Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Dont Stop Now   So, one reads that a lot of the Iraqi leadership and goons are indeed popping up in Syria ... Mrs Saddam Hussein in in Latakia. I can find it on a map, how about the USAF and Navy? And how difficult would it be to inject some special ops troops into this militarily feeble, full-of-itself little fascist country, to take care of unfinished business? Don't repeat the mistakes of 1991! 2:20:44 PM    comment []

Pretty Remarkable   Don't you think it's pretty remarkable that two research groups managed to unravel the genome of the SARS coronavirus in just a few weeks? Considering that this is supposedly an unknown organism, crossed over from some unspecified animal (my bet: domestic pigs in rural China) it's quite amazing how quickly the technology bashed its way through the sequencing. Now, of course, biologists have to sift through the code and figure out which elements there open themselves to some kind of attack ... envelope proteins, or something along those lines ... enabling disruption of its reproduction. It certainly makes one feel more optimistic about the prospects of us neutralizing the disease's spread now. Although, to be fair, quanrantines seem to have been very productive in this regard ... 11:54:44 AM    comment []

Trojan Horses   I often get criticized, or at least old-fashioned 'PC' looks, when I point out that some expatriate Arab communities are a hotbed of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and fanaticism ... some chunky excerpts from a piece in today's WSJ that go to prove the case a little ... and tell us something about 'our friends', the Saudis A Saudi Group Spreads Extremism In 'Law' Seminars, Taught in Dutch IAN JOHNSON and DAVID CRAWFORD Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EINDHOVEN, Netherlands -- In late February, more than 300 young men from across Europe gathered for a weekend seminar on Islamic law put on by the Al-Waqf al-islaami Foundation. In the bright, austere rooms of this city's Al-Furqaan Mosque, they heard sermons on the hell that awaits unbelievers and the benefits of resisting Western ways of living. The language was Dutch, but the message was imported from Saudi Arabia, via Saudi books and lecturers who taught a strict, orthodox interpretation of Islam. Mourat, an attendee who offered only his first name, said: "I don't want a separation of state and religion. I want Shariah [Islamic law] here and now." For years, the Al-Waqf foundation's seminars have drilled extremist messages into the heads of thousands of young Muslims from across the Continent: Mixing with unfaithful is a form of pollution, Jews are to blame for much of what's wrong in the world, and the rest can be laid at the doorstep of the U.S., according to foundation literature and interviews with attendees. The seminar's most famous graduates: half a dozen members of the group of young men from Hamburg, Germany, who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. As European government investigators explore the roots of terrorism, they are discovering foundations such as Al-Waqf. Muslim foundations and charities initially came under the microscope for channeling money to terrorists. Now, investigators are taking another look at whether these groups are encouraging terrorism by teaching an intolerant and xenophobic strain of Islam. In France, investigators have raised concerns about L'Institut Europeen des Sciences Humaines at the Chateau-Chinon in the Burgundy region. One member of the Hamburg cell took a correspondence course offered by the institute, the investigators say. In Germany, the Haus des Islam in the small town of Lutzelbach near Frankfurt is under observation, according to German intelligence officials. This organization was set up in the 1980s with cash smuggled into the country from the Middle East, the officials say. Wolfgang Burgfeld, who heads the Haus des Islam, says, "We're just a normal teaching institution." The French institute declined to comment. Of these groups, Eindhoven's branch of the Al-Waqf foundation stands out. Its courses have been attended since the late 1980s by self-styled holy warriors from across Europe. Attendance has become a critical credential for those aspiring to jihad, according to terrorism investigators. Like many of the foundations, Al-Waqf is tightly linked to Saudi Arabia. Its headquarters are there, and wealthy Saudis dominate the board of the Dutch branch. Its courses reflect the puritanical strain of Islam promoted world-wide by the Saudi government." later... "... [In Eindhoven] The readings centered on an extremely narrow interpretation of Islamic law. A key message: mixing with nonbelievers is taboo. A handout from a 1999 conference during the holy month of Ramadan, for example, warned participants not to visit Christians in their homes or accept Christmas cards or gifts. "According to the scholars' consensus, this is forbidden," stated a handout in Arabic that German police seized during a search of the home of El-Hassen Ragi, a Hamburg resident currently under investigation for possibly aiding the Sept. 11 attackers. The 1999 Ramadan conference had an electric effect on Mr. Ragi, his wife, Beate Ragi, said in a sealed deposition taken by police last year and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. He began to spout hateful slogans, blaming Jews and the U.S. for the world's problems, Beate Ragi said. She is separated from her husband but still lives in Hamburg and shares custody of their child. "Afterwards, he was completely changed," she added. "He demanded that food be put on the table. Then he'd leave us some, and take the rest to his friends. He was hardly home anymore." Condemnation and abandonment of Western influences are central to the extremist Islamic seminars, a German terrorism investigator says. "If you teach that people are inferior, then it's easier to justify killing them," the investigator says." still later: "The Saudi Embassy in Berlin denies that its government sponsored this or any other seminar abroad. On March 24, however, new links came to light between the Saudi Embassy, Eindhoven and the Hamburg cell. " .... The Saudi Foreign Ministry recalled Mohammad J. Fakihi, director of the Islamic Affairs Department at the Saudi Embassy in Berlin. German police say that earlier, they had found Mr. Fakihi's business card among the possessions of convicted Hamburg cell member Mounir Motassadeq. The Saudi Embassy declined to comment on the recall of Mr. Fakihi. Mr. Raji placed Mr. Ragi, Mr. Motassadeq and Zakaria Essabar at the 1999 Ramadan seminar. Mr. Motassadeq was convicted in February in Germany for aiding the hijackers. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Mr. Essabar, who is wanted as a principal organizer of the attacks, is believed to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan. He left Germany shortly before the attacks. Not long after attending the 1999 Ramadan seminar, Mr. Motassadeq traveled to Afghanistan to train in an al Qaeda-run camp, according to German court documents used to convict him. He later stayed in contact with clerics who spoke at the seminar, according to court records. And earlier that year, according to German investigators, alleged Sept. 11 pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi came to a conference in either Eindhoven or Amsterdam. They subsequently went to al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Another man who attended an Al-Waqf seminar in Eindhoven was Ibrahim Diab, a regular at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg attended by Mr. Atta and his friends. Mr Diab left Germany the day before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to German court documents. He was detained about a month later at the Afghani border by Pakistani police." and: [after some comments about the funding allegedly coming from 'poor Moslems,' but really coming from rich Saudis...] "Whatever its financial associations, Al-Waqf has helped create a milieu where the world is divided into Muslims and inferior non-Muslims, European investigators say." "... Speaking in the spartan Al-Furqaan Mosque [a teacher] warned some 300 listeners against accepting the secular, non-Islamic world. At times he was humorous, declaring: "Tawhid is not Steven Spielberg, Hollywood; it is reality." But his message was at core serious and uncompromising: sacrifice everything for Islam. "He who understands what tawhid is will find a place in paradise," [he] told the young men, many of whom were taking notes. "All acts [supporting Islam] will be rewarded. All initiatives, even when they are bad, will be rewarded." 11:05:45 AM    comment []

Regime Change Candidates   So, who else needs a 'regime change'? A partial list ... North Korea Syria Iran Libya China Venezuela Cuba Saudi Arabia Myanmar Zimbabwe Malawi Russia France Germany Canada Mexico Belgium Turkey Egypt Malaysia ... and a few more pisspot little countries whose governments haven't quite been sufficiently annoying enough. Yet. Ideally, the 'people' should take care of these themselves ... but ... 10:29:17 AM    comment []

Humor From The Inbox: 9 Could be urban legend here, but it's amusing enough.... "The Washington Post publishes a yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for various words. The following were some of this year's winning entries: Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. Esplanade (v.),! to attempt an explanation while drunk. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavoured mouthwash. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam! Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist." 10:22:01 AM    comment []

Grudging Acknowledgements   Dorothy Rabinowitz is as amused as I have been by the Quisling press ... an excerpt from today's WSJ ... "[T]here is no inadvertence in the ill-concealed hostility now coming from the antiwar camp -- only a kind of awkward pretense to give credit to the American and British forces that won so swift a victory. And grudging credit it is, replete with arguments that, of course, everyone knew they would win overwhelmingly. That assurance did not, of course, keep this crowd from issuing their dire predictions the first day or two of the war, about the "quagmire" and new Vietnam. The latest entry in the grudging acknowledgments department comes from Saturday's New York Times editorial that first pays tribute to the great skill of the American forces, credits Mr. Rumsfeld's push for a smaller more agile force, and then goes on to the main point: whether the victory could really be attributed to U.S. military excellence. The Iraqis, it notes, fought poorly and ineptly -- perhaps this was simply "a lopsided fight." The most noteworthy specimen to date, though, must be the lead Talk of the Town item in the April 14 New Yorker, in which Hendrick Hertzberg writes: "By the end of last week -- even though American troops who, by all accounts, have fought honorably and without undue cruelty, were at the gates of Baghdad -- it was too late for the rosy scenario of the cakewalk conservatives." We may take it, from that "undue cruelty" reference, that Mr. Hertzberg is willing to credit American troops mainly because they failed to perpetrate war crimes. It is a pronouncement worth remembering, and not for what it says about the troops. 10:17:56 AM    comment []

The Russians, Again The WSJ Europe carries this little treat, about the Iraq-Soviet/Russian relationship ... The Russian Connection By PAVEL FELGENHAUER Looting in Baghdad seems to be subsiding after a few days of freedom, but the first real booty of any value has now hit the marketplace: Iraqis are offering the multitude of journalists stationed in town secret files and documents they had "found" in government offices. There could soon be a tide of revelations that may implicate different countries and prominent figures that contacted or worked with Saddam during the years. France might well worry about what turns up regarding tight Paris-Baath Party relations. But the first crop to come up implicates Russia. Russian military and intelligence services did cooperate closely with the Saddam Hussein regime before the war to liberate Kuwait in 1991 and the demise of the Soviet Union the same year. After 1991 the relationship didn't end. In fact it may have gotten steadily closer during the 1990s. Now the cloak of secrecy is unraveling and documents implicating Moscow have gone public, which may reflect the multitude of contacts and the mass of related documents. Britain's Sunday Telegraph reports this week on a letter from the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow which included details of Russian arms deals with Syria, Kuwait and other countries. The reported information is accurate: officials have told me that Syria did indeed receive in 1999 "Kornet" guided anti-tank missiles, some of which, apparently, were later sent to Iraq and used against U.S. armor in recent weeks. Israel together with Russia did produce a jointly made AWAC-style plane for China, but Washington pressured the Israelis to stop the delivery in 2000. These arms deals are not much of a secret, but if the arms trade file is authentic other documents in the batch may be genuine too. According to a pro-Kremlin website, Russia and Iraq signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden. Unnamed intelligence officials have told journalists in Moscow that Russian contacts with the Saddam regime aimed at combating terrorism, the narcotics trade and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction were legitimate. Perhaps. But why would anyone in Moscow send to Baghdad a transcript of a conversation held in Rome last year between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, obtained through intelligence services? It's harder still to imagine why the Kremlin would send Saddam a detailed list of prospective assassins. People in Moscow well acquainted with the activities of the Russian intelligence agencies today do not dismiss any accusations out of hand. But there's a twist. After the demise of the Soviet Union, the state in Russia has been privatized, including much of the intelligence network. One may buy any service, if the price is right. A high ranking government official told me last week that, for half a year or more, Russian secret services, including military intelligence and KGB successor agencies, were lobbying the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin to back Saddam in the coming confrontation with the U.S.-led coalition. I was also told that Russian oil companies and other businesses that trade with Iraq actually contracted Russian spies to do the lobbying. It's impossible to know for sure at present how true this story is. It's a fact that Russian military and other intelligence agencies are manned by people who are genuinely anti-American. Many of them may not need to be bribed much to get deeply involved in activities that could worsen relations with Washington and help Saddam. Cooperating with Iraqi intelligence, selling Baghdad secrets or sensitive military equipment in violation of sanctions, may be considered by many in Moscow a patriotic activity: A way to earn a living and serve one's country at the same time. It's a fact, for example, that till the last days of combat in Baghdad the Kremlin was receiving reports that the U.S. military has been bogged down, its campaign plan is in tatters, and that Moscow together with France might soon have to be called in to organize a ceasefire under U.N. auspices. The Russian Navy has even sent a task force with up to 150 marines to the Indian Ocean to take part in a possible disengagement agreement between allied and Iraqi forces. (Since it had to come a long way, it will arrive in the Gulf later this month. Sometimes never is better than late.) This determined campaign to misinform the Kremlin and Russian public on the course of the war and the possible repercussions of the liberation of Iraq was apparently one of the main reasons Mr. Putin took such a resolute anti-American stand. The sudden collapse of Saddam's regime has not changed the situation much in one sense: The anti-Americanism of Russian military and intelligence officials is even more bitter that before. Russia today does more business with Iran, including nuclear technology, arms sales and arms production, than it did with Iraq in the 1990s. With Saddam out of the way, members of Russian intelligence agencies who are often doing work on the side (like self-employed entertainers, they must supplement their meager incomes) will be flocking to help deepen the ties with Tehran and at the same time make the rift with Washington permanent. In recent years no one has been punished in Russia for illicit arms trade with Iraq or for cooperating closely with Iran or Syria. This is not a coincidence: Informed sources say the Russian counterintelligence service -- the FSB -- was a leading party of the pro-Saddam lobby. Any amount of disclosure in the Western press will not change their mode of operation. It perhaps may be too much to hope that, given how woefully inadequate their intelligence on the situation on the ground in Iraq was, the political clout of the Russian intelligence services will diminish now. But we can at least hope. Mr. Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based independent defense analyst. 10:12:55 AM    comment []

What A Difference A Few Days Makes   Well, after a brief break, I'm back to annoy you again <g> ... What a difference a few days makes, eh? On Friday, we were hearing dire predictions about a bloody battle for Tikrit, and what was going on in Mosul and Kirkuk wasn't clear. Now, it's all over.  And all we have to concern ourselves with is: does Syria get it? Are they listening? Because, if not, I think we might just move on them, sooner rather than later ... certainly, we must have a clue where the Saddam gangsters are hiding there, don't you think? And knowing their decadent mafia syle, it's probably in big villas around Damascus. Hmm, time for a few well-placed Tomahawks, I'd say ... 10:09:34 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Peter Savage.