How can we win the War on Terror with these clowns?

MSNBC Video

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Arafat's Dark Legacy

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BACKLASH IN ZARQAWI’S HOMETOWNImam: ‘Everyone Is Ashamed’

Harold's List
The New York Sun
ELI LAKE

ZARQA, Jordan — A visit to the mosque that terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi attended as a child suggests that the Al Qaeda figure made a big mistake in plotting Amman’s triple bombings of 11/9.

The sermon Friday at the al-Falah mosque from Imam Mustafa Suleiman was, in his words, about “the criminality of the attacks and how they were not in keeping with Islam.” Mr. Suleiman said that from now on he will no longer allow Salafis, members of the ultrareligious sect of Sunni Islam percolating largely from Saudi Arabia, into his house of worship. After midmorning prayers Friday, he even urged his minions to cooperate with Jordan’s intelligence services when they come asking.

The explosions Wednesday in three downtown hotels in the Jordanian capital changed this country in many ways, but perhaps most significant is that it has unified a nation against the Jordanianborn Mr. al-Zarqawi. In the past, Jordanians have shown some sympathy for his activities in Iraq.

Only hours after the suicide bombings Wednesday, citizens marched silently in the streets in solidarity with the victims. Banners damning Mr. al-Zarqawi and his band to hell hang on storefronts and apartment buildings. But the effect of the bombings is perhaps best observed in the hometown of the man who ordered them.

When asked about Zarqa’s most notorious son, Mr. Suleiman’s craggy face tightened under his red and white headdress and he pointed holes in the air to emphasize his disdain.“Zarqawi is kufr,” Mr. Suleiman said, using the Arabic word for a nonbeliever, the preferred slur of Islamic fundamentalists like Mr. al-Zarqawi who favor it when speaking of infidels.

After a visit to the scene of the bombings, one can understand the imam’s rage. On Friday morning, the ceiling of the Radisson SAS Hotel’s main banquet hall was still a shambles of loose wire and gaping ventilation ducts. The carpet was covered in dust. Large piles of crumbled wall were mixed in with shattered glass, silverware, and the remains of a wedding that ended with the fathers of both the wife and the husband dead. Next to the wedding site on a raised stage,someone placed a picture of the late King Hussein.

Mr. Suleiman said Mr. al-Zarqawi’s family, whose surname is Khaleylah, still attends his mosque, and that they have all but disowned him. “Everyone here is ashamed of him, even his family,” the imam said. The hilly neighborhood of Massoum where Mr. al-Zarqawi grew up as Ahmed Khadil Khaleylah is still considered a rougher part of this city of 1 million. The apartment buildings are separated by lots of decomposing concrete buildings that host feral cats and stray dogs. Mr. Suleiman described Mr. al-Zarqawi as a “street kid” who was “always getting into trouble” as a teenager. “One time he was sent to jail and he was only released when his family pleaded with King Hussein’s office to spare his life. I wish the king had not shown mercy then,” the imam said.

Members of the Khaleylah clan were for the most part not talking to reporters. Approximately 15,000 Khaleylahs reside in Zarqa, and it is easy to find young men who claimed to be Mr. al-Zarqawi’s distant cousina and were willing to say all manner of things about the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, both pro and con. Some blamed the Israelis for the attack, citing an Internet rumor that Jews were warned ahead of the blasts to leave the hotels. But members of the terrorist’s immediate family have avoided journalists.

One advertising salesman said over sweet tea at his home that he believes the terrorists were not Al Qaeda in Iraq but the “Shiites from Iran.” When reminded of Jordan’s recent counterterrorism agreement with the Shiite dominated government in Baghdad, he said, “People break agreements all the time. Look at Israel.”

Mr. Suleiman was not the only imam to feature a sermon against the terrorism of 11/9. At the abu Gaud Mosque here, the Friday sermon focused on the story of Cain and Abel. “It was about the wickedness of murder,” the imam, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “It was about the senselessness of killing our brothers.” At the al-Aziz mosque here, the sermon centered on respect for life and the law, according to a man who attended the sermon.

Many observers here expect that sermons glorifying terror will come to an abrupt halt in Jordanian mosques as a facet of the government’s new war on Mr.al-Zarqawi.The minister of religious affairs,Abdu elSalam alAbadi, told The New York Sun in an interview here Sunday that the ministry’s surveillance of mosques will continue. “The ministry will continue throughout normal channels and its preaching committee to rise to the challenge and continue doing its own work that shows how Islam is really against these activities,how Jordan is ruled by laws and how these campaigns launched to deform the face of Islam will not succeed,” he said.

The editor of the Jordanian daily newspaper Al-Ghad,Ayman Safadi, said yesterday,“We have tolerated the voices here who justify and apologize for the killing in Iraq. But this era has ended.”

In Mr. al-Zarqawi’s old neighborhood, Mr. Suleiman concurred. “My speech this week was to damn the terrorists and my speech next week will be damn the terrorists. I will keep saying this until it stops.”

RIVETING SIGHTS President and Senator Clinton canceled their plans in Israel and visited Amman, Jordan, yesterday, where they toured one of the hotels attacked in last week’s bombing. Mrs. Clinton declined to blame President Bush or the Iraq war for the attacks, saying Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was an enemy of the kingdom of Jordan even before the war. Our Eli Lake is with the Clintons in Amman and reports on their visit in an article on the foreign page.

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Are you sure you want to keep saying we were fooled by Ahmad Chalabi and the INC?

Harold's List
Fighting words - Believe It or Not
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate.com

What do you have to believe in order to keep alive your conviction that the Bush administration conspired to launch a lie-based war? As with (I admit) the pro-war case, the ground of argument has a tendency to shift. I saw two examples in Washington last week. An exceptionally moth-eaten and shabby picket line outside Ahmad Chalabi's event on Wednesday featured a man with a placard alleging that Bush had prearranged the 9/11 attacks. I know a number of left and right anti-warriors who have flirted with this possibility but very few who truly believe it. (Even Gore Vidal, who did at one point insinuate the idea, has recently withdrawn it, if only on the grounds of the administration's incompetence.)

But then there is the really superb pedantry and literal-mindedness on which the remainder of the case depends. This achieved something close to an apotheosis on the front page of the Washington Post on Nov. 12, where Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus brought complete gravity to bear. Is it true, as the president claimed in his Veterans Day speech, that Congress saw the same intelligence sources before the war, and is it true that independent commissions have concluded that there was no willful misrepresentation? Top form was reached on the inside page:

But in trying to set the record straight, [Bush] asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."

The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.

A prize, then, for investigative courage, to Milbank and Pincus. They have identified the same problem, though this time upside down, as that which arose from the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, during the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1998. That legislation≈which passed the Senate without a dissenting vote≈did expressly call for the removal of Saddam Hussein but did not actually mention the use of direct U.S. military force.

Let us suppose, then, that we can find a senator who voted for the 1998 act to remove Saddam Hussein yet did not anticipate that it might entail the use of force, and who later voted for the 2002 resolution and did not appreciate that the authorization of force would entail the removal of Saddam Hussein! Would this senator kindly stand up and take a bow? He or she embodies all the moral and intellectual force of the anti-war movement. And don't be bashful, ladies and gentlemen of the "shocked, shocked" faction, we already know who you are.

It was, of course, the sinuous and dastardly forces of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress who persuaded the entire Senate to take leave of its senses in 1998. I know at least one of its two or three staffers, who actually admits to having engaged in the plan. By the same alchemy and hypnotism, the INC was able to manipulate the combined intelligence services of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as the CIA, the DIA, and the NSA, who between them employ perhaps 1.4 million people, and who in the American case dispose of an intelligence budget of $44 billion, with only a handful of Iraqi defectors and an operating budget of $320,000 per month. That's what you have to believe.

A few little strokes of Occam's razor are enough to dispose of this whole accumulation of fantasy. Suppose that every single Iraqi defector or informant, funneled out of a closed and terrified society by the INC, had been a dedicated and conscious fabricator. How could they persuade a vast organization, equipped with satellite surveillance that can almost read a license plate from orbit, of a plain untruth? (Leave to one side the useful intelligence that was provided by the INC and that has been acknowledged.) Well, what was the likelihood that ambiguous moves made by Saddam's agents were also innocuous moves? After decades in which the Baathists had been caught cheating and concealing, what room was there for the presumption of innocence? Hans Blix, the see-no-evil expert who had managed to certify Iraq and North Korea as kosher in his time, has said in print that he fully expected a coalition intervention to uncover hidden weaponry.

And this, of course, it actually has done. We did not know and could not know, until after the invasion, of Saddam's plan to buy long-range missiles off the shelf from Pyongyang, or of the centrifuge components buried on the property of his chief scientist, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi. The Duelfer report disclosed large latent facilities that were only waiting for the collapse of sanctions to resume activity. Ah, but that's not what you said you were looking for. ┘ Could pedantry be pushed any further?

We can now certify Iraq as disarmed, even if the materials once declared by the Saddam regime and never accounted for have still not been found. Why does this certified disarmament upset people so much? Would they rather have given Saddam the benefit of the doubt? Much more infuriating about the current anti-Chalabi hysteria is this: He turns up in Washington with a large delegation of Iraqi democrats, including a female Shiite ex-Communist, several Sunni dignitaries from the "hot" provinces, and the legendary Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, who led a genuine insurgency among the Marsh Arabs for 18 years. And the American left mounts a gargoyle picket line outside and asks silly and insulting questions inside, about a question that has already been decided. What a travesty this is. Not only do the liberal Democrats apparently want their own congressional votes from 1998 and 2002 back. It sometimes seems that they are actually nostalgic for the same period, when Saddam Hussein was running
Iraq, and there were no coalition soldiers to challenge his rule, and when therefore by definition there was peace, and thus things were more or less OK. Their current claim to have been fooled or deceived makes them out, on their own account, to be highly dumb and gullible. But as dumb and gullible as that?

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War.

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Saudi Accountability?

Front Page Magazine
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld

Responding to last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Saudi Arabia’s role in the war on terror, entitled “Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?”, Riyadh’s ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, charged the committee members with ignorance. "Judging by the statements made at the hearing, it appears that the members of the Committee are not fully aware of the significant steps Saudi Arabia has taken in the war on terrorism and extremism.” Worse, according to the prince, U.S. senators “chose to ignore the realities for the sake of political expediency.”

Did they really? The U.S. National Intelligence Reform Act of December 2004 requires development of a Presidential strategy to confront Islamic extremism in collaboration with Saudi Arabia. So far, however, the level of Saudi cooperation has been difficult to gauge. In September, for instance, a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report noted that U.S. agencies have been unable to determine the extent of Saudi Arabia’s domestic and international cooperation.

Evidence further suggests that Saudi Arabia, far from cracking down on terror, is actively enabling it. Thus, testifying before the Committee, Daniel Glaser, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Treasury Department, expressed concern that the Saudis are continuing to fund terror despite repeated promises to stop. Indeed, last August, Y'akub Abu Assab, a senior Hamas operative, was captured after he opened the Judea regional Hamas Communication Center in East Jerusalem. Assab transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as operational instructions from Hamas headquarters in Saudi Arabia to Hamas operatives in the West Bank and Gaza for terror attacks in Israel, as well as funds for the families of suicide bombers.

Glaser also noted that, in a “August 29, 2005 program aired in Saudi Arabia on Iqra TV, a Saudi-based station, which solicited funds for the Saudi Committee for the Support of the al Quds Intifadah ... Saudi Arabia's secretary-general of the official Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission, Sheikh Abdallah Basfar, urged Muslims everywhere to fund terrorism.” He said: “The Prophet said: 'He who equips a fighter -- it is as if he himself fought.' You lie in your bed, safe in your own home, and donate money and Allah credits you with the rewards of a fighter. What is this? A privilege.” Basfar asked donors to direct funds to a Joint Account 98 at “all banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

“Account 98,” according to Glaser, “had been a regular issue of concern that we have raised with the Saudis at all levels. They have repeatedly assured us that Account 98 no longer exists and that they are making efforts to staunch the flow of funds to these groups.” In other words, the Saudis tell us that they are implementing their promises even as they continue to fund terrorism.

Former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform in April this year that “[s]ome $85-90 billion has been spent from sources in Saudi Arabia in the last 30 years, spreading Wahhabi beliefs throughout the world.”

At least two members of the Saudi government, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman and Minister of Defense Prince Sultan, are sponsors of the Saudi High Commission, which evidence detailed in the 9/11 victims lawsuits shows “has long acted as a fully integrated component of al-Qaeda’s logistical and financial support infrastructure.” Moreover, the lawsuits detail that, “the Sept. 11 attacks were a ‘direct, intended and foreseeable product of [the High Commission’s] participation in al-Qaeda’s jihadist campaign.'”

Princes Salman and Prince Sultan are also affiliated with the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), which “had been involved in terror plans and plots and had purposely directed its activities against the United States.” The Princes have also been affiliated with the Saudi Charity al- Haramain, whose U.S. branches were shut down.

The most important finding by the GAO’s September report, however, was buried in a footnote. It says: “the distinction between the [Saudi] government’s support and funding, versus that provided by entities and individuals, especially in the case of Saudi charities’ alleged activities, is not always clear.”

While the U.S. Treasury Department is obligated to monitor funders of terrorism, the GAO reports that Treasury is not fulfilling its duty, in that Treasury “does not identify, monitor, or counter the support and funding or the global propagation of Islamic extremism as it relates to an ideology.” This ideology, according to the GAO, “denies the legitimacy of non-believers and practitioners of other forms of Islam, and that explicitly promotes hatred, intolerance, and violence…” Indeed, the propagation of this ideology, known as “DAWA,” is an integral part of Islamic institutions in the West.

Saudi officials, for their part, seem intent on obfuscating the kingdom’s ties to terrorism. “Saudi Arabia now has in place world-class laws and regulations to combat terror financing,” Prince Turki has maintained. At the same time, the prince is unwilling to account for the failure of the Saudi government to fulfill its promises to stop the propagation “Islamic extremism.” But he is perfectly willing to fault American policymakers for holding hearings to determine Saudi accountability in financing terrorism. Following last week’s hearing, the prince complained that “events like the hearing today do not contribute to a spirit of cooperation and only serve to reinforce negative misconceptions and half-truths.”

American legislators, however, have grown impatient with Saudi spin. Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) stated at last week’s hearing that “Saudi Arabia needs to understand that we expect it to be a helpful ally in the war against terrorism and that there will be serious consequences for the U.S.-Saudi relationship if it is not.” In view of the Saudis’ continuing support of Hamas and Prince Turki’s dishonest remarks, it seems the time is ripe for the U.S. to spell out what those consequences are.

At the very least, Saudi Arabia’s lack of cooperation should not be rewarded. From that perspective, last Friday’s decision to grant the kingdom membership in the World Trade Organization is a step in the wrong direction.

Rachel Ehrenfeld is the director for the American Center for Democracy headquartered in New York. Author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, she is the world’s leading expert on Narco-Terrorism and a noteworthy authority on international terrorism, political corruption, money laundering, drug trafficking, and organized crime. Most recently, she was a consult for the Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Strategy.

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10 Questions For Ahmad Chalabi

Harold's List
Time Magazine

He was criticized for presenting dubious sources on Saddam Hussein's weapons and accused of giving U.S. secrets to Iran. But Ahmad Chalabi, 61, is back in favor. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister spent last week in the U.S. visiting with the likes of Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley. He spoke by phone with TIME's Brian Bennett from a State Department-escorted limo.

You received the real Washington welcome. How did it feel to be greeted with protests and tough questions? The serious part of the visit was excellent. We had very useful discussions with the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, and we addressed some very important issues about the relationship between Iraq and the United States. As far as protesters, I was told there were a handful.

Did you make any specific requests? We put forward the idea that Iraq should buy American weapons. It will go a long way toward raising the morale of Iraqi troops and giving them something serious to work with. We discussed Syria and how we stop infiltration from Syria by getting the Syrian government to act responsibly.

How much credit can you take for the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq? The U.S. has been at loggerheads with Saddam (Hussein) since the first Gulf War, and there was a sense of unfinished business. There were many calls to remove Saddam's regime from power by American organizations. We were there, but we could not have much influence. We were an exile organization.

Now that some of the Weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) sources you introduced to the Americans have been discredited, do you regret not checking out their stories more? The Robb-Silberman report said we had minimum impact on WMD intelligence as it related to the U.S. decision to go to war. It is an urban myth that we had ill-principled sources. It is our job to check to see that these people are who they say they are. It is the job of the intelligence agencies to do the serious vetting and checking.

How do you feel about Judith Miller, the newly retired New York Times reporter who has been criticized for relying on your organization as a source for prewar reporting on Iraq's WMDs? I think Judith Miller is a good reporter. Over there she did very good reporting for the Times, and she tried to check the facts and examine the evidence. I think she has been made into a scapegoat for the media. If you count the number of newspapers and media outlets that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, you'll find many all around.

What do you make of the reported allegations that you gave U.S. secrets to Iran? Those allegations are false. I deny them. I did no such thing.

Have these allegations soured your relationship with the U.S. government? No one mentioned anything like that in our meetings.

Why should Iraqis trust you to be Prime Minister when you've been convicted of fraud in a Jordanian military court? Because they know that this is a false charge. And they also know the record of Jordan being the hub of corruption on the basis of Saddam's illicit dealings.

Do you think the U.S. should send more troops to Iraq, as Senator John McCain proposes? I think more troops in Iraq would make more casualties and would contribute very little to improving the security situation. I think the way to go forward is to arm the Iraqi army in a way that it can deal with the insurgency and the violence in a more professional way. The most important thing to do is revamp the intelligence collection.

The trial of Saddam Hussein began several weeks ago. If Saddam is sentenced to die, will you watch the execution? I am against the death penalty.

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Iraqi Woman Confesses on Jordan TV

By SHAFIKA MATTAR, Associated Press

AMMAN, Jordan - An Iraqi woman confessed on state television Sunday to trying to detonate explosives strapped around her waist while she was in one of three Amman hotels bombed by al-Qaida in
Iraq.

"My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and I wore another. He told me how to use it," said Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who appeared on television wearing a white head scarf, black gown and the disabled bomb belt tied around her waist.

Jordanian security forces on Sunday arrested the woman, whose husband is suspected of blowing up the Radisson SAS hotel, after being tipped off by an al-Qaida claim that a husband-and-wife team participated in attacks at three hotels that killed 57 other people.

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Saudi Teacher Emprisoned for Teacing Positive Things about Jews and Christians

Harold's List

RIYADH (Reuters) - A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a teacher to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday.

Al-Madina newspaper said secondary school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi will be flogged in public after he was taken to court by his colleagues and students.

He was charged with promoting a "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer", the newspaper said. It gave no more details.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, strictly upholds the austere Wahhabi school of Islam and bases its constitution on the Koran and the sayings of Prophet Mohammad. Public practice of any other religion is banned.

A U.S. State Department report criticised Saudi Arabia last week, saying religious freedoms "are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam".

The newspaper said Harbi will appeal against the verdict.

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Syria politics: Unco-operative

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has opted for defiance and a closing of the ranks of his regime as his means for dealing with the UN Security Council resolution demanding full co-operation from Damascus in the investigation into the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. The likely consequence is that Syria will be found in breach of that resolution.

Mr Assad laid out his position in a long televised speech at Damascus University on November 10th. The dominant theme was that of Syria being the victim of an international assault aimed at undermining its role as a strategic challenger to the regional dominance of Israel. The tone, was in many parts of the speech, querulous. He reiterated his claim that the first of the recent series of UN resolutions—No 1559 of September 2004—“had no relation to the extension” of the term of Lebanon’s president, Emile Lahoud, but was rather the result of a previous US-French plan to eject Syria from Lebanon. He also claimed that “what is happening now has no relation whatsoever to the assassination of al-Hariri—if they were really concerned with the blood of al-Hariri, they would have formed a commission of inquiry into [the death of] Yasser Arafat”, the Palestinian leader, who Mr Assad claimed to have been poisoned in the Palestinian Territories before dying in a French hospital one year ago.

Mr Assad went on to dismiss the report presented to the Security Council by the UN investigator, Detlev Mehlis, which concluded that there was “converging evidence” of the involvement of Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services in the assassination. Mr Assad, somewhat bizarrely, maintained: “The only positive element that I see in this report is that established our innocence.”

“Playing the game”

UN Security Council resolution 1636 formally endorsed the findings of the Mehlis commission, and extended its mandate until December 15th (with the option of further extensions). The key articles in the resolution relate to the requirements on Syria to co-operate fully in the coming phase of the investigation. It stated that: “Syria must detain those Syrian officials or individuals whom the commission considers as suspected of involvement in the planning, sponsoring, organising or perpetrating” of the assassination, and make them fully available to the commission. The resolution also stated that the commission shall have the same rights vis-à-vis Syria as it was accorded in Lebanon in the original resolution (No 1595), passed in April, and that Syria must co-operate fully and unconditionally on that basis. The commission has been given the authority to “determine the location and the modalities for interview of Syrian officials and individuals it deems relevant to the inquiry”.

Mr Mehlis returned to his operating base in Beirut in early November. He submitted, through UN channels, a list of six Syrian officials that he wished to interview, specifying that he wished the meetings to take place in Beirut. Mr Assad devoted a section of his speech to addressing this question of co-operation. He sought to establish that Syria was prepared to “play the game” as required by the UN, but that it also wished to address legitimate concerns with regard to the rights of its citizens. He said that Mr Mehlis had refused an invitation to co-ordinate with Syria’s own commission of inquiry into the Hariri assassination, and that he had rejected numerous suggestions from Damascus about how to stage the interviews. These included setting up a location under the UN flag in Syrian territory, or conducting the interviews at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo. “It is not possible to have an investigation without a judicial basis,” he said. “This is unacceptable under any title, whether it be a UN resolution or anything else.”

Following Mr Assad’s speech, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Faysal Mekdad, sought to amplify the message that Damascus is being reasonable in the face of the intransigence of Mr Mehlis. He said that Syria was quote prepared to allow the six men on the list to be interviewed in a third country--as long as that was not Lebanon. Mr Mehlis has meanwhile left Beirut, without explanation.

It is evident that Syria’s sensitivity about the interviews taking place in Lebanon relates to the possibility that the Lebanese judicial authorities may seek to arrest the men. Were the interviews to take place in another country, there would be no judicial basis for them to be arrested.

The identities of the six men have not been disclosed. The only Syrian officials directly mentioned the final version of the Mehlis report were Rustom Ghazaleh, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, his deputy, Jameh Jameh, and Assef Shawkat, the overall head of Syrian military intelligence. In an earlier version there was also mention of Maher Assad, the president’s younger brother and commander of the 4th Corps of the Republican Guard, which is responsible for military security in Damascus, Bahjat Suleiman, the former head of the internal division of General Intelligence (a forthright opponent of any Syrian disengagement from Lebanon, Mr Suleiman was replaced after the June 2005 Baath part congress), and Hassan Khalil.

Unless Mr Assad makes a dramatic climbdown, Syria will soon have to face the consequences of being found in breach of Resolution 1636, which has binding force as it was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

SOURCE: ViewsWire Middle East

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Veteran's Day

Veterans of WWII are now dying at a rate of about 2,000 per day. This is an OUTSTANDING song in memory of our WWII veterans.

Article from Union-Tribune

The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood.

Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach, Fla. , eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event.

He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. "I took two bullets for this country and look what I'm doing," he said bitterly.

At first, Bierstock didn't know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, "Really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you."

Then the old soldier began to cry.

"That really got to me," Bierstock says.

Cut to today.

Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach - a member of Bierstock's band, Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band - have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful "Before You Go" does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die.

"If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot," says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. "Every ethnic minority would be dead. And the soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them."

The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on the Web www.beforeyougo.us, the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries,
producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren.

"It made me cry," wrote one veteran's son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss "the unspeakable horrors" he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio, Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach. "I can never thank them enough," the son wrote. "Thank you for thinking about them."

Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web. They've sent the song to Sen. John McCain and others in Washington. Already they have been invited to perform it in Houston for a Veterans Day tribute - this after just a few days on the Web. They hope every veteran in America gets a chance to hear it.

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U.S. concerned over Syrian arrest

Harold's List
REFORM PARTY OF SYRIA

Washington DC, November 11, 2005/UPI/ -- The White House expressed "deep concern" Thursday over the detention of Syrian opposition leader Kamal Labwani.

Labwani was arrested in Damascus earlier this week while returning to Syria from a trip abroad that included a meeting at the White House.

"We are deeply disturbed by reports that Dr. Kamal Labwani was arrested by Syrian authorities upon his arrival in Damascus ...," spokesman Scott McClellan said in a written statement. "We stress that the United States stands with the Syrian people in their desire for freedom and democracy.

"The Syrian government must cease its harassment of Syrians peacefully seeking to bring democratic reform to their country."

The White House call for Labwani's "unconditional release" comes amid building pressure on Syria to co-operate with the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri last February in Beirut.

A defiant Syrian President Bashar Assad in a rare nationally televised speech Thursday from Damascus University said the investigation was a ruse designed to bring the nation to its knees, according to local media reports.

Labwani was a leading advocate of reform during the so-called, and short-lived, Damascus Spring that followed the death of strongman Hafez Assad and the assumption of his brother. He was imprisoned for three years beginning in 2001.

Upon release, he formed the Liberal Democratic Union, a political organization. It was not called a party, since political parties are forbidden.

The arrest of Labwani further increases tensions between Washington and Damascus, which Washington suspects of allowing, or not stopping, Iraq insurgents from using Syria as a transit point.

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Bush's Speech on Iraq and Terrorism

Harold's List
Transcript

Following is a text of a Veterans Day speech by President Bush on the fight against terrorism at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., as transcribed by the Federal News Service.


Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad to be back in Pennsylvania, and I'm proud to be the first sitting president to visit Monroe County -- especially pleased to see so many military veterans with us today. Those who have risked their lives for our freedom have the respect and gratitude of our nation on Veterans Day and on every day.


Tobyhanna is a fitting place to commemorate Veterans Day. For the better part of a century, this facility has provided critical services for our armed forces. Around the clock and around the world, personnel from here maintain technology that our troops use to take the fight to the enemy. From Afghanistan to Kuwait to Baghdad International Airport, technicians from Tobyhanna are carrying out dangerous missions with bravery and skill. I know you're proud of them and so is the commander in chief.


Tobyhanna is also home to a thriving community of military families. Your support for those who wear the uniform and your support of each other through difficult times brings great pride to our country. The American people stand with our military families.


I want to thank Colonel Ellis for allowing me to come and give you this speech today, and thank you for your service to our country, Colonel Ellis. I want to thank Senator Specter and Congressman Kanjorski and Congressman Sherwood for joining us today.


It's good to have them on Air Force One. I appreciate their service to our country. I want to thank all the state and local officials and I want to thank all the veterans.


Today our nation pays tribute to those veterans, 25 million veterans, who have worn the uniform of the United States of America. Each of these men and women took an oath to defend America, and they upheld that oath with honor and decency. Through the generations, they have humbled dictators and liberated continents and set a standard of courage and idealism for the entire world.


This year 3-1/2 million veterans celebrate the 60th anniversary of freedom's great victory in World War II. A handful of veterans who live among us in 2005 stood in uniform when World War I ended 87 years ago today. These men are more than a hundred years old. Many of their lives have touched three different centuries. And they can all know that America will be proud of their service.


On Veterans Day we also remember the troops who left America's shores but did not live to be thanked as veterans. On this Veterans Day, we honor the courage of those who were lost in our current struggle. We think of the families who lost a loved one. We pray for their comfort. And we remember the men and women in uniform whose fate is still undetermined -- our prisoners of war and those missing in action. America must never forget their courage, and we will not stop searching until we have accounted for every soldier and sailor and airman and Marine missing in the line of duty.


All of America's veterans have placed the nation's security before their own lives. Their sacrifice creates a debt that America can never fully repay. Yet there are certain things the government can do. My administration remains firmly committed to serving America's veterans.


Since I took office, my administration has increased spending for veterans by $24 billion, an increase of 53 percent. In the first four years as president, we increased spending for veterans more than twice as much as the previous administration did in eight years. And I want to thank the members of the Congress and the Senate for joining me in the efforts to support our veterans.


We've increased the VA's medical care budget by 51 percent, increased total outpatient visits, increased the number of prescriptions filled and reduced the backlog of disability claims. We've committed more than $1.5 billion to modernizing and expanding VA facilities, so that veterans can get better care closer to home.


We've expanded grants to help homeless veterans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, because we strongly believe no veteran who served in the blazing heat or bitter cold of foreign lands should have to live without shelter in our own country.


I've joined with the veterans' groups to call on Congress to protect the flag of the United States in the Constitution of the United States. In June the House of Representatives voted for a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. I urge the United States Senate to pass this important amendment.


At this hour, a new generation of Americans is defending our flag and our freedom in the first war of the 21st century. The war came to our shores on September the 11th, 2001. That morning we saw the destruction that terrorists intend for our nation. We know that they want to strike again, and our nation has made a clear choice. We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity.


We will not tire or rest until the war on terror is won.


In the four years since September the 11th, the evil that reached our shores has reappeared on other days in other places -- in Mombasa and Casablanca and Riyadh and Jakarta and Istanbul and Madrid and Beslan and Taba and Netanya and Baghdad and elsewhere. In the past few months, we have seen a new terror offensive with attacks on London and Sharm el-Sheikh, another deadly strike in Bali; and this week, a series of bombings in Amman, Jordan, that killed dozens of innocent Jordanians and their guests. All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random, isolated acts of madness. Innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train or worked in the wrong building or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet, while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil but not insane. Some call this evil "Islamic radicalism," others "militant jihadism" and still others "Islamofacism." Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision -- the establishment by terrorism, subversion and insurgency of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews and against Muslims themselves who do not share their radical vision.


Many militants are part of a global, borderless terrorist organization like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations, like the attacks of September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups often associated with al Qaeda -- paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Algeria.


Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed.


Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives fighting on scattered battlefields share a similar ideology and vision for our world. We know the vision of the radicals because they have openly stated it in videos, in audiotapes, in letters, in declarations and on websites.


First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions.


Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, "their resources, their sons and money to driving the infidels out of our lands."


The tactics of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists have been consistent for a quarter of a century. They hit us, and they expect us to run. Last month the world learned of a letter written by al Qaeda's number-two man, a guy named Zawahiri. And he wrote this letter to his chief deputy in Iraq, the terrorist Zarqawi. In it, Zawahiri points to the Vietnam War as a model for al Qaeda. This is what he said. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents is noteworthy."


The terrorists witnessed a similar response after the attacks of (sic) American troops in Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993. They believe that America can be made to run again, only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.


Secondly, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments.


Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal for a time in Afghanistan, and now they've set their sights on Iraq. In his recent letter, Zawahiri writes that al Qaeda views Iraq as, quote, "the place of the greatest battle." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists.


Third, these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all modern governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. Zawahiri writes that the terrorists, quote, "must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq." He goes on to say the jihad requires several incremental goals -- expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. End quote.


With the greater economic and military and political power they seek, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda -- to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people and to blackmail our government into isolation.


Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. They are fanatical and extreme, but they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed: We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life. And a civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history -- from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot -- consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history.


Evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously, and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.


Beating the militant network's difficult because it thrives like a parasite on the suffering and frustration of others. The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution. They exploit resentment and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as pawns of terror.


And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power. Instead of attending faraway training camps, recruits can now access online training libraries to learn how to build a roadside bomb or fire a rocket-propelled grenade. And this further spreads the threat of violence even within peaceful democratic societies.


The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They've been sheltered by authoritarian regimes, allies of convenience like Iran and Syria, that share the goal of hurting America and modern Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West, on America and on the Jews.


This week the government of Syria took two disturbing steps. First, it arrested Dr. Kamal Labwani for serving as an advocate for democratic reform. Then President Assad delivered a strident speech that attacked both the Lebanese government and the integrity of the Mehlis investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.


The government of Syria must do what the international community has demanded -- cooperate fully with the Mehlis investigation and stop trying to intimidate and destabilize the Lebanese government. The government of Syria must stop exporting violence and starting importing democracy.


The radicals depend on front operations such as corrupted charities, which direct money to terrorist activity. They are strengthened by those who aggressively fund the spread of radical intolerant versions of Islam into unstable parts of the world. The militants are aided as well by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories and speak of a so-called American war on Islam with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Somalia and Kosovo and Kuwait and Iraq, or seldom a word about our generous assistance to Muslims recovering from natural disasters in places like Indonesia and Pakistan.


Some have also argued that extremists have been strengthened by our actions in Iraq claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more then 150 Russian school children in Beslan. Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence: the Israeli presence on the West Bank, the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, the defeat of the Taliban or the Crusades of a thousand years ago.


In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of killers, and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response -- we will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory! The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, "What is good for them and what is not." What this man, who grew up in wealth and privilege, considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this road to -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride. Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life.


We have seen it in the murders of Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg and Margaret Hanson (sic; means Hassan) and so many others.


In a courtroom in the Netherlands, the killer of Theo van Gogh turned to the victim's grieving mother and said, "I don't feel your pain, because I believe you're an infidel."


And in spite of this veneer of religious rhetoric, most of the victims claimed by the militants are fellow Muslims.


Recently in the town of Howaider, Iraq, a terrorist detonated a pickup truck parked along a busy street lined with restaurants and shops, just as residents were gathering to break the day-long fast observed during Ramadan. The explosion killed at least 25 people and wounded 34.


When unsuspecting Muslims breaking their Ramadan fast are targeted for death, or 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, this is murder, pure and simple, the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion.


These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq. They are the enemies of Islam, and they're the enemies of humanity.


And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, the Cultural Revolution and the killing fields. Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination, and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves. Under their rule, they have banned books and desecrated historical monuments and brutalized women. They seek to end dissent in every form, to control every aspect of life, to rule the soul itself. While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing a future of oppression and misery.


Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent. Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, "the most cowardly of God's creatures." But let us be clear, it is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque. It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people from tyranny. It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of rising democracies. And it is courage in the cause of freedom that will once again destroy the enemies of freedom!


And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom, by distrusting human creativity, and punishing change, and limiting the contributions of half a population, this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible and human societies successful. The only thing modern about the militants' vision is the weapons they want to use against us. The rest of their grim vision is defined by a warped image of the past, a declaration of war on the idea of progress itself. And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt. Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation and decline and collapse. Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future.


We didn't ask for this global struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence and with a comprehensive strategy. Defeating a broad and adaptive network requires patience, constant pressure, and strong partners in Europe and in the Middle East and North Africa and Asia and beyond. Working with these partners, we're disrupting militant conspiracies, we're destroying their ability to make war, and we're working to give millions in a troubled region a hopeful alternative to resentment and violence.


First, we're determined to prevent attacks of the terrorist networks before they occur. We are reorganizing our government to give this nation a broad and coordinated homeland defense. We're reforming our intelligence agencies for the incredibly difficult task of tracking enemy activity, based on information that often comes in small fragments from widely scattered sources both here and abroad. And we're acting along with governments from other countries to destroy the terrorist networks and incapacitate their leadership.


Together with our partners, we've disrupted a number of serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including several plots to attack inside the United States. Our coalition against terror has killed or captured nearly all those directly responsible for the September the 11th attacks. We've captured or killed several of bin Laden's most serious deputies, al Qaeda managers and operatives in more than 24 countries; the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, who was chief of al Qaeda's operations in the Persian Gulf; the mastermind of the bombings in Jakarta and Bali; a senior Zarqawi terrorist planner who was planning attacks in Turkey; and many of their senior leaders in Saudi Arabia.


Because of this steady progress, the enemy is wounded. But the enemy is still capable of global operations. Our commitment is clear: We will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken, and their leaders are held to account for their murder!


Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and to their terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation. The United States, working with Great Britain and Pakistan and other nations, has exposed and disrupted a major black-market operation in nuclear technology led by A.Q. Khan. Libya has abandoned its chemical and nuclear weapons programs, as well as its long-range ballistic missiles. And in the past year, America and our partners in the Proliferation Security Initiative have stopped more than dozen shipments of suspect weapons technology, including equipment for Iran's ballistic missile program.


This progress has reduced the danger to free nations, but it has not removed it. Evil men who want to use horrendous weapons against us are working in deadly earnest to gain them, and we're working urgently to keep the weapons of mass murder out of the hands of the fanatics.


Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them because they're equally guilty of murder.


Fourth, we're determined to deny the militants control of any nation, which they would use a home base and a launching pad for terror. This mission has brought new and urgent responsibilities to our armed forces. American troops are fighting beside Afghan partners and against remnants of the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies. We're working with President Musharraf to oppose and isolate the militants in Pakistan. We're fighting regime remnants and terrorists in Iraq.


The terrorists' goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East and strike America and other free nations with increasing violence.


Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power, so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq.


Our coalition along with our Iraqi allies is moving forward with a comprehensive plan. Our strategy is to clear, hold and build. We're working to clear areas from terrorist control, to hold those areas securely and to build lasting democratic Iraqi institutions to an increasingly inclusive political process.


In recent weeks, American and Iraqi troops have conducted several major assaults to clear out enemy fighters in Baghdad and parts of Iraq.


Two weeks ago, in Operation Clean Sweep, Iraq and coalition forces raided 350 houses south of Baghdad, capturing more than 40 of the terrorist killers. Acting on tips from local citizens, our forces have recently launched airstrikes against terrorist safe houses in and around the towns of Obeidi and Husaybah. We brought to justice two key senior al Qaeda terrorist leaders. And in Mosul, coalition forces killed an al Qaeda cell leader named Musslit, who was personally involved in at least three videotaped beheadings. We're on the hunt. We're keeping pressure on the enemy.


And thousands of Iraqi forces have been participating in these operations. And even more Iraqis are joining the fight. Last month, nearly 3,000 Iraqi police officers graduated from 10 weeks of basic training. They'll now take their places along other brave Iraqis who are taking the fight to the terrorists across their own country. Iraqi police and security forces are helping to clear terrorists from their strongholds, helping to hold on to areas that we've cleared. They're working to prevent the enemy from returning. Iraqi forces are using their local expertise to maintain security and to build political and economic institutions that will help improve the lives of their fellow citizens.


At the same time, the Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a democracy. Last month, millions of Iraqis turned out to vote, and they approved a new constitution that guarantees fundamental freedoms and lays the foundation for lasting democracy. Many more Sunnis participated in this vote than in January's historic elections, and the level of violence was lower. Now Iraqis are gearing up for December 15th elections, when they will go to the polls to choose a government under the new constitution. The new government will serve a four-year term, and it will represent all Iraqis. Even those who voted against the constitution are now organizing and preparing for the December elections. Multiple Sunni-Arab parties have submitted a list of candidates, and several prominent Sunni politicians are running on other slates. With two successful elections completed and a third coming up next month, the Iraqi people are proving their determination to build a democracy united against extremism and violence.


The work ahead involves great risk for Iraqis and for American and coalition forces. We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in this war on terror.


Each of these men and women left grieving families and left loved ones at home. Each of these patriots left a legacy that will allow generations of fellow Americans to enjoy the blessings of liberty. Each loss of life is heartbreaking, and the best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.


The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we've ever faced, unconstrained by any notion of our common humanity or by the rules of warfare. No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead, nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight. Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It is not justified. With every random bombing, with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots or resistance fighters; they're murderers at war with the Iraqi people themselves.


In contrast, the elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress -- from tyranny to liberation to national elections to the ratification of a constitution in the space of two and a half years. I have said, as Iraqis stand up, Americans will stand down. And with our help, the Iraqi military is gaining new capabilities and new confidence with each passing month. At the time of our Fallujah operations a year ago, there were only a few Iraqi army battalions in combat. Today there are nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces.


General David Petraeus says Iraqis are in the fight. They're fighting and dying for their country, and they're fighting increasingly well.


This progress is not easy, but it is steady. And no fair-minded person should ignore, deny or dismiss the achievements of the Iraqi people.


And our debate at home must also be fair-minded. One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war.


When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq, and that is their right, and I respect it. As president and commander in chief, I (accept ?) the responsibilities and the criticisms and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision. While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.


Some Democrats and antiwar critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.


Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hand is a threat and a grave threat to our security."


That's why more then a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.


The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send to them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that when -- whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less then victory.


The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East.


This is difficult and it's a long-term project, yet there's no alternative to it. Our future and the future of the region are linked. If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery while radicals stir the resentment of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger in our generation and for the next.


If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny and advance by their own energy and participation of free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end. By standing for hope and freedom of others, we make our own freedom more secure.


America is making this stand in practical ways. We're encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people. We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow. We're making our case through public diplomacy, stating clearly and confidently our belief in self- determination and the rule of law and religious freedom and equal rights for women, beliefs that are right and true in every land and in every culture.


And as we do our part to confront radicalism and to protect the United Sates, we know that a lot of vital work will be done within the Islamic world itself. And the work's beginning. Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, often citing Chapter 5, Verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing an innocent human being is like killing all of humanity, and saving the life of one person is like saving all humanity.


After the attacks on July 7th in London, an imam in the United Arab Emirates declared, "Whoever does such a thing is not a Muslim nor a religious person."


The time has come for responsible Islamic leaders to join in denouncing an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends and defiles a noble faith.


Many people of the Muslim faith are proving their commitment at great personal risk. Everywhere we've engaged the fight against extremism, Muslim allies have stood up and joined the fight, becoming partners in this vital cause. Afghan troops are in combat against Taliban remnants. Iraqi soldiers are sacrificing to defeat al Qaeda in their country. These brave citizens know the stakes: the survival of their own liberty, the future of their own region, the justice and humanity of their own tradition. And the United States of America is proud to stand beside them.


With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers. And yet this fight we have joined is also the current _expression of an ancient struggle because those who put their faith in dictators and those who put their faith in the people. Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision, and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure, until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent, until the day that free men and women defeat them.


We don't know the course of our own struggle will take or the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice.


We do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history, and we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail.


Thank you for coming. May God bless our veterans, may God bless our troops in harm's way, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Read more ...

British Hostages Released From Iranian Capture

Banafsheh's List
Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

London, England (AHN) - A British couple and an Australian man are released unharmed after being held "hostage" for 13 days by Iranian authorities.

The three were seized by the Iranian Navy as they sailed from their home in Dubai to a disputed island in the Gulf. They were freed after intense pressure from the British Foreign Office.

Rupert and Linda Wise and Paul Shulton are still unsure why they were questioned for days while kept under armed guard.

The trio was seized at gun point by Iranian Navy patrol boats on October 28, while sailing their boat to the disputed island of Abu Musa, which is claimed by both Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

They were then taken to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and questioned repeatedly by officials.

After days of being denied consular access, they were eventually allowed to make a phone call home to their children in Dubai.

"[We had contact] with our family, but repeatedly denied access to the Foreign Office and indeed we were forbidden to say where we were. We were kept under lock and key, not allowed out, armed guards outside, guards inside, for the full period of our detention. We were hostages," recounts Mr. Wise to BBC Radio 4's Today program.

The Foreign Office was then alerted, allowing the British Embassy in Tehran to negotiate their hand-over to British officials.

But as they were about to board a flight home last Monday, they were re-arrested at the airport by the Iranian judiciary and taken to a secret location in Tehran, breaking a carefully negotiated agreement between the two countries' foreign offices.

Mr. Wise tells the BBC they were not physically abused but had gone through what he called "mental torture".

The Wise couple finally flew back to their home in Dubai early Friday morning.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says "a good deal of work behind the scenes" had helped secure their release.

Read more ...

EUROPE, FALL 2005: GANGS IN SEARCH OF AN IDEOLOGY

Foreign Policy Research Institute
WATCH ON THE WEST
Volume 6, Number 7
November 2005

EUROPE, FALL 2005: GANGS IN SEARCH OF AN IDEOLOGY
By Michael Radu

Michael Radu is co-chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security. His latest book, "Dilemmas of Democracy and Dictatorship," is forthcoming from Transaction later this year. He is currently writing a book on Islamism in Europe.

Of the Muslim rioting that began in poor suburbs of Paris on October 27, Mohammed Rezzoug, caretaker of the municipal athletics center in Le Blanc-Mesnil says, "It's not a political revolution or a Muslim revolution... There's a lot of rage. Through this burning, they're saying, 'I exist, I'm here.' "[1]

Obviously, Mr. Rezzoug is well integrated in French culture -- or at least in its habit of theorizing ad nauseam over everything. However, things in France are not what they used to be -- hence the shift from Rene Descartes' famous dictum, "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") in the seventeenth century to Mr. Rezzoug's "They burn, therefore they are."

And burn they do. Youth gangs, overwhelmingly French-born and Muslim, have engaged in a nation-wide rampage that by November 8 had burned 5,000 vehicles, a few schools, kindergartens, police stations, shopping malls, and post offices. Police officers have been wounded and an older man beaten to death. Some 800 individuals have been arrested and a curfew locally imposed to stem this anomic wave of gang violence that is spreading all over France -- and beyond. But the riots increasingly and alarmingly suggest that Islamist radicals see criminality as an opportunity for recruitment, while the criminals see Islam as a legitimizer.

THERE ARE GANGS AND THERE ARE GANGS . . .
The Independent tells of how in one Paris suburb, Aulnay-sous-Bois, 20-year-old Abdelkarim, the caid (leader in Arabic) of the local gang, boasts of the 2,000 euros he makes on each car stolen: "You want prostitutes, DVD players, jewelry? I can get anything you want." His talk is of poverty, discrimination, and dreams of his family's Morocco, but also of his anti-Semitism and hashish habit. "'Look around you -- there is nothing here. We live four to a room. Our parents go to work like zombies. But we have nothing. Even the jobs around here go to people from elsewhere. This parking lot is like our living room,' he said. One of his friends . . . held a mobile phone. 'Come and look,' he gestured, laughing. It was a short film of a Chechen guerrilla cutting off the head of a Russian soldier."[2]

If one replaces names like Abdelkarim or Karim with Pablo or Deshawn and Aulnay-sous-Bois with Watts or South Bronx, with a few extraordinary exceptions we have a similar profile: uneducated young men from broken families, deep involvement in criminality, contempt for their parents' low-paying jobs, identification with gangs, resentment of outsiders -- in short, the lost urban youth of the West. When a father from Aulnay-sous-Bois complains, "How am I supposed to inculcate the work ethic in my son, when his friends have Nikes given to them by their drug-dealer fathers?" that should sound very familiar to many parents in urban America.

However, while American gangs like the Hispanic Mara Salvatrucha, the Jamaican Posse, and the Crips or Bloods are racist (anti-white, anti-Hispanic or both, as the case may be), violent, and antisocial, their exclusive goals are money and turf control. That is also true of their French (or British) confreres, but in the latter cases Islamist beliefs play or could soon play a decisive justifying role. These exceptions, however, are essential if we are to understand the importance of the events taking place in France's cities these past weeks. The most important of those exceptions are the gangs' religious identity and the elite's cultural attitudes. The criminally dysfunctional youths of la banlieue are made more potent because they operate in an increasingly dysfunctional society, which in the United States may be local but in France is national. And, as a British observer put it, "Mexicans are not Moroccans (think religion). . . . Nor are the fires of disintegration already burning, as they are in [Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy's France."[3]

Abdelkarim says "From my window I can see the Eiffel Tower . ... But Paris is another world. This is Baghdad." He exaggerates (so far), but should be taken seriously. Especially when Jean-Louis Debre, the Speaker of the National Assembly and mayor of Evreux, seems to agree, calling the unrest "a true episode of urban guerrilla."[4] Meanwhile, the police union chimed in with its own alarmism: "Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country," it said, advocating the intervention of the army.[5]

THE "EVIL" MINISTER
Naturally enough, for the hoods in the banlieues, "Ever since Sarko came into the government, life has been s--t," said Abdelkarim's friend Kamel, age 16. "He treats us like dogs. Well, we'll show him how dogs can react." On this point, he and the outspoken minister, who talks of "cleaning out" the racaille (riff-raff), are speaking the same language. The latter sees the riots as a clear attempt by the gang leaders to keep control, which he is determined to regain. The problem is that the false sense of victimhood felt by the gangsters is shared by many more Muslims. Thus, Murad, a Moslem leader in Aulnay, says "Islam has been insulted [ by a tear gas canister which landed in front of a mosque] and nobody has yet asked forgiveness. . . . If there would have been a tear gas canister in a church or synagogue, Sarkozy would have gone there to apologize."[6] (Never mind that on November 7 a church in Lens was firebombed and no Muslim apologies were forthcoming.)

Worse still, the leftist opposition -- socialists, Greens, communists, human rights activists, and most of the intellectual elites also agree with Kamel, that the problem is not the gangs of arsonists but "the system": law and order, the police and, especially, Sarkozy.

Le Monde writes, "To the provocations of Nicolas Sarkozy answers the stupidity of teenagers, who ruin the fragile economic tissue and burn the buses borrowed by their families. Some of the arsonists were victims of a system, before becoming small mafiosos taking advantage of the situation."[7] So, the mayhem was an "answer" to the Interior Minister's calling the criminals "criminals and hooligans"? Criminality becomes "stupidity" and criminals
become "victims." It is precisely this kind of language to
which philosopher Jean-Francois Mattei refers below:

The betrayal of the language: when one does not have the courage to face things, one speaks to better obscure them. We apply the usual meaning of words to the violence we know in the urbanized banlieues and elsewhere. In France one does not speak anymore of 'riots' but of 'harassment actions'; not of 'delinquents' but of 'youths'; not of 'drug trafficking' but of 'parallel economy'; not of 'policemen' but of 'provocateurs'; . . . not of 'lawless zones' but of 'sensitive neighborhoods'; not of 'infringement of the right' to work: but of 'movement of legitimate demands.'[8]

Or from the statement of the "anti-racist" MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples):

MRAP has compassion for the victims of the riots [but] the words crime or riot are never used. Instead, all is explained through "social, ethnic and territorial 'apartheid,' the refusal to respond to a social fracture expanded by an ethnic one. If police were attacked, it is because there are 'tensions' between this daily victimized population and police. As for law, well, the only thing to do is check the circumstances of the deaths of the two teenagers self-electrocuted [in hiding from the police at a power station, which set off the riots] and of the tear gas canister falling in front of a Clichy mosque. Most importantly, MRAP demands 'total mobilization against racist discrimination' and against "any racist exploitation of these dramas and sufferings generated by violence.[9]

And then there is the communist newspaper L'Humanite:

Nicolas Sarkozy's arrogance evidently has no limits. . . . After having deliberately lit the fuse, he happily surveys the damage, and wants time to think about it. . . . The suburbs are not a special case. The suburbs are France, the France that suffers at work, is unemployed. . . . The future of the French model of social justice -- of all our futures -- lies in the suburbs. That is why Nicolas Sarkozy wants to break them. . . . Rather than endless images of burnt cars, we must give a voice to the suburbs. And we must listen to them![10]

Once again, criminals have nothing to do with it. In fact, the banlieues "are France." And it was the Interior Minister's fault for insulting the rioters. As for the leader of the opposition, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande, he made it clear that he considers "intolerable" Sarkozy's words. His party asked President Jacques Chirac to make "strong gestures" and "apologies" in order to calm the violence.[11]

All of these "analyses" and solutions coming from the French Left -- the very same Left that was in power for most of the past quarter of century--are unconvincing, to say the least. The Left did try to "solve" the Muslim immigrant problem the only way it knows: by spending. Clichy-sous-Bois' mayor, Claude Dilain, a socialist and the vice-president of the French Convention of Municipal Authorities, is said to be "a proactive mayor, setting up free soccer training for local youth, appointing youth leaders as mediators and making sure that the community's waste collection service functions properly. Clichy-sous-Bois is an amalgam of schools, daycare centers, welfare offices, parks and a college that looks like something out of an architecture competition. The community library is currently sponsoring a writing contest themed 'I come from afar, I like my country.'"[12] Result? The current wave of violence started in his very town.

As for the minister, his answer is quite simple: "I ask that we assess correctly the fundamental role of police presence in the suburbs. The police are the Republic's police. They keep order in the republic. If they don't do it, what order will replace them? That of the Mafias or fundamentalists."[13] Obviously, it is the latter.

ENTER THE ISLAMISTS
For many years, in the Paris region, Islamist ideology has tried to take advantage of unemployment and unrest. "It is time to open our eyes."[14] Now, youths crying "God is great" rampage and demand that areas where Muslims form a majority be reorganized on the basis of the millet (religious community) system of the Ottoman Empire, with each millet enjoying the right to organize its life in accordance with its religious beliefs. In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place, with women obliged to wear the hijab and men to grow beards; alcohol and pork products forbidden; "places of sin" such as cinemas closed down; and local administration seized. The message in the suburbs is that French authorities should keep out.[15] Who will replace them? We have already some clear indications:

Suddenly 'big brothers' -- devout bearded men from the mosques who wear long traditional robes -- are positioning themselves between the authorities and the rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois, calling for order in the name of Allah. As thousands of voices shout 'Allahu Akbar' from the windows of high-rise apartment buildings, shivers run down the spines of television viewers in their seemingly safe living rooms.[16]

Those citizens have good reasons to worry indeed. First, in France (as well as in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany) Muslims are wildly over-represented in prisons. In France they make a majority of inmates, and in jails close to the banlieues as much as 80 percent.[17]

Second, Islamist terrorists from France (and Spain, Netherlands, and Belgium) have a profile quite distinct from that of their counterparts in the Muslim world, inasmuch as they contain a far more significant number of (usually petty) criminals. The available data suggest that Islamist criminality in France has a history at least a decade long. Thus, Khaled Khelkal, considered the mastermind of the wave of bombings in France in the mid-1990s, who was shot by police in 1995, became a hero in the banlieues. Born near Lyons to Algerian parents, Khelkhal went to the prestigious La Martiniere lycee in that city but, he claimed, dropped out and engaged in a criminal career because he could not "tolerate being marginal and rejected by the others" -- and because he chose to follow the example of his brother, Nouredine, who was already in jail for armed robbery.[18] More recently, two French-born Algerian and two Tunisian immigrants were arrested in July 2005 for alleged terrorism and links to the main Algerian Islamist terrorist organization, which is part of the Al Qaeda nebula, while also being linked to a prostitution racket.[19]

How many of the hundreds arrested so far will become Islamists once they complete their ridiculously short prison sentences -- usually a few months -- and how that prison time will help them on their path remains to be seen. What is clear is that the mass of present arsonists will vastly reinforce the ranks of Islamists in France and beyond.

WHY?
The reasons for all this are often attributed to factors like "alienation from both parental roots and country of origin, and the society in which they live."[20] Sociologists call this phenomenon re-Islamization, and it is increasing in intensity among second and third generation Muslims in Western Europe. Those young Muslims who were born in Europe lost their ties with the country of their parents, while at the same time their families suffered the same disintegration as their native ones, with parents losing control over their children, to gangs and/or Islamists. Hence, such youths are no more Algerians, Moroccans, or Pakistanis, but neither are they French or British. Therefore Islam, however understood or misunderstood, becomes the default identity. Indeed, complaining of high unemployment and using it as an "explanation" of Muslim violence and refusal to integrate misses the point. Leaving aside the obvious fact that, since they are mostly teenagers and thus should be in
school, not on the job market, these youths, "French against their will, products of Arab-African immigration, intend to maintain their cultural and religious specificities. Far from wanting to mix and integrate in a scared France which confuses indulgence with tolerance, they continuously look to their close origins, due to modern means of communication, and refuse to come out from their identity ghetto."[21]

Second, unemployment is not a result of "discrimination." Hence, when Hugues Lagrange of l'Observatoire sociologique du changement (CNRS) claims that "the main reason for these tendencies [to violence] lies in the unemployment of unskilled youths,"[22] he misses the irony. Could it be that they are unemployed because, instead of staying in schools, they prefer to skip or burn them and thus remain unskilled?

None of this is to say that unemployment, which has been running at 10 percent in recent years for those who actually want to work, is not a major problem in France. It is, and that is the result of France's massive rejection of capitalism. A recent poll shows that 61 percent of professionals, 68 percent of employees, 70 percent of industrial workers, a majority of merchants and artisans, and 60 percent of youths between 18 and 34 years of age oppose it.[23] That and many Muslims' rejection of integration are the two main reasons why it is so hard to be optimistic about any short-term improvement in France's situation -- and indeed Europe's.

WHY EUROPE, AND NOT FRANCE?
The fundamental problems of the French banlieues are far from unique. Romano Prodi, the leader of the Italian leftist opposition, has already stated that similar developments in his country are a matter of when, not if.[24] Nor are the European elites' confusion and inability to leave political correctness behind different from France's. The even more serious problem is the "democratic deficit" within the European Union. Brussels and many national elites show disregard, if not contempt, for the anxieties of the majority, and for reality. A recent EU Commission paper echoes the French Left's approach. As The Guardian reports: "In an attempt to ensure that the vast majority of peaceful Muslims are not portrayed as terrorist sympathizers, the paper says: 'The commission believes there is no such thing as 'Islamic terrorism,' nor 'Catholic', nor 'red' terrorism. . . . The fact that some individuals unscrupulously attempt to justify their crimes in the name of a religion or ideology cannot be allowed in any way ... to cast a shadow upon such a religion or ideology."[25]

This, after the very same commission identified a "crisis of identity" among young people born to immigrant parents as a key danger. "The document describes radicalization as "a modern kind of dictatorship", likens it to neo-Nazism or nationalism, and says the internet, university campuses, and places of worship are tools of recruitment. It says second-generation immigrants often feel little connection to their parents' country or culture but may also encounter discrimination in European countries.[26] In short, the commission correctly identified the nature of the threat -- Islamist terrorism -- but lacked the courage to name it. How very Brussels!

France has long been seen, and still sees itself, as a model for Europe. The present developments may well prove that Francophiles are right, but not for the reasons they usually have in mind. Geography, size, and its number of Muslims all make France a pivotal element in what amounts to a cultural conflict of continental dimensions. Following the Madrid bombings of 3/11/04 and the London bombings of 7/11/05, the riots in France force the old continent to realize that there is a "Muslim problem" related to, but not just, the Islamist terrorist problem. So far, only hesitant steps have been taken toward recognition of the former. France, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Austria have already witnessed, through the political rise of populist, nationalist parties, what happens when governing elite denial of the problem persists. In democracies, someone will always offer a solution when the public demands one. The present spectacle in France is not encouraging.

----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Molly Moore, "Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition: Spreading Rampage in Country's Slums Is Rooted in Alienation and Abiding Government Neglect," Washington Post, Nov. 6, 2005.

[2] Hugh Schofield, "La Haine: Schools, synagogues and hundreds of cars burn. It's Paris 2005," The Independent, Nov. 6, 2005

[3] Niall Ferguson, "You shouldn't have to burn cars to get a better life - ask my Bolivian cleaning lady," The Telegraph, Nov. 6, 2005.

[4] "Les violences urbaines gagnent du terrain, 1300 vehicules incendies," Le Point http://www.lepoint.fr/static/afp/francais/journal/une/051106191936.ore1nwav.htm

[5] www.telegraph.co.uk, Nov. 7, 2005.

[6] C.G., "L'islam ne joue pas un role determinant dans la propagation des troubles," Le Figaro, Nov. 5, 2005.

[7] " Modestie et ambition, " Le Monde, Nov. 5, 2005.

[8] Jean-Francois Mattei, " Philosopher Violences urbaines, crescendo dans la barbarie, " Le Figaro, Nov. 3, 2005

[9] MRAP, "Violences: une insurrection previsible qui appelle des ruptures, " Nov. 4, 2005, at www.mrap.asso.fr.

[10] Editorial, L'Humanite, Nov. 7, 2005

[11] "Banlieue: le PS interpelle Chirac. Le Parti socialiste a reclame vendredi du president de la Republique des "gestes forts" et des "excuses" afin d'apaiser le climat de violence de ces derniers jours, Reuters/Liberation.Fr, Nov. 4, 2005.

[12] Rudiger Falksohn, Thomas Huetlin, Romain Leick, Alexander Smoltczyk and Gerald Traufetter, "Rioting in France. What's Wrong with Europe?" Der Spiegel, Nov. 7, 2005, at www.Spiegel.de.

[13] Nicolas Sarkozy, Notre strategie est la bonne", Le Monde, Nov. 5, 2005

[14] Ivan Rioufol, " Cites: les non-dits d'une rebellion, " Le Figaro, Nov. 4, 2005.

[15] Amir Taheri, "Why Paris is burning," New York Post, Nov. 5, 2005.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Farhad Khosrokhavar, L'Islam dans le prisons (Balland, Paris 2004), p.11

[18] Jean-Marie Pontaut and Khaled Kelkal, " Itineraire d'un terroriste, " L'Express, Sept. 26, 1996.

[19] Colette Thomas, La France sur le qui-vive, Sept. 26, 2005, at www.rfi.fr.

[20] Stephen Castle, "Europe speeds up plan to clamp down on suspects," Belfast Telegraph, July 14, 2005.

[21] Jacques Myard, " Assez d'angelisme, adaptons nos methodes repressives sans mollir, " Le Figaro, Nov. 4, 2005.

[22] Cecilia Gabizon, " Emeutes: des meneurs au profil de recidivistes, " Le Figaro, Nov. 5, 2005.

[23] Herve Nathan, " Le capitalisme n'a pas la cote chez les Francais, " Liberation, Nov. 4, 2005.

[24] Prodi: "Qui le periferie peggiori d'Europa" Per il leader dell'Unione "non siamo diversi da Parigi, e solo questione di tempo". Le soluzioni: edilizia e protezione sociale, Corriere dela Sera, Nov. 11, 2005, at www.corriere.it.

[25] Nicholas Watt and Leo Cendrowicz, "Brussels calls for media code to avoid aiding terrorists," The Guardian , Sept. 21, 2005.

[26] Stephen Castle, "Europe speeds up plan to clamp down on suspects," Belfast Telegraph, July 14, 2005.


For further information or to inquire about membership in FPRI, please contact Alan Luxenberg at al@fpri.org or call (215) 732-3774 x105.

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Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA 19102-3684
Tel. 215-732-3774 Fax 215-732-4401 Email fpri@fpri.org or visit www.fpri.org

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Abbas told that PA security to collapse

Harold's List
Abbas told that PA security to collapse
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
RAMALLAH

The Palestinian Authority security forces are on the verge of collapse because of rampant corruption and growing anarchy, according to a letter sent by a large group of PA security officers to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The letter, the first of its kind since Abbas was elected earlier this year, reflects growing resentment among the various branches of the PA security forces. It also contradicts claims by Abbas and senior PA leaders that they have taken practical steps to reform the security forces.

The timing of the letter coincides with the first anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat and is seen as an attempt to embarrass Abbas by portraying him as a weak leader who has failed to deliver.

In their letter, the officers said they rejected pressure from Israel and the US to crack down on local militias.
"We are the soldiers of the homeland, not [US security coordinator] General William Ward," they wrote. "We are neither a branch of the Israeli Shin Bet nor members of a hired gang serving certain centers of power."

But what is perhaps most worrying, as far as Abbas is concerned, is the fact that the officers went on to stress that their weapons would be used only against Israel and suspected "collaborators."

Addressing Abbas, the officers said: "We urge you to get acquainted with what's really happening inside the security forces, which have begun disintegrating because of corruption, mismanagement and placing private interests above the national interests of the people, especially with regard to the state of lawlessness prevalent in the Palestinian territories."

The officers also scoffed at the PA's efforts to consolidate the security forces by reducing their number from more than a dozen to three and retiring veterans.

"These measures have led to dissent among the security forces," they said. "Unless you [Abbas] start paying attention to the situation, the Palestinian security forces will collapse, only to be replaced by armed gangs which the Palestinian Authority won't be able to control."

PA security officials here told The Jerusalem Post that they were not worried by the letter "because it was written by a group of disgruntled officers who had been retired or dismissed."

In another challenge to Abbas, some of the PA's ambassadors in different countries are refusing to give up their posts to newly appointed envoys.

The PA Foreign Ministry recently decided to replace most of its ambassadors as part of a comprehensive plan to reform the diplomatic corps. Some of the ambassadors, who were appointed by Arafat, have been serving for nearly two decades.

But the move has been openly challenged by veteran PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi, who is based in Tunis and who regards himself as the real foreign minister of Palestine.

Until recently, Kaddoumi was in charge of all the embassies around the world in the capacity of his job as director of the PLO's political bureau. Kaddoumi sent a letter to the ambassadors instructing them to ignore the new appointments and to remain in their posts.

"I wish to inform you that [PA Foreign Minister] Nasser al-Kidwa does not represent the PLO and, as such, he does not have the power to make changes in the diplomatic corps," he wrote.

Two ambassadors have already announced that they would not step down - Tahsin Mikati, ambassador to Qatar, and Abdel Shafi Siam, ambassador to Mauritania. Their decision has seriously embarrassed the PA leadership, which is now trying to persuade the hosting countries to deport the two.

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11/9

Dr. Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com

After every jihadist terror attack or violent outburst around the world, the mainstream media always advances its myriad theories about the so-called “root causes” of the particular attack in question. Unfortunately, most of the time their analyses are fictions. That was the case last week with the interpretations of the French Intifada. And this is the case again just hours after terrorists struck three hotels in downtown Amman, Jordan.

Some commentators rushed to conclude that Jordan was targeted just because it was an ally of the United States and a backer of the war in Iraq. From al-Jazeera's opinion-makers to mainstream news agencies in the West, the common wisdom overflowed: had the small Arab Kingdom not involved itself in Iraq “regime change,” the angry nationalists wouldn't have shed Jordanian blood. Unfortunately, this equation misses the mark.

So what then is behind the surge of terror in the Hashemite Kingdom?

First, one has to consider the weight of Jordan's religious divisions. Jordan is ruled by a prominent Arab Muslim dynasty, the Hashemites, who are a serious competitor to the Wahhabis. The Hashemites are not the equivalent of Monaco's princes in Europe. In the Arab world, the ancestors of the Hashemite King Abdallah were the legitimate rulers of Mecca and Medina until the Saudi clan of Wahhabis "invaded" Western Arabia in the 1920s. The remnant of the Hashemites established TransJordan with the help of the British as Wahhabism took hold of the peninsula and its religious shrines. Since then, the Saudi Kingdom exported fundamentalism, while the Hashemite Kingdom established a monarchy. The result: two fundamentally opposing views of Islam and the world.

Next, al-Qaeda grew out of the Cold War. While bin Laden pledged to destroy America and the infidels, King Hussein remained a faithful ally of the West and a proponent of a peaceful settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians. After his passing, his son, Abdallah, pledged to resume his father's anti-terrorism stance.

King Hussein didn't participate in Operation Desert Storm, nor did his son, King Abdallah, engage Jordanian troops in the removal of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, the country opened its borders to Iraqi refugees, including many Sunnis, particularly Saddam's family. Despite the protests of commentators offering lightning-quick analysis, Iraqi Sunnis do not resent Jordan's alleged involvement in Iraq's war. To the contrary, many in the West and among the Shi'ites criticized Jordan for being too soft in its support for Iraq. Thus, there is no Arab frustration over Jordanian intervention in Iraq. But there is another frustration for another reason.

The jihadists have many reasons to dislike Amman's monarch, but Iraq does not figure in this assessment. Rather, King Abdallah has endorsed his father's signing of a peace treaty with Israel. But even this is not the main reason for why Islamic fundamentalists have targeted this kingdom.

The “root cause” of Islamist action against Jordan is this: the Hashemites are moderate Muslims, possibly the most successful in distancing their religion from Zarqawi's barbarism. Jordan is modernizing and has become friendly with the U.S., the UK, Europe, and Arab moderates.

The Hashemites have contained radicalism and denied the jihadists safe haven within the country. Amman rejected Damascus’ occupation of Lebanon, Syria's support of terrorism, and al-Qaeda's extremist ideology. Lately, government officials say Jordanian imams were able to reform Islamist militants jailed for violence. The concept of participating in the war of ideas has been tested in Jordan: successfully or not, moderate clerics, supported by the government, attempted to use parts of the Koran to negate the Wahhabi doctrines, allegedly based on a literal interpretation of that same Koran.

There is also a basic personality clash: Abu Massab al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian national. His bloody role in Iraq has reached the zenith of jihad. He wanted to teach the apostate monarch and his Western educated queen a lesson. This takes on added importance for the terrorist, because it is his homeland. Zarqawi wants to attack Jordan, not because he misses the souvenirs of his childhood, but out of geopolitical ambitions. The Sunni triangle’s closest and most natural borders are with Jordan. By striking in downtown Amman, Zarqawi will be opening a Western front, thereby creating more room for his terror network which is under increasing strain as Iraq strengthens its democracy, military and police.

For al-Qaeda, Jordan is ripe for violence. The Islamists inside the country have reached an apex of influence, but they have also reached their limitations. Zarqawi attempted to use biochemical agents two years ago to destabilize the regime – an attempt which failed and exposed Syria's deep role in jihad, since Zarqawi's men came through Syria.

Al-Qaeda believes that a majority of Jordanians are sympathetic to its views. In fact, the Islamists in Jordan make up about 18 percent of the population, and hence, the parliament. The majority of the fundamentalists are members of the Palestinian community in Jordan. They are still a minority, but their community is growing quickly, and the Islamists believe they will have a majority in the future. But the jihadists also believe they don't have to wait to achieve a numerical majority. Their points are based on regional considerations.

Jordan is an ally of the United States and is training Iraqi security forces. Once Iraq securely establishes a pluralistic, democratic nation capable of defending itself, Jordan's jihadist threat will be contained. Thus, al-Qaeda's strategists plotted to strike two birds with one stone: by destabilizing Jordan, they would deprive Iraq of its most serious regional ally. By destroying the Hashemites, the terrorists would serve the interests of the Wahhabis.

Hence al-Qaeda struck downtown Amman against tourist symbols, as it did in Bali. The jihadists expect to start a chain reaction: Jordan's economy dwindles, civil war erupts, its support for the War on Terror vanishes, its potential alliance with Iraq goes down in flames, and eventually an Islamic emirate or caliphate rear its head in the region.

Al-Qaeda is living out a fantasy. Unfortunately, if we do not hold a tough line in Iraq, its fantasy could become Jordan's nightmare.

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Assad's Speech: Same Old Rhetoric

Harold's List
Reform Party of Syria

Washington DC, November 10, 2005/RPS/ -- Baschar al-Assad, the illegal president of Syria, delivered a speech at Damascus University that according to close Syrian government sources was intended to set the tone of Syria, pressure or no pressure.

In the speech, Assad used the same defunct logic and the same irrational rhetoric that brought his regime to its knees to attack the Lebanese people, to lie about his support of the insurgency in Iraq, and to impose his dictatorship by delaying the "Political Party Law" intended to develop political pluralism in a society lacking any for over 42 years.

From the tone of the speech, it is apparent that Assad intends to resist all calls by the international community to adjust to a world of freedom and peaceful co-existence with one's neighbors. At one point, he said "We will live here and die here" in reference to calls by the opposition to resign and leave the country.

If there was any doubt in the minds of Syrians looking for reforms to come from within, these doubts have been permanently put to rest after hearing Assad's speech. This is a regime that will only go away if forced to and the people of Syria are starting slowly to realize the importance of increasing the pressure until the regime implodes.

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US says religious freedoms have deteriorated in Turkey

Harold's List
ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

The U.S. State Department criticized Turkey for having laws and policies that discriminate against minority religions, in the State Department's annual report to Congress on religious freedom.

In Turkey, “there was some deterioration regarding religious freedom, in contrast to previous positive trends,” the International Religious Freedom Report 2005 released on Tuesday by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor said.

“The constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice; however, the government imposes some restrictions on Muslim and other religious groups and on Muslim religious _expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities,” it said, while citing a public campaign against Christian missionary activity and statements by government officials depicting missionaries as a threat.

“The government's Directorate of Religious Affairs initiated a public campaign against Christian missionary activity in the country. High-level government officials made statements depicting missionaries as a threat. There was also an increase in anti-Christian media coverage. Threats and vandalism against Christians and church facilities increased.”

The generally tolerant relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom in principle; however, a sharp debate continued over the country's definition of “secularism,” the proper role of religion in society, and the potential influence of the country's small minority of Islamists, the report said.

Washington sees signs pointing to resolution of Halki seminary issue:

Like a report released by the State Department in March, the report also noted the government's refusal to recognize the “ecumenical” status of the Greek Orthodox patriarch and said, “The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul continues to seek the reopening of the Halki seminary on the island of Heybeli in the Sea of Marmara.”

There are some reasons for Washington to be hopeful a formula on the reopening of the Halki seminary can be reached, U.S. Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom John Hanford said at a press conference following the release of the report.

“We've been given certain reasons that make us hopeful for a resolution,” Hanford said, noting that the U.S. officials have brought the issue to the agenda during several meetings with Turkish officials.


‘Religious pluralism viewed as threat to national unity':

The officially tolerant relationship among religions in Turkish society contributes to religious freedom; however, some Muslims, Christians, Baha'is, and other religious communities face societal suspicion and mistrust, according to the report.

“Religious pluralism is widely viewed as a threat to Islam and to ‘national unity.' Nationalist sentiments sometimes contain anti-Christian or anti-Semitic overtones,” it said.

A street demonstration against Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartolomeos in September 2004 for his remarks interpreted as interfering in internal politics by commenting on religious reform and the country's European Union bid was among examples listed as such.

Adolf Hitler's “Mein Kampf” climbing into the top 10 on the bestseller lists of some of the country's major bookstore chains during the same period was another example with pro-Islamist daily Vakit's publication in February with “crude cartoons depicting German Interior Minister Otto Schily covered with swastikas and Stars of David.” The cartoons were published in protest of the German government's decision to close the paper's European edition for its articles denying the Holocaust.

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Syria is Trying to Wiggle out

Syria Bristles at Criticism by the West
By ZEINA KARAM

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - President Bashar Assad said Thursday his country will cooperate with a U.N. investigation implicating the military in the killing of a Lebanese politician, but he warned that such cooperation would stop if Syria was going to be harmed.

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac warned Syria it could face sanctions if it refused to cooperate with the ongoing probe into the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Assad, while maintaining Syria's innocence during a speech at Damascus University, also disclosed that a U.N. investigator has rejected Syria's conditions for cooperating with investigators.

"We will play their game" and cooperate, Assad said. But, he warned, that cooperation will "stop when Syria is going to be harmed."

Syria has come under intense pressure from the United States and the United Nations since Hariri and 20 others were killed by a car bomb. Chirac said Thursday the international community "will have move to another stage, which is sanctions" if Assad "persists in not wanting to listen or understand," Chirac said.

"It is not conceivable, admissible, acceptable for the international community ... that Syria refuses to cooperate," Chirac said.

A U.N. Security Council resolution has demanded that Syria cooperate with investigators. The U.N. commission led by German Detlev Mehlis wants to question six Syrian officials in Lebanon.

Assad said Thursday that Mehlis had refused Syria's offers to have the officers questioned on Syrian territory - even in U.N. offices there - or at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, in cooperation with Egypt.

Mehlis left Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday for Germany, Beirut airport officials said.

Assad said the latest events confirm that "no matter what we did and how much we cooperate, the result will be that Syria did not cooperate."

"Syria is innocent in the absolute sense," Assad said in the wide-ranging and hard-line speech. "Syria is not involved at the government level or at the individual level. The problem is merely a political one in the context of events."

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Norht Korean Whining

Six-Party Talks on North Korea Turn Sour

By KWANG-TAE KIM

BEIJING (AP) - Talks on North Korea's nuclear programs turned sour Thursday as Pyongyang demanded that Washington lift sanctions against firms suspected of weapons proliferation and stop accusing the North of counterfeiting U.S. money, news reports said.

North Korean delegates accused the United States of undermining a September agreement in which Pyongyang pledged to disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees, the South's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified officials.

The North also voiced displeasure over President Bush's reference to a "tyrant" in North Korea - widely seen as a slap at its leader, Kim Jong Il, Yonhap said.

The disputes cast a pall over the talks between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. South Korean officials told Yonhap that progress had become difficult.

The U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said the demands fell beyond the scope of the six-party talks.


"They made clear that they are not happy," Hill said late Thursday. "But I made very clear that I don't do financial sector regulations."


Washington imposed sanctions in October on eight North Korean companies accused of acting as fronts for sales of banned missile, nuclear or bioweapons technology. The order froze any assets in areas under U.S. jurisdiction, but it wasn't clear whether that had any impact because the United States bans trade with North Korea.


The United States also accuses North Korea of producing high-quality counterfeit $100 bills known as "supernotes."


Diplomats say the talks this week - the fifth in a series - are meant to focus on contentious details of how the North would verifiably disarm, and what it would get in return.


Washington and Seoul were pressing the North to suspend nuclear development after Hill accused Pyongyang of operating a reactor that produces plutonium - a fuel for bombs.


"The continued (operation) of nuclear facilities has to be suspended," said South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.


Hill accused the North of continuing to operate the Yongbyon reactor despite a Sept. 19 pledge to give up nuclear development.

"Every day that goes on, the amount of plutonium theoretically can increase, so that's our concern," Hill said. "That means that we have a bigger problem than when we ended on Sept. 19. And I think the time to stop reprocessing, the time to stop that reactor, is now."

South Korean diplomats proposed what their government calls a roadmap to disarmament. "We spelled out what kinds of steps are needed to advance the implementation plan," Song said.

He declined to give details or confirm reports of the North's new demands.

Yonhap said one measure being considered was for the North to suspend operation of the Yongbyon reactor and plutonium reprocessing if Washington lifts some sanctions, including its designation of Pyongyang as a terrorism sponsor.

"I don't think we are here now to make a roadmap," Hill said. "We only have a three-day session, so essentially we are just gathering ideas and having an opportunity to discuss the ideas, but we are not trying to come to any final decisions."

China says it expected the talks to run until Friday, then recess to let diplomats attend a mid-November Asia-Pacific economic conference in South Korea.

The two years of talks have proceeded slowly, fitfully and amid deep distrust. North Korea refuses to disarm completely without getting concessions along the way, while Washington wants to see the weapons programs dismantled before granting rewards.

The U.S. has rejected North Korea's demand to be given a civilian nuclear reactor until it returns to the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and accepts safeguards from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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Congress May Curb Some Patriot Act Powers

LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Congress is moving to curb some of the police powers it gave the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including imposing new restrictions on the FBI's access to private phone and financial records.

A budding House-Senate deal on the expiring USA Patriot Act includes new limits on federal law enforcement powers and rejects the Bush administration's request to grant the FBI greater authority to subpoena records without a judge's approval.

Even with the changes, however, every part of the law set to expire Dec. 31 would be reauthorized and most of those provisions would become permanent.

Under the agreement, for the first time since the act became law, judges would get the authority to reject national security letters giving the government secret access to people's phone and e-mail records, financial data and favorite Internet sites.

Holders of such information — such as banks and Internet providers — could challenge the letters in court for the first time, said congressional aides involved in merging separate, earlier-passed House and Senate bills reauthorizing the expiring Patriot Act. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the panel has not begun deliberations.

Since passage of the 2001 law, the FBI reportedly has been issuing about 30,000 national security letters annually, a hundred-fold increase since they first came into existence.

Last year, a federal judge in New York struck down a national security letter statute as unconstitutional because he said the law did not permit legal challenges to the letters or a gag rule on recipients of the letters. The administration has appealed.

Civil libertarians lauded the deal's preliminary terms, saying recent accounts of the FBI's aggressive use of national security letters have lent credibility to their call for caution.

"Without those checks and balances, there will be abuses," said former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., of Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.

The Bush administration contends there have been no abuses.

"In the four years since the passage of the USA Patriot Act, there has not been a single verified abuse of the act's provisions, including in the department's own inspector general's report to Congress," said Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

Hashed out over two months by senior House and Senate aides, the preliminary terms still have to be approved by a panel of lawmakers from each chamber and then by the full House and Senate. The process is taking shape this week, with the appointment of House members to the panel on Wednesday and the bicameral committee's first meeting expected on Thursday.

The power to subpoena without court approval had been on the administration's wish list for more than a year but was never seriously considered by either chamber's Judiciary Committee.

Both the House and Senate versions of a Patriot Act extension, debated over the summer, proposed giving the judiciary a more explicit role in national security letters. "The court may quash or modify a request if compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive," according to a summary by the Congressional Research Service. The Senate added more conditions: "or violate any constitutional or other legal right or privilege."

Some version of those curbs is expected to be passed as part of the compromise bill.

Less specific but looked upon favorably is a proposal to add a new restriction on evidence-gathering of classified material that would require investigators to return or destroy any materials that are not relevant to the probe, congressional aides said.

Polls show that most Americans do not distinguish between the Patriot Act and the war on terror, and a majority knows little about the four-year-old law. But the more Americans know about the act, the less they like it, according to a poll conducted in August by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut.

The survey found, for instance that almost two-thirds of Americans, 64 percent, said they support the Patriot Act. But only 43 percent support the law's requirement that banks turn over records to the government without judicial approval.

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Chalabi's Return

Harold's List
The Wall Street Journal

A year ago the Bush administration tried to destroy Ahmed Chalabi's chances of ever leading a free Iraq. This week the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister has meetings scheduled with Bush Cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and John Snow, as well as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. What gives?

Let's hope it's a sign of maturity from a Bush foreign policy team that realizes it erred badly last year. Mr. Chalabi's political success in Iraq since that fiasco is impossible to ignore. The same man once derided as an "exile" with "no support" in Iraq brokered the Shiite alliance that dominated the country's free elections in January. Though a secular Shiite who believes in separation of mosque and state, Mr. Chalabi may be the Iraqi politician most trusted by Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He gets along well with Kurdish leaders and has influential Sunni allies as well, including Iraqi Defense Minister Saddoun Dulaimi.

In his current role, Mr. Chalabi was a central figure in drafting Iraq's new constitution, where he successfully pushed for language to create an Alaska-style trust to share oil revenues equally among Iraqi citizens. And he assumed special responsibility for oil and infrastructure protection, resulting in what one observer called "the highest crude oil exports in anyone's memory."

So why did the administration turn against Mr. Chalabi last year? Don't believe the line from media critics that he was the source of bad intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The Robb-Silberman Commission found that Mr. Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress had a "minimal impact" on Bush administration assessments of Iraqi WMD capabilities -- assessments no different from those the Clinton administration used to justify its 1998 Desert Fox bombing campaign.

Rather, as the most visible lobbyist for U.S.-led regime change in Iraq, Mr. Chalabi was a political lightning rod long before we discovered that our intelligence agencies had erred on WMD. In the end, it was Mr. Chalabi's refusal to go along with various administration strategies in postwar Iraq -- particularly its outreach to Saddam's Baath Party and its desire to bring in the United Nations, whose Oil for Food corruption he was helping to expose -- that caused the White House to turn against him.

In May 2004, U.S. forces raided his home based on what appear to have been trumped up counterfeiting charges. Intelligence leaks -- which have curiously never been followed up, despite repeated requests by Mr. Chalabi to testify and clear his name -- alleged that he was an Iranian spy. That Mr. Chalabi was able to overcome this disinformation campaign is a testament to his resilience and his influence with other Iraqi political figures.

We'll be especially curious to see if Meghan O'Sullivan apologizes to Mr. Chalabi this week. She is now in charge of Iraq policy at the NSC, but in earlier jobs at the NSC and State Department she was among those who consistently spoke ill of Mr. Chalabi and tried to block the Iraqi National Congress from getting Congressionally mandated funds. Such meddling in Iraqi politics is fundamentally at odds with our democratizing mission, and it would be good to see her admit her mistake.

None of this is to say the U.S. should endorse Mr. Chalabi, or any other Iraqi politician, for Prime Minister after the December election. That's a decision for Iraqis to make. But Mr. Chalabi's prominence in Iraqi politics vindicates those who saw him as far back as the early 1990s as a believer in a democratic and pro-Western Iraq.

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Australian Arrests

Melbourne raids

Melbourne, 2.30am: Police raid 23 homes, arresting nine men in the suburbs of Dallas, Preston, Coburg, Yarraville, Fawkner, Meadow Heights and Hadfield.


Sydney raids

Sydney, 2.30am: Thirteen homes at Hoxton Park, Wiley Park, Lakemba, Condell Park, Bankstown, Ingleburn, Belfield, Belmore and Greenacre are raided. Six men are arrested and officers seize "unidentified substances", firearms, travel documents and computer hard-drives. Late last night Police raid a house in the suburb of Revesby and arrest a man.


MELBOURNE

* Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 45, of Dallas. Also known as Abu Bakr. Algerian-born Muslim cleric who arrived in Australia in 1989. Married with six children. Charges: being a member of a terrorist organisation and directing the activities of a terrorist organisation. Remanded to appear on January 31.

* Shane Kent, 28, of Meadow Heights. Australian-born Muslim convert who trained in a camp run by al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Remanded to January 31.

* Ezzit Raad, 23, Preston. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation.

* Aimen Joud, 21, of Hoppers Crossing. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Remanded to January 31.

* Fadal Sayadi, 25, of Coburg. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Remanded to January 31.

* Amer Haddara, 26, of Yarraville. Charge: being a member of a
terrorist organisation. Remanded to January 31.

* Ahmed Raad, 22, of Fawkner. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Remanded to January 31.

* Abdulla Merhi, 20, of Fawkner. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Applied for bail.

* Hany Taha, 31, of Hadfield. Charge: being a member of a terrorist organisation. Applied for bail.


SYDNEY


* Mohamed Ali Elomar, 40, Condell Park. Eluded police before being found cowering in bushes. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack.

* Khaled Sharrouf, 24, Wiley Park. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack.

* Moustafa Cheikho, 28, of Wiley Park. Charge: Conspiring to
manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist
attack.

* Khaled Cheikho, 32, Wiley Park. Believed to have trained with Kashmiri group Lashkare-Taiba. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack.

* Mazen Touma, 25, Bankstown. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack.

* Abdul Rhakib Hasan, 34, ran the Indo Malay Halal butchery on Haldon Street, Lakemba. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack

* Mirsad Mulahalilovic. Charge: Conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack.

* Omar Baladjam, 28. Wounded in a shootout with police at Green Valley. Expected to be charged at a bedside hearing today.

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Labwani Arrested Upon Arrival to Damascus from the US

Harold's List
Reform Party of Syria
Labwani Arrested Upon Arrival to Damascus from the US

Washington DC, November 9, 2005/RPS/ -- Dr. Kamal Labwani, head of the Liberal Democratic Party in Syria, was arrested upon arrival to Damascus airport last night. Labwani was seen escorted by scores of security personnel wearing civilian clothes.

Labwani arrived Washington DC in late October at the behest of the US State Department Visitor's Program. Initially, he met with NGO's and human rights organizations. Later, he was introduced to some officials in the State Department and the White House and eventually this led to a meeting with J.D. Crouch, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.

Dr. Labwani has been imprisoned during the "Damascus Spring" of 2001 for three years for voicing his opinion against the regime of Assad. This did not quell his efforts to re-energize his political will upon leaving the Syrian prison system.

We condemn the Syrian regime of Baschar al-Assad for holding people against their will for the mere fact that they met with Senior US Officials and ask the international community to stand-by Dr. Labwani to pressure the Assad regime to release him to his family.

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OUR PLAN from Islamic World

http://islamic-world.net/youth/jihadgalleries3.htm

First, go to the drop down box in the upper right hand corner of the site and click on "OUR PLAN". There you have it folks, in black and white, in print from the Islamic people themselves.
(http://islamic-world.net/papers/islamic_plan.htm )

Go to the "Other Sections" tab and click on "countries", then in the right hand column scroll down to United States. They have data on every country in the world, the government offices in each state, embassies, every major university, covering every state and province.

They will not rest until there are no countries listed in the second column and all countries are listed in the first column under Islamic Countries.

Any questions Condi Rice?

This sounds so al Qaeda-based in its philosophy and would make the perfect CAIR pamphlet.

INTRODUCTION:

We would like to introduce an innovative plan on behalf of Islam. It is called Islamic World, and it is a concept rather than an organization. We accept that there is no path to a right and just world but Islam, therefore we want to do our utmost to bring rightly guided committed belief and dedicated practice of Islam back into every aspect of life for all members of the Muslim ummah; and, to make Islam both acceptable and attractive to non-Muslims. While many of our pious brothers and sisters are attempting, both as individuals and within organizations, to achieve this same worthy goal we will be using a new approach. We will be using powerful innovative techniques of social influence and sophisticated modern information technology to effectively disseminate the knowledge of Islam and to unite the Muslim ummah. Our ultimate goal is a truly and fully, united Islamic world.

PLAN (general):

Our intention is to utilize the motivational and educational potential of the Internet to empower and unite the entire Muslim ummah. We believe our proposed activities would be considered acceptable by the governments of virtually all the world's nations.

A. It is proposed that if any individual, or social group of any size (up to and including all of human society), is provided with a positive, more accurate world view and a broad understanding of the laws of learning by which our relationship with the physical, social and inner environment is governed then there will naturally result a general movement toward everything good and right.

B. To encourage the wide use of modern knowledge and technology by Muslims on behalf of Islam.

C. Use powerful motivational techniques from the social sciences to encourage Muslims to unite and participate in the creation of a fully and truly Islamic world.

D. To show how modern science and its philosophical implications have reached a point where they are consistent in all ways with the revealed truths and essence of Islam.

E. To help unite the many thousand Islamic organizations throughout the world in the struggle against the devastating power of the onrushing wave of secular materialism poised to crush the Islamic way of life. (NOTE: We will acknowledge that there are within the Muslim world a number of differences of opinion regarding issues of belief and practice. While in no way discounting the importance of some of these issues, but fully realizing the effects of the dissension and disunity this causes among the ummah, we take the position that during a period in history when the influence of shaitan is being so widely and successfully spread throughout the world it is not the right time to focus our energies on the resolution of these issues. Until the battle against the forces of evil is resolved and a just and right Islamic world established we will accept without negative comment all Muslims regardless of their varied beliefs and practices as our beloved brothers and sisters united in this struggle against all ideas, things and persons who oppose the beliefs and practice of Islam.

PLAN (specific - short term and long term):

A. Create and maintain the number one Islamic web site in the world.

B. Bring attention to and make available information concerning the positive, more accurate word view and the broad understanding of the laws of learning necessary to bring about a just and right Islamic world.

C. Establish links to every Islamic site on the Internet(probably
over 50,000).

D. Daily commentary on important international news events from an Islamic perspective.

E. Polls to assess the opinion of Muslims worldwide on various
issues important to Islam.

F. Act as a clearinghouse to compile and disseminate information in regard to all ideas of benefit to the fulfillment of Islam and for programs to implement these ideas.

G. Announcement of and information regarding important Islamic
activities worldwide.

H. Public acknowledgement and support for activities being done on behalf of Islam (including an Islamic site of the week, a top ten Islamic sites list and periodic awards for 'special' Islamic sites).

I. Joining of resources between organizations, individuals and locations.

J. Provide information on how to successfully fulfill our
responsibility to Allah in commanding the right and forbidding the wrong, including examples of subtle rights and wrongs that often go unnoticed while being important in their influence upon the ummah.

K. Da'wah resources will be made available both online and as
downloadable written and multimedia works.

L. Promote the dissemination of cheaply photocopied downloaded
materials in areas of the world with limited access to electronic information technology.

M. Islamic educational resources will be made available both online and as downloadable written and multimedia works.

N. Electronic publication of Islamic works.

O. Access to online instruction in Qur'an, Islamic sciences and
Arabic.

P. Islamic search engine.

Q. Subject specific moderated chat rooms.

R. Development of an 'Islamic Net' separate from the Internet.

S. Place at least one computer terminal in every Mosque in the world linked to the Islamic Network in order to help create a united ummah through the availability of virtually instantaneous communication among all the world's Muslims.

(NOTE: In both our short term and long term plans implementation will take place as quickly as manpower, resources, facilities and finances allow.)

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Jihad Unspun declares suspense of publishing operations

On November 7, 2001, exactly four years ago today, I began archiving
uncensored daily news on the Internet that would soon transform into Jihad Unspun. It would become the largest English daily news portal covering events in the "war on terror" from the Muslim viewpoint.

During the 1,460 days that we have published daily news, we have seen a dramatic change in the landscape. In the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan, when communications were in a total lock down and with many Muslim sites shut down, JUS was able to provide valuable information including some of the first casualty reports and photographs made public. Similarly, in the invasion of Iraq, JUS was able to provide the first glimpses inside the Iraqi Resistance, uncover early evidence of detainee abuse, unfold the discovery of mass graves and on a daily basis, we've been a thorn in the side of the US State Department bringing the English speaking world news on the Mujahideen and uncut reports that told the other side of the story. And so it has been as we have strived to bring you the best uncut news possible.

In recent months we have seen our information scope narrow due to
several factors, including a decline in credible third party information sources and a lack of translation resources that leaves 80% of our direct news from the Mujahideen unpublished. As most direct information comes to us in Arabic, we are constantly strained for translators and subsequently a narrower view of the other side of this conflict is within our pages.

At JUS we will never be content to publish "information" for
information's sake. We live in an information glut and not all information is useful. We maintain that readers have brains and that there is a responsibility in reporting to the public. A standard must be maintained. Therefore, the coverage that we are able to provide, based on our current resources, must be deemed inadequate in representing the Muslim mandate. Considering all factors, a decision has been made to suspend our publishing operations, effective immediately.

Of course, there are many reasons guiding this decision. While America continues its reign of terror on the Muslim world, mainstream press is now beginning to address some of the core lies and fabrications on which this war has been waged. There is indeed a stirring inside the Beast. For the Muslims, the Mujahideen are much more organized and able to dessiminate their information on a broader scale, thanks to the Internet, however there are few voices within the Ummah that are speaking and these are overshadowed for the most part.

Never in history has a resistance movement succeeded on military
strikes alone. Even Nelson Mandela's success ultimately came through the voice of citizens who spoke out and organized for change in collaboration with the resistance effort. With such a lack of unity, to the point of corruption, inside the Muslim Ummah, there is a serious lack of voices able to articulate Muslim viewpoints. The Ummah is scattered and fragmented and while the Mujahideen are gaining ground, there is little support from the Muslims and in particular the Ulema. At JUS we see this every day on a grand scale. Four years on, what the world sees is violence, not solutions and in fact, we as Muslims are letting America and the West determine the future because of the quarrels and conflicts that are rife within the Ummah. There is little intrinsic value in reporting deaths when the very core reason that this war is being waged is omitted from the tongues of Muslims.

Our immediate plan for this space has not been determined. In the short term, we will reflect on how we can best assist the Ummah after some much needed rest and without the pressure of daily news, which on any given day requires a great deal of attention. JUS has a significant audience, a complete publishing and e-commerce system, a revenue stream, a substantial news and photo archive, a valuable library of uncut footage and we are indexed daily by Google. If there are those in our audience who would like to carry on our work, please contact us at info@jihadunspun.com.

I consider myself privileged to have been able to be participate in
reporting news in such a tumultuous time in history, particularly
representing the voices that are not heard. It was JUS that forced me to look at my religion, to venture out of my element to the Middle East and to delve deeply inside what has now become a Global Jihad and for this I will be forever grateful. Over the years, we have become battle-hardened soldiers; we have weathered good times and bad; we've won, we've lost, we've goofed, we fumbled, we've broken the story, we've had firsts and lasts, we've laughed and cried, there have been births and deaths, but most importantly, we stayed standing, testifying that the truth can and will be told.

In closing, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to all those who helped make JUS possible, for it has been your support that gave us recognition and reach. To our writers and reporters, translators and editors, contributors and donors, artists and technicians, we can take solace in the knowledge that we have accomplished a work of which we can be proud without compromising our principles. We have fought the good fight on our own terms, magnifying the fact that free voices need not be silent.

At this time we wish to thank you, our viewers, for your loyalty,
encouragement and patronage that allowed us the privilege of serving you for it is your quest for truth that gave breath to our voices.

As we leave this arena we do so without regret, knowing that in some small way we have endeavored to make a difference. On behalf of all of us JUS, we bid you Aleikum Assalam Wa Rahmatulahi Wa Barakatu and goodnight.

Khadija Abdul Qahaar,
Publisher

5 Shawwal 1426 A.H.
November 7, 2005

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British-based jihadi forum calls for spread of riots to UK cities

A posting this morning on a well known Arabic-language jihadi forum based in the UK is calling the Muslims in London and other British cities to follow the example of the Muslims in France, and take to the streets.

The individual posting the comment has only posted 14 times in the
past, although the individual has been registered since April of this year.

It is impossible to determine the credibility of the post; however, the posting has been reported to law enforcement in the UK.

It is interesting to note that the posting follows closely the format of the postings that are used by Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia to take credit for attacks in Iraq. It is not commonly seen in casual postings on message boards.

The posting was made in Arabic, and appears to have been written by a native speaker of Arabic - the grammar and spelling of the posting are correct.

The translation follows:

In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate.

Praise be to Allah the Lord of the words; and prayers and greetings to the Prophet Mohamed, to the mujahideen, and to his family and companions.

And then:

My brothers in the ummah in London, why do you let your fellow Muslims in Paris take the burden only upon themselves. Why do you not join them in the streets? Why do you not take your place in the jihad.

Our brothers in France are setting the Crusaders on fire. And you, do you not feel the sting every day? Do you not find yourselves set upon by the kufirs? Do you not see your brothers in Guantanamo and Iraq and Afghanistant and Chechnya and Palestine tortured and killed each day?


It is time for each of us to step up to take our place in the jihad. Spread the fire of Islam to all the Crusaders. Destroy their land like they have destroyed our lands in Palestine and Iraq and Afghanistan and Chechnya.

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ANOTHER CIA DIRTY TRICK?

Harold's List
DEBORAH ORIN
NEW YORK POST

ANYONE who knew the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan has to wonder what he'd make of the CIA leak case.

The agency was one of his pet targets. Moynihan, a true Washington wise man, would get livid when he fumed about the CIA's "unbroken record of missing what's happening."

In a 1979 Newsweek essay, he accurately predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse in the '80s. The CIA, dead wrong, had no clue of the coming collapse.

At his monthly "tutorials" for New York reporters, Moynihan would recount with outrage that in 1987, just two years before the Berlin wall fell, the CIA was still claiming East Germany had a higher GDP than West Germany — when any cab driver in Berlin could have told you that was ridiculous.

CIA agents on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan have done amazing, brave things. But when it comes to intelligence, the agency keeps getting the big things wrong.

It missed 9/11. The Iraq war began a day early when then-CIA chief George Tenet claimed to have "pretty darn good intelligence" on where Saddam Hussein was hiding out; it turned out to be pretty darn wrong intelligence.

And Tenet wrongly insisted to a skeptical President Bush that CIA had a "slam-dunk case" on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. (That's Bob Woodward's account in "Plan of Attack," which Tenet has never disputed.)

But the CIA also, as Moynihan noted wryly to columnist Mary McGrory, has a history of covering its butt by coming up with "revisionist rumbles" to claim it had really gotten things right somewhere, buried in a secret footnote. Would Moynihan see the leak case as a familiar tale of the agency again getting things wrong — and looking for someone else to blame?

The story began in February 2002, when CIA staffer Valerie Plame Wilson got her bosses to send her husband, ex-Ambassador Joe Wilson, to the African nation of Niger to check if Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake uranium. In her later statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Wilson left little doubt she expected him to come back with a "no" when she told him explore "this crazy report."

For over a year, Wilson and some CIA officials denied that he got the Niger gig at his wife's behest — but both the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report and the CIA leak indictment say that's that case.

The taxpayer money spent to send Wilson to Niger didn't produce much. His report "did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium," CIA chief Tenet would later say. If anything, CIA analysts thought Wilson's report backed up the yellowcake story that his wife had billed as "crazy."

Wilson didn't make any claim to have debunked the belief in Iraq weapons for over a year after his February 2002 trip. But in May 2003, he joined Democrat John Kerry's campaign — and instantly began blasting Bush, first through anonymous leaks, then in a New York Times op-ed and on any TV station that would have him, even posing with his wife for Vanity Fair in his jaguar.

So why did the CIA let him do it? It sent Wilson on a sensitive mission — but didn't require him to sign the usual confidentiality agreement. Even though his wife was a CIA staffer, it let him go loudly public — violating the most basic precautions, if she truly wanted to protect her identify.

The agency didn't assert a right to vet the New York Times op-ed he wrote about his trip — even though such review is standard, and even though his Times account sharply conflicted with what he'd told the CIA. It was if the agency flashed him a giant green light to blast Bush.

Indeed, the indictment that could send ex-White House aide Scooter Libby to jail for 30 years also holds clear evidence that the CIA should have stopped Wilson from going public.

The indictment notes that on June 9, 2003, Libby got CIA documents about Wilson's trip to Niger that were marked "classified" — even though "they did not mention Wilson by name" and Libby didn't yet know about the role of Wilson's wife. That indicates that the trip itself was classified — so CIA should have ordered Wilson to stop blabbing.

But then, all this came at a time when the CIA division where Wilson's wife worked had an intense need to cover its rear: Remember — they were the ones who (along with every other intel agency in the world) had insisted that Saddam had WMDs — but no WMDs were being found.

Having Wilson go public was very useful to the CIA, especially the division where his wife worked — because it served to shift blame for failed "slam dunk" intelligence claims away from the agency. To say that Bush "twisted" intelligence was to presume — falsely — that the CIA had gotten it right.

When the White House ineptly tried to counter Wilson's tall tales by revealing that he wasn't an expert and his wife set up the trip, the CIA demanded a criminal probe — and then itself broke the law by leaking that news.

It now appears the CIA's entire referral was dishonest: The agency knew Plame wasn't a covert agent under the terms of the law, since she hadn't had an overseas posting in the past five years — and obviously neither she nor the CIA was taking proper precautions to protect her identity. Call it disinformation.

That almost certainly is why no charges have been filed against the mysterious X who first leaked Mrs. Wilson's identity to columnist Robert Novak, who published it. Since Mrs. Wilson wasn't a covert agent, she couldn't be outed. And that's why Libby is accused of lying to investigators but not of outing Wilson's wife.

As Victoria Toensing, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chief counsel, put it in the Wall Street Journal: "The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft."

For her part Toensing — who was Intelligence Committee counsel when Moynihan was vice-chairman — has no doubt about the answer: "It was a planned CIA covert action against the White House. It was too clever by half."

Spies, after all, get much better training than White House aides at double-dealing, leaks, disinformation and cover-ups. Sen. John McCain has called the CIA a "rogue agency." One can only imagine that Moynihan would agree.

Deborah Orin is The Post's Washington bureau chief.

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Israeli vaccine could provide universal answer to flu epidemics

Allison Kaplan Sommer

Israeli company BiondVax doesn't claim to have the answer that will allay the mounting fears of a worldwide epidemic of avian flu.

But they hope that in coming months, their long-term project to develop a 'universal flu vaccine' may help make a contribution towards finding an effective way to avert this global health crisis. An outbreak of the avian flu virus in the US could infect one-third of the population, according to a US government report released last week.

The vaccine is based on nearly two decade of research by world-renowned scientist Dr. Ruth Arnon of the Weizmann Institute. BiondVax was on track to begin human clinical trials of the new vaccine, which has already proven effective on animals, but the current flu crisis is speeding things up.

The company's carefully crafted business plan was to try to bring the 'universal flu vaccine' to market in 3-5 years, according to one of BiondVax's founder Isaac Devash. But now there is a "new urgency" in the company's development of its product which has led them to adjust their plans, he told ISRAEL21c

"Obviously, when this threat emerged, we knew we had to test our vaccine on it," said Devash, who until recently served as chairman of the company.

"We are now ch! ecking the recognition of the antibodies that an animal creates after vaccinations against the specific of the H5&1 (avian flu)," reported company president and CEO Dr. Ron Babecoff. "We are vaccinating animals with the vaccine - we're taking the blood and putting it together with the protein with H5&1 and seeing if there is recognition. We will have the lab results in a month."

He added: "In parallel, we want to do a challenge trial with animals and the avian flu - take a group of animals vaccinated with the vaccine, one with a placebo, expose them to the live virus - because working with the live virus is very dangerous... we can't do it in our current laboratories. The Israeli Veterinary Institute has agreed in principle to start this experiment with us. We estimate that it will take six months to prepare animals for a long period, but by then we will have quite strong evidence to show that it has protective ability against the virus."

Babecoff is optimistic about the universal vaccine's effectiveness on avian flu because it has successfully protected mice - which are equipped with immune systems that mimic those of human beings - against a number of flu strains. All of the vaccinated mice survived and the non-vaccinated animals died.

"We believe it will be effective," Babecoff said.

If it does indeed prove effective - and if the avian flu remains a threat - then BiondVax's business plan may unfold very differently than originally planned.

The company's approach to fighting flu differs from the way the battle against the flu is traditionally waged. Traditional flu vaccines are the result of a longstanding process: world health bodies work every year to identify the most common strains of flu circling the globe, using 120 monitoring stations worldwide to identify new s! trains. Using this information, they predict which virus strain will be prevalent in the forthcoming season. These strains mutate slightly every year, and change radically approximately every 30 years.

The 'virus of the year' is isolated and sent to drug companies which develop a vaccine to fight it. These vaccines - developed according to the classic method originated by Louis Pasteur - are isolated, weakened versions of the virus one is trying to fight. The virus development and production process is long, and there is a danger that while one vaccine is being developed a new mutation may have already emerged.

Arnon's breakthrough was a decision to look at the flu virus in a conceptual manner - looking for the ways in which all flu viruses are similar. The developer of Teva's Copaxone drug for treating multiple sclerosis, Arnon, 71, is a world-famous scientist whose list of prizes and honorary degrees includes t! he French Legion of Honor, the Wolf Prize for Medicine and the Israel Prize for Medicine, and has published over 400 articles on immunology. She remains intimately involved in BiondVax's work, overseeing the vaccine's development on its research and development committee.

"Dr. Arnon decided not to chase a specific strain of virus. She said 'let's identify the common components of all flu viruses, use genetic engineering to duplicate those common parts of the virus, and create a vaccine which - no matter what virus will come - will vaccinate you,'" explained Devash, who then uses what he described as Arnon's favorite analogy.

"Think of your nose as the moon and the flu virus as an alien space shuttle that lands there trying to conquer it. Until now, developing a virus meant looking at the shape and the color of the specific space shuttle. But every space shuttle - every virus - is different and so you have to quickl! y adjust your fight depending on who lands. But she said, 'OK, let's look for functional components that let us know it is a space shuttle - never mind what kind. Every shuttle has to have stairs, for example, so the aliens can get off and invade you. So let's look at a way to identify what the stairs are made of and figure out a way to deactivate them through a vaccine. If we do that, we have a tool against any alien spaceship, not just one that is a particular size, shape, or color.'"

These functional elements - the so-called 'stairs' Devash refers to - "are known to science, but no one thought to use them as a source of a vaccine" previously, Devash said.

Arnon probed a protein called Hemagglutinin found on the surface of the flu virus and found that it hid a peptide which appeared when the virus attached itself to a living cell. She discovered that this hidden part remains fixed in all the viruses, even when t! he external envelope undergoes significant changes, which prevent the body from identifying the virus. Over the following 10 years, Arnon and her assistants succeeded in proving that this peptide could serve as a serum for a vaccine, which enables the immune system to recognize and to stop various flu strains.

Babecoff says that Arnon's work is "a change in the paradigm. Scientists were sure that you can't vaccinate with peptides. She proved that it's not true."

A vaccine that can overcome mutation is an extremely attractive prospect - one of the current fears, even as nations stockpile vaccines against the current strain of avian flu, is that it may mutate into a version that these vaccines do not address.

The BiondVax vaccine is different from what is currently available in other ways as well. In Arnon's experiments on mice, the vaccine was long-lasting - the company beli! eves it is good for five years. The new vaccine activates both arms of the human immune system (B- & T-cells) resulting in over 95% protection.

It is also not injected - one drop of the vaccine inserted in the nose is effective. Only a single drop need be inserted in the nose to be effective.

Although Arnon has been pursuing this research for many years, it is only within the past five years that BiondVax was created to commercialize her research.

Devash and his fellow investors, while they couldn't foresee the onset of avian flu specifically, knew that the need for a better approach to fighting the waves of flu outbreaks would become necessary.

"The writing was on the wall - it's a question of time for a pandemic will hit humanity, and we need to be ready," he said.

The results of Arnon's research have so! far excited and inspired the company's backers.

"She's had very dramatic results - 100 percent of the mice vaccinated have stayed alive - and she changed the strain again and again and again. When she it one step further and tested it on mice into whom white blood cells had been injected, known as 'humanized mice' to see if it works, the results were staggering," said Devash.

Babecoff, a veterinarian with 10 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry started BiondVax in 2000 after investigating new projects with business potential. Once he looked into Arnon's research, he knew he found the right project.

Recently, the company completed a round of raising capital with which they are completing their new facilities, and they are expecting grants from the government, to help fund the human trials that are set to begin early next year.

! Babecoff noted that unlike regular Phase One trials of drugs, which normally only demonstrate safety, "Phase one trials of vaccines not only demonstrates the safety of the product as in other drugs - but gives an indication of how the immune system is reacting to the vaccine. We expect to see elevation of antibodies, proliferations of all kinds of T-cells, an activation of the cellular immunity and the antibody immunities. We plan for the Phase Two trials - scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2007, to enter the 'challenge mode' where you take volunteers, you vaccinate them with vaccine, and others with a placebo and you expose them to a type of influenza virus, you compare the illness rate."

If these trials are successful, he expects that the company would join with a major pharmaceutical manufacturer for the complex Phase Three stage and development of a vaccine to bring to market.

Again - all of this could chang! e or be accelerated if the tests on the avian flu virus are extremely successful.

Devash says the company's work is "on the radar" as developing a possible answer to the avian flu. They are in close contact with the World Health Organization in Geneva, which has been monitoring all of the attempts at a vaccine worldwide. Arnon has been invited to address a WHO conference on avian flu in December, when the company hopes she will be able to present the initial results of tests of the vaccine against the killed virus.

Devash says that they are optimistic about their ability to help avert the avian flu crisis, but still cautious.

"Let's put it this way - there is reasonable basis to believe our vaccine would work on an avian flu. But we don't know. It could be totally different than the other strains we've tested it on,! " he said. "I would say that there are about ten different approaches being used to coming up with a vaccine - and about eight are based on the same method - the current one. Ours is in the minority of trying to do something completely different."

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Police find Muslim bomb-making factory in Paris

Unrest in France Spreads on 10th Night of Violence By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS (AP) -- Ten nights of urban unrest that brought thousands of
arson attacks on cars, nursery schools and other targets from the
Mediterranean to the German border reached Paris where at least 28 cars were burned overnight in the French capital, government officials said Sunday.

Police found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a southern suburb of the city, with more than 100 bottles, gallons of fuel and hoods for hiding rioters' faces, a senior Justice Ministry official said Sunday.

Six youths, all aged under 18, were arrested in the raid Saturday night on a building in Evry south of Paris where the gasoline bombs were being put together, Jean-Marie Huet, the ministry's director of criminal affairs and pardons, told The Associated Press.

The discovery, Huet said, shows that gasoline bombs being used by rioters "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms."

Some 2,300 police poured into the Paris region to bolster security on a restive Saturday night while firefighters moved out around the city to douse blazing vehicles.

At least 918 vehicles -- including those in Paris -- were burned during the 10th night of violence, said the Interior Ministry's operational center tracking the violence. There was no word yet on damage in Paris to shops, gymnasiums, nursery schools and other targets which have been attacked around the country.

Police made 186 arrests nationwide overnight.

For the second night in a row, a helicopter equipped with spotlights and video cameras to track bands of marauding youths combed the poor, heavily immigrant Seine-Saint-Denis region, northeast of Paris, where the violence has been concentrated. Small teams of police were deployed to chase down rioters speeding from one attack to another in cars and on motorbikes.

On Friday night, 900 vehicles were torched across France in the worst wave of arson since the urban unrest began.

The violence -- originally concentrated in neighborhoods northeast of Paris with large populations of Arab and African Muslim immigrants -- has now spread across France, extending west to the rolling fields of Normandy and south to resort cities on the Mediterranean.

The Normandy town of Evreux, 60 miles west of Paris, appeared to suffer the worst damage Saturday. Arsonists burned at least 50 vehicles, part of a shopping center, a post office and two schools, said Patrick Hamon, spokesman for the national police. Five police officers and three firefighters were injured battling the Evreux blazes, Hamon said.

Attacks were also reported in Cannes and Nice.

The violence erupted Oct. 27 following the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who hid in a power substation, apparently believing police were chasing them. One of the dead teenagers was born in Mauritania and the second teenager's family was from Tunisia -- both Muslim countries.

Anger was fanned days ago when a tear gas bomb exploded in a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois -- the northern suburb where the youths were
electrocuted.

The unrest is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in poor suburbs ringing the big cities which are mainly populated by immigrants and their French-born families, often from Muslim North Africa. They are marked by high unemployment, discrimination and despair -- fertile terrain for crime of all sorts and Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out.

Government officials have held a series of meetings with Muslim
religious
leaders, local officials and youths from poor suburbs to try to calm
the
violence.

The director of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, one of the country's leading Muslim figures, met Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Saturday and urged the government to choose its words carefully and send a message of peace.

"In such difficult circumstances, every word counts," Boubakeur said.

The anger over the death of the teenagers spread to the Internet, with sites mourning the youths.

Along with messages of condolence and appeals for calm were insults targeting police, threats of more violence and warnings that the unrest will feed support for France's anti-immigration extreme right.

Arsonists have also burned grocery stores, video stores and other businesses in what Hamon called "copycat" crimes. "All these hoodlums see others setting fires and say they can do it, too."

The unrest has taken on unprecedented scope and intensity, reaching
far-flung corners of France on Saturday, from Rouen in Normandy to
Bordeaux in the southwest to Strasbourg near the German border.

However, the Paris region has borne the brunt.

In quiet Acheres, on the edge of the St. Germain forest west of Paris, arsonists burned a nursery school, where part of the roof caved in, and about a dozen cars.

Children's photos clung to the blackened walls, and melted plastic toys littered the floor. Residents gathered at the school gate, demanding that the army be deployed or suggesting that citizens band together to protect their neighborhoods.

Cars were torched in the cultural bastion of Avignon in the south and the resort cities of Nice and Cannes, a police officer said.

Arson was reported in Nantes in the southwest, the Lille region in the north and Saint-Dizier in the Ardennes region east of Paris. In the eastern city of Strasbourg, 18 cars were set alight in full daylight, police said.

In one attack, youths in the eastern Paris suburb of Meaux prevented paramedics from evacuating a sick person from a housing project. They pelted rescuers with rocks and then torched the waiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry official said.

Most of the overnight arrests were near Paris. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy warned that those convicted could face severe sentences for burning cars.

"Volence penalizes those who live in the toughest conditions," e said after a government crisis meeting.

Sarkozy also has inflamed passions by referring to troublemakers as "scum."

Most rioting has been in towns with low-income housing projects where unemployment and distrust of police run high. But in a new development, arsonists were moving beyond their heavily policed neighborhoods to attack others with less security, Hamon said.

"They are very mobile, in cars or scooters. ... It is quite hard to combat" he said. "Most are young, very young, we have even seen young minors."

There appeared to be no coordination between separate groups in
different areas, Hamon said. But within gangs, he added, youths are communicating by cell phones or e-mails.

"They organize themselves, arrange meetings, some prepare the Molotov cocktails," he said.

In Torcy, close to Disneyland Paris, a youth center and a police
station were set ablaze. In Suresnes, on the Seine River west of the capital, 44 cars were burned in a parking lot.

On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people marched through one of the worst-hit suburbs, Aulnay-sous-Bois. Local officials wore sashes in the red, white and blue of the French flag as they filed past housing projects and the wrecks of burned cars. One white banner read, "No to violence."

------

Associated Press reporters Jamey Keaten and Angela Doland in Paris and John Leicester in Acheres contributed to this report.

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Hindsight in Iraq

Harold's List
By Jim Hoagland Washington Post
Sunday, November 6, 2005; B07

We were so stupid that we let our idiot president and an Arab con man fool us on a life-and-death issue.

As a campaign theme for elections in 2006 and 2008, that proposition may lack a little something. Yet Democrats who supported the invasion of Iraq but now cannot support the consequences of their vote are flirting with it. To them, good night, and good luck.

I doubt that swing voters will buy an admission of faux gullibility as a rationale for supporting Democrats over Republicans. Even when stated in slightly more elegant form, as it must be, that argument trivializes and falsifies the serious debate that did occur over Saddam Hussein's capabilities and intentions. Making President Bush's alleged "lies" on prewar intelligence the campaign focal point also underlines the failure of the Democrats to come up with convincing alternative policies for Iraq and the Middle East.

Worse: A backward-looking strategy obscures the political progress that Iraqis are making against terrorist bombings and assassinations.

Americans already know too little about the process of coalition-building and public campaigning underway for Iraq's December elections. That process represents the best chance to reduce American troop levels and unwanted U.S. political hegemony in Iraq. Flinging dust in the American electorate's eyes can only produce harmful results.

There is an enormous amount to criticize and reexamine about the conduct of the war and the misbegotten, heavy-handed occupation that has followed. One politician who has consistently done that responsibly is Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who nonetheless believes that the war is still winnable. That is the fundamental question for critics and supporters, Democrats and Republicans, to debate today.

"If winning is defined as having a free, independent, self-governing nation in Iraq, I think that is still possible. But the options are evaporating for America to influence that outcome if changes are not made," Hagel said in an interview.

"We have to stop isolating ourselves in the world and use Iraq to shore up alliances instead of damage them. And we have to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam, especially simultaneously propping up and manipulating a corrupt local regime that could not defend itself," he added.

Iraqi voters defied the terrorist campaign to adopt a new democratic constitution last month. In recent days the national election commission has registered party lists and candidates for the December elections for a permanent government. This progression carries promise for the future.

The Sunni minority, which boycotted January's transitional elections, shows every sign of voting in greater numbers this time. This will help encourage the creation of cross-sectarian coalitions, as does the awarding of parliament seats on a provincial rather than a national level.

This in turn opens new vistas for two Shiite secular politicians, Ayad Allawi and Ahmed Chalabi, who will compete head to head for Sunni support in Baghdad province and then need to bargain for Kurdish support to form a government. Chalabi and other Shiite leaders are moving away from the Islamic bloc that won in January and that dominates the current government but is unpopular with the Kurds.

Chalabi? Isn't he the aforesaid Arab con man of journalistic and political lore who tricked alert politicians such as Jay Rockefeller, and the entire CIA, into believing Hussein was moments away from blowing them to kingdom come? The same guy who provided the opportunity for shallow journalistic exposs and a magazine cover -- on the Columbia Journalism Review, of all places -- that were redolent with whiffs of anti-Arab stereotyping that would have been denounced if other ethnic groups had been so targeted?

Yes, Chalabi is back, in Iraq and in Washington. He visits here this week at the invitation of an administration that listened to him before the war -- except of course when he opposed the occupation and other things they wanted to do -- and then tried to eliminate him from Iraqi politics in Allawi's favor. I know, the story line gets confusing, but remember, we are in Valerie Plame deep-cover territory here.

The visit would be a good occasion for the American public to catch up on the thing that interests Hagel -- the chances of democracy in Iraq -- and on how Chalabi would hurry American troops home. Rockefeller, Harry Reid and other Democrats could ask him in person how he so brilliantly tricked them, and then explain that in detail to their constituents.

But I suspect the story line will be the easy irony of Chalabi resurfacing and the faux gullibility thing, even if it has to be sold in defiance of the facts. Who wants facts when you can have fun?

jimhoagland@washpost.com

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Before Rearming Iraq, He Sold Shoes and Flowers

The U.S. chose Ziad Cattan to oversee military buying because he could get things done. He did, but now he faces corruption charges.

Harold's List
LA Times
Solomon Moore and T. Christian Miller

BAGHDAD — Ziad Cattan was a Polish Iraqi used-car dealer with no weapons-dealing experience until U.S. authorities turned him into one of the most powerful men in Iraq last year — the chief of procurement for the Defense Ministry, responsible for equipping the fledgling Iraqi army.

REST OF THE ARTICLE GOES HEREAs U.S. advisors looked on, Cattan embarked on a massive spending spree, paying hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior American, coalition and Iraqi officials, and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The money flowed, often in bricks of cash, through the hands of middlemen who were friends of Cattan and took a percentage of the proceeds.

Although much of the material purchased has proved useful, U.S. advisors said, the contracts also paid for equipment that was shoddy, overpriced or never delivered. The questionable purchases — including aging Russian helicopters and underpowered Polish transport vehicles — have slowed the development of the Iraqi army and hindered its ability to replace American troops, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Cattan, now facing corruption charges leveled by the Iraqi Justice Ministry, insists that he is innocent of any wrongdoing and the victim of a smear campaign. In interviews in Poland, where he now lives, Cattan said he had worked under pressure from U.S. and Iraqi officials to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as possible.

"Before, I sold water, flowers, shoes, cars — but not weapons," said Cattan, who signed most of the 89 military contracts worth nearly $1.3 billion to equip Iraqi security forces, according to the documents. "We didn't know anything about weapons."

Cattan's improbable rise and fall raises troubling questions about American oversight of the Iraqi army's development, considered the most important mission in reducing the number of U.S. troops in harm's way.

The portrait that emerges from interviews and documents is a Defense Ministry whose members were picked with the care of choosing a pickup basketball team. U.S.-appointed military advisors often selected inexperienced Iraqis and watched as they cut pell-mell weapons deals that eventually totaled one-third of the entire procurement budget.

The Iraqis "were like, 'Hey we're a sovereign government now…. We'll buy what we want,' " one military advisor said. "We didn't know what was going on with the money."

Iraqis say the corruption scandal has set back their efforts to fight insurgents. More than 27 arrest warrants have been issued for former government officials, including Cattan and his boss, former Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan. Several former ministry officials have fled the country, others are already in prison awaiting trial, and six have been killed by unknown assailants.

"These violations are many, and they allow terrorism to flourish," said Judge Radhi Radhi, the head of the Commission on Public Integrity, which is leading the investigations. "Exposing this corruption is a matter of vital importance for Iraq."

Cattan's ascent began two days before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, when he returned from Poland after 26 years in an attempt to bring his elderly father out of Iraq to safety.

His father refused to leave, however, so Cattan decided to stay as the war raged on. A broad, garrulous man with boundless confidence, Cattan figured he could help rebuild the country, drawing on a past that included an economics doctorate and business ventures including used cars and a pizza parlor.

Cattan was elected to one of the local advisory councils the U.S. set up after the initial combat phase of the war. He soon became close with the U.S. troops that occupied his neighborhood, filled with military officers who served under President Saddam Hussein, who had just been toppled.

By early 2004, as the U.S. moved toward handing sovereignty to the Iraqis, Cattan had caught the eye of American officials who were scrambling to build a new Defense Ministry. The U.S. was starting from scratch. Coalition advisors decided that civilians should lead the new ministry, but under Hussein, the Defense Ministry was run by military officers, meaning there was no pool of experienced Iraqis from which to draw.

In desperation, Americans cast a wide net, sending interested Iraqis to the United States for a three-week crash course on Defense Ministry management. Cattan was one of the first to go.

Upon his return, he rose quickly through the new ministry's ranks, becoming the director of military procurement after the first director's assassination. Cattan was chosen partly because he had done a good job obtaining furniture for the ministry building, one source said.

He impressed U.S. officials in the coalition with his ability to get things done, a trait lacking in many Iraqi government prospects, who had learned to avoid taking the initiative under the Hussein dictatorship.

"He was somebody we recruited, and we were taking a chance on him just like on everybody else," said Frederick Smith, a former Defense Department official who was one of a handful of coalition officials charged with building the ministry. "Ziad is not a choirboy. But he was willing to serve."

As the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority handed over sovereignty in June 2004, the American mission in Iraq shifted its focus to training and equipping Iraqi forces.

Cattan said U.S. officials pressured the Iraqis to begin spending Iraqi funds, which would supplement American spending on arms contracts that had gotten bogged down in the U.S. contracting process. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the training mission, and Nick Beadle, a British Defense Ministry official who was chief advisor to the Iraqi Defense Ministry, declined to comment.

All of sudden, Cattan had $600 million to spend, with a mandate to spend it by the end of December under Iraqi budgeting rules.

In September, Cattan said, he signed the first of 38 contracts with Bumar, Poland's state arms dealer, which would total more than $400 million. Bumar is supposed to supply Iraq with 36 Russian and Polish transport helicopters and 600 Polish armored personnel trucks.

Petraeus and Beadle both objected to the helicopters, according to interviews with military advisors, saying they were not a top priority when Iraqi soldiers still needed basic equipment such as guns and bulletproof vests.

"It was a question of what was the greatest need given the resources available to them and the coalition, and at the same time, whether they had the capacity not only to buy it, but to maintain and sustain it," one military official said.

The Iraqis later objected to the helicopters as well, declaring them too old to fly. A delegation of Iraqi test pilots who visited Bumar's production facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, declined to sign papers to finalize the sale. The current Iraqi government has since rebuffed Bumar's offers to ship the helicopters.

Cattan and Bumar officials acknowledged that some helicopters were 25 years old, but defended the purchase.

Bumar President Roman Baczynski said in an interview that his company has already prepared 10 new Russian MI-17 helicopters for delivery. The rest of the helicopters are used and must be overhauled, including eight manufactured between 1978 and 1986.

Baczynski arranged for a Times reporter to tour a production plant outside Warsaw where the armored personnel trucks were being prepared. The factory will produce about 20 vehicles a month, mostly by hand, at an average cost of $167,000 each. The boxy, beige trucks have metal-reinforced tires, space for 10 soldiers and armor sufficient to stop an AK-47 round.

But during a test drive, the reporter could not manage to propel the heavy truck up a 45-degree, 8-foot-high incline from a standing start; a test driver had to back the vehicle up to build momentum. Bumar officials said the truck only had a 150-horsepower engine — about the same as a Mazda Miata.

"The engine size was their decision," a Bumar executive said. "We adjust to the client's requirements — and cost was a factor for them."

Besides the quality of the material, U.S. and Iraqi officials have raised questions in audits and financial reviews about the possibility of fraud in the payment mechanism.

The Polish contracts, like others signed by Cattan, were paid in cash, up front — both violations of Iraqi contracting regulations, according to a confidential audit by the Iraqi Supreme Board of Audit obtained by The Times.

Many of the contracts signed by Cattan passed through companies run by Iraqi businessman Naer Mohammed Jumaili, whom Cattan had gotten to know while on the advisory council, according to Cattan and the audit. Cattan said he worked closely with Jumaili and other businessmen who owned cash-transfer companies, which exchange currency and move it outside the country. Cattan said he awarded them reconstruction contracts as they provided information on insurgent money flowing into Iraq.

"They supported me to become a big man in Iraq," Cattan said of Jumaili and the other businessmen, whom he referred to as "my friends."

He said he turned to Jumaili during the weapons deals because Jumaili was Bumar's sole registered agent in Iraq — a claim Bumar denied. Cattan also said he used Jumaili's services because it was the only way to move money out of Iraq. In a complicated series of transactions, the Defense Ministry would issue a check to Jumaili's firm, which would cash the check at an Iraqi bank. Jumaili or Cattan would then coordinate the physical movement of sacks of cash to banks in Jordan, according to interviews and documents.

All told, nearly $1 billion worth of contracts were signed with Jumaili's companies, according to the audit. Cattan said Jumaili charged 1% for his services. If true, Jumaili could have earned up to $10 million in fees. Jumaili could not be reached for comment.

U.S., Iraqi and coalition officials said they didn't know about the enormous cash transfers until after one especially large shipment of $300 million became public last winter, when ministry officials were spotted loading bags stuffed with $100 bills onto a flight to Jordan.

U.S.-appointed military advisors conducted a high-level financial review of the ministry's books, resulting in a determination in February of a "high risk of fraud," according to two sources with knowledge of the review.

That review, in turn, sparked a more thorough examination by the Supreme Board of Audit, one of three anti-fraud Iraqi agencies supported by the U.S. government to crack down on corruption.

The May report, which reviewed 89 contracts worth $1.3 billion signed between June 28, 2004, and Feb. 28, was sharply critical. Auditors could not find contract copies, payment receipts or verify that equipment had been received. The audit criticized Cattan's cash payments as a "flagrant violation of the state monetary policy."

Iyad Allawi, the U.S.-appointed interim Iraqi prime minister at the time of the deals, said he wasn't aware that Cattan was using private intermediaries to transfer cash. He charged that the accusations of corruption within his Cabinet were politically motivated.

"I don't think it is fair at all that we shift focus from Saddam and the corruption during Saddam's time … to a period of six to seven months when I was prime minister," said Allawi, who noted that he initiated three investigations. "That is not to say that there is no corruption — there is, of course, corruption."

Another contract called into question by the auditors and U.S. officials involved Wye Oak Technology, a Pennsylvania firm run by Dale Stoffel, an American arms broker. Stoffel, who was killed in a roadside attack after reporting his concerns about corruption at the Defense Ministry, was the subject of previous Times stories.

Stoffel had an agreement worth up to $283 million to refurbish Iraqi tanks and sell scrap metal abroad, according to interviews and documents. When Cattan was slow to pay invoices, Stoffel complained to the Pentagon that the Iraqis were demanding kickbacks by insisting that only certain contractors be hired, according to letters obtained by The Times.

Cattan said he was reluctant to pay the contract because he received only a "vague invoice." He said U.S. officials regularly pressured him to pay Wye Oak.

Army Col. David Styles, the Petraeus deputy who was in charge of the tank project, acknowledged pressuring Cattan, but only because he wanted the project to progress, he says.

Styles also said Cattan used money from the project to buy tens of thousands of bulletproof vests that fell apart and helmets "which were no better than the helmets I got as a kid from [the] toy store."

"The fact that Cattan did not want money paid unless it was to a contractor he personally approved was the problem," Styles said in response to e-mailed questions.

Although U.S. and Iraqi officials believe the chaotic spending harmed the effort to develop Iraqi forces, they disagree about the nature of the effect.

Iraqi officials believe that as much as $500 million has been wasted. They say that Iraqi soldiers are unable to fight effectively and are at greater risk because they lack good-quality weapons, armored vehicles and other supplies as a result of the questionable purchases. More than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have died this year.

"The Americans have spent two years building the Iraqi forces," said Hadi Amery, an Iraqi legislator and head of the Badr Brigade militia, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a top political party. "What have you done through these two years?"

U.S. officials say the scale of corruption is far smaller, and that its effect on Iraqi troop readiness is smaller too.

One U.S. military official said some of Iraq's battalions could have improved their combat readiness had the Iraqis focused more on buying critically needed items instead of equipment such as helicopters.

"There clearly was some impact from Ziad's practices," the military official said. "However, it was not clear that it was all that substantial." The Americans said they did all they could, but that the Iraqis made final decisions.

Such assertions puzzle Iraqis. How is it, they say, that the U.S. could have allowed such slipshod execution of such an important task?

"We have American experts in the Defense Ministry," said Radhi, the official investigating the corruption. "When they saw such violations, why didn't they do something? They are experts."

Moore reported from Baghdad, Warsaw and Amman, Jordan; and Miller from Washington.

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9/11 terror link found at Net site in SpringsFBI checked e-mail of jailed Moussaoui

Karen Abbott
Rocky Mountain News

Eight days after terrorists hijacked four airplanes and flew them into U.S. buildings, an FBI agent asked a federal judge in Colorado for permission to search an e-mail account named greenlab@usa.net.

The account belonged to Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of being the 20th hijacker. He was unable to join the others on Sept. 11, 2001, however, because he was in jail in Minnesota.

Nineteen hijackers died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an unknown location, which was spared when the fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

The Internet service provider hosting Moussaoui's e-mail account was Colorado Springs-based USA.Net Inc. Colorado U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Watanabe issued the search warrant at the request of FBI Special Agent Steve Fedastion on Sept. 19, 2001. The warrant and other documents in the case remained sealed until last month.

Whatever authorities found in greenlab@usa.net has not been made public in Colorado U.S. District Court, but they were searching for a list of possibilities, from general travel and financial information to any mention of Osama bin Laden or the word jihad, or holy war.

Moussaoui was behind bars because Timothy Nelson, a flight instructor in Eagan, Minn., had tipped the FBI on Aug. 15, 2001, to a student who seemed "suspicious."

Moussaoui had paid between $8,000 and $9,000 in cash to train on a Boeing 747 Model 400 aircraft simulator and started his training about Aug. 13.

"What set Moussaoui apart from all other students in Nelson's experience was that he had no aviation background, and to Nelson's knowledge, no pilot's license," court documents said. "Nelson also considered it odd that Moussaoui indicated that all he wished to learn was how to take off and land the 747 Model 400, giving the reason that this was an 'ego-boosting thing.'"

Federal authorities discovered that Moussaoui was a French citizen who had entered the United States from the United Kingdom, where he was living, on Feb. 23, 2001. He had a visa waiver allowing him stay 90 days, but he had overstayed that limit when he turned up in Minnesota.

Federal authorities arrested him on Aug. 16, 2001, and jailed him in Elk River, Minn. He was still there when terrorists attacked on 9/11.

Federal authorities obtained a warrant that day to search Moussaoui's laptop computer and other belongings. Moussaoui was moved out of the county jail three days after the attacks.

The next day, a man who had been jailed with him told authorities that he had asked Moussaoui if he knew bin Laden. "Moussaoui put his finger over his lips and pointed at the jail surveillance camera," court documents said.

Another man said he heard Moussaoui
declare just after the terrorist attacks: "It's not over yet. All the presidents are going to get it. Clinton and Bush will die. Our goal was 20,000 lives, and I wish it was more."

Moussaoui is awaiting trial in Virginia on charges in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

The trial has been delayed by prosecutors' objections on national
security grounds to Moussaoui's wish to call witnesses who are members of al-Qaida. Moussaoui's request is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A written brief asking the high court to consider the question was made public Thursday. It was filed Jan. 10 but withheld for the removal of classified information.

abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5188

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Why the Syrian Internal Opposition is Afraid, Weak, and Probably Controled by the Syrian Intelligence Apparatus

Harold's List
In Syria, a sagging opposition
Dissidents see no gain in a fallen regime
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff

DAMASCUS -- Authoritarian Syria has so thoroughly quashed organized opposition that even the most committed dissidents find themselves in a depressing bind: They're willing to risk prison by speaking out against the regime but are so convinced of their own weakness that they don't want the regime to fall, fearing that only chaos would follow.

Haitham al-Maleh, a 74-year-old human rights lawyer considered one of the most influential opposition leaders, neatly sums up the plight. ''We have a problem: The opposition is weak," he said.
Despite his visceral anger at the government he calls a fascist dictatorship, he doesn't want to see it collapse, because he doesn't think there's anything to replace it.

''We believe in change step by step," Maleh said. ''We don't want to jump and break our necks."

The opposition's state of disarray and powerlessness testifies to a successful Ba'ath Party strategy under the Assad family dynasty, which after 35 years in power has left Syrians with no real political alternative. The dictatorship outlawed competing political parties and also all social and political institutions not under its direct control, from labor unions to sport clubs.

Such a dispirited opposition poses a great challenge to Syrian dissidents, internal party reformists, and US policy makers, who espouse a policy of changing the regime or its behavior but have no powerful partner in Syrian society. Proponents of regime change in Syria would have to look elsewhere -- perhaps in Syria's ruling elite, in the military, even in the underground Islamist Muslim Brotherhood -- for a strong hand to replace the Assad family clique.

Under the loose surveillance of Syria's secret police, those dissidents who aren't in prison or were recently released talk in public and on the record with surprising candor about the corruption of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Syria's dissidents have spent long terms in jail for speaking out, but despite their new high-tech tools -- cellphones, e-mail, and web logs -- they languish virtually unknown to the Syrian public and the outside world.

Dissidents are allowed to talk to the international media but not to hold meetings, organize political parties, or publish criticism inside Syria's borders.

Syrian intelligence agents tap their phones and watch their homes. But the dissidents think the government allows them to talk to the foreign media because it considers the opposition harmless and wants to present an image of political openness to the international community.

The opposition includes Ba'ath Party insiders who moderate critical websites and forums; television actors renowned for their starring roles on daytime soap operas and their veiled references to the social decay of the calcified Ba'athist culture; teenage bloggers and bearded musicians, human rights lawyers, journalists, and satellite television commentators.

But in the cafes of Damascus, as they smoke their way through hourlong tirades, many are just as likely to denounce US imperialism or Zionist conspiracies as they are the Assad regime. Many expressed fear of being seen by the Arab world as co-opted US agents, like some of the Iraqi exiles who took power in Iraq after the American invasion.

''I have always said, if I were younger I would have gone to Iraq to fight the Americans myself," said Maleh, who spent seven years in prison in the 1980s for a suspected role in the rebellion against the government by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Yassin Haj Saleh, 44, a Communist Party leader who spent 16 years in jail, also takes pains to distance himself from Washington. ''I'm against the regime, but I'm not with the United States," he said.

Since his release in 1996, Saleh's travel has been curtailed, but he has been free to speak with foreign reporters.

He's just as worried about the prospect of UN sanctions as he is about the renewed internal crackdown by the Syrian regime since it pulled out of Lebanon.

The opposition believes the government in the past three months has arrested hundreds of Syrians, many accused of being Islamic extremists.

But Saleh thinks the efforts of dissidents, and the suffering they have endured, barely registers with the Syrian public. ''I think people from the US know the reason why I was in jail more than Syrians," he said, laughing.

This defeated air is the legacy of President Assad's ''Damascus Spring," a short period of openness and political dialogue he ushered in when he took office in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad.

Now, reformers inside the party find themselves with waning influence.

Ayman Abdel Nour, a senior member of the Ba'ath Party, tried to foster the internal debate and reforms that he supports by hosting a website, www.all4syria.org. Last year, the government suddenly shut down the site.

It was one of the last turns of the screw in the government's conclusive silencing of the Damascus Spring, according to Ba'athist reformers and dissidents outside the government.

Within a year after Assad took office, authorities had arrested the 10 leading politicians and intellectuals Assad had encouraged to foster democratic dialogue.

By the time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon was assassinated in February, provoking an international crisis that swept Damascus and Beirut, political winter had thoroughly replaced the Damascus Spring.

For insiders like Nour, that has meant an erosion of influence.

''I am a reformer. But we have no weight," Nour said. The government and the Ba'ath Party can distribute jobs, money, privileges, and controls the state media, he said. ''The opposition has nothing," he said.

At smoky coffee shops like the chic modern cafe in the Cham Palace Hotel or the nearby outdoor Rawda Cafe, with its outdoor old-fashioned Arab fountain and backgammon sets, the dissidents hop from table to table, making sweeping declarations over little cups of coffee.

They have little else to do.

''The Ba'athists decided to substitute the party for society," said Omar Amiralay, a film director who has made a scathing documentary about the party's control of Syrian life, titled ''Flood in Ba'ath Country."

''The only civil society practicing politics, culture, social activities, is the Ba'ath Party. You have to join the party to have any opportunities."

Television is the last flourishing bastion of Syria's culture of public intellectuals.

Bassam Kousa, star of a popular dramatic series broadcast throughout the Arab world, says television must avoid head-on discussion of politics but can explore many social ills -- from the unbridled power of fathers in extended families to such sensitive matters as sex and AIDS.

''I'm not optimistic, not anymore," said Omar Kouch, 47, a dissident intellectual who abandoned quantum mechanics to write about culture and politics for Arab newspapers published outside Syria.

''I think the regime has made things such that if it falls, the country will collapse," he said. ''So we can't allow the regime to fall. We are really scared of tomorrow."

The opposition's biggest move since 2001, when Assad cut short the Damascus Spring experiment, was the Oct. 16 signing of the Damascus Declaration. Normally fractious and competing groups -- Islamic and secular, Arab nationalist and non-Arab minority -- joined in calling for substantive democratic reforms, including elections, an end to the state of emergency, and the release of political prisoners.

So far it has had little impact.

Dissidents like Maleh have been banned from international travel for the past two years. Those who are party members said they have lowered any expectations of serious reform from within the Ba'ath Party.

Those on the outside, although they harbor few illusions about their level of power or organization, still fear returning to jail.

"We are under a fascist dictatorship," Maleh said. "Nothing is changing now. Most of the people are still afraid."

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Chalabi Goes to Tehran to get Iran to Stop Interferring in Iraqi Politics

Harold's List
Chalabi, in Tehran, Meets With Iranian President Before Traveling to U.S. Next Week
New York Times
by Dexter Filkins

TEHRAN, Nov. 5 - Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile who has become a deputy prime minister, met with senior Iranian leaders here on Saturday in what appeared to be an effort to distance himself from them, just days before he visits Washington.

In a series of closed meetings, Mr. Chalabi saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tough-talking Iranian president; Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mattaki; and Ali Larijani, the head of the Iranian National Security Council.

Mr. Chalabi said he had spoken to the Iranians about an issue that seemed likely to endear him to the Americans: the question of Iranian interference in Iraq's domestic politics.

American and some Iraqi officials have long alleged that the Iranian government is deeply involved in Iraqi internal affairs, by directly assisting Iraqi political parties and private Shiite militias.

"The principal reason is to tell them about our concern about some of the activities in Iraq," Mr. Chalabi said of the Iranians. "We feel it is very important to address some of these issues, like border security and so on."

Mr. Chalabi said he also made clear to the Iranians that the Iraqi government would maintain close ties to the United States.

"It is important to emphasize and tell them very clearly that we working with the United States and they have come to help us liberate Iraq and that we are interested in having a decent Iraq," Mr. Chalabi said. "It is very important that they help us achieve that."

The timing of the visit, which both sides said came at the Iranians' request, suggested the possibility that Mr. Chalabi might have been asked to carry a message from the Iranians to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at their scheduled meeting next week. Mr. Chalabi is also scheduled later to meet the Treasury secretary, John W. Snow.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, a strict Islamist elected in June, has become increasingly isolated in recent weeks.

In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency rebuked Iran for noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty over its insistence on developing advanced nuclear technologies. In a speech on Oct. 26, Mr. Ahmadinejad created a stir when he told a rally of Iranian students that Israel should be "wiped off the map." After those remarks, Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, postponed a visit scheduled for the coming week.

But Mr. Chalabi said he had not been asked by the Iranians to mediate with the Americans. Mr. Larijani, the head of the national security council, also said his government had made no such request.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who appeared before reporters before meeting with Mr. Chalabi on Saturday, did not speak publicly.

In an interview, Mr. Larijani reiterated his government's intention to continue developing advanced nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The Bush administration says Iran is hiding its effort to build nuclear weapons.

"The pressure they are putting on Iran over its nuclear program, it will only result in more hatred for America," Mr. Larijani said, reiterating his government's position that it did not intend to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr. Chalabi's visit may be connected to Iraq's parliamentary elections, scheduled for Dec. 15. The events of Saturday suggested that Mr. Chalabi had embarked on a campaign to reposition himself as a secular, American-backed candidate, and, perhaps, an alternative to the Shiite alliance that currently dominates the government in Baghdad.

Earlier this month, Mr. Chalabi said he had dropped out of the Islamist-dominated Shiite coalition that dominated the Iraqi elections in January and that was strongly supported by the Iranian government.

While the exact circumstances of Mr. Chalabi's departure from the Shiite alliance is unclear, Mr. Chalabi said he no longer wanted to be part of what he described as an Islamist coalition. "My intention was to give people in Iraq who are Muslim but who do not support the Islamist parties a choice," Mr. Chalabi said.

Mr. Chalabi's move toward secular leadership appears to signal a new phase in his political maneuvering.

As an exile, he was long a favorite of the Defense Department. But after the American-led invasion, he took a harshly critical line on the efforts of foreign military forces and relations with the Bush administration soured. Last year, he aligned himself with overtly Islamist leaders, including the firebrand cleric Moktada al-Sadr. During that period, the Bush administration accused Mr. Chalabi of divulging classified information to the Iranians.

Mr. Chalabi denied that charge. The outcome of the investigation is not known.

In an interview following his meeting with Iranian leaders, Mr. Chalabi said he had secured a promise that they would not oppose him if he made a run at becoming Iraq's prime minister.

"Clearly I am not going to be a candidate for prime minister because they tell me to," Mr. Chalabi said of the Iranians. "They certainly expressed support for the idea that if the process is done locally then they would not oppose it."

It was impossible to verify that assertion, but Mr. Larijani said that Iranian leaders held Mr. Chalabi in high regard. "He is a very wise man and a very useful person for the future of Iraq," he said.

For their part, Iranian leaders asserted that they had indeed exercised a strong force in internal Iraqi politics, and they said they intended to continue to do so. Last January, after the Shiite coalition's selection of Ibrahim al-Jafaari as its choice to be prime minister, rumors swirled about Baghdad that the Iranians had intervened strongly on his behalf.

When asked about this, Mr. Larijani said the Iranians had indeed intervened strongly with Iraq's Shiite leaders, but he said the Iranians had not sided with a particular candidate.

"America should consider this power as legitimate," Mr. Larijani said of his country's role in Iraqi affairs. "They should not fight it."

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Rebels Dressed as Women Attack Iraqi Police Station

EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 5 - Insurgent attacks across central Iraq, including one in which the guerrillas disguised themselves as women, left at least 16 dead on Friday as Shiite Arabs across the country began celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In the deadliest assault, insurgents dressed in women's clothing attacked a police checkpoint in the town of Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 6 police officers and wounding at least 10 others, American and Iraqi officials said. The guerrillas were armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and pulled up in five cars, an Interior Ministry official said. The police officers killed at least two of the gunmen, he added.

Maj. Steven Warren, a spokesman for the Third Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, which is charged with controlling western Diyala Province, said the insurgents were disguised as women.

The area around Buhriz and Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, has been plagued by a recent string of insurgent attacks. Last Saturday, a suicide car bomb exploded in a market in the predominantly Shiite village of Huwaider, killing at least 25 people and wounding 30 others.

South of Baghdad on Friday, an American soldier was killed by small-arms fire, according to the military, which said it was investigating.

The military also reported that last Saturday it had killed five senior members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an airstrike in the western town of Husayba. The military said three safe houses had been destroyed. It said one of those killed was a North African militant known as Abu Asil, who was involved in smuggling arms and fighters across the Middle East. The report could not be independently verified.

Early Saturday morning, American and Iraqi troops began a large-scale assault on Husayba, a town that American officials say has become a bastion of the insurgency. The operation, involving more than 3,000 troops and led by the Marines, is the latest in a series of sweeps to choke off insurgent strongholds in the Euphrates River corridor and cut supply routes for foreign fighters and munitions entering from Syria.

Marine commanders said the operations appeared to be the largest military assault in Iraq since the invasion of Falluja last November. Troops were searching house by house and appeared to meet no resistance in the initial stages.

Maj. Dean Wollan, an intelligence officer for the Third Brigade, said in an interview that he had expected an increase in violence toward the end of Ramadan.

On Thursday, Sunni Muslims began the three-day celebration known as Id al-Fitr, which signifies the end of Ramadan. Shiite Muslims began the celebration on Friday, as did Shiites in Iran. Many Iraqis in Baghdad have chosen to stay home rather than drive to visit relatives, as they traditionally do, because of the rampant violence here in the capital.

In Tuz Khurmato, near the northern city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb explosion killed five members of a commando unit called Al Raad Brigade and injured five others, police officials said. The commandos were guarding a convoy of 20 fuel tankers on their way to Baghdad. The explosion set aflame one of the guard vehicles and those in it, said Col. Ali al-Obeidi, a Kirkuk police official.

In the Dawra district of southern Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed three civilians and injured six others, an Interior Ministry official said. West of the capital, near Abu Ghraib prison, a mortar round landed on a home and killed a child and wounded the mother and another child, The Associated Press reported. Gunmen killed a former Iraqi Air Force colonel as he drove through Baghdad.

A minivan crashed into an American tank in Dawra in the morning, killing at least three civilians and injuring at least six others, the Interior Ministry official said.

After sunset, a series of explosions resounded through Baghdad, but there was no immediate word as to the cause.

The American military said a soldier from the First Corps Support Command died Thursday in a noncombat incident near Tallil. At least 2,038 American troops have died in the war.

Kirk Semple contributed reporting from Husayba, Iraq, for this article, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Baghdad.

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Horn of a dilemma

The UN has warned that a build-up of tensions--and troops--along the Ethiopia-Eritrean border could lead to another outbreak of war. Speaking in early November, Rajender Singh, head of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), commented “I am not saying that things which are happening today will lead tomorrow to war. But a situation may in fact deteriorate to that level in which the worst can happen. And the worst is the war, of course.”

The two sides have existed in an uneasy peace since the end of a two-year border conflict in 2000. Both are awaiting a new date for the physical demarcation of their common border--a process originally scheduled for completion by November 2003, but yet to commence. Indeed, in October the Eritrean government banned UNMEE helicopters from using Eritrean air space, a development that significantly reduced the UN’s ability to monitor the situation in the temporary security zone, because this was largely dependent on aerial surveillance.

There are two possible interpretations of Asmara’s decision. Some observers suggest that the goal is to force the border issue higher up the international agenda. Eritrea suspects that the international community is both weary of the dispute and biased in favour of Ethiopia--a claim that is not totally unjustified since Ethiopia has sought to avoid the “final and binding” border ruling on a technicality, by agreeing to it only in principle. The alternative interpretation, fuelled by strong words about Eritrea defending its territorial integrity by “any means possible”, is that Eritrea is gearing up for a resumption of the military conflict. Asmara continues to rebuff appeals for dialogue and UN mediation until Ethiopia accepts the boundary ruling in full.

The Ethiopian government is highly unlikely to do so, however, particularly given its current domestic difficulties. The ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) may have won the May elections, but the two main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Front, increased their representation to 161 seats from just 12 in the 2000 poll. More to the point, the opposition remains convinced that the EPRDF “stole” the poll, and this has led to periodic outbursts of unrest and violence within--and, as of early November--outside the capital.

It is not yet clear whether the CUD will take its 109 seats in parliament, and it is still possible that there will be a steady increase in co-operation between the government and the opposition once the intensity of the election period begins to fade. However, given the lack of trust between the two sides a prolonged and tense stand-off seems more likely. What is certain is that the opposition’s strong showing does not bode well for a settlement of the border dispute. The opposition rejects the limited peace overtures previously made by the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, to Eritrea, and does not recognise Eritrea’s secession from Ethiopia in the early 1990s. Although the opposition will not set Ethiopia’s agenda, its strong electoral performance will make Mr Meles's government even more reluctant than before to find a solution to the border crisis--and perhaps more willing to indulge in sabre-rattling. As it is, Ethiopia has been moving troops to the border--indeed, the country is thought to have nearly half of its armoured units in the area. There is a clear risk, therefore, that what Major-General Singh terms a “miscalculation” by one or other side could lead to renewed conflict.

Most observers consider Ethiopia to be militarily stronger than Eritrea, and think that it would win any renewed fighting. In the final push of the 1998-2000 border war, for example, Ethiopia pushed deep inside Eritrean territory and stopped voluntarily before taking the capital. Additionally, since 2000 Ethiopia has benefited from consistent international support (military, economic and political), whereas Eritrea has suffered the effects of closed borders, the destruction of war, economic decline and drought.

Hopefully the Eritrean government is also aware of these realities, and is indeed trying to raise the international profile of the border dispute, rather than preparing for war. The problem is that while the international community is determined to prevent any fresh conflict, some form of intervention by one or more countries with influence over both governments is not yet forthcoming.

SOURCE: ViewsWire Africa

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DOSSIER: Gen. Assaf Shawkat

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com

Syria's most powerful man is married to Basher Assad's sister

Over the past decade, Shawkat turned from being an outsider arrested by Assad's late father and president, Hafez, for wooing his daughter, to the most powerful man in Syria, responsible for the military and intelligence service.

Gen. Assaf Shawkat

• Position: Head of Syrian military intelligence
• Age: 55
• Whereabouts: Damascus

Assaf Shawkat plans to fight tooth and nail to prevent any international effort to prosecute him on charges of ordering the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. And if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is toppled — then so be it.

Shawkat has been identified as the leading suspect in the killing of Hariri in February 2005. A United Nations investigation determined that Shawkat planned the assassination and prepared a bogus claim of responsibility by a fictitious Islamic group headed by a Palestinian Ahmed Abu Addas.

"Gen. Assaf Shawkat forced Mr. Abu Addas to record the tape approximately 15 days before the assassination in Damascus," the UN report submitted to the Security Council said.

Shawkat is related to the Assad family by marriage, but his rise to power has been meteoric. Over the past decade, Shawkat turned from being an outsider arrested by Assad's late father and president, Hafez, for wooing his daughter, to the most powerful man in Syria, responsible for the military and intelligence service.

In 1995, Shawkat married the late president's outspoken daughter, Bushra, and began to take control of state and military security agencies. He has also been regarded as the leading confidante of Bashar, president since 2000.

Assad cannot give up Shawkat without agreeing to surrender his younger brother, Maher. Maher, head of the Presidential Guard and a bitter rival of Shawkat's, was said to have participated in the Hariri assassination and also stands to be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

The Assad children: from left to right (back row): Maher, Bashar,
Basil, Majid, and Bushra.

"If indeed there is a Syrian national implicated, he would be considered as a traitor and most severely punished," Assad told
CNN. "Where the trial will take place [is] different.

"The apparent killing of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan did not satisfy UN investigators. Indeed, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis wants to dig deeper in the Assad regime to determine how he was killed and why. Any attempt by Shawkat to place sole responsibility for the Hariri assassination on Kanaan, who headed Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon from 1982 until 2002, utterly failed.

Mehlis, head of the UN investigation, was not fooled into believing that Kanaan ordered the assassination. Kanaan was no longer the Syrian lord of Lebanon and, if anything, relations between the interior minister and Shawkat were strained for nearly a year.

Western intelligence sources said Shawkat suspected Kanaan of organizing a coup against the regime following Syria's withdrawal
from Lebanon.

Sources said Shawkat contacted a Lebanese radio station and announced he would cooperate with the UN probe as a clear signal to Assad that he would not be the fall guy. Hours later, Kanaan was killed in what the regime claimed was a suicide.

Western intelligence sources said Shawkat suspected Kanaan of organizing a coup against the regime following Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.

The sources said relations within the Assad circle has become extremely strained. Any of the seven senior Syrian intelligence officers could provide the UN interrogators with the real story and more in exchange for immunity and relocation. The regime has refused a UN request that the seven officers, including Shawkat, be interrogated outside of Syria.

"This was not a rogue operation," a source said. "Assad clearly knew and Shawkat did the work on this assassination. Maher was also heavily involved."

Assad and Shawkat have few choices. They could cooperate and that would mean the prosecution of Assad's brother-in-law and younger brother.

Neither Maher nor Shawkat is prepared to be the sacrificial lamb and either is capable of a coup attempt, including imprisoning or even killing the president.

Another option is that Assad could finger Shawkat but insist that he be tried in Lebanon. At that point, Syrian intelligence would launch a campaign to intimidate the court and witnesses. Again, this would be a dangerous ploy for Assad.

The most likely option is for Assad to try to ride out the storm, to promise cooperation, do extremely little and hope that the international community will soon become preoccupied by another issue. Sources said Syria's two allies — Egypt and Saudi Arabia — were advising on this path.

Yet there is another possibility: Syria would seek to destabilize the Middle East in an effort to up the stakes for the United States.

This could mean a terror campaign in such countries as Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Shawkat runs a huge terror network in the Middle East and he might prefer force in a policy that would be supported by Iran.

Maher Assad.

Indeed, Iran itself has threatened to destabilize the region and oil markets if the UN Security Council decides on sanctions in connection with Teheran's secret nuclear weapons program.

The Bush administration has sought Saudi and Egyptian cooperation to convince Assad to make a deal. Western intelligence sources said the deal would stipulate that Assad surrender a major regime figure, end Sunni insurgency support for the war in Iraq and expel terrorist groups from Damascus. In exchange, Washington would end the pressure on Syria and resume aid to that country.

Arab diplomatic sources said the administration offered Assad such a deal in August 2005. The deal was to have been activated by an Assad announcement to end support for the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. But one source said Assad reneged on his commitment and did not issue any announcement.

In October, a Syrian delegation met in London with Western diplomatic and intelligence officials, including those from the United States. This time, the administration demanded that Assad also cooperate with the Mehlis probe and surrendering any suspects wanted by the UN for interrogation.

Again, Assad kept mum.

"At this very moment, it is clear that the Syrian government is
experiencing its most severe of crises since the 1973 war," said
Abdul Rahman Al Rashid, a leading Saudi analyst and chief of the
Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite television. "Damascus has a few
options at hand," he said.

"In such crises, political wisdom must be the main actor in which the safety of the country should precede that of individuals," Al Rashid continued.

"Public interest must come before personal interest, and finally the bitter taste of accusation should be swallowed so as to avoid potential sanctions."

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Adamov could reveal nuclear secrets

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com

The extradition of former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny
Adamov to the United States could provide an intelligence windfall
for the United States on Moscow's nuclear arms program.

Adamov has been held for months in Switzerland and the government
has agreed to extradite him to the United States to face charges
related to the theft of $9 million in U.S. funds provided to boost
security at Russian nuclear facilities.
Mary Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, recently visited Moscow as part of the investigation.
Moscow also has charged Adamov with corruption.

U.S. officials said Adamov, who was atomic energy minister until
2000, had access to secrets about Moscow's nuclear arsenal that
would be useful for strategic planners.

Russian officials fear that if Adamov is extradited to the United
States, he will reveal what he knows of the Russian arsenal in
exchange for a plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors.

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ISLAMIC STRUGGLES SPREAD TO RUSSIAN NORTH CAUCASUS

By Georgie Anne Geyer

WASHINGTON -- Researching and reporting foreign news is a delicate business. Ideally, you are in a country, enmeshed in a society, for at least some weeks, taking the moral and intellectual temperature of regimes and peoples and ages. Such first-hand work is always, of course, enhanced by studying the history and literature of the land and culture.

But now we have something new in foreign correspondence, and I have just had a prime lesson in this new way of reporting. Not surprisingly, it depends on the endless wonders of e-mail and the Internet. In my case, it has to do with an old and accomplished friend who has become an invaluable tool for me in keeping up with the innermost -- and largely unreported, until now -- changes inside Russia.

Paul Goble has been a friend of mine for at least 20 years. He is a big, bluff, utterly brilliant scholar and reporter whose work graced the airwaves of Radio Free Europe for many years and, most recently, Voice of America. A man with an ironic sense of humor, and a way of digging out the most absurd tidbits of every people's convoluted histories and laughing about them until he cries, Paul always seems to know everything.

About a year ago, he stopped by and told me he was moving with his daughter to Estonia. That charming and advanced little state atop the Baltic Sea had long been of special interest to him, and his daughter was going to attend school there. I thought it was "'Bye, Paul" -- but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it was not really goodbye at all.

Instead, I began finding on my e-mail the most fascinating articles by him, facilitated by the fact that he was living there and could read even the most obscure, but revealing, papers. And I was "seeing" Russia in a wholly different, and surely deeper, way.

Paul's stories, which he sends usually twice a week to me and apparently to many of his friends, began several months ago telling one crucial story: While the world was watching the spread of Islam in Europe, the violent riots in France, the disenchantment with tolerance in Holland and the nervousness about the Turks in Germany, Russia was enduring its own deadly fear of "Islamization."

One could only realize this by being there and carefully reading the press.

There are now probably 24 million Muslims among 143 million people in the Russian Federation alone. Between 500,000 and 1 million are radicals, "followers of sects of Islamic origin who call for the physical destruction of all who disagree and the overthrow of the existing system by force." The government's "lack of a clearly defined and agreed-upon policy on how best to deal with the Muslims" has seriously exacerbated inter-ethnic relations.

Then in mid-October came an actual battle in Nalchik, the capital of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. The uprising left 92 Islamist militants and 24 police and civilians dead. The battle was wholly unexpected because this republic is next door to Chechnya, where a brutal war has been waged by Moscow against the Chechens since the late 1980s. It was the first time that the wars of the Caucasus peoples against Moscow's iron fist had moved outside of Chechnya.

Analysts quoted by Paul and others noted that the militants were "local clandestine groups" and no longer "rebel incursions" from Chechnya. Alexey Malashenko, a Caucasus expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center, was quoted in the Financial Times: "This attack wasn't connected with Chechnya. It was to demonstrate that there is a big problem in the north Caucasus that includes all the republics."

Paul Goble, again. This time, his column was headlined, "Moscow Losing in North Caucasus Because of 'Soviet' Approach." In short, Paul wrote that Moscow was persisting in striking brutally with the Russian military, but such hoary Soviet tactics were succeeding only in driving more of the historically rebellious Caucasus peoples against them. Moscow has "almost a third of the forces of its army there," he wrote, "and this disposition means that this region as a whole now has more soldiers per square kilometer than any other place in Europe."

In addition, he writes, today's Russia -- the sickman of the Steppes -- is going through a "serious systemic failure." And amidst this gradual, but serious, dissolution within the Russian Federation's failure of modernization suddenly come radical Muslims, spreading out of the "old war" in Chechnya and into hitherto more-or-less peaceful parts of the Caucasus, and bringing the wars ever closer to Moscow.

This is an important foreign news story, but one that you won't see reported much. It jibes completely with the fears of an "Islamization" of Europe that one is hearing more and more, and with the fears of inner breakdown of countries leaving room for the radicals to move in. Thanks, Paul!

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No leeway due Iran

Banafsheh's List
Washington Times
By Kenneth R. Timmerman

Senior U.S. officials will tell Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today it is not yet time to refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council for further action.

They will suggest the Iranian leadership has been taken aback by the strong international reaction to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent statements that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and is ready to compromise.

As a sign the leadership is moving in this direction, they will note former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani's "conciliatory" comments in Tehran last week. (Mr. Rafsanjani argued that instead of wiping Israel off the map directly, Iran should support the "right" of return of Palestinians to Israel and let them do the job by voting Israel out of existence -- a freedom neither he nor Iran's ruling clerics is willing to grant their fellow Iranians.) Given these signs of "moderation," the United States should allow the European Union "more time" to negotiate with Tehran, these officials will urge.

These arguments not only wrong; they are dangerous.

(1) Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments on Israel are the consensus view among Iran's leadership, not an extremist view.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps, from which Mr. Ahmadinejad emerged, regularly parades Shahab-3 missiles in Tehran with large banners that read, "Israel must be wiped off the map."

Photos of these displays have appeared repeatedly in the Iranian press and the international media. Until now, they have been virtually ignored.

Iran designed the Shahab-3 with Israel in mind. Iran did not need a 800-mile range missile to hit Iraq, where shorter-range Oghabs and SCUDs on hand in 1988 did the trick quite well. Nor does Iran have any reason to design a longer-range missile capable of hitting Turkey or the Central Asian Republics.

This regime has consistently put the destruction of Israel and its main ally, the United States, at the very center of its ideology and policies.

(2) Mr. Rafsanjani's "moderate" views are exaggerated. Iran analysts have consistently misrepresented Mr. Rafsanjani as a "moderate" and as "pro-Western," a man we can "deal with."

In fact, Mr. Rafsanjani restarted Iran's nuclear weapons program in 1986, by hosting a nuclear technology conference and personally inviting Iranian nuclear scientists in exile to return. He continues to be the program's staunchest supporter.

On Dec. 14, 2001, Mr. Rafsanjani gave the Jerusalem Day sermon at Tehran University, and openly boasted Iran could wipe Israel off the map with an atomic bomb. "The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the world of Islam [i.e., Iran] would [only] cause damage," he said.

March 6, Mr. Rafsanjani told a two-day international nuclear technology conference in Tehran that Iran would not give up its nuclear technology under any condition. "Definitely we can't stop our nuclear program and we won't stop it. You can't take technology away from a country already possessing it."

(3) The Iranian regime has used the negotiations to complete its nuclear facilities.

Just as Iran said it was preparing to remove International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seals on its nuclear plants in August 2005, former Iranian negotiator Hosein Musavian revealed on Iranian TV the negotiations with Europe were a sham from the start, meant to "buy time" for Iran to complete its nuclear facilities: "Thanks to our dealings with Europe, even when we got a 50-day ultimatum, we managed to continue the work for two years. Today, we are in a position of power."

Allowing Iran to buy more time will only guarantee its additional progress toward nuclear weapons capabilities. The U.S. cannot risk allowing the world's most flagrant international terror sponsor to become a nuclear weapons-capable state.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should instruct the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Greg Scholte, to strongly urge the IAEA Board of Governors on Nov. 24 to refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, where further steps can be taken to compel compliance with its nonproliferation obligations.

Referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council is no guarantee but it is the necessary next step if the world community is to get serious about enforcing treaty obligations and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist states.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is author of "Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran," Crown Forum.

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Investigate the CIA

Harold's List
By VICTORIA TOENSING
November 3, 2005; Page A12 Wal Street Journal

In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was "covert," or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the "leak" investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column. Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct that led inexorably to Ms. Plame's unveiling.

When the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was being negotiated, Senate Select Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater was adamant: If the CIA desired a law making it illegal to expose one of its deep cover employees, then the agency must do a much better job of protecting their cover. That is why a criterion for any prosecution under the act is that the government was taking "affirmative measures" to conceal the protected person's relationship to the intelligence agency. Two decades later, the CIA, either purposely or with gross negligence, made a series of decisions that led to Ms. Plame becoming a household name.

• First: The CIA sent her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for nonconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.

• Second: Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or who represent CIA clients.

• Third: When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing. That information was not sent to the White House. If this mission to Niger were so important, wouldn't a competent intelligence agency want a thoughtful written assessment from the "missionary," if for no other reason than to establish a record to refute any subsequent misrepresentation of that assessment? Because it was the vice president who initially inquired about Niger and the yellowcake (although he had nothing to do with Mr. Wilson being sent), it is curious that neither his office nor the president's were privy to the fruits of Mr. Wilson's oral report.

• Fourth: Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published. Congressional oversight committees should want to know who at the CIA permitted the publication of the article, which, it has been reported, did not jibe with the thrust of Mr. Wilson's oral briefing. For starters, if the piece had been properly vetted at the CIA, someone should have known that the agency never briefed the vice president on the trip, as claimed by Mr. Wilson in his op-ed.

• Fifth: More important than the inaccuracies is the fact that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame's identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise? The obvious question a sophisticated journalist such as Mr. Novak asked after "Why did the CIA send Wilson?" was "Who is Wilson?" After being told by a still-unnamed administration source that Mr. Wilson's "wife" suggested him for the assignment, Mr. Novak went to Who's Who, which reveals "Valerie Plame" as Mr. Wilson's spouse.

• Sixth: CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only did so, but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish. Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak.

• Seventh: Although high-ranking Justice Department officials are prohibited from political activity, the CIA had no problem permitting its deep cover or classified employee from making political contributions under the name "Wilson, Valerie E.," information publicly available at the FEC.

The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. It is up to Congress to decide which.

Ms. Toensing, a Washington lawyer, is a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.

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The Same War

Harold's List
The New York Sun
Michael Rubin

Hardly a day goes by when an improvised explosive device does not kill or maim a soldier or civilian bystanders. Crude explosives have given way to high quality C4. Sophisticated remote-controlled detonators have replaced gerrymandered devices and increased the lethality of the improvised explosive devices. Public anger toward the government is rising as casualties mount.

Terrorism has returned to Turkey, five years after Ankara had nearly stamped it out. Turkey's success was hard fought. The terrorist campaign of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, had raged through the 1980s and 1990s. Approximately 30,000 people, at least half civilians, died in the violence. Turkey's neighbors - Greece, Iran, Armenia, and Syria - sponsored or supported the group and its leadership financially, materially, or by providing safe-haven to its members. Abdullah Ocalan, the group's founder and commander, resided in Damascus. The Turkish government took a no-nonsense approach to fighting terrorism. In 1998,Turkey almost went to war with Syria over the Syrian regime's support for the PKK. Faced with Ankara's unyielding resolve, the Syrian government expelled Ocalan. Within months, the PKK collapsed. On February 16, 1999, Turkish commandos, working with U.S. support, seized the terrorist leader outside the Greek embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

The PKK's rebound undermines not only the security of an important ally,but also American credibility. On September 20, 2001, President Bush declared, "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." With satellite television broadcast from Europe, fundraising arms in Washington and across the West, and camps in Iraq, the PKK fits the bill. That its victims are Turks does not detract from its importance. That it has rebounded since the liberation of Iraq and now uses Iraqi Kurdistan as a safe haven undercuts the President's war on terrorism.

White House credibility is on the line. Turkish officials say that while attending the June 2004 NATO summit in Istanbul, President Bush promised Prime Minister Erdogan that the American military would address the PKK issue. During a February 6,2005 news conference in Ankara, Secretary of State Rice declared, "Whether it is al-Qaeda or the PKK ... terrorism is simply not an acceptable tool in the modern world." Nothing happened. September 2005 talks between senior U.S. Central Command and European Command generals and their Turkish counterparts went nowhere.

Blame for the PKK revival is not Washington's alone. Masud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, shelters PKK terrorists in his territory. Every winter, his political party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, profits by selling PKK members supplies as they descend from their mountainous hideouts. While Barzani insists that the Kurdish militia and not the Iraqi army should secure his region's northern border, he has failed to use his militia to secure the Iraqi-Turkish border. All but the lucrative formal crossings with Iran and Turkey are unguarded.

The Turkish government has also bungled its own fight against terrorism. Mr. Erdogan's blunders have hurt his military's own fight against the PKK. By criticizing Israel's counterterrorism operations against Hamas as "state terror," he enabled European critics to characterize Turkish operations against the PKK as illegal or ill-advised. By inviting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to vacation in Turkey, the prime minister implied forgiveness for a regime complicit in the deaths of 30,000 Turkish citizens. His explanation that Bashar al-Assad had no role in his father's regime is disingenuous. Mr. Erdogan's continued poor personal relationship with many White House and senior Bush administration officials has also undercut the coordination necessary to defeat the PKK.

Beyond the Bush administration's big picture war on terror, there are also pragmatic concerns. Turkish opinion-makers use U.S. inaction to inflame anti-Americanism. Many Turkish politicians encourage such talk to distract from their own counter-terrorism failings. The cost to the U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership is high.

The PKK has also become a barometer of both the global war on terrorism and American respect for its allies. Here, the Bush administration shows signs of wavering. The solution to terrorism should never be compromise with terrorists. Prior to entering government, Meghan O'Sullivan, newly appointed deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote that America should seek a "more nuanced" approach to terrorism, in which Washington would calibrate penalties to the degree of terrorism. Such positions - never recanted - undermine the president's positions. No terrorism should ever be acceptable. There can be no degrees.

It is a message that, according to Turkish sources, the Bush administration has forgotten. The State Department has proposed Ankara accept a "Grand Bargain" in which the PKK would lay down arms in exchange for amnesty. Such an offer is naive and makes a mockery of the president's war on terrorism. Ankara should not compromise or forgive PKK terrorism any more than should Washington negotiate with or forgive al-Qaeda, a group which has killed far fewer Americans than the PKK has Turks

Terrorists learn from American strategy. If the Bush administration rewards terrorism, groups from Abu Sayyaf to Hamas will conclude that violence pays. The chief casualty of Washington's failure to eradicate PKK safe havens in Iraq or seal the Iraqi border will not be whatever remains of the U.S.-Turkish strategic alliance. Rather, it will be Washington's ability to win the global war on terrorism.

Mr. Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

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A Rich Italian Dinner FeastDemonstrating against anti-Semitism

Harold's List
Dr. Michael Ledeen
National Review Online

In response to Iran's call for the elimination of Israel, Wednesday evening in Rome, thousands, probably tens of thousands, will demonstrate in support of the Jewish state. The demonstration has been organized by Giuliano Ferrara, the larger-than-life editor of the feisty daily newspaper il Foglio, and the demonstrators will range from members of some Italian Islamic organizations to foreign minister Giancarlo Fini (long a bete noire of America's "leading" newspapers and networks), just back from a trip to the Middle East.

It takes courage to stand up publicly for Israel against the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, especially in contemporary Europe, where anti-Semitism is on the rise, where the Jewish population is minuscule (there are slightly more than 40,000 in all of Italy, less than one percent of Italians), and where the Islamic population is expanding rapidly. I have not noticed any such demonstrations here, for example. But the Italians, as is their wont, have once again broken the stereotype most foreigners hold of them, and have directly challenged the mullahs.

That would be extraordinary enough, but they have done far more than that. They have lifted the taboo on the discussion of Islam itself, and of the way the Islamic world has dealt with Israel since it creation. You know the taboo has been shattered when Magdi Allam, the (Muslim) deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading newspaper, writes a front-page editorial of the sort that was published earlier this week. Many Muslims, he began, are against the existence of Israel, and many others are afraid they will be called traitors if they approve of it. Allam asks, What will they have betrayed?

The Palestinian cause? But the Palestinians themselves recognized Israel's right to exist in Oslo in 1993. Islam? Which Islam? Bin Laden's, that mainly kills Muslims in addition to non-Muslims all over the world? That of the Muslim Brotherhood which has laid its hands on most Italian mosques, exploiting our democracy to propagate a fundamentalist and criminal ideology?
Allam, who has written an important book about the Muslims in Europe, knows that only a minority of them have "the intellectual lucidity and the human courage" to recognize Israel's right to exist. But he insists that they should, and that if they had done so at the beginning, the Palestinians would have had their state. He explodes the most cherished myth of the anti-Semites, the myth that Israel alone is guilty of the miserable state of the Palestinian people. Allam rightly holds the anti-Semites primarily responsible:
Precisely those who do not recognize Israel's right to exist have been opposed to the birth of an independent Palestinian state. Such as happened in 1948 when, in order to prevent the Jewish state from seeing the light of day, they only prevented the creation of the Palestinian state foreseen in 1947 by UN Resolution 181. And why did Jordan, instead of annexing Cisjordan in 1949 and Egypt, instead of governing the Gaza Strip in 1967, never agree to have a Palestinian state in those territories?
Once the taboo is broken, you can see the world plain, and recognize something that President Bush, to his historic credit, intuited several years ago when he was being stampeded toward a premature embrace of Arafat: If you don't embrace freedom whole, for everyone, you end up oppressing the very people you claim to be defending. Palestinian freedom depends on Israeli freedom, as Natan Sharansky has so eloquently reminded us. If there is no Palestinian state today, it is primarily the fault of groups like Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and their Iranian terror masters, who delight in sacrificing the Palestinians in order to destroy Israel, just as the mullahs take great pleasure in sending Arabs to die in jihad against us. Allam lays it out with brutal precision: "There is a manifest connection between the recognition of Israel's right to exist and the acceptance of the value of one's own life and that of others. . . . today the true divide between civilization and barbarism is the recognition of Israel's right to exist."

The West, especially the cynical West European politicians, will deny this moral algorithm, but the terror masters know it is true. They know that the real menace of Israel is the threat of the spread of freedom — and thus their own doom. That is why they react with predictable venom to events like the Rome demonstration. The Iranian regime has targeted the demonstrators for the same obliteration it has so loudly proclaimed for Israel. The Fars Agency in Tehran, notoriously linked to President Ahmadi Nezhad, declared that "the Italians who participate in the demonstration against the Islamic republic are all Zionists," and called for a counterdemonstration in front of the Italian Embassy on the same day.

In case anyone missed the point, the regime intoned that "all those countries and organizations that speak of human rights, are part of the same colonialist design to dominate Islamic countries and Muslims." And Ali Larijani, the new head of the Supreme National Security Council, warned that if the International Atomic Energy Agency decides to pass along Iran's violations to the U.N. Security Council, "oil prices will reach 150 dollars a barrel." And of course the Revolutionary Guards spokesman chanted the ritual hymn: "The intifada will continue until Israel is cancelled forever."

Faster, please.

— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

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The World According to J.C.

Harold's List
By BRET STEPHENS
Page D12 Wall Street Journal

Jimmy Carter's 20th book is a tedious meditation about the appropriate uses of moral values in political life -- as wisely and humbly exemplified by Himself -- and of their misuses under the current Bush administration.

But tedious isn't quite the right word here, because it suggests mere boredom while Mr. Carter's prose manages to be irritating as well. Is there an English-language equivalent to the German Rechthaberei, which loosely translates as the state of thinking and behaving as if you're in the right and everyone else is in the wrong? Yet even such a term doesn't quite capture the sanctimony, the self-congratulation, the humorlessness, the convenient factual omissions and the passive-aggressive quirks that characterize our 39th president's aggressively passive world view. Mr. Carter is sui generis. He deserves his own word.

Everything about "Our Endangered Values" is wrong, beginning, obviously, with the title. The values Mr. Carter says are "ours" are certainly not mine and probably not yours and therefore, necessarily, not ours. In fact, it is not at all obvious that the things Mr. Carter speaks of even qualify as values, properly speaking, unless you believe that "economic justice" is a value, or you subscribe to Marxist liberation theology (Mr. Carter considers the Catholic priests who practiced this theology to be "heroes"), or you would like to pay your "personal respects" to Syria's dictator (never mind that his regime just had the prime minister of Lebanon assassinated), or you can think of nothing bad to say about Saddam Hussein except, perhaps, that he is "obnoxious."

Subtracting "Our" and "Values" from the title, then, the reader is left with "Endangered," the form of the verb here characteristically rendered in the former president's favorite voice. Who, or what, is doing the endangering? Mr. Carter's animating concern is the rise of fundamentalism in religion and politics, but don't suppose that this has anything to do with Islamic fundamentalism. What chiefly exercises Mr. Carter's indignation are neoconservatives, the Southern Baptist Convention and their allegedly converging and insidious influence on government. Together, Mr. Carter believes, they have contrived to set America loose "from the restraints of international organizations" like the United Nations and "global agreements" such as the Kyoto Protocol, apparently for the purpose of eradicating the separation of church and state and creating "a dominant American empire throughout the world."

This is an odd complaint, given the source. Mr. Carter admits that as president he worked "behind the scenes" with the head of the Southern Baptist Convention to develop a program called Bold Mission Thrust, "designed to expand the global evangelistic effort of Baptists." Weirdly, Mr. Carter offers this anecdote in the context of his ostensible opposition to the "melding of church and state," which, he gravely notes, "is of deep concern to those who have always relished their separation as one of our moral values."

As for neocons, Mr. Carter is nearly one himself, so obsessed does he claim to be with human rights. But much as he may hate the sin, he loves the sinner. Think of his view of various world figures from his White House years: Yugoslavia's Josip Tito ("a man who believes in human rights"); Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu ("our goals are the same"); the PLO's Yasser Arafat (a "misunderstood" figure for whom Mr. Carter once moonlighted as a speechwriter). And then there is Kim Il Sung ("vigorous," "intelligent"), whose relationship with Mr. Carter is reprised in this book.

"Responding to several years of invitations from North Korean president Kim Il Sung… Rosalynn and I went to Pyongyang and helped to secure an agreement from President Kim that North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit IAEA inspectors to return to the site." Leaving aside the interesting question of why that Dear Leader would be so solicitous of this one, what's chiefly notable about this sentence is that it is one of the few here that isn't demonstrably false or misleading in respect to U.S. dealings with the North.

In Mr. Carter's telling, the 1994 Yongbyon Agreed Framework -- in which Pyongyang agreed to trade its nuclear-weapons program for oil shipments, security guarantees and the construction of two light-water reactors -- was generally going according to plan, only to be gratuitously upended the moment the Bush administration arrived in Washington. "Shipments of the pledged fuel oil were terminated, along with construction of the alternate nuclear power plants," writes Mr. Carter.

In fact, North Korea violated the Agreed Framework almost from the moment it was signed by pursuing a secret, parallel weapons program. For its part, the Bush administration continued to honor the framework's commitments; in 2002, a State Department official even attended the groundbreaking for one of the promised reactors. Only later, when the U.S. presented the North with evidence of its cheating, and the North admitted to the cheating, did the fuel shipments and reactor construction stop.

There is more of this -- personal slurs, particularly against U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, factual omissions (Mr. Carter accuses the Bush administration of making hardly any effort to reduce nuclear-weapons stockpiles but doesn't mention the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which involves the most dramatic nuclear cuts in history), trite sophistries ("a rising tide raises all yachts") and the invariable, habitual, irrepressible blaming of America first for everything from degrading the environment to alienating Syria. At a certain point it all begins to ooze and blur, in the way the speeches and doings of Al Sharpton or Michael Moore ooze and blur. Past a certain point, you just stop keeping track.

Mr. Carter, however, is no gold-plated race hustler or quack documentary maker. He is -- as he constantly reminds us, as if our memories aren't still vivid -- the 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. Bill Clinton may have the heart of the Democratic Party, but Mr. Carter captures the Zeitgeist of the global left. "Our Endangered Values" is a distressing piece of work for many reasons, most of all because it cannot be safely ignored.

Mr. Stephens is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

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Creating Hamastan

By Dr. RACHEL EHRENFELD & ALYSSA A. LAPPEN

President George Bush could give his plan for winning the war against Islamic radicalism a major boost if he publicly demanded from the Palestinian Authority that it prohibit Hamas's participation in the upcoming Palestinian election. But judging from how Hamas is dealt with by the US administration, you would not know that it sits at the heart of the Islamo-Fascist movement, which Bush has been repeatedly condemning for the past three weeks.

In his recent press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush refrained from clearly objecting to Hamas participation in the Palestinian Authority election next January. This, despite the fact that Hamas's ideology and goals fit squarely with those the president described as Islamo-Fascist: "Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies... they seek to end dissent in every form, to control every aspect of life, and to rule the soul itself, while promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing a future oppression and misery."

Compare Hamas statements and its charter to those of al-Qaida, Hizbullah and other Islamist organizations. All strive to establish a caliphate encircling the globe. Al-Qaida says: "We will turn the White House and the British parliament into mosques," as documented by Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, director of Orient Research Group in Toronto.

Similarly, Qatar-based sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi says "Islam will take over Europe by Dawa." The spiritual leader of Hamas, the late Ahmad Yassin said: "The 21st century is the century of Islam," and his successor Mahmoud Zahar says, "Israel will disappear and after it the US."

Bush also said after his meeting with Abbas, "the way forward is confronting the threat armed gangs present to the creation of democratic Palestine." Indeed, the Palestinian Authority has promised, yet again, to disarm Fatah and the other terrorist groups under its umbrella.

Meanwhile, the PA, with US assistance, is planning to retrain all terrorists and incorporate them into the its security forces. Adding Hamas to this fray would guarantee that terrorism remains part of the Palestinian agenda.

PA negotiator Saeb Erekat responds that allowing Hamas to participate in the election would be the terror group's first step toward giving up its weapons. However, even Erekat knows this is wishful thinking. Unlike the Irish Republican Army, which at last laid downs it arms after being part of the political process for decades, Hamas does not wish to lay down its arms. It wants to use the democratic process to gain power, which would ultimately eradicate democracy.

The major difference between the IRA and Hamas is that the IRA's goals were limited to affecting British policy in Ireland. Their intention was never to spread Catholicism around the globe. Hamas, in its charter, says "We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters."

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar has laid out the goal of an Islamist Palestinian state "based on the principles of the Sharia and... part of the Arab Islamist Umma." In the Sharia-led Palestine, mixed dancing will be prohibited, Zahar states: "If a man is holding the hand of a woman and dances with her in front of people, is this a way to serve the national interest?" Zahar defines homosexuals and lesbians as "a minority of moral and mental deviants" who will have no rights.

IN SHORT, as Zahar told Newsweek in August, Palestine "should be Hamastan."

Despite such candor, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan argues that Israel should allow Hamas to participate in the election and that the Palestinian Authority relax its pressure on the terrorist group to disarm. This follows Annan's well-established pattern of legitimizing Hamas which, despite being listed on the US and EU terrorist lists, is still missing from that of the UN. At least 90 percent of the vote in the 2003 UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) workers union election was won by Hamas, according to Hamas's London magazine Filastin Al-Muslima.

Supporters of Hamas would have us repeat the errors of the Oslo era. In 1993, Israel gave the opportunity to one of the world's most notorious terrorists to lead the newly created Palestinian Authority. In 1996, two years after receiving the Nobel peace prize, Arafat was elected president.
But legitimizing Arafat did little to change his terrorist agenda. His intifadas cost the lives of thousands of innocent Israelis and Palestinians, while destroying the PA economy.

It should go without saying that an Islamist Palestinian state spells the end of any process of negotiations with Israel. As Zahar puts it, "It is in our national interest to stop the cooperation with Israel in any field."

According to Zahar, Hamas will use all the weapons at its disposal to extend Palestine across all of Israel. This goal is not unlike Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the earth." Allowing Hamas to participate in the coming PA election contradicts Bush's promise to keep "an untiring vigil against the enemies of rising democracies."

Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It, is director of the American Center for Democracy. Alyssa Lappen is a freelance journalist.

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WSJ: Toothless Gestures Like This Toothless UN Resolution Could Strengthen the Syrian Regime

Harold's List
The Winding Damascus Road
November 1, 2005; Page A16 Wall Street Journal

The U.N. Security Council's unanimous decision yesterday to castigate Syria for its role in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is being described in press accounts as a "minor diplomatic victory" for the U.S. Let's underline the word "minor."

The text of Resolution 1636, which is legally binding under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, says that the regime of Bashar Assad "must" detain any Syrian suspected by the U.N.'s investigative team of being involved in Hariri's assassination. It slaps a travel ban on Syrian suspects -- who likely include Maher Assad, President Assad's brother; and Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law -- and freezes their financial assets. And it threatens "further action" if Syria fails to cooperate with the investigation, the mandate of which has been extended until mid-December.

That's progress, we guess, after the U.N. fashion. Yet in order to obtain a unanimous result the U.S. dropped the explicit threat of economic sanctions against Syria, bowing to pressure from China and a veiled veto threat by Russia, which even now sells weapons to Syria and acts as its international patron.

More problematic is the message Syria actually "got" from the resolution. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the unanimous verdict "sends a very strong signal to Syria of its isolation." Maybe. But Arab despotisms have a history of emerging stronger from the crises they survive. That was the case with Gamal Abdel Nasser after the 1956 Suez crisis and with Saddam Hussein after the ruinous, and ultimately fruitless, Iran-Iraq war.

As for Syria, in recent months President Assad has ratcheted up domestic repression and increased the flow of arms to Palestinian terrorist groups. Syria's most prominent Lebanese critics also continue to be assassinated. At yesterday's Security Council deliberations, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa described his country's cooperation as "complete" and ridiculed the U.N. report as "medieval." Mr. Sharaa was himself cited in that report for lying to U.N. investigators; his comments indicate how much cooperation the U.N. can expect from Damascus in the months ahead.

The U.S. has also made its task more difficult by sending Syria an unmistakable message that regime change is not on the U.S. agenda. "The Syrian government needs to make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behavior," says Secretary Rice, something the Syrians have heard many times before. They are likely to respond, as they usually do, with token gestures, perhaps by handing over another former Saddam crony now abetting the Iraq insurgency from Damascus.

The international community, and especially Iraq's neighbors, has more than three decades' experience with the methods of the Assad gang. For Israel, as well as for Turkey, Lebanon, and now Iraq, the lesson of those decades is that Syria does not respond to "signals." If the world cares about a free Lebanon, as Resolution 1636 affirms, it needs to start caring about a free Syria.

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The Nightmare of Hamastan

By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 31, 2005

Judging from how Hamas is treated by the U.S. Administration, you would not know that it sits at the heart of the Islamo-Fascist movement, which President George W. Bush concretely defined and condemned three weeks ago. In his press conference last Thursday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, however, the President refrained from clearly objecting to Hamas participation in the Palestinian Authority election next January.

The Palestinian Authority promises, yet again, to disarm Fatah and the other terrorist groups under its umbrella. Meanwhile, it plans to retrain all terrorists and incorporate them into the PA Security Forces. Adding Hamas to this fray would guarantee that terrorism will remain part of the Palestinian agenda.

Compare Hamas statements and its charter to those of Al Qaeda, Hizballah and other Islamist organizations: all strive to establish a Caliphate encircling the globe. Al Qaeda says: “We will turn the White House and the British parliament into mosques,” as documented by Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, Director of Orient Research Group in Toronto. Similarly, Qatar-based sheik Yusuf al Qaradawi says “Islam will take over Europe by Dawa.” The spiritual leader of HAMAS, the late Ahmad Yassin said: “The 21st century is the century of Islam,” and his successor Mahmoud Zahar says, “Israel will disappear and after it the US.”

President Bush declared: “the way forward is confronting the threat armed gangs present to the creation of democratic Palestine.” But he stopped short of demanding that Hamas disarm. Still, that was enough to infuriate Hamas spokesman Sámi Abu Zuhri, who protested, “We consider this as a serious American interference in our internal affairs aimed to create an internal conflict.”

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat insists that allowing Hamas to participate in the election would be the terror group’s first step toward giving up its weapons. However, even Erekat knows, this is wishful thinking. Unlike the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which at last laid downs it arms after being part of the political process for decades, Hamas does not wish to lay down its arms. It wants to use the democratic process to gain power, which would ultimately eradicate democracy.

The major difference between the IRA and Hamas is that the IRA only wanted to kill the British and the Protestants in Ireland. Hamas, in its charter, calls for “the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.”

In interviews given by Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, he lays out the character of the Islamist Palestinian state according to the Hamas vision: “This will be a state which will be based on the principals of the Sharia and will be part of the Arab Islamist Umma,” he says. “In the Sharia-led Palestine, mixed dancing will be prohibited: “If a man holding the hand of a woman and dances with her in front of people, is this a way to serve the National interest?” In Hamas' Palestine, homosexuals and lesbians which Zahar defines as “a minority of moral and mental deviants” will have no rights.

Despite these draconian positions, Zahar rejects the claim that Hamas would try to repeat in Palestine what the Taliban did to Afghanistan. Hamas is not a duplicate of the Taliban, he said, but is much more sophisticated.

According to Hamas, materialism and fraternization between the sexes, the large number of homeless, and corrupted values of the West are the reasons for political corruption. “Westerners are interested in turning the family into a corrupt swamp, and they are distributing obscenity and terminal diseases in the name of total freedom.” In the Islamist Palestinian state, says Zahar, each Palestinian citizen will be required to behave according to the Sharia.

The Islamist Palestinian state will also refrain from negotiations and cooperation with Israel, according to Zahar: “It is in our national interest to stop the cooperation with Israel in any field.”

Hamas, Zahar says, will also use all the weapons in the Palestinian territory to create an Islamist Palestinian state in all of Palestine’s territory - including Israel.

Hamas views the future Islamist Palestinian state as an extension of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, where all aspects of life would be controlled by radical Islamist laws. This state will also maintain close connections with other Arab Islamist states and movements, and will use terrorism to obliterate the Israeli state. In response to a question concerning the nature of Palestine under Hamas rule, from a Newsweek reporter on August 30, 2005, Zahar responded, “It should be Hamastan.”

Yet, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan argues that Israel should allow Hamas to participate in the election and that the Palestinian Authority should relax its pressure on the terrorist group to disarm. This follows Annan’s well established pattern of legitimizing Hamas, which although listed on U.S. and E.U terror lists, is still missing from that of the U.N.

For example, when Israel killed Sheikh Yassin, Annan said: "I do condemn the targeted assassination of Sheikh Yassin and the others who died with him." This is not surprising given the fact that Hamas won more than 90 percent of the vote in the 2003 UNRWA workers union election, according to Hamas London magazine, Filastin Al-Muslima in July, 2003 (p. 5).

Supporters of Hamas would have us repeat the errors of the Oslo era. In 1993, Israel gave the opportunity to one of the most notorious terrorists in the world to lead the newly created Palestinian Authority. In 1996, two years after receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace, Arafat was democratically elected president. But legitimizing Arafat did little to change his terrorist agenda. His Intifadas cost the lives of thousands of innocent Israelis and Palestinians, while destroying the PA economy.

Hamas’ agenda like that of Arafat, is well advertised. Allowing it to participate in the coming PA election is a fool’s errand.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It, is director of American Center for Democracy and member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Alyssa Lappen is a freelance journalist who frequently contributes to FrontPageMagazine and other online journals.

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Death of Syrian Minister Leaves A Sect Adrift in Time of Strife

Harold's List
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 31, 2005; A01

BIHAMRA, Syria -- In this scenic village, along terraced hills of pine and palm trees, the body of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan rests in a coffin draped in a Syrian flag, a leather-bound Koran at each corner. His death on Oct. 12 was certain. Less so are the shadowy circumstances that removed from the scene one of Syria's most powerful men, an interlocutor between the religious sect known as the Alawites, who have long ruled the country, and a government they controlled but increasingly see as distant and corrupt.

A suicide, officials said, closing the case the day after Kanaan died. A relative, Mazen Kanaan, smiled at the thought.

"He was a man of confrontation," he said. "Suicide is an escape. He wasn't a man to run away from something."

How did he die then? the relative was asked. "That is for you to figure out," he answered.

The timing of Kanaan's death has also raised suspicions. Only recently he had been questioned in a U.N. investigation that implicates senior officials in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister.

In the sometimes brutal politics of Syria's elite, in which violence is intertwined with cunning, the 63-year-old Kanaan was a man of many faces: self-made Alawite strongman, ruthless politician and potential contender for power. In his village of Bihamra and the region that spills beyond it, he was something else: a feudal-like lord who tended to members of his Alawite minority, cultivating their support and defending their interests. To them, his death -- murder or suicide -- has become more than the passing of a figure who bordered on the iconic. It is an instance, writ small, of the growing frustration and fear in the religious sect that has served as the backbone of 35 years of Baath Party rule and is still viewed as the linchpin of President Bashar Assad's five years in power.

"No one can replace him. Maybe in a thousand years someone else like him will come," said Mazen Kanaan, sipping a small cup of bitter coffee in the courtyard of Ghazi Kanaan's now-shuttered mansion. "People need help but they have no one to go to."

These are difficult days for Syria's Alawites, and in their sentiments may be hints of the vulnerability of Assad's government as it faces a crisis over the U.N. investigation. In villages like Bihamra, across forbidding mountains that spring from the Mediterranean coast, there is deep anxiety that in a time of strife, Alawites will bear the brunt of vendettas dating to the decades when they provided the leadership of the government, military and feared security services.

That apprehension comes as frustration surges that the very state they are tied to has abandoned them. The military that ended their historic marginalization is neglected and disrespected, some of their villages remain without running water and, many say, the government, despite its Alawite cast, no longer defends them.

"It's like people don't know we live in the country," said Kharfan Khazin Ahmed, a 61-year-old retired government employee from the Alawite village of Qarir. "Every person sitting in the chair of power cares about money, not about the people."

Rise to the Top

Alawites are a small but pivotal community in Syria's tapestry of sect and ethnicity. Syria is predominantly Arab, with a Kurdish minority in the northeast. But among the Arabs are many Muslim sects: Sunni Muslims are the majority, along with minorities of Alawis, Druze and Ismailis, all of whom trace their origins back to Shiite Islam. The Alawites are the largest of those religious minorities, representing probably about 12 percent of Syria's 18 million people. They are centered in the region around Bihamra.

For centuries, Alawites faced withering discrimination, in part over the suspicions generated by their secretive, loosely Shiite religious traditions. Their secluded mountain villages are a relic of that ostracism, and they were some of the poorest, least educated and most rural of Syria's inhabitants. As with other religious minorities in the Middle East, many Alawites turned to the Baath Party, drawn to its pan-Arab, leftist and secular ideology, hoping it might dilute Syria's Sunni dominance and provide a more inclusive notion of identity. To escape grinding poverty, they joined the military, soon filling the ranks of its senior officer corps. In modern Syria, those two institutions -- party and military -- have ruled for 35 years.

Assad is an Alawite, and during the presidency of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, the sect emerged from behind the scenes to command the government's most sensitive positions in the military and security services. While the elder Assad was careful to give a Sunni face to portfolios such as the defense and foreign ministries and to forge alliances with other groups, his inner circle was drawn from his own community, often his own Qalbiyya tribe and family. In that sense, he was not only Syria's strongman, but also the leader of his sect, responsible for its fortunes.

"You will remain eternal in our hearts forever," reads a billboard with the elder Assad's portrait at the entrance to Qurdaha, his home town, about a mile along a winding road of ancient, rounded hills from Kanaan's village of Bihamra.

Under the younger Assad, to a remarkable degree, the circle of Alawite dominance has narrowed to his family. Gone are some of the sect's most powerful men -- former intelligence chiefs such as Ali Duba and Mohammed Khouli, for instance. Kanaan, Syria's point man in Lebanon for two decades and later the interior minister, was one of the last and most prominent. A product of the feared Mukhabarat, or Syrian intelligence, his reputation in much of the country was of a fearsome, hard man; in Bihamra, it was of a charitable one.

"He helped everyone in the village," said a doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He was like a father for this entire place. Any help you needed as a citizen, you could go to him. His door was open to both the poor and princes."

The doctor, Kanaan's relative and others sat in the courtyard of his stucco, red-roofed villa on a cool morning. They snacked on bananas and apples, drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, ignoring the dawn-to-dusk fast of the holy month of Ramadan. The Alawite region is one of Syria's most secular, reflecting the imprint of a Baath Party that saw tribe and religion as barriers to modernization. The veil is hardly seen; missing are the most conservative Arab traditions that discourage interaction between men and women.

Bihamra itself shows the legacy of Kanaan's power and influence: He provided money to build the Jaafar Tayar mosque, opened a library with seven computers and built a community center named for his father, Mohammed Ali. While in Lebanon, he visited every month or two. On his return to Damascus in 2002, he visited at least once every two weeks, more often for funerals. As a young man, the story goes, in one of the myths that can overshadow life's excesses, he gave part of his first lieutenant's salary to villagers.

"The difference is that he would help someone and expect nothing in return," his relative said.

"They're going to feel the emptiness," he added.

An Ally Is Lost

Two weeks after his body was found, Kanaan's death remains the talk of Damascus. Most often heard is speculation that he faced disgrace on corruption charges and chose suicide instead. But many speculate that he represented one of the few potential rivals to Bashar Assad, giving rise to a slew of conspiracy theories: that he was forced to kill himself or that he was murdered, possibly poisoned. One well-informed Syrian said that the day after Kanaan died, all the coffee cups from his Interior Ministry office were seized to conceal evidence of foul play.

"They committed his suicide," said a Syrian dissident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The talk in Bihamra, though, is more visceral and perhaps more telling. In the repercussions of Kanaan's death lies a truth about Syria and its government today: The younger Assad is viewed as less ta'ifi , or sectarian. His outlook is ostensibly more modern, possibly reformist; bucking tradition, he took for his wife a Sunni, not an Alawite. But as he struggles to put a more contemporary veneer on his rule, he faces a society still suffering deep cleavages that reflect unresolved questions of identity. The Baath Party offered one answer: The country is Arab. But other identities still compete -- Alawi, Sunni, Christian and so on -- in a zero-sum game of communal survival.

And in that question of survival, villagers say, Alawites lost one of their last, most prominent defenders in Kanaan. In his place, some Alawites say, is a government that cares about the military only to ensure it doesn't rebel; a ruling family most worried about its survival; and a state that promotes not the sect's interest, but networks bound by patronage and power that are growing richer. Even some Alawite intelligence officials are said to be disenchanted over the higher profile of Assad's family at their expense.

"Sadma," Kanaan's relative called his death, a shock or a blow. "Not just for the village, but for the entire region."

"He served the people. He transferred their words," said Shaalan Asad, a 51-year-old former teacher who runs a grocery store in Jobat Berghal, about a half-hour away. "He was a connection between the people and the government and their officials."

Asad, sitting on the porch of his shop, reflected on his village's story. In the 1970s, after the elder Assad took power, electricity finally arrived. The main road was paved, bringing cars where donkeys long trod over dirt paths along rocky ridges that spilled into verdant valleys of apples, cottonwoods and olives. Schools were opened in the 1980s, and the town had a sports club and a community center. Today, they are closed, unstaffed and in disrepair. He said villagers are still waiting for running water.

"We really need more," he said. "It's slow. They can't do two or three projects at the same time."

In Damascus and other Syrian cities, there is the perception that the Alawite roots of the Assad family have meant hamlets like Jobat Berghal have received favorable treatment. That view often inspires anger among the Alawite villagers here.

"The opposite! The opposite!" shouted Ahmed, the retired government employee, his face leathery from the sun.

"We're all Alawites here and when you come here, you can't find anything," he said.

As Ahmed spoke, years of grievances poured out. He ignored the coded language often employed in Syria's repressive climate. The courts? They are suffused with bribes and corruption, he said. The law? It protects the powerful and wealthy. He still pumps water into his home from a steel vat. He and other villagers have filed thousands of loan applications and still await an answer.

"President Hafez Assad said it was the right of any citizen to raise his voice if he sees injustice. You should speak out against it," Ahmed said. "Now they say it's not your right to talk. They say it's not your business, even if there's something wrong."

A Question of Identity

It is sometimes a joke among Alawites that, in the event of turmoil, they would flee to their villages near here, the same mountain redoubts that offered protection over centuries of ill will.

They laugh, but a hint of anxiety shadows the remarks. So does a sense of injustice: While some Alawites have profited under the Assads' rule, at times profligately, many have seen little benefit.

"They worry about the regime and about the accusations against the regime," said Tareq Abad, a 30-year-old sailor in the village of Shadaita, who belongs to another religious sect known as the Murshidis. (Numbering possibly 200,000, they are followers of a Syrian holy man and populist from the region who was executed in 1946.) "What would they do if the regime collapsed?"

He sat with two friends, who looked at the ground as he spoke, perhaps fearing his forthrightness. He sensed their unease.

"Let's face it," he said, shaking his head, "the government is Alawite."

Many Syrians take pride in the coexistence of the country's sects. Asking someone their identity is often seen as rude. But sectarian fault lines lurk beneath the surface. Some Syrians argue that the divisions were deepened by the battle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim movement, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Over more than a decade, the Sunni community itself has grown increasingly religious, with greater manifestations of piety such as the veil. This summer, a clash in the village of Qadmous, in the coastal province of Tartus, took a sectarian bent, pitting two minorities, Alawites and Ismailis, against each other.

In the village of Mzaraa, a 33-year-old grocer, Firas Deeb, dismissed the talk of sect. He was Syrian, he insisted. Still, he said he expected his relatives to return if there was conflict in the country. There was no other choice.

"That's certain," he said, nodding.

"The people in Damascus will return to the village, and they'll find protection with their people. You can hide here," Deeb said. "They're going to hide behind the rocks and the stones. In the city, there are no rocks and stones."

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Iran Says It Wants to Destroy Israel. Why Is Everyone Shocked?

Harold's List
Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller
New Republic

The UN Charter was introduced in 1945, and since that time Arab and Muslim leaders have expressed the desire to obliterate the Jewish state with impressive regularity. No sooner was the State of Israel proclaimed on May 14, 1948, than it was invaded by neighboring Arab states, with Arab League Secretary-General Abdel Rahman Azzam proclaiming that "this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."


Such rhetoric has been used by a long line of Arab leaders. During the 1950s and '60s it was Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, the self-styled champion of pan-Arabism, who led the call for Israel's destruction. He proclaimed in late May 1967, "Recently we felt that we are strong enough, that if we were to enter a battle with Israel, with God's help, we could triumph...our main objective will be the destruction of Israel."

The baton passed to a new generation of aspiring pan-Arab champions, notably Syrian president Hafez Assad and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. For his part, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini emphasized the need to destroy the Jewish state well before coming to power in 1979; and during his reign the destruction of Israel evolved into one of the most fundamental tenets of his revolutionary creed.
And let's not forget the PLO. Since its establishment in 1964, the organization's publicly stated objective has been the destruction of Israel. Despite their official commitment to peace with Israel within the framework of the Oslo process, Arafat and his PLO successors have never truly abandoned their commitment to Israel's destruction. Instead they have embarked on an intricate game of Jekyll-and-Hyde politics, constantly reassuring Israeli and Western audiences of their peaceful intentions while at the same time denigrating the peace accords to their Palestinian constituents as a temporary measure to be abandoned at the first available opportunity.

Against this backdrop of six decades of international acquiescence in the face of constant calls for Israel's destruction, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would have legitimate reasons to feel that he has been singled out a bit unfairly these last few days.

We all hope that the West will now take a stand against all those who call for the destruction of Israel. Otherwise, there will be only one lesson from this tawdry affair: that countries should feel free to advocate genocide against the Jewish people - as long as they aren't developing weapons that can be turned on London, Paris, or Moscow once they've finished the job in Tel Aviv.

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Surprise! Iran wants the destruction of Israel (and America, England, France, Italy...)

Harold's List
Michael Ledeen - National Review on Line

Mirabile dictu, as they used to say before Dante — all of a sudden everyone has noticed that Iran really wants the destruction of Israel. "What took them so long?" you may well ask (as I certainly do). Just a month ago, on September 28, there was a monster parade in Tehran featuring the country's armed forces. One of the high points of the parade was a collection of the Shahab 3 missiles, the ones designed to carry nuclear warheads, and they were adorned with catchy slogans like "The Zionist regime must be destroyed," and "Death to America."

Four military attaches walked out in protest: the French, the Italian, the Greek and the Polish. But that was about it. The Western world had made its point by bravely abandoning the parade grounds. I didn't see any nasty condemnation of the warmongers in Tehran, I don't remember even the toothless jaws of the United Nations condemning the Islamic republic, and I certainly saw nothing vaguely resembling an effective policy to bring down the mullahs before they go for our exposed veins and arteries, even though Her Majesty's Government had long been aware that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were arming, training, funding, and guiding terrorists from Khuzestan across the Shatt-al-Arab into southern Iraq, and that Iranian-intelligence officers were openly advocating the creation of an Islamic republic in the Shiite south, along Khomeinist lines.

Indeed, on September 12 Al Sharq Al Awsat reported that "officials from the Revolutionary Guard have recently met with leaders of Ansar al Islam and the Jihad organizations...near the Iranian-Iraq borders. They discussed the acceleration of military operations against the British forces in the south of Iraq." It didn't take long to confirm this information. Richard Beeston of the London Times wrote on the 20th that the Brits had reason to believe that new attacks against British forces in southern Iraq "is being orchestrated with weapons and encouragement from Iran."

By October 9, Con Coughlin was writing in the London Telegraph that a British diplomat traveling from Baghdad to London "unwittingly strayed from his brief and started laying into the Iranians with a gusto not seen in the British diplomatic service for decades. The Iranians, said the diplomat, were colluding with Sunni Muslim insurgent groups in southern Iraq..."

Notice that he said "Sunni." We already knew about Shiite, as in Moqtadah al Sadr, and SCIRI's Badr Brigades, most of whom were trained in Iran over the past two decades. If any of you has any friends over at CIA (my last buddy left a few weeks ago), point it out to them, please.

While you're at it, you might also point out that one of Iran's favorite terrorist organizations, Islamic Jihad, is having its moment in court in south Florida, and an interesting bit of information unexpectedly crept into the record. Mr. Kerry Myers, an FBI agent, was asked by the defense attorney whether Islamic Jihad had done any mean things outside Israel, Gaza, or the West Bank (as if terrorism against Israelis doesn't count, you know). Myers pointed out that IJ had threatened the United States. The attorney asked if there had ever been an actual action by IJ. And Myers burst out with "I can tell you there was a plot to commit terrorist acts in the United States. It was interdicted, I believe."

I have long since lost track of how many Iranian U.N. "diplomats" have been tossed out of this country after being caught photographing New York tunnels, bridges, subway stations, and monuments.

But nobody does anything to take the terror war to the Iranians. The Iranian people suffer, demonstrate, protest, and die, but not a single Western country has come up with a serious Iran policy. Not even the flash of recognition at Ahmadi Nezhad's speech has, so far at least, driven any Western leader to call for the liberation of Iran.

Meanwhile, Cicero magazine in Germany has published two long articles that confirm what I have long said, namely that al Qaeda receives enormous support from Iran. According to the BKA, Germany's FBI, Iran "provided Zarqawi with logistical support on the part of the state." Like other al Qaeda leaders, Zarqawi went from Afghanistan to Iran, and set up his training camps and safe houses in Zahedan, Isfahan, and Tehran. He was the driving force behind the Madrid bombings and those in Bali, and Iranian support was given throughout. After all, according to the Cicero article, the coordination of jihadi groups from all over the world is coordinated from Iran. "They live in secure housing of the Revolutionary Guards in and around Tehran. 'This is not detention or house arrest,' concludes a high-ranking secret-service employee. 'They come and go as they please.' "

According to the Germans (echoed by the celebrated Spanish judge, Balthazar Garzon), the jihadis are organizing attacks against the West, including the United States. The newspapers are full of snapshots of the jihad-to-be.

In France, there are reports that an al Qaeda cell has smuggled two surface-to-air missiles into the country. And Al Watan, an often reliable Saudi newspaper, said that French counter terrorist forces had found a deadly poison in the home of one of the cell members.

In Holland, seven presumed Islamic terrorist were arrested in the Hague after an armed struggle.

Back in July, a terror network in the Hague was dismantled, leading to the discovery of documents showing deals for night-vision goggles, helicopters, and over one million gas masks, apparently destined for Chechen terrorists.

A few days ago, four young men, described as "of Mid-Eastern descent and deeply devout Muslims," were arrested in Copenhagen and charged with planning a suicide terrorist attack in the near future against the United States or British embassy in Sarajevo. Two more men were arrested the next day, prompting the BBC, ever concerned to debunk the very idea that we might be at war with jihadis, noted that "the case comes at a time when Denmark is experiencing severe problems in relations with its Muslim community," devoted four paragraphs to a discussion of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in a Danish paper, and concludes brightly with "it is in this atmosphere that the arrest of six, 16-20-year old Muslims on what appears so far at least to be very flimsy evidence may serve to further alienate the Muslim community of Denmark."

On October 16, the London Times reported that the British government had found that Zarqawi has created a new group in Britain that is recruiting fighters for the jihad in Iraq, and that returning jihadis may be planning attacks.

In Italy, there are continuing reports of close working relations between Italian mafias, especially the Neapolitan camorra, and al Qaeda.

This is what we're up against. It is a frenetic network of fanatical terrorists, supported by a group of mad mullahs hell-bent on our destruction. Forget about the microanalysis of the Iraqi 'insurgency.' This is not primarily a war conducted by angry Baathist remnants of Saddam's bloody regime; it's much bigger than that, and the epicenter of the whole thing is in Tehran, and its ideology is brutally enunciated by Ahmadi Nezhad.

Britain, France, and Italy are at least expelling some of the jihadis, along with some of the most fanatical religious leaders. We are not, so far as one can see, doing even that. And we are certainly not taking any of the obvious, rational, and thoroughly justifiable steps to provide political and economic support to the most potent enemies of the world's most dangerous terrorist regime: the Iranian people.

Sooner or later, one of these many schemes will succeed, and we will have a new version of September 11th. Perhaps only then will our dithering leaders resume fighting the war against terror, a war currently limited, to their shame, to a defensive struggle within the boundaries of Iraq, while they move against us on a global scale.

Faster, please.

— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

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After Mehlis

Harold's Liat
The Washington Times
By Farid N. Ghadry

The report by United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri brought shivers down the spine of Bashar Assad, who for the first time in his young regime is facing justice in a land that has never known it. Never in our Syrian history have standing officials been held internationally accountable for crimes against another peaceful nation. The shock is immeasurable and stands to open the eyes and embolden the will of oppressed Arabs everywhere in the Middle East.

What comes after Mehlis is the focus of attention today. On one side of the U.S political community, you have the apologists with their now-tired mantra, "Bashar is the only alternative"; on the other, the "regime change now" proponents calling for immediate options to further weaken the regime. In the middle, the United States and European officials are evaluating the options.

Syria has gone through multiple transformations in the past, but the Mehlis transformation is one of the most important of our modern history. In the past four decades, Syria has embraced -- and to a certain extent still does -- elements of Communism, socialism, nationalism, Nasserism, and Ba'athism. All have miserably and utterly failed the Syrian people for one reason or another. The Islamist alternative that the Muslim Brotherhood seeks would just as well fall in line with that sad litany of failed experiments.ATaliban Afghanistan, Syria culturally and historically is not and never will be.

The most popular opposition politician inside Syria is Riad al-Turk, a 76-year-old Stalinist who is playing a role behind the scenes in charting Syria's future. Other septuagenarians embrace defunct ideologies in one form or another. Why? Because we have been a closed society for over 42 years and our politicians have not changed since. We are the North Korea of the Middle East; the sunlight of renaissance and national transformation has never been allowed to penetrate the lead walls of ignorance erected by the Ba'ath.

The transformation that the Mehlis report will engender, we believe, goes beyond the sturdy application of the rule of law; it shall usher in from the outside a new dawn of progressive liberal, market-economy ideals that the dissident establishment inside the country cannot bring about. And with 60 percent of Syria's population under the age of 25, it is simply a question of time.

One of the reasons that U.S-supported Radio Sawa is so popular in Syria is because it is able to attract the young and disfranchised. The current Ba'athist government has had nothing new to offer to this new young generation of Syrians, and unlike their parents, they will not stand idly by and watch their future be cynically sold out by a regime so lacking in national care yet so apparently expert in advancing the criminal enterprises of the Dictator King's family members.

Not one political organization inside Syria has a program to help build a market economy based on time-tested values well established in the modern societies -- values just as applicable in modern Syria as they are in Taiwan, Singapore, and yes, the United States. In fact, the majority of dissidents inside Syria loathe the West and its value system. To a certain extent, many find it difficult to fully comprehend such values, but that is no valid excuse for people who claim Syrian "street" representation.

The free-market-liberal ideology is rapidly taking hold -- as evinced by the multi-ethnic liberal movements that are participating in increasing numbers in the Syrian Democratic Coalition meetings in Europe. For only the bold, armed with a substantive vision for national renewal, can ever hope to succeed where tired retreads' ideologies have failed.

The Mehlis report provides a unique opportunity for the West to stand by and lend a hand in good faith to those Syrians that desire not only justice in the narrow sense, but a lasting, just society founded upon a laissez-faire market economy. Syria can be changed forever; it is now a matter of U.S. will to make it happen.

The dissident landscape inside Syria is not totally representative of the aspirations of Syrians. In a tyrannical society, people are not able to express themselves freely and openly. How does one know how popular the socialists, Islamists, Nasserites or Communists inside Syria are? How does anyone know how popular the Reform Party of Syria with its market-economy ideology is inside Syria?

In a sense, such questions are superfluous, for nothing builds national consensus like success. It is time that a successful ideology is supported internationally as it tries to build a following inside the country.

Farid N. Ghadry is president of the Reform Party of Syria.

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'Wiped Off the Map'

Harold's List
October 31, 2005; Page A16 Wall Street Journal

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to a Tehran stage last week to deliver remarks at a conference titled (in English, so there be no mistaking his gist) "A World Without Zionism." The Jewish state, he said, "must be wiped off the map," adding for good measure that countries that recognize Israel would "burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury."

So what else is new? Iranian leaders have been calling for Israel's destruction for decades. At the Frankfurt Book Fair last week, Iranian booksellers were peddling the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," one of Adolf Hitler's inspirations and probably the most notorious anti-Semitic tract in history. Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments were celebrated by the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, who said Israel's "existence is illegal." Former President Ali Rafsanjani, seen in some diplomatic circles as a pragmatist, also lent his support. "Even in Europe," he said, "the majority of the population is strongly critical of Israel, but they are afraid to express their views." Which, sad to say, is probably true.

More notable has been the intensity of Western reaction. German parliamentarian Friedbert Pflueger called the Iranian comments "barbaric"; Kofi Annan expressed "dismay," possibly the harshest word he knows. In France, a Foreign Ministry spokesman described Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech as "a new and important element," which his country would have to take into account in future negotiations with Tehran. We fail to see what's new, but we're glad the French are taking notice.

The most incisive comment came from British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?" he asked. In Washington, as in Jerusalem, policy makers have been pondering that question for years. It's past time others ponder it, too.

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Soldiers and the American media

Harold's List

Having been on the other side of the world for the past year I must admit that I am not as up to date on current events as I’d like to be. However we do receive the news and are aware of the larger events happening around the world. For instance we were aware of the tidal wave that killed hundreds of thousands in southern Asia. We were aware of the numerous natural disasters that affected the United States.

We’ve also been aware of the vicious political fever and anti-war tone that is constantly streamed to us via television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and internet. Being in the minority of soldiers with formal education it is discouraging to see how the masses of naïve and even ignorant soldiers can be so easily persuaded into believing that we are fighting for a corrupt government and that America is a war-mongering nation

Being force fed AFN (Armed Forces Network) we get the best stories that the liberal media can conjure up. Unfortunately for us, this usually means smearing whatever we have accomplished or were planning to accomplish. Bringing the war to our nation’s living rooms and bringing the news to our nation’s war front were mistakes from the beginning. Citizens with no military experience cannot begin to empathize with the hardships that we endure, nor can they understand the split second life and death decisions we are forced to make. Instead we’ve created a nation of hind-sight soldier critics with force fed tunnel vision.

On the flip side we have an overly capable and very adequately equipped fighting force that begins to doubt its relevancy and its necessity to be here. With constant images of; Cindy Sheehan touting anti-war propaganda, constant accusations of the Bush administration being racist in the wake of natural disasters, soldiers’ actions being caught on film and then used against them in various investigations, and now more political indictments on issues that the majority of Americans have no idea about, our soldiers are beginning to believe all the rhetoric and embrace it themselves.

The military works on a simple principle: we fight wars. Without going too far into it, simply stated we kill our enemies before they kill us. Our nation has been diluted through the past few decades by believing that freedom is free. As long as you’re born an American you too can live the Paris Hilton lifestyle and be as carefree, and careless, as possible. Unfortunately the reality is that soldiers like myself and others have to suck it up and leave home to kill our enemies before they kill us. This principle as well has become skewed and distorted over time, leaving us with the daunting duty of fighting a war in which it is nearly illegal for us to kill our enemy.

Now I ask that you take what you’ve read so far and add to that a large population of ordinary soldiers. The majority of these soldiers are unaware of much outside of the military. Many of them lack extensive formal education and some even lack any semblance of an education at all. Many of these soldiers are also disgruntled at being asked to do their jobs. Now picture these soldiers receiving their news via television, newspapers, emails, phone calls, etc. and all they perceive is negative content about the war, about their government, about their country. Take this tremendous fighting force and preach to them that they have been misled; tell them that they have been lied to, show them that they are not supported, suggest their government is corrupt, label them murderers, and explain to them that in the end we were wrong and now expect them to continue to fight this war in which they have no option to fight.

In most debates both sides of an issue are represented. This however is not a debate, this is real life and unfortunately there is no strong representative to help stop the bleeding that is continuing to grow out of control. How do you reach an audience that is more concerned with aligning their beliefs with their favorite Hollywood star than hearing other sides of an issue and beginning to think beyond themselves and their immediate hedonistic drives. Unfortunately our nation’s defenders are swayable by the media they encounter.

As a soldier my concern is that while Americans enjoy their freedom of speech and freedom of the press they are inadvertently weakening our defenses, damaging our nation, and negatively influencing the frontline soldiers that continue to ensure their freedoms.

“Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.” – Voltaire

“A soldier” can be reached at cmd9093@yahoo.com.

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Israelis, Palestinians Said Agree to Deal

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to halt nearly a week of fighting after militant groups pledged to halt rocket fire on southern Israeli towns, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

The deal, which Israeli officials refused to confirm, would bring an end to the second serious round of violence since Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month. While many had expected the withdrawal to restart peace efforts, the two sides have so far failed to capitalize on the opportunity.

The announcement of a halt in fighting came as a top Israeli counterterrorism official warned that al-Qaida operatives have infiltrated Gaza. Danny Arditi, Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's counterterrorism adviser, said the infiltrations apparently occurred last month during several days of chaos following the Gaza withdrawal.

The confusion along the southern border allowed thousands of people to cross between Egypt and Gaza unhindered, Arditi told Army Radio. "The breaching of the border ... apparently allowed al-Qaida and all kinds of international Jihad elements to enter the Gaza Strip," Arditi said.

During his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Sharon promised "severe" retaliation if attacks on Israel continue. But he said he disagreed with an assessment made by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in a newspaper interview Friday that peace would be impossible with the current Palestinian leadership.

"This is not the right approach," Sharon told his Cabinet. "We have to try to make efforts to reach an agreement alongside our fight against terror."

The latest round of violence erupted early last week after Israel killed a top Islamic Jihad gunman in an arrest raid. The group responded with a suicide bombing in the central Israeli town of Hadera, killing five people and unleashing a fresh Israeli offensive in Gaza and the northern
West Bank.

Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes, artillery fire and deafening sonic booms, while Islamic Jihad militants have fired rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel. The violence has stepped up pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to act on long-standing Israeli and U.S. demands to crack down on militants.

Palestinian Interior Ministry officials said Sunday the militants had agreed to halt the rocket fire. They spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement later in the day. Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and other militant groups, were scheduled to meet Sunday evening.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a top adviser to Abbas, said Israel and the Palestinians agreed to stop the latest hostilities after U.S. intervention.

"Both sides have agreed to stop attacks," he said. "What is required now is to preserve the truce and calm, and every (Palestinian) party should adhere to the political and national positions ... and create an atmosphere that allows working in a way that serves the Palestinian people."

An Israeli government official said "there appears to be an understanding" for both sides to halt the fighting, though no official agreement is in place. He declined to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Capt. Yael Hartmann, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, said the army's policy hasn't changed and new orders would have to come from the government.

Earlier Sunday, Mofaz threatened to wage war on Islamic Jihad until its capabilities are wiped out.

"We are carrying out a broad operation against terrorism, a broad operation against the Islamic Jihad infrastructure in light of Islamic Jihad's intention to continue with suicide bombings," Mofaz said ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

The latest violence has severely tested a cease-fire declared by Abbas and Sharon last February.

Islamic Jihad has only loosely adhered to the truce, carrying out numerous attacks, including four suicide bombings since it went into effect. It says its attacks are reprisals only for Israeli violations of the truce.

Khaled al-Batch, an Islamic Jihad spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement that the group is "committed to the mutual calm as long as the Zionists are committed to this calm." He made no reference to the rocket fire.

In Gaza, Israel reopened two crossings Sunday to allow cargo and other goods in and out of the coastal area, but a travel ban for the area's Palestinians remained in effect, the army said. Israel closed Gaza's cargo crossings after the Hadera bombing.

Since withdrawing from Gaza last month, Israel has sporadically opened and closed the Karni cargo crossing, but kept closed Gaza's border with Egypt — the only way for Palestinians in the coastal area to travel abroad. The Erez crossing, the main border for passengers, has also been closed since the bombing.

The travel restrictions have hurt the Gaza economy, and the Palestinians want the crossings quickly reopened. Israel first wants security measures in place.

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New Dehli Blasts

October 29, 2005            New Dehli, India

Mansoor Ijaz Video

Fox News Video

Mansoor Ijaz (Cont'd) Video

Fox News Video

Arnaud de Borchgrave Video

Mansoor Ijaz Video

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Arab-European League defends Iranian president's remarks on Israel

Harold's List
Brussels, Oct 29, IRNA
Belgium-AEL-Iran

The president of the Arab-European League (AEL), Dyab Abou Jahjah, says the statement made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel is "intellectually defendable."

"The commentaries of the Iranian president that the Zionist entity (Israel) will be wiped out of the map may not be the smartest move in a strategic moment when Iran is trying to resist efforts by the US to isolate it. Nevertheless, the foundation of Mr. Ahmadinejad's reasoning is intellectually defendable, and despite the fact that his regime is no perfect example of political morality, I argue that his position on this matter is the only possible moral one," wrote Abou Jahjah in an article published on the AEL's website.

The AEL, based in the Belgian city of Antwerp, is a political and social movement that stands for the rights of the Arab and Muslim communities in Europe and Arab causes in general. It also has a branch in the Netherlands. Abou Jajjah noted that on November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), Resolution 3379, which states in its conclusion: Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.

This resolution was abolished in the early nineties under pressure of Israel's strongest ally -- the United States of America.

"But It is exactly the same reasoning that led the community of nations represented by the UN and free of American pressure to admit that Zionism is racism on 1975, that still validates the declaration of Mr. Ahmadinejad today."

Zionism is an ideology that combines racism with colonialism and
expansionism, and that was put into practice by the racist claim that Palestine was a land without a people (meaning that the Palestinians are not a people but rather Untermenschen), he said.

"It is not the Jewish people that should be wiped out, and it is not the buildings and the houses and the schools that the settlers built, but it is the institutional frame that is represented by that Zionist entity "Israel" and its founding Ideology: Zionism." "Wiping out Zionism from Palestine and establishing one Palestinian democratic state on all the territories of historical Palestine is the only solution that will guarantee peace for all, in equality.

"It is the only way to build a future together and to turn the bloody page that was opened when Zionism was introduced by western colonialism into the heart of the Arab nation. And, above all, it is the only position any democrat can have if he is to be consistent with himself. Just like abolishing the racist and segregationist South Africa was the only acceptable position.

"Saying that Zionism and the state built by it and with it as leitmotiv should be wiped out from the map is, regardless of the nuances, the only morally defendable position," concluded Abou Jahjah, whose origins are from Lebanon.

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HT took over the Islamic Center of Queens and $400,000 went missing

by Bill Warner

HT took over the Islamic Center of Queens and $400,000 went missing in mid 1990's;

CBS News & BBC News indicate July 7 Bomber tied To Al Qaeda & Mohammed Junaid Babar of Queens NY. Mohammed Siddique Khan met with Mohammed Junaid Babar on numerous occasions in 2003 and 2004.

Mohammed Junaid Babar was a recruiter for Al-Muhajiroun and Al-Qaeda in Queens NY. The Islamic Society of Queens was taken over by HT in the mid 1990's, more than $400,000 went missing, Iyad Hilal was an Iman in Queens NY in the mid 1990's and the North American Head of HT (see BBC News film at 7:18 into story).

The founder of the Islamic Center of Queens, Brother Aqeel, the man in the white shirt in the attached photo of 10/09/05, admits that HT took over the Mosque in the mid 1990's.

The Islamic Center of Queens AKA Masjid Al-Fatimah is located at 57-16 37th Ave Woodside Queens NY 11377.

Iyad Hilal in 1995 (at the time head of HT in North America) listed an address, PO BOX 770406, WOODSIDE Queens NY 11377; 06/1995 2X, same area as the Islamic Society of Queens.

Mohammed Junaid Babar had ties to the Islamic Society of Queens and a recent visit on Sunday Oct. 9th 2005, indicates a radical element is still there, see BBC News video of Oct. 25th 2005.

See CBS Evening News story of August 18th 2005 indicating direct link of Mohammed Siddique Khan to Al-Qaeda and Mohammed Junaid Babar of Al-Muhajiroun in Queens NY.

7 July bomber 'filmed last year'

See BBC News release of October 25th 2005 indicating direct link of Mohammed Siddique Khan to Al-Qaeda since at least early 2000 and also a direct link to Mohammed Junaid Babar or "Shafique" as referred to in the BBC News video.

Below: origination chart of Al-Muhajiroun and Al-Qaeda operatives for the 7/7 London subway attack, based on information from the CBS News report, the BBC News video and information from the London Times.

Click on the chart to enlarge

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CIA Leak Indictments

Wayne Simmons Video

Robert Baer Video

Gen. Alexander Haig Video

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TERROR BIGS ON THE RUN

The New York Post
By URI DAN

IT'S open season for Israel on Palestinian terrorists — and the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are in hiding.

After Wednesday's homicide bombing at a falafel stand in Hadera, Israel retaliated with military operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, killing and capturing terror leaders.

Israeli sources said their next target was Hamas bigwig Mahmoud a-Zahar, who told Israel's Haaretz newspaper this week that his group would soon begin kidnapping Israelis.

The new Israeli offensive brings to mind the situation in April 2002, when Israel retaliated for a Passover bombing by retaking control of Palestinian towns in the West Bank and killing or arresting dozens of militants in house-to-house sweeps. The fighting lasted two weeks.

Although Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not indicated whether the latest operation would be as widespread, his consistent refrain to aides has been "I am ready to compromise, but there is one thing I won't compromise on: the safety of the Israeli people."

As a result, Sharon said he wouldn't meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, another sign he's ready to take his troops back out to the battlefield.

Sharon had hoped that his pullout from 20 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip in August would be appreciated by the Palestinian Authority.

The pullout caused a mini-revolt in Sharon's own party, and he just narrowly beat rival Bibi Netanyahu in a leadership vote three weeks ago.

The extreme right wing also made political hay because Sharon's concessions did not lead to a tangible decrease in violence by terror groups despite a cease-fire in February.

So, to maintain security — and unite the country's political factions — Sharon is again hunting Palestinian terrorists.

"Mahmoud Abbas has done nothing despite all the help and equipment he got for his forces from other countries. He has not budged an inch," an aide to Sharon told The Post.

The aide said Sharon sees no alternative to hitting targets in the Gaza Strip in order to deter future attacks.

For now, the fragile Israeli government coalition is backing Sharon, who can genuinely lay claim to the mantle of compromise.

He not only kept his promise to pull out of Gaza but also sent his defense minister to Cairo this week in hopes of getting Egypt to loosen its border with Gaza so that Palestinians could travel freely and jump-start their economy.

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Crossing the Rubicon

Harold's List
Victor Davis Hanson
Crossing the Rubicon
The die is cast — or why it ought to be.

For good or evil, George W. Bush will have to cross the Rubicon on judicial nominations, politicized indictments, Iraq, the greater Middle East, and the constant frenzy of the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party — and now march on his various adversaries as never before. He can choose either to be nicked and slowly bled to death in his second term, or to bare his fangs and like some cornered carnivore start slashing back.

Before Harriet Miers, conservatives pined for a Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, with a Justice Roberts and someone like a Janice Rogers Brown rounding out a battle-hardened and formidable new conservative triad. They relished the idea of a Scalia frying Joe Biden in a televised cross-examination or another articulate black female nominee once again embarrassing a shrill Barbara Boxer — all as relish to brilliantly crafted opinions scaling back the reach of activist judges. That was not quite to be.

But now, with the Mierss withdrawal, the president might as well go for broke to reclaim his base and redefine his second term as one of principle rather than triangulating politics. So he should call in top Republican senators and the point people of his base — never more needed than now — and get them to agree on the most brilliant, accomplished, and conservative jurist possible. He should then ram the nominee through, in a display to the American people of the principles at stake.

It is also time to step up lecturing both the American people and the Iraqis on exactly what we are doing in the Sunni Triangle. We have been sleepwalking through the greatest revolutionary movement in the history of the Middle East, as the U.S. military is quietly empowering the once-despised Kurds and Shiites — and along with them women and the other formerly dispossessed of Iraq. In short, the U.S. Marine Corps has done more for global freedom and social justice in two years than has every U.N. peacekeeping mission since the inception of that now-corrupt organization.

This is high-stakes — and idealistic — stuff. And the more we talk in such terms, the more the president can put the onus of cynical realism on the peace movement and the corrupt forces in the Middle East, who alike wish us to fail. Forget acrimony over weapons of mass destruction, platitudes about abstract democracy, and arguments over U.S. security strategies. Instead bluntly explain to the world how at this time and at this moment the U. S. is trying to bring equality and freedom to the unfree, in a manner rare in the history of civilization.

Yes, the Kurds and the Shiites need to compromise. The Sunnis must disavow terrorism. But above all, the American people need to be reminded there was no oil, no hegemony, no money, no Israel, and no profit involved in this effort, but something far greater and more lasting. And so it no accident that the Iraqis are the only people in the Arab world voting in free elections and dying as they fight in the war against terror.

Was Iraq naïve? Perhaps. Idealistic? Of course. But cynical or conniving? — not at all. That is the domain of the Arab kleptocracies, the corrupt Europeans, and increasingly the radical American Left — who all have much to lose if the United States can stop the petrol-theft of the Hussein legacy, expose its corrupt ganglia, establish a democracy, and prove that the United States found real security from terrorism only by bringing constitutional government to the Middle East.

The key to Iraq is enfeebling those around it who are weakening the country — namely Syria and Iran. The U.S. should be calling for democratic reform in both countries — constantly, without interruption, and in the same idealistic fashion as we appeal to the Iraqis. The president must focus world attention on just how awful those two regimes are. After all, an Iranian president threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map at precisely the time his government lies and connives to obtain nuclear weapons — which alone could bring that avowed sick Khomeineseque dream to fruition, given Iran’s conventional military impotence. Again, the government of Iran is not just talking about warring with the Sharon government or attacking the Israeli nation, but rather liquidating the Jewish people — as Hitlerian a promise of genocide as we have seen since the Holocaust. And he boasts like a leader who fully expects to have nuclear weapons in the near future.

Syria’s government is little more than Murder, Inc. Its assassination of Mr. Hariri slowed the entire Lebanese reform movement. It’s been a fine and noble thing that George Bush began to confront Syria, but he should go even further to call on the nations of the world to consider the young Assad the new Milosevic who, like the Iranian president, is an international outlaw deserving of sanctions, embargos, and global ostracism.

We should remind the world that our 2,000th fatality did not end our commitment to freedom and justice, but reminded us just how much we owe our dead so that their ultimate sacrifice was not in vain. We must make sure this sacrifice will lead to the defeat of the terrorists and the establishment of freedom in the greater Middle East. Once we went into Iraq, in the long run there was no living with either Assad or a nuclear Iranian theocracy — and both autocracies grasped that fact far better than we did, as evidenced by the constant stream of terrorists flooding in to kill Americans and undermine Iraqi democracy. The more we jawbone them, pressure them, and isolate them now, the less likely it is that we will have to use force later. Again, no “smoke ‘em out” or “bring ‘em on” braggadocio, but just something to the effect that we are taking great risks at great costs to join with the Iraqis to give freedom and equality at last a chance in the Middle East.

George Bush also should begin addressing his most venomous critics at home, by condemning their current extremism. He must explain to the nation how a radical, vicious Left has more or less gotten a free pass in its rhetoric of hate, and has now passed the limits of accepted debate.

In the last six months we have heard from various demagogues — though they are recognized as such due to their prominence in the media — that we were waging nuclear war in Iraq (Cindy Sheehan), that there was cannibalism in New Orleans (Randall Robinson), that George Bush and Dick Cheney should be shot (the novelist Jane Smiley) or executed (Al Franken). Alfred Knopf has published a book about the theoretical assassination of the president, and the Nazi slur is now commonplace in Democratic circles, where a Senator Dick Durbin or Ted Kennedy slanders American soldiers as akin to either Saddam’s torturers or even Nazis and Stalinists. The case needs to be made that we are seeing a new paranoid style — but from the Left, whose opponents are not to be out-argued, but rather deemed worthy of death or demonization as Nazis. The recent eclipse of George Galloway — due in no large part to Christopher Hitchens’ lonely and underappreciated pursuit of his perfidy — reminds us how hard these reprobates finally will fall.

All of these issues are interrelated. If the president can win the hearts and minds of the American people on one theme, the others will fall into play. The more the president talks of principle and values, the more he can do so with zeal, and yes, real passion and occasional anger.

The odd thing is that so far the conventional advice to the president — keep the discussion on Iraq only to U.S. national security, not the upheaval of the existing corrupt order; reach out to the Democratic Senate; curb your idealistic rhetoric with Syria or Iran; ignore shrill enemies; nominate someone that the opposition will not seriously object to — has only emboldened critics here and abroad. It is time to go back on the offensive, both for the idealistic legacy of the Bush presidency and the immediate future of his ideas in the upcoming 2006 elections. The American people, both pro and con, are more than ready for a great debate to settle these issues one way or another.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His latest book is A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

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Local CHP chairmen warn AKP threatening republic’s future

Harold's List
ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) remaining in power for one more term will pose a threat to the republic's future, a communiqué issued yesterday by the provincial heads of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said.

The communiqué was released following a CHP provincial heads' meeting under the leadership of party leader Deniz Baykal.

CHP provincial heads said in the communiqué that the AKP seriously threatens the democratic regime with its anti-secular policies.

“Corruption during AKP rule has come to a level that has never before been seen. The CHP will usher in an honest administration. The upcoming elections will be a key test for Turkey. Our party's main goal for the elections is to drop AKP rule and let the republic and democracy reign in the country,” the statement said.

Leveling criticism at AKP policies, the local CHP chairmen said the country's economy and social balances have been disturbed under AKP rule, adding that the agriculture sector had deteriorated and farmers are suffering.

The CHP heads also complained about media support for AKP policies and practices and claimed that AKP policies made Turkey dependent on the outside world.

They maintained that Turkey's European Union bid was jeopardized by the AKP, noting that the government had accepted a secondary status in terms of relations with the EU.

“The CHP wants Turkey to become a full member of the EU with equal rights, not a satellite of the union,” the CHP leaders stated.

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BBC News Video: July 7 Bomber met Mohammed Baber of Queens NY

Bill Warner

BBC News Video -- Mohammed Junaid Babar of Queens NY met Mohammed Sidique Khan in Leeds UK and in Pakistan during 2003 and 2004!



Mohammed Sidique Khan met with Al-Qaeda operatives as far back as 2000, so did Mohammed Junaid Babar it appears.

Mohammed Junaid Babar is refered to as "Shafique" in the BBC News video, but it is Babar we went to his parents home in Queens. Mohammed Junaid Babar was a recruiter for Al-Muhajiroun in Queens NY.

Al-Muhajiroun had a meeting in Queens NY at the Islamic Center of Queens (shown in the video) on June 3rd to 4th 2000, Mohammed Junaid Babar attended along with high ranking members of Al-Muhajiroun UK.

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Authorities let Tube bomber ‘slip away’

Gulf News

LONDON: The row over British intelligence failures deepened yesterday after it was claimed that London Tube bomber Mohamed Sidique Khan was recruited by the Al Qaeda up to five years ago. (prior to 9/11/01)

The ringleader behind the July 7 attacks met and trained with senior terrorists across the world, but was deemed not to pose a threat.

As reported in the Evening Standard 10 days after the attacks, Khan was the subject of a ‘routine assessment’ by MI5 last year after his name cropped up in an investigation into a foiled bomb plot in Britain.

On Tuesday night it was revealed that spies had filmed and taped him talking to a terror suspect in the plot who has since been detained. But Khan was dismissed by officials as being merely a ‘criminal associate’.

In the three months since the July 7 attacks, it has been revealed that Khan frequently travelled abroad on terror missions to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Israel.

It is now known he travelled to Malaysia and Indonesia as well.

In 2001, the same year that the 30-year-old began working as a primary school teaching assistant in Leeds, he was sent by Al Qaeda to meet a terrorist leader in Malaysia.

Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, is regarded as one of Osama bin Laden’s ‘most lethal’ terrorists and is believed to have organised the 2002 Bali bombing, killing more than 200 people.

Security sources believe Khan also met the bombmaker behind the attacks - known as the ‘Demolition Man’.

Azahari bin Husin, 46, studied at Reading University in the late Eighties and received a doctorate in engineering in 1990. He is linked to last month’s Bali bombings, which killed up to 30 people, and police will want to know if Husin helped the July 7 cell make their bombs.

Previously, Khan was known to have travelled frequently to Pakistan. British intelligence officials are still trying to trace Khan’s movements in Pakistan as they attempt to uncover the terror network that planned and supported the July attacks.

Israeli police have confirmed that Khan flew to Tel Aviv on February 19 2003 - two months before a suicide attack by two other British-born bombers.

He is also believed to have travelled to Afghanistan and to have trained at camps in the Philippines run by the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network. The group has waged a bloody campaign to establish an Islamic republic across much of South-East Asia, killing hundreds in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Last month, a chilling video suicide message emerged in which Khan claimed the British public were to blame for the London terror attacks. It is unclear how the tape was edited but it is understood that at one stage Khan refers directly to attacking the transport network.

British officials are trying to obtain the complete video, which is said to include a message from Aldgate bomber Shehzad Tanweer and a commentary by Osama bin Laden’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he refers to the Queen and further attacks.

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"Hamastan"

The socio-political makeup of “Hamastan” (a Palestinian radical Islamist state, ruled by Hamas), as described in interviews granted by Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip. An alternative to the Palestinian Authority, the agenda presented by Mahmoud al-Zahar is based on strict enforcement of radical Islamic codes in politics, society, and culture. “Hamastan”, according to Al-Zahar, will become an inseparable part of the global radical Islamic effort spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood.

As part of the Hamas-run propaganda campaign for the coming Legislative Council elections (January 2006), Hamas spokesmen are asked on the issue of the makeup of the Palestinian Authority and the political, social, and cultural agenda that Hamas offers its voters, beyond its military activity. In several interviews recently granted by Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip, he exposed Hamas' socio-political worldview, which the movement intends to impose on the Palestinian population should it win the elections and attain a position of influence.



In interviews granted by Mahmoud al-Zahar to the Ilaf 1 website (October 1, 2), he addressed, among other things, the makeup of the Islamist Palestinian state according to Hamas' worldview, brushing aside accusations made against Hamas by its opponents. What follows are the main themes addressed by Mahmoud al-Zahar.



· The establishment of a moral Islamist Palestinian state, as opposed to the corrupt West. According to Al-Zahar, should Hamas win the elections, it will establish a state based on the principles of Islamic religious law that will become part of the Arab and Muslim nation (“why should a nation with one culture, one language, one religion, and one history not come together under a single banner?”) The Palestinian state, based on religious law, will forbid men and women from dancing with each other (“a man holding the hand of a woman and dancing with her in front of the people—is that the way to serve the national interest?”) Homosexuals' rights will be denied (“a minority of mental and moral perverts”). In Al-Zahar's view (similar to the views spread by other radical Islamic elements worldwide), permissiveness and intermingling of sexes, combined with the decadence and the growing number of homeless, are to blame for the corruption that prevails in the government structures. “The men [of the West] are interested in turning the family into a swamp of corruption and decadence and they spread profanity and terminal diseases in the name of absolute liberty [i.e., permissiveness].” In the Islamist Palestinian state, every citizen will be required to act in accordance with the codes of Islamic religious law, already instated, as he says, in the Palestinian Authority administered territories, in which matters of constitution, marriage, inheritance, acquisition, and selling are based on Islamic laws.

·

· Criticism over the corruption and permissiveness that prevail in Western countries. Throughout the entire interview, Mahmoud al-Zahar stressed that the Hamas movement had Islamic ideology and culture and that the Islamist Palestinian state would have no interest in holding contacts with Christianity or Western countries, where corruption runs rampant. Within this context, he criticized the permissiveness that prevails in Western countries (bringing up the permissiveness in Sweden as a negative example). 2 Western democracies are presented by Mahmoud al-Zahar as countries ruled by “the law of the jungle, anarchy, AIDS, and the homeless.” In the political aspect, however, he considers the European community a positive example of a region that succeeded in uniting politically, economically, and constitutionally, despite the many wars it endured throughout its history3.

·

· Hamas' view of the Taliban. Mahmoud al-Zahar rejected the claim that the Hamas movement was willing to reenact the Taliban's experience in Afghanistan , saying it was a false claim raised by Israel and the US . Speaking in a condescending tone, Al-Zahar said that the Hamas movement was not a replica of the Taliban but rather its superior. According to Al-Zahar, the level of education of Hamas women is higher, the movement has social and political institutions, and women in the Hamas movement hold positions as well. 4 At the same time, he speaks in the Taliban's defense, claiming they should not be blamed for things that should be blamed on the West. Furthermore, Al-Zahar's words reveal his sympathy for the Taliban and his clear reservations of the US occupation of Afghanistan and making Karzai the country's president (“the spy brought in by the Americans”).

·

· The corrupt nature of the Palestinian Authority as opposed to the virtuous nature of Hamas' worldview. The way Mahmoud al-Zahar described Hamas' political platform presents an obvious antithesis to the Palestinian Authority. It is, according to Al-Zahar, a corrupt Authority, cooperating with the (Israeli) “enemy”. He considers the corruption to be widespread among the Palestinian society as well, where in recent years favoritism, bribe, and prostitution are becoming more common. Mahmoud al-Zahar presents Hamas as a pure movement striving to root out corruption both in the political and in the social sphere, knowing that a platform of war against corruption will strike a cord with the Palestinian public.

·

· Total avoidance of cooperation with Israel and termination of expressions of normalization with it. The Islamist Palestinian state will totally avoid cooperating with Israel in the fields of security, politics, or economy (“is it conceivable that our weak economy be connected with Israel 's economy, to which the US provides at least 3 billion dollars a year?”). According to Al-Zahar, “terminating the cooperation with Israel in each and every field is a national interest.” However, he is aware of the difficulties inherent to the implementation of such a policy, and therefore does not present a clear course of action with regard to severing the existing ties (“all at once or as a gradual process”).

·

· Presenting Hamas as an organization that cares for the wellbeing of the population and praising the civilian infrastructure ( da'wah ) it formed. Mahmoud al-Zahar rejects claims that Hamas' rise to political power will prove detrimental to the wellbeing of the population. As an example of Hamas' care for the citizens' wellbeing, he brings up the social and educational institutions ( i.e., da'wah ) established by Hamas, which serve the families of martyrs and detainees. Mahmoud al-Zahar therefore admits of (and even takes pride in) establishing the “charity associations” and other civilian infrastructure institutions by Hamas, which provide assistance, among other things, to those killed (i.e. shahids) and detained in the course of the confrontation and comprise a significant component of the terrorist-supportive infrastructure.

·

· The economic policy of the Islamist Palestinian state. According to Al-Zahar, the Islamist Palestinian state will open its gates to investments from Arab countries, so that it does not need investments and donations from Western countries. The reason he cited was that in exchange for the investments, Western countries will intervene in the Palestinian state's decision making and dictate its policy (“we do not extend our hand for projects from the West”). It is therefore another expression of a radical Islamic worldview that can also be seen in other extremist Islamic movements.

·

· Vagueness with regard to integrating Hamas' military infrastructure into the security apparatuses of the future Palestinian Authority. In the future, said Al-Zahar, a formula will be found that will allow both sides to cooperate for the sake of the “national interest”. However, he refused to specify how, in his opinion, Hamas' military infrastructure will be integrated into the Palestinian Authority's security apparatuses. Leaving the issue unclear, he stressed that “there is no reason to talk about it” before the election results were known.

·

· Blaming the Palestinian Authority for the anarchy while making it clear that Hamas will refuse to disarm, even if it enters the Legislative Council. In response to an accusation that Hamas is responsible for the atmosphere of violence that prevails in Palestinian society, Mahmoud al-Zahar lays the blame at the Palestinian Authority's door, accusing it of losing control of its security apparatuses. According to his (false) claim, Hamas' arms were never aimed at Palestinian civilians, and the claims spread about Hamas regarding this issue originate in “the Devil's advocate”. However, when asked whether Hamas' entry into the Legislative Council would oblige the movement to surrender its arms and turn to political activity, he replied, “this is a shallow, simplistic claim, since the sole purpose of the guided weapon ( al-silah al-murshad ) is to actively oppose the enemy. Therefore, entering the Legislative Council cannot be contingent on such a stipulation.”





· The continuation of the violent confrontation against Israel until its annihilation.



Mahmoud al-Zahar attributes to the Zionist movement the desire to take over the region between the Euphrates and the Nile and expresses a radical worldview seeking to establish an Islamic Palestinian state across the entire territory of Palestine , including the territory of the State of Israel.



· Hamas intends to turn the arms in the Palestinian Authority administered territories into “ combat arms ” that would defend the state's borders in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem . These arms are also needed to establish a Palestinian state in the 1948 territories.



· Al-Zahar denies the Oslo Accords and lashes out against Abu Mazen's concept that denies “the intifada's militarization”. He claims that this concept failed when a defeated Israel left the Gaza Strip as a result of the armed struggle spearheaded by Hamas.



· Within this context, it should be mentioned that in an interview granted to Newsweek (August 30, 2005), even though he tried to present Hamas as a moderate movement, Al-Zahar stressed that the continuation of the armed struggle against Israel was the right choice and that Hamas had no intention to embrace a policy of holding negotiations with it.



Mahmoud al-Zahar's statements were made following Israel 's disengagement from the Gaza Strip and prior to the Legislative Council elections, a transition period characterized by significant tension between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The Hamas movement, attempting to poise itself as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority, presents a radical Islamic worldview of the image of the future Palestinian state, fundamentally different than that of the secular state led by the Palestinian Authority, having its source in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements.

This worldview might appeal to significant parts of Palestinian society, particularly when it is set against the backdrop of Fatah's lack of a clear, unified political agenda. At the same time, however, it distances Hamas from other sectors that do not support the movement's radical Islamic views (more so in the West Bank than in the Gaza Strip). 5 Furthermore, it intensifies already existing concerns in the international community over its integration into the establishmentarian political system.

In summary, Hamas' worldview with regard to the makeup of the Palestinian state, as it is reflected in Al-Zahar's interviews, is as follows: A Palestinian state of radical Islamic character, an extension of the radical Islamic stream led by the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds close contacts with Islamic Arab countries. It is a state where secular and non-Islamic (Christian) elements will be forced to embrace radical Islamist codes in all walks of life; it is a state that does not cooperate and severs its ties with Israel and Western countries, holds close contacts with other Islamic Arab countries (obviously, with radical Islamic movements as well), and embraces a strategy of armed struggle (i.e., terrorism) against Israel until its annihilation. Such a state would be, in fact, of a radical Islamic nature. It will be run by Hamas, the state of “Hamastan”. Indeed, when asked by a Newsweek reporter (August 30, 2005) whether the Gaza Strip would become “Hamastan”, Mahmoud al-Zahar responded: “It should be Hamastan.”

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Scowcroft's Realism

Harold's List
The New York Sun
SECTION: EDITORIAL & OPINION; Pg. 6

It's beginning to feel like 2002 all over again. In this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the finest reporters working today, provides a recap of General Scowcroft's leading gripes - some of them heard at the outset of the war - and a newsy look into his estrangement from the White House. The general still thinks the Iraq war will feed terrorism, though he thinks the U.S. can win the war in Iraq. He wants America to focus on pressuring Israel to negotiate the final status of a Palestinian Arab state. He accuses Paul Wolfowitz of dangerous utopianism. He's not getting on well with his old protege, Condoleezza Rice. He covets the adjective of realist.

"The reason I part with the neocons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful," he told Mr. Goldberg. "If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse." If, in General Scowcroft's view, there is a connection between how a government treats its people and how it will act towards other nations, it's hard to discern. For him and others who place themselves among the realists, democracy is a third-order priority. It is a vision of dreamers to imagine that Arabs could one day live in freedom.

This view was most apparent when General Scowcroft recounted a dinner he had in 2003 with Secretary of State Rice. The repast did not end well when Ms. Rice observed that America has tolerated authoritarians for 50 years in the region. He responded, "But we've had fifty years of peace." James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, among others, promptly pointed out that 50 years of alleged stability encompassed the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the two Palestinian intifadahs, and civil wars in Yemen and Sudan. Not to mention September 11, 2001. To which one is tempted to wonder what, if this is what he calls stability, does he call instability?

There are those of us to whom General Scowcroft, the former insider, looks like a tragic figure now operating in league with the Middle East's autocrats. Maybe for business reasons, maybe for other motives, maybe for some failure of analysis. We don't question his honor. But the fact is that for years the House of Saud, the Baathists, and the Hashemites have been telling us that they are the only defense against terrorism. They have tried their best to channel real discontent with their corrupt family-owned regimes on Israel. America bought into this logic for 50 years only to get attacked. The aging general can rattle on for the old approach, but it strikes fewer and fewer as realistic.

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Bowing To Russia

Harold's List
By Natan Sharansky
The Washington Post
Thursday, October 27, 2005; A27

Two years ago this week, Russian law enforcement authorities, guns drawn, stormed Mikhail Khodorkovsky's plane. His arrest and imprisonment, and the insufficient response of the democratic world to his case, represent a great setback for the march of democracy in Russia.

The charges against Khodorkovsky ostensibly focus on financial improprieties related to his control of the Russian oil giant Yukos. But one need not be an expert in that company's finances to recognize that the law was used selectively against Khodorkovsky to thwart the political ambitions of a possible future opponent of President Vladimir Putin.

To those in control of the Kremlin, Khodorkovsky had broken the unwritten rules in which successful businessmen were free to prosper as long as they didn't challenge the government in general and Putin in particular. When Khodorkovsky, whom many touted as a reformist future president, refused to rule out a potential run for the presidency, he broke those rules. One of Russia's wealthiest men, he was initially sentenced to nine years in prison, and this month was sent to a labor camp.

Many see the arrest of Khodorkovsky as heralding a return to the Soviet past. But it is important to put things in perspective. The Soviet Union was a place where millions worked for the KGB, tens of millions were killed and hundreds of millions lived in constant fear. The situation today is a far cry from that, not only because Putin is no Leonid Brezhnev, and certainly no Stalin, but, more important, because the virus of freedom has spread among Russians for well over a decade. To reimpose Soviet-style tyranny in Russia would be virtually impossible.

Still, all those who understand that the right of dissent is the cornerstone of a free society should be concerned with recent developments there. Rather than being marked by the continued development of Russian democracy, the past few years have brought a regression. This is bad not only for Russia's people but also for its neighbors and the entire free world. For while a democratic Russia would be a powerful ally in promoting freedom and stability around the world, an authoritarian Russia would undermine these efforts and thereby weaken the security of free nations everywhere.

Many democratic leaders are sympathetic with Khodorkovsky but are unwilling to press the Russians to release him for fear that this issue will undermine efforts to resolve other geopolitical issues. But I know as well as anyone that the supposed trade-off between democratic idealism and geopolitical realism is largely a false choice. In the early 1980s, my wife, Avital, who had been mounting a worldwide campaign for my own release from prison in the Soviet Union, had the hard facts of realpolitik explained to her by a senior White House official in an administration that was extremely sympathetic to my plight. Pointing to a map of the world, the official outlined the many geopolitical issues that were at stake between the United States and the Soviet Union. "Do you really believe," he asked, "that we can subordinate all these issues to the question of your husband's release?" "What you don't understand," she replied, "is that only when my husband is released from prison will you be able to resolve these issues."

What the diplomat surely considered the heartfelt yet naive words of a passionate wife nevertheless contained a basic truth. I was imprisoned because of the nature of a Soviet regime that sought to stifle all dissent.

And it was the nature of this regime that was at the root of the geopolitical conflict between the two superpowers. When pressure from the United States led to my release -- I was the first political prisoner freed by Mikhail Gorbachev -- it was a sign that the geopolitical challenge posed by the Soviet Union was drawing to a close.

Today, the Soviet Union is no longer an enemy. Russia has a leader, Putin, who sees cooperation with the free world as the way to restore his country to its former greatness. But the feeble protests of the free world to Khodorkovsky's arrest, and the refusal to make Moscow pay any price for its rollback of democratic freedoms, have led those in the Kremlin to believe that they can consolidate power in Russia through undemocratic means and still win the cooperation with the West that they seek.

Any concern two years ago about the potential fallout from imprisoning an international figure has proved misplaced. The dramatic drop in foreign investment of which some had warned never materialized. And whereas some people were arguing in the wake of Khodorkovsky's arrest that Russia should not be invited to that year's Group of Eight summit, Moscow is now set to host the next summit of industrial nations. Indeed, from the Kremlin's perspective, the move against Khodorkovsky, which has silenced both the opposition and the media, has been an unmitigated success.

This is unfortunate. Just as the failure to press the Kremlin to free Khodorkovsky has facilitated its efforts to consolidate power and restrict freedoms, successfully pressuring the Kremlin to free Khodorkovsky would help restore those freedoms and help return Russia to the path of democratic reform.

The Khodorkovsky case presents a real opportunity for those concerned about the state of democracy in Russia to take a stand. By pressuring the Russian authorities to end this travesty of justice, the free world would be strengthening democracy within Russia and thereby strengthening an alliance between Russia and the democratic world that is critically important to our common future.

The writer was imprisoned as a Soviet dissident for nine years. He is a former member of the Israeli cabinet and co-author of "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror."

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Bombing at Israeli Food Stand Kills Five

October 26, 2005            Hadera, Israel

Homicide Bombing in Hadera MSNBC Video

Homicide Bombing in Hadera (Cont'd) MSNBC Video

Homicide Bombing in Hadera (Cont'd) Fox News Video

Bombing at Israeli Food Stand Kills Five
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_blast
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer

HADERA, Israel - A Palestinian suicide bomber standing in line at a crowded falafel stand blew himself up Wednesday in this central Israeli town, killing five people and injuring 21, police and rescuers said.

The bombing — the first suicide attack in nearly two months — eroded hopes that Israel's Gaza pullout would revive peace talks.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the blast, saying it was in retaliation for the killing of a top militant leader by Israeli troops earlier this week.

"This is another link in the murderous chain of terrorism served up by the Palestinian Authority, which continues to do nothing to stop these terror attacks," said Israeli government spokesman David Baker. "The Palestinian Authority should once and for all disarm and dismantle the terror organization."

Ambulances rushed to the scene after the explosion at the falafel stand, which was next to the central bus station. Rescuers treated the wounded in a nearby field.

"Body parts reached all the way until my apartment building. The damage is really great," witness Eidan Akiva told Channel Ten TV, saying he lived 100 yards from the blast.

"All the stalls alongside just fell apart. The windows are all broken. It looks like a war was here," he said. "This is a very crowded place, very central place. We never expected that this would happen. We thought our world was good but apparently we were wrong."

Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month has raised hopes for a return to Mideast peacemaking after five years of bloodshed. However, the sides have failed to capitalize on the pullout's momentum, and Wednesday's bombing appeared to hurt prospects for a return to talks.

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Banned in the U.K.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
Front Page Magazine | October 26, 2005

I was prevented from attending a meeting last weekend that I organized in the U.K. on "How to Combat Terror Financing." Had I gone, I would have been in jeopardy due to British libel laws.

I have been sued for libel in London by the Saudi billionaire Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz because my book, Funding Evil, documents how his charity, the Muwafaq Foundation, “transferred at least $3 million, on behalf of Khalid bin Mahfouz, to Usama bin Laden, and assisted al Qaeda fighters in Bosnia,” according to testimony of former National Security advisor Richard Clarke. Bin Mahfouz sued in London, because British libel laws guarantee that he could win without challenging the facts.

The British libel laws are so destructive that they affect writers and publications who never set foot in Britain and never published there. They are used effectively by Saudi billionaires who can afford the steep legal fees to silence successfully writers and publishers around the world who attempt to expose how the Saudis have funded and continue to fund the spread of Wahhabism, Islamist radicalism, and indoctrination that leads to global terrorism.

British libel laws are not the only tools that the Islamists use to silence their opponents. They exploit the laws that are designed to ensure freedom to subvert democracies throughout the world. And what they cannot achieve by exploiting the laws, they often achieve through intimidation and invoking political correctness.

Their success is demonstrated by Britain’s submission to Islamic will. These include the Dudley Council’s ban on all representations of pigs - “in the name of tolerance” - and the Tate Gallery’s cancellation of John Latham's “God Is Great," portraying Christian, Muslim, and Jewish holy-books, “because it could upset Muslims.” This submission is surprising in a people who stood up to the Nazis and did not bend under the Blitz. But now, the Queen knights a Muslim "community leader," Iqbal Sacranie, after he praises former Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin at his memorial service. In fact, Sacraine has also stated publicly, that "death is perhaps too easy" for Salman Rushdie.

This British submission did not help stop the July 7 bombings or the later bombing attempts. But even after the attacks, the Prime Minister appointed to the new anti–terror task force, which they call “the working group on tackling extremism,” Muslim advisers who are known to support Radical Islam, including Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan's U.S. visa was revoked last year, and he is believed to have connections to al Qaeda. Furthermore, last August, to enable Ramadan to speak at a gathering of Muslim youth in London, Scotland Yard contributed $15,000 of taxpayers money. Ramadan, who is also believed to have organized a meeting between Ayman al Zawahiri and Sheik Abdel Rahman currently teaches at St. Antony College, in Oxford. Another advisor to the Prime Minister’s task force, Inayat Bunglawala, was appointed despite his public praise of bin Laden as a “freedom fighter.”

This submissive attitude also leads the British to turn a blind eye to the sale of books like Mein Kampf and The Protocol of The Elders of Zion, which are printed in Egypt and Lebanon in Arabic and distributed in and from London to the rest of Europe. Clearly, the British legal system that banned my book seems to see nothing wrong with this anti-Semitic propaganda, even though this propaganda helps to create the climate that encourages Jihadist recruits from all over Europe to come to Britain to join the international brigade of Jihadis. From Britain, the Jihadis go on to fight British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Statements, new laws and banning terrorist organizations are important, but they are useless as long as Islamo-Fascism is allowed to flourish. As President Bush emphasized earlier this month, Islamo-Fascism cannot be eliminated by appeasement, or by dialogue, or negotiated solutions, as many falsely believe, especially in Europe. Indeed, without the political will to stop the direct and indirect financing of terrorism, no law or convention will stop it.

We should have tried to stop the spread of Wahhabism and Islamo–Fascism two decades ago. Our inaction, as much as their efforts, facilitated the funding of terrorism that has killed and maimed many thousands. In addition, Islamo-Facism has already infected tens of millions around the world with a hatred of democracy and freedom.

Although prevented from doing my job in the U.K., I’m challenging the funders of terrorism in the U.S. so as to defend my First Amendment rights. I have sued Khalid bin Mahfouz in the Southern District of New York.

Rachel Ehrenfeld is the director for the American Center for Democracy headquartered in New York. Author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, she is the world’s leading expert on Narco-Terrorism and a noteworthy authority on international terrorism, political corruption, money laundering, drug trafficking, and organized crime. Most recently, she was a consult for the Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Strategy.

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Iran: Israel Must Be Destroyed

For the first time in a number of years, a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel’s eradication. The official just happens to be President Ahmadinejad, who offered these words at a Tehran conference entitled “The World without Zionism”:

The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor [the US] against the Islamic world . . . The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land . . . As the Imam [Khomeini] said, Israel must be wiped off the map . . .The Islamic umma [community] will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland . . . We should not settle for a piece of land [Gaza] . . . Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world . . . Any leaders in the Islamic umma who recognise Israel face the wrath of their own people.

I’ll say this for Ahmadinejad: there’s no ambiguity in his words. But those words could be counterproductive for Iran by possibly weakening its position at the UN and increasing the likelihood of an Israeli pre-emptive strike if and when it appears that Iran is on the verge of having a nuclear weapons capability.

The only reason I can see for this exercise in extremism is to rally support for an unpopular regime by stirring up hatred for an external enemy. After all, that’s a time-honored technique for totalitarians.

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Dr. Ehrenfeld's Testimony before Canadian Parliament

Terrorism Financing

Testimony of Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld

Director of American Center for Democracy

before the

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS, PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS


I thank the Committee for inviting me to testify on this urgent matter.

Earlier this month, President George W. Bush finally declared that our war is with Radical Islam. He said:

“In pursuit of their goals, Islamic Radicals are empowered by helpers and enablers…They are strengthened by front operations - such as corrupted charities - and those who aggressively fund the spread of Radical, intolerant versions of Islam.” Defeating “the murderous ideology of the Islamic Radicals,” he said, is the “great challenge of our century.” This plague cannot be eliminated by appeasement, dialogue, or negotiated solutions.

The religious and philosophical justifications for promoting Jihad around the world, is found in the Quran, says Dr. Hussein Shehata, a leading Islamic scholar at al-Azhar University in Cairo. According to Dr. Shehata, the following terms in the Quran combine to justify the spreading of Jihad: in Arabic- Al-Jihad bil-Lisan – which means - Jihad of the Tongue, and al-Jihad bil-Qalam – Jihad of the Pen. Both combine for preaching and writing to promote Jihad.

These commands are complemented by Al-Jihad bil-Mal - the Financial Jihad; namely, raising and contributing money to support the Jihad warriors – known as the Mujahideen. The Islamists of al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hizballah – from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to Spain, England, Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, the U.S. and Canada – vow to convert the world to Islam. As documented by Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, Director of Orient Research Group in Toronto, “if a country does not allow the propagation of Islam to its inhabitants, then the Muslim [s] ..would be justified in waging Jihad against that country.”

President Bush declared repeatedly that; “ money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations.” Stopping the flow of money to the terrorists would stop the Financial Jihad which feeds the efforts to revive the Islamic Caliphate. It would also stop the financing of terror attacks, hate propaganda and education, and the undermining of democracies. In Israel, it has financed more than 26,000 terror attacks in the last five years, including 144 suicide attacks. This comes to at least 14 attacks a day in a country the size of Vancouver Island.

While acknowledging the dangers of Radical Islam, and the support its propagators receive from “authoritarian regimes ­– allies of convenience like Syria and Iran,” the President neglected to mention Saudi Arabia, and the illegal drug trade that provides major financial resources for Islamist and other terrorist organizations worldwide.

Despite the oil crisis, we can no longer pretend that the Saudis are our allies in the war against Radical Islam. Continuing to do so—or failing to recognize illegal drugs as a major source of terror funding—sets us up for failure.

Let me illustrate:

SAUDI ARABIA

Former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform in April this year that: “Some $85-90 billion has been spent from sources in Saudi Arabia in the last 30 years, spreading Wahhabi beliefs throughout the world.” The U.S. National Intelligence Reform Act of December 2004 requires development of a Presidential strategy to confront Islamic extremism, in collaboration with Saudi Arabia. So far, says a September Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, U.S. agencies have been unable to determine the extent of Saudi Arabia’s domestic and international cooperation.

Indeed, the Saudis continue to fund terrorists: in August, Y'akub Abu Assab, a senior HAMAS operative, was captured after he opened the Judea regional HAMAS Communication Center in East Jerusalem. Assab transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as operational instructions from HAMAS headquarters in Saudi Arabia to HAMAS operatives in the West Bank and Gaza for terror attacks in Israel, as well as funds for the families of suicide bombers.

On Iqra TV, on August 29, 2005, Saudi Arabia's secretary-general of the official Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission, Sheikh Abdallah Basfar, urged Muslims everywhere to fund terrorism. He said: "The Prophet said: 'He who equips a fighter -- it is as if he himself fought.' You lie in your bed, safe in your own home, and donate money and Allah credits you with the rewards of a fighter. What is this? A privilege.”

Under U.S. pressure, Saudi Arabia declared repeatedly that it would close some charities identified as spreading Wahhabism and funding terrorism. However, the GAO report notes that “in May 2005, ...it was unclear whether the government of Saudi Arabia had implemented its plans.” Despite Saudi promises to establish a new National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad, the GAO said:” “as of July 2005, this commission was not yet fully operational.”

At least two members of the Saudi government, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman and Minister of Defense Prince Sultan, are sponsor of the Saudi High Commission, which evidence in the 9/11 victims lawsuits show “’has long acted as a fully integrated component of al-Qaeda’s logistical and financial support infrastructure.” Moreover, the lawsuits detail that, “the Sept. 11 attacks were a ‘direct, intended and foreseeable product of [the High Commission’s] participation in al-Qaeda’s jihadist campaign.”

Princes Salman and Prince Sultan are also affiliated with the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), which “had been involved in terror plans and plots and had purposely directed its activities against the United States.” The Princes have also been affiliated with the Saudi Charity al- Haramain, whose U.S. branches were shut down.

The most important finding by the GAO, however, was buried in a footnote. It says: “the distinction between the [Saudi] government’s support and funding, versus that provided by entities and individuals, especially in the case of Saudi charities’ alleged activities, is not always clear.”

While the U.S. Treasury Department is obligated to monitor funders of terrorism, the GAO reports that Treasury is not fulfilling its duty, in that Treasury “does not identify, monitor, or counter the support and funding or the global propagation of Islamic extremism as it relates to an ideology.” This ideology, according to the GAO, “denies the legitimacy of non-believers and practitioners of other forms of Islam, and that explicitly promotes hatred, intolerance, and violence…” Indeed, the propagation of this ideology, known as “DAWA,” is an integral part of Islamic institutions in the West.
Meanwhile, legal systems in the West are doing their best: the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California decided (October 20) that the U.S. can designate foreign organizations as terrorist groups and bar Americans from financially backing them—in a case involving money raised for the Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq.

Similarly, The European Court of Justice, on September 22, 2005 ruled that the EU has the right to freeze assets belonging to suspected terrorists on a United Nations list. The case was brought by the Saudi based Al Barakaat International Foundation and two individuals, Ahmed Ali Yusuf, a U.K. citizen of Pakistani origins, and Yassin Abdullah Kadi, the Saudi who headed the bin Mahfouz owned Muwafaq foundation. Both organizations and individuals were identified as funding al-Qaeda.

Iran
Like Saudi Arabia, Iran exports Radical Islamic ideology and terrorism, chiefly through Hizballah. Western intelligence sources estimate Hizballah’s operational budget at about $200 to $500 million annually. Hizballah’s money comes from many sources, including :
· at least $120 million a year from Iran, and less from Syria.

And like other terrorist organizations, Hizballah receives funding from:
· Charitable organizations
· Donations from individuals
· Proceeds from legitimate businesses

In addition, Hizballah also derives profits from illegitimate businesses such as:
· Drug trafficking
· Illegal arms trading
· Cigarette smuggling
· Currency, video and CD counterfeiting
· Fraud
· Robbery
· Operating illegal telephone exchanges
· Extortion

The money raised by Hizballah is used to fund not only its “political” party in Lebanon, which serves a cover for Hizballah. Most of the money goes to fund Hizballah’s terror activities, including the operations of its major hate propaganda distributing machine, the al Manar satellite television station. It also goes to fund Palestinian terrorism. According to the October 13, 2005 Palestinian daily, al Ayyam, the Iranian sponsored Ansar Welfare Society and Palestine Shahid Society, distributed $1 million dollars to families of martyrs, and in a ceremony attended by Palestinian Authority officials, and shown on official Palestinian television, the Iranian Shahid Foundation recently distributed an additional 2 million dollars in grants to martyrs’ families. (Jonathan Dahoah Halevy, Wilton Park Presentation, October 20, 2005).

Illegal Drugs
Since the mid 1980s, Hizballah has used illicit drugs as a major funding source and weapon against the West. An official Iranian fatwa ruled: “We are making these drugs for Satan America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, so we will kill them with drugs.”

Hizballah’s involvement in the illegal drug trade centers on a transnational triangle of illicit activity conducted from areas of Lebanon, the Balkans and the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The unstable, often corrupt, government structures, weak economic platforms, porous borders and largely unsupervised waterways and airfields in these regions are highly conducive to illicit operations.

In Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley, Hizballah controls approximately 13,000 acres that produce at least 300 tons of hashish annually, most of which is exported to Europe. This high-quality Lebanese hashish grosses Hizballah $180 million annually. Hizballah run laboratories refining tons of heroin, are estimated to bring in some $3 billion annually. Hizballah also smuggles arms. However, one smuggled Kalashnikov wholesales for $500, while one kilo of heroin wholesales for $3,000- $5000.

Hizballah operatives have strong relationships with major Narco-terrorist organizations, criminal gangs and other Islamist organizations throughout Europe; Africa; South and Central America; the Caribbean and Mexico.

Brazilian authorities estimated that tri-border region criminals launder approximately $6 to $6.5 billion annually. A Paraguayan former Interior Minister reported that from 1991 to 2001 alone, Hizballah received anywhere from $50 million to $500 million from this region.

Brazilian security agents also estimate that in 2000 alone, at least $261 million was sent to the Middle East from Islamist organizations in the tri-border region, including Hizballah, Islamic Jihad and HAMAS.

A March 2005 U.S. Congressional report on Terrorism in Latin America acknowledges the presence of Hizballah, but says that: al- Qaeda[’s] “presence in the tri-boarder region remain[s] uncorroborated.” However, there is ample evidence that al Qaeda, works with other terror organizations such as Islamic Jihad, a Hizballah subsidiary, and HAMAS who share the same agenda—to create Islamic rule worldwide.

Afghanistan

After the fall of the Taliban, the evidence that heroin was their major financial resource was overwhelming. Yet, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan failed to mention illegal drug trafficking as a global threat in his plan to improve international security and reform the U.N. Moreover, last week, the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe, Gen. James Jones while acknowledging “that (poppy production) is the number one problem that Afghanistan has to face for its future, “ failed to connect the revenues derived from the heroin trade to the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Clearly the U.S. did not intend to turn Afghanistan into a multi-billion dollar heroin exporter when it liberated the country from the oppressive Taliban regime. Yet, reluctance to deal with Afghanistan's ever expanding poppy fields and heroin labs has caused an 800% increase in its heroin production since 2001. The latest U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report indicates that a slight decline in poppy cultivation has not yet cut availability of heroin in Europe or the U.S. In fact Afghanistan supplies 87% of the world’s heroin market, bringing in an estimated $7 billion dollars annualy to local warlords and a resurging Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Now the Pentagon is reluctantly engaging in the counter-narcotics effort, but there remains disagreement among Afghan, U.S., and U.N. officials about how best to fight this problem. President Hamid Karzai often warns that the drug trade poses a greater danger to Afghanistan than terrorism and calls on his countrymen to “do jihad” against drugs. Yet, at the same time, he argues that since heroin provides at least 60% of the Afghan gross domestic product, a drastic eradication program will destabilize the country.

Potential solution

The US government has spent more than $10 million in the last decade to develop mycoherbicides—naturally occurring plant-pathogenic fungi that could easily and safely eradicate coca bushes, and poppy and cannabis plants. According to mycoherbicides researcher Dr. David Sands, all that is needed to use this eradication method, is “a battery of six tests to verify the safety of the mycoherbicide from the point of toxicity and probable environmental impact…[and]would cost $40,000 for each fungal strain." This seems like a very small investment to eradicate the cocaine, cannabis and heroin problems. It would also work towards the development of a sustainable economy for the Afghan people.

In addition to supporting and subsidizing the establishment of alternative crops and industries wherever these drugs are cultivated, including Afghanistan, this safe method would be a cost effective solution for all parties involved. It would further the US and UN agenda to eradicate drugs, reduce crime, and fight poverty. It would also help to build stable and secure Afghan state, and it would surely cut off the funds for terrorists. The use of mycoherbicides would render the cocaine, heroin and Hashish unprofitable, and criminal and terrorist organizations alike will be deprived of billions of dollars. Yes, this would have an effect on the economies of many countries, but terrorism would be the biggest loser, and free societies all over the world the winners.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting, which was held in Paris earlier this month, and the many other conferences devoted to terrorism financing, have issued self-congratulatory statements and plans for further meetings. But as important as the statements, new laws and banning of terrorist organizations are, they are useless as long as the financing of Radical Islam is allowed to flourish. Indeed, without the political will to stop the direct and indirect financing of terrorism, no law or convention will stop it.

The West is essentially combating terror financing solely by its own Jihad of the tongue. Until we face up to sources of terrorist money being provided or condoned in various ways by our putative allies, we will be fated to issuing more lame statements condemning future attacks. We have the ability to end the plague of terrorism if we only chock - off the funding that make it possible. We owe it to future generations to do so.

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Dead Jews Aren't News

By Tom Gross
The Spectator | October 26, 2005

Rachel Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb attack on a crowd of teenagers on 16 February 2002.

Even though Thaler was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live, her death has never been mentioned in a British newspaper.

Rachel Corrie, on the other hand, an American radical who died in 2003 while acting as a human shield during an Israeli anti-terror operation in Gaza, has been widely featured in the British press. According to the Guardian website, she has been written about or referred to on 57 separate occasions in the Guardian alone, including three articles the Saturday before last.

The cult of Rachel Corrie doesn't stop there. Last week the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, reopened at the larger downstairs auditorium at the Royal Court Theatre (a venue which the New York Times recently described as 'the most important theatre in Europe'). It previously played to sold-out audiences at the upstairs theatre when it opened in April. (It is very rare to revive a play so quickly.)

On 1 November the 'Cantata concert for Rachel Corrie' - co-sponsored by the Arts Council - has its world premiere at the Hackney Empire.

But Rachel Thaler, unlike Rachel Corrie, was Jewish. And unlike Corrie, Jewish victims of Middle East violence have not become a cause célèbre in Britain. This lack of response is all the more disturbing at a time when an increasing number of British Jews feel that there has been a sharp rise in anti-Semitism.

Thaler is by no means the only Jewish Rachel whose violent death has been entirely ignored by the British media. Other victims of the Intifada include Rachel Levy (aged 17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus), Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home) and Rachel Kol, 53, who worked at a Jerusalem hospital and was killed with her husband in a Palestinian terrorist attack in July a few days after the London bombs.

Corrie's death was undoubtedly tragic but, unlike the death of these other Rachels, it was almost certainly an accident. She was killed when she was hit by an Israeli army bulldozer she was trying to stop from demolishing a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons.

Unfortunately for those who have sought to portray Corrie as a peaceful protester, photos of her burning a mock American flag and stirring up crowds in Gaza at a pro-Hamas rally were published by the Associated Press and on Yahoo News on 15 February 2003, a month before she died.
(Those photos were not used in the British press.)

While Thaler's parents, after donating their murdered daughter's organs for transplant surgery, grieved quietly, Corrie's parents embarked on a major publicity campaign with strong political overtones. They travelled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter. They circulated her emails and diary entries to a world media eager to publicise them. They have written op-ed pieces, including a recent one in the Guardian.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group with which Corrie was affiliated, is routinely described as a 'peace group' in the media. Few make any mention of the ISM's meeting with the British suicide bombers Omar Khan Sharif and Asif Muhammad Hanif who, a few days later, blew up Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens, including British citizens. Or of the ISM's sheltering in its office of Shadi Sukiya, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. Or of the fact that in its mission statement the ISM said 'armed struggle' is a Palestinian 'right'.

According to the 'media co-ordinator' of the ISM, Flo Rosovski, '"Israel" is an illegal entity that should not exist' - which at any rate clarifies the ISM's idea of peace.

Indeed, partly because of the efforts of Corrie's fellow activists in the ISM, the Israeli army was unable to stop the flow of weapons through the tunnels near where she was demonstrating. Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children in the town of Sderot in southern Israel, and elsewhere.

However, in many hundreds of articles on Corrie published in the last two years, most papers have been careful to omit such details. So have actor Alan Rickman and Guardian journalist Katharine Viner, co-creators of My Name is Rachel Corrie, leaving almost all the critics who reviewed the play completely ignorant about the background to the events with which it deals.

So in April, when reviewers first wrote about the play, they tended to take it completely at face value. 'Corrie was murdered after joining a non-violent Palestinian resistance organisation,' wrote Emma Gosnell in the Sunday Telegraph. The Evening Standard, for example, described it as a 'true-life tragedy' in which Corrie's 'unselfish goodness shines through'.

Only one critic (Clive Davis in the Times) saw the play for the propaganda it is. At one point Corrie declares, 'The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian
non-violent resistance.' As Davis notes, 'Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one.'

But ultimately the play, and many of the articles about Corrie that have appeared, are not really about the young American activist who died in such tragic circumstances. They are about promoting a hate-filled and glaringly one-sided view of Israel.

Tom Gross is a former Jerusalem correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph.

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Silence on Syria

Harold's List
NATAN SHARANSKY
THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 26, 2005

It is axiomatic that the bond between the United States and Israel is built not merely on common interests, but also on the shared values of our citizens, in particular our mutual love of freedom and democracy. Because of this strong bond, our alliance can weather many disagreements between our governments - whether over issues such as the potential construction of the E1 corridor between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, or divergent interpretations of President George W. Bush's April 2004 letter to the Israeli prime minister.

Such disagreements clearly stem from respective do