over the hall. Everybody feels them. Many have tears in their eyes. Heads are sunk and eyes are lowered onto the the blue coloured soft carpet.
Minutes later the Swedish translation of the speech is read by an interpreter. In Swedish, the American torture of Iraqi prisoners is condemned, but at the same time the translator emphasizes earlier good works for Muslims done by the US, among others in Bosnia. Not a word on how America is raping Islam, is the enemy of Islam and wants Muslims to be humiliated and under submission.
I am not at all surprised, and I am convinced this happens in Mosques all over Europe and North America.
Describing herself as a "cowgirl from Arizona," O'Connor tells of graduating from Stanford Law School in 1952 (she doesn't mention she was No. 3 in her class) and being unable to get a single law job. Her one interview at a big firm ended with the question, "Miss Day, do you type?" At which point she was grudgingly offered a secretary's position. At which point she began inventing her own luck.
A reminder about how much has improved on woman's rights.
