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"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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War

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses

March 15, 2007 by Jack Steiner 3 Comments

In the next few days we are going to be reading quite a bit about this. We’ll have to see if how things shake out. I won’t be surprised to see a few changes here and there. In the meantime here are some excerpts for your consumption.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Mohammed said in a statement read during the session, which was held last Saturday.

The transcripts also refer to a claim by Mohammed that he was tortured by the CIA, although he said he was not under duress at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo when he confessed to his role in the attacks.

In a section of the statement that was blacked out, he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, The Associated Press has learned. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the killing.

Using his own words, the extraordinary transcript connects Mohammed to dozens of the worst terror plots attempted or carried out in the last 15 years and to others that have not occurred. All told, thousands have died in operations he directed.

His words draw al-Qaida closer to plots of the early 1990s than the group has previously been connected to, including the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing. Six people with links to global terror networks were convicted in federal court and sentenced to life in prison.

It also makes clear that al-Qaida wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid’s operation.

Mohammed said he was involved in planning the 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort frequented by Israelis and the failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. He also said he was responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. In 2002, 202 were killed when two Bali nightclubs were bombed.

Other plots he said he was responsible for included planned attacks against the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building and New York Stock Exchange, the Panama Canal and Big Ben and Heathrow Airport in London none of which happened.

He said he was involved in planning assassination attempts against former Presidents Carter and Clinton, attacks on U.S. nuclear power plants and suspension bridges in New York, the destruction of American and Israeli embassies in Asia and Australia, attacks on American naval vessels and oil tankers around the world, and an attempt to “destroy” an oil company he said was owned by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Sumatra, Indonesia.

He also claimed he shared responsibility for assassination attempts against Pope John Paul II and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 28 attacks and assisting in three others. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which blacked out some of his remarks.”

Here is a (http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10024.pdf) link to the PDF of the Transcript. For some reason I am having difficulty copying and pasting from it. I encourage you to review it. It is quite a list and should serve as a stark reminder of just who we are up against.

Filed Under: Terrorism, War

The Future of Europe

March 14, 2007 by Jack Steiner 4 Comments

Daniel Pipes (http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4323) offers several potential scenarios regarding the future of Europe. I encourage you to read the whole piece. Here is a short excerpt for each scenario:

Muslim Rule– To sum up: this first argument holds that Europe will be Islamized, quietly submitting to the dhimmi status or converting to Islam, because the yin of Europe and yang of Muslims fit so well: low and high religiosity, low and high fertility, low and high cultural confidence.[2] Europe is an open door through which Muslims are walking.

Muslim Rejection– Or will the door be shut in their face? American columnist Ralph Peters dismisses the first scenario: “Far from enjoying the prospect of taking over Europe by having babies, Europe’s Muslims are living on borrowed time. … predictions of a Muslim takeover of Europe … ignore history and Europe’s ineradicable viciousness.” Instead, depicting Europe as the place “that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing,” he predicts its Muslims “will be lucky just to be deported,” and not killed. Claire Berlinski, in Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis Is America’s, Too, implicitly agrees, pointing to the “ancient conflicts and patterns … now shambling out of the mists of European history” which could well trigger violence.

This scenario has indigenous Europeans – who do still constitute 95 percent of the continent’s population – waking up one day and asserting themselves. “Basta!” they will say, and reclaim their historic order. This is not so remote; a chafing among Europeans, less among elites than the masses, loudly protests changes already underway. Illustrations of that resentment include the anti-hijab legislation in France, irritation over the restrictions of national flags and Christian symbols, and the insistence on serving wine at state dinners. A movement spontaneously developed in several French cities in early 2006 to serve pork soup to the poor, thus intentionally excluding Muslims.

Muslim Integration– Such optimism, unfortunately, has little foundation. Europeans could yet rediscover their Christian faith, have more babies, and cherish their own heritage. They could encourage non-Muslim immigration or acculturate the Muslims already among them. But such changes are not now underway, nor are their prospects good. Instead, Muslims are cultivating grievances and ambitions at odds with their indigenous neighbors. Worryingly, each generation appears more alienated than its predecessor. Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan dubbed his country’s English-French split the “Two Solitudes“; one sees something similar, but far more pronounced, developing in Europe. Those polls of British Muslims for example, find that a majority of them perceive a conflict between their British and Muslim identities and want Islamic law instituted.

The possibility of Muslims accepting the confines of historic Europe and smoothly integrating within it can virtually be dismissed from consideration. Even Bassam Tibi, professor at the University of Göttingen, who has often warned that “Either Islam gets Europeanized, or Europe gets Islamized,” has personally given up on the continent. Recently, he announced that he is leaving Germany after 44 years’ residence there, to move to Cornell University in the United States.

Filed Under: Europe, Islam, Israel, War

There Are Four Iraq Wars

February 14, 2007 by Jack Steiner 3 Comments

I found this article on Slate to be interesting. Here is an excerpt:

“Thanks to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, I now have an answer: Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: “One is Shi’a on Shi’a,
principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets.” The multifaceted nature of these four wars has frustrated American strategy since 2003. Successes in one area produce setbacks in the others, with al-Qaida hovering above the fray to spoil progress whenever it threatens to bring stability to Iraq, as they did by bombing the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 after the successful Iraqi elections. Consequently, any strategies implementing the “
counterinsurgency playbook,” smart as those plans may be, will necessarily prove insufficient because we aren’t just fighting an insurgency anymore.”

Filed Under: Iraq, Politics, War

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