July 06, 2002

DAVID HOROWITZ

is worried about the FBI. After the July 4th non-terrorist event at LAX, and FBI Director Mueller's recent coddling of the American Muslim Council, we all should be.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE HASHEMITE RESTORATION

may soon get underway. Jordan seems to be displacing Saudi Arabia as our base of operations in the Middle East, since reports of our troops' presence there have been leaking out for a couple of weeks. Jordan's King Abdullah seems to be a smarter man than his father, who sided with Saddam during Gulf War I.

UPDATE: Here's one reason to speed up attack plans (because he's against the attack, not because he'd get caught up in it).
Posted by B. Preston at 10:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

BAD NEWS ON THE AFGHAN FRONT

: One of the interim government's vice presidents has been assassinated.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MICHAEL NEWDOW

is my new hero. No, I haven't been eating those illegal mushrooms. That idiot, he of the recent Plege infamy, has been exposed as a fraud and a loon. He's my hero because he makes a great poster-boy for frivolous lawsuits, for misusing the courts as a political weapon, and for exposing what liberal jurisprudence is and why it's such a menace. "Give us strict constructionists--vote Republican" should become the political battle cry this fall, and we have Mr. Newdow to thank.

Not that I think any of this was his intent, mind you.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WHILE THE JUNKYARD

and its readers have been going after Islamofascist sites one at a time, Jonathan Galt has been going after them wholesale. He's found and linked a bunch of them, and I'm highlighting him, and thereby those sites, to draw public attention to this one method we all have of fighting and winning this war. It's possible, and likely, that sleeper cells here in the US are getting their marching orders from sites like those linked on Galt's page. Let's expose them and hopefully get them shut down. There's absolutely no reason that these killers should be able to plunk down a few bucks for hosting fees and spread malice against us. Hopefully explosing these sites will also cause web hosts to more carefully examine who they're selling space to, and get some terror pages shut down that way too.

(thanks to Dave--and no, I don't endorse most of the content on Galt's site, I'm just exposing the terror web sites)
Posted by B. Preston at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WHAT DO YOU DO

about a country that openly funds and supports Palestinian terror, that tries to block every US initiative against Iraq, and supplied 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers? If you're the US State Department, you make sure it's as easy as possible for that country to funnel even more potential terrorists our way.

And if you're the State Department and you get caught running this insane "visa express" policy and get criticized for it, what do you do? Do you tighten up the visa requirements? Nope--according to National Review's Joel Mobwbray (interviewed here by Brit Hume) you just change the name of the program:

MOWBRAY: They dropped the name visa express on the same day that the National Review story hit newsstands, and they changed the description on the web site. And that was it. They did nothing else.

HUME: Process is the same?

MOWBRAY: Process is the same. A colleague of mine called up to a travel agent in Saudi Arabia in Arabic. And he said, "Hey, I'm worried. The Web site makes it sound pretty tough." And the travel agent said back to him in Arabic, "Don't worry. Only the Web site has changed. It is still easy to get a visa."


I don't know about you, but that sure makes me feel a lot better.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

IF DEBKA CAN BE TRUSTED

, which it seems to be about two-thirds of the time, the LAX shooter was linked to Egyptian Jihad, a terror group that merged with and became an operational arm of al Qaeda a few years ago. The linked NewMax story also raises doubts about the 1999 Egypt Air crash that has never been conclusively ruled terrorism, accident or something else, though the co-pilot was reportedly heard offering an Islamic prayer as the plane went down:

"Hadayat [sic] is also believed to have abetted a previous, contrived airline disaster: On October 31, 1999, an Egyptair Boeing 767 Flight 990, which also took off from Los Angeles airport for Kennedy, New York. After Kennedy, the plane bound for Cairo plunged into the Atlantic off the Nantucket Island, Mass. coast, killing all 217 passengers and crew. In a special probe, the US National Transportation Safety Board found that the copilot Gameel el-Batouty was at the controls when the plane went into its dive. His voice was recorded shouting, 'I put my faith in Allah!'

"The report held back from referring more directly to the Egyptian copilot's responsibility for the crash," DEBKA noted.


LAX shooter Hadayet may also have ties to the 1993 crew that bombed the World Trade Center:

"During his ten years in the United States, he was a secret operative of the Egyptian Jihad who maintained undercover links to the same Jihad cell in Brooklyn, New York, as the 'blind sheikh' Abdul Rahim Rahman and Ramzi Yousef. Both are doing time for perpetrating the first attack on the New York World Trade Center in 1993," DEBKA said.


Neither DEBKA nor NewsMax gives sources for this information, but DEBKA does offer a possible glimpse into the investigation currently underway to determine the extent to which Thursday's shooting can be labelled terrorism:

Since the attack, the possibility that he arrived in America as a sleeper terrorist must be seriously addressed. US investigators realize he was not a lone operative and are seeking his accomplices in such matters as setting up the hit, providing the guns he carried and intelligence on the security situation at the Tom Brady terminal.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East intelligence sources report that early Friday, Egyptian intelligence officers picked up Hadayat’s relatives and associates in Cairo, to try and trace the identities of his fellows in the American Jihad cell.


Of couse, just looking at the bare facts--Egyptian (Arab) male, attacking El Al's ticket booth at the airport, it looks an awful lot like an act of terrorism. The FBI seems very interested in a despondency angle, citing the fact that his family recently returned to Egypt. As half of an internationl marriage, I don't put much in this angle. My wife and kid leave the country on extended stays annually. As an Egyptian family, it's natural to assume that Hadayet's family was simply going back home to visit family. It's also possible that he sent them back knowing the attack was imminent, and he wanted them out of the country before hand. I don't buy the despondency angle, as I think it's the least likely scenario. The most likely, until proven otherwise, remains terrorism in my mind.

(thanks to several readers who sent in various versions of this story)
Posted by B. Preston at 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 05, 2002

U.S. MOVES IN, HUMAN RIGHTS IMPROVE

: That's according to this Christian Science Monitor story. It's about the improving human rights situation in Uzbekistan, where the US started basing forces shortly after 9-11 to help topple the Taliban. In typical fashion, lefties who enjoy the comfort of criticizing the US where it's safest--within the US--don't see the progress as, well, progress:

"The Uzbek government is serious in recognizing the need to satisfy the U.S. on this ... but it is not sincere," says John Schoeberlein, head of the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus at Harvard University. "Basically, it's just PR."


Don't tell that to the newly freed Uzbek press, or the nearly 1,000 political prisoners recently freed due to US pressure:

Uzbekistan abolished censorship in mid-May, and on Wednesday, Karimov ordered the creation of an independent agency with the task of ensuring media freedom. The first official registration of a human rights group took place in March, under strong U.S. pressure - and just days before Karimov visited Washington. For the first time, some 860 prisoners held on political and religious charges were included last fall in an annual amnesty.


Uzbekistan likely still has a long way to go toward liberty, but the US is applying the right pressure to make sure it stays on the road to full human rights for its citizens. I bet the terrorists, and the lefty intelligentsia here in the States, never counted on this. Notably, Amnesty International has no comment.
Posted by B. Preston at 02:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT FOURTH

. We did--had friends over, bbq-ed some ribs, played a little Risk (nothing like winning a game of world conquest to make it a great 4th of July), went to see some fireworks at dusk. For the first time in decades, ground sparklers are legal in Maryland, so people all around us at the fireworks show were having little shows of their own, blowing stuff up, tossing around snap-pops, lighting up all kinds of fun stuff. It was great to see--we'be been fed all these terrorism warnings for the past few days, yet Americans are so unlikely to panic that we still feel comfortable watching sky explosions, hearing and feeling the concussive report, and surrounding ourselves with stranges armed with lighters, little explosives and mischievous grins. Makes me proud to be an American.

I'm sure you've heard about the shootings at LAX by now. I find it interesting that they're releasing the gunman's age but nothing else. It could mean nothing, but I suspect it must mean something--else why not just tell us all about him? Over at FreeRepublic.com, posters are speculating about it, and one person has sniffed out a Russian news report that claims to have good source confirmation that the gunman was a Saudi citizen. I can't read Russian myself, but here's a Babblefish translation, and it does say that the guy was Saudi.

Equally disturbing is this Nick Kristof story, which paints a picture of an FBI that's almost totally disinterested in catching the culprit behind last fall's anthrax attacks.

Almost everyone who has encountered the F.B.I. anthrax investigation is aghast at the bureau's lethargy. Some in the biodefense community think they know a likely culprit, whom I'll call Mr. Z. Although the bureau has polygraphed Mr. Z, searched his home twice and interviewed him four times, it has not placed him under surveillance or asked its outside handwriting expert to compare his writing to that on the anthrax letters.

This is part of a larger pattern. Astonishingly, the F.B.I. allowed the destruction of anthrax stocks at Iowa State University, losing what might have been valuable genetic clues. Then it waited until December to open the intact anthrax envelope it found. The F.B.I. didn't obtain anthrax strains from various labs for comparison until March, and the testing is still not complete. The bureau did not systematically polygraph scientists at two suspect labs, Fort Detrick, Md., and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, until a month ago.


Again, it could mean nothing, but a plain reading of the facts as presented here sure look like they mean more than nothing.

For my last terror news roundup today, what in the world is going on at Arab News? A week or so back they published a story about a former Libyan official who more or less read the riot act to his fellow Muslims, telling them to stop blaming all their problems on the West and look to themselves for blame. Now, a writer for Arab News has joined the Usama is dead chorus. Interestingly, the writer isn't necessarily claming that bin Laden is literally, physically dead--just politically dead, and that his politics of terror have died with him. I don't know about that, since there do seem to be a awful lot of Usama admirers around the Arab world these days, and considering that Arab News is a Saudi-run mouthpiece and the Saudis have their own reasons to bury bin Laden, but it's an interesting story.

One problem with the story, though, is that the author claims to be the first one to report on bin Laden's demise. Long-time readers of the JYB, though, have been hearing about it since February.

(thanks to Chris and Dave for a couple of these threads--I hope you guys spent some time enjoying the holiday)

UPDATE: Blame it on the Russians--the LAX shooter turned out to be a 41-year-old Egyptian. Then again, the fact that his age was erroneously reported from the get-go suggests that he may have been carrying a false ID.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 03, 2002

BEFORE HEADING OFF FOR THE FOURTH

, I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's been stopping by lately, reading my scratches and leaving the occassional comment or sending email. You make writing for free more fun. Also before going, I'd like to point your attention to this article that was sent to me by British reader James Baker. It's about the risk-averse generals commanding our military. I think that, at the outset of all wars, a certain amount of displacement at the top of the military is needed and takes place. Peacetime generals are devoted to achieving rank, maintaining troops levels and readiness, improving technology, and generally managing in the manner of a corporate CEO. When war breaks out, all of those things take second to the objective, which is winning. Generals who take the risks of victory are seldom the same generals who manage well in peacetime. Hopefully, the near future will bring military leaders to the fore who will take those risks, and will take on the tough choices that will lead to victory. As the linked article indicates, we're not there yet, and the manager generals are still in charge of the US military.

Have a great holiday, and remember what it's all about.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TAPPED STEPS UP

: They took the challenge, and have now criticized Democrats.com. They seem confused as to why they should answer for the rhetorical sins of fellow lefties. We bloggers and conservatives were likewise somewhat confused as to why we should have to answer for Cal Thomas' column last week, but heartily took up the challenge to show one thing--fairness. We can and will criticize our own. I'm glad to see that TAPPED has weighed in, even if they did take on the low hanging fruit. Democrats.com is a much more vitriolic site than TAPPED's criticism lets on.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FORMER AMBASSADOR TO SUDAN CONFIRMS

that the Clinton Administration had the chance to apprehend Usama bin Laden in the late '90s. The story of Mansour Ijaz, Pakistani-American businessman who has for the past several months claimed to have brokered a deal that would have put bin Laden in US hands, was confirmed tonight on Fox News by the last US Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney. Mitigating the story somewhat, Carney's and Ijaz' stories date from 1996 and 1997, before the African embassy bombings, before Khobar Towers, before the bombing of the USS Cole and of course 9-11. But bin Laden was already known to be the world's richest terrorist, and had already declared jihad against the United States and its interests worldwide. He was known to be a very dangerous enemy of the US, and it was likely already known that his men had trained Mohammed Farah Aidid's men in Somalia.

Thing is, this corroboration line isn't new. Vanity Fair reported on this story in January, quoting Carney corroborating Mansour Ijaz and his now sad tale about how the Clinton Administration failed utterly when dealing with Sudan.

ACCORDING TO TIM CARNEY, THE LAST U.S. AMBASSADOR to Sudan, whose posting ended in 1997, the fact is, they were opening the doors, and we weren't taking them up on it. The U.S. failed to reciprocate Sudan's willingness to engage us on some serious questions of terrorism. We can speculate that this failure had serious implications at least for what happened at the U.S. Embassies in 1998. In any case, the U.S. lost access to a mine of material on bin Laden and his organization.E He tells Rose, it was worse than a crime. It was a fuckup.E

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED? CARNEY CONTENDS that U.S. intelligence failed because it became politicizedE the message from Sudan did not fit conventional wisdom at the State Department and the C.I.A., and so it was disregarded, again and again. Rose writes that the simple answer is that the Clinton administration had accused Sudan of sponsoring terrorism, and refused to believe that anything it did to prove its bona fides could be genuine. At the same time, perceptions in Washington were influenced by C.I.A. reports that were wildly inaccurate, some the result of deliberate disinformation.


The date--1996--and the allegation of "deliberate disinformation" on the part of US intel agencies does make this conspiracy-riddled mind whirl back to about a year prior, to an attack on a federal building in the heartland, in which multiple witnesses claimed to have seen multiple accomplices, yet only two were ever convicted. There's also another theme in there--the politicization of our national security agencies that occurred under Clinton's watch--that deserves notice. There's nothing like a cover-up to polarize and politicize a bureaucracy.

As one indication that things regarding terrorism really did change somewhat when the Bush Administration came in:

It was not until May 2000 that the US sent a joint FBI-CIA team to Sudan to investigate whether it was harboring terrorists; the country was given a clean bill of health in the summer of 2001. Just a few weeks prior to the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration requested Sudan's information on al-Qaeda.


Question is, why is most of the media treating this story like it's no big deal? It's a huge deal--all of the major bombings, from Africa to the Cole to Khobar Towers to 9-11, could likely have been prevented had the Clinton Administration been willing to talk to Sudan, examine their considerable files on al Qaeda, and take bin Laden. And the Clinton Administration had already been dealt the Somalia disaster, and had already suffered at least one bombing on US soil (WTC 1993) at the hands of Islamic terrorists, and possibly a second one since the OKC bombing trials hadn't gotten underway yet, so they should have known the potential threat bin Laden posed. But the typical reporter interviews Ijaz, then gets a counter quote from former Clinton Administration officials dismissing him as a crank to protect their own backsides, and calls it a day. Thank goodness a few media outlets--Vanity Fair and now Fox, sought a third opinion. ABC News has also done some solid reporting on the Carney angle, with this telling passage in a Feb 20 story:

Susan Rice, who was responsible for U.S. policy on Africa under the Clinton administration, said the reason is that after many meetings with the Sudanese, there was no real offer of intelligence files. (Rice and Carney obviously have a very different recollection of events.)

"We wanted names. We wanted bank accounts. We wanted paper. We wanted the bodies themselves, the individuals to interview," she said. "And none of that was forthcoming." (Rice has been the Clinton official most often quoted calling Mr. Ijaz names like "crackpot")

Instead of cooperating with Sudan, the United States struck a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in retaliation for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. officials have blamed bin Laden for planning and funding these bombings. (Nice job. Those missiles ain't cheap, and neither is goodwill.)

Clinton administration officials insisted the plant was involved in chemical weapons production, a claim that was disputed strongly by the plant's owner, who has since sued the U.S. government.

The Defense Intelligence Agency later raised doubts about the target, stating in a review that the strike was based on "bad science and bad intelligence." (italics mine)


The Washington Post also ran an op-ed by Ijaz and Carney about this over the weekend. It's a disturbing read, relating both to past intelligence failures and future intelligence difficulties. It also demonstrates why Susan Rice would contradict the Carney story--her policy decisions led directly to the failure to capitalize on Sudan's offer of bin Laden and its files on al Qaeda. At the time in question, Sudan was hardly a vacation spot. Its record on human rights has long been a horror, but in the mid-90's Sudan did seem to be trying to mend its ways, even helping with the arrest of notorious terrorist "Carlos the Jackal." So Sudan was by no means a pristine parnter, but they did seem to have a serious offer on the table. Pity is that the ham-handed Clinton Administration, because of people like Susan Rice, NSC terrorism specialist Richard Clarke and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, failed to take them up on it.

Next time you hear or read someone blame President Bush for our current predicament, just brandish the Ijaz-Carney story.



(thanks to Chris for catching the NewsMax story)
Posted by B. Preston at 12:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 02, 2002

TALKING TO TAPPED

: I've just sent round two. I'm sure it will be every bit as ignored as round one, proving that TAPPED is very selective in the radicals it chooses to criticize:

TAPPED,

Which is more important--fact-checking a semi-crazed blonde pundit, or exposing a group that advocates overthrowing the President of the United States in the midst of war? That question should be easy enough to answer, but I bet you'll have a hard time with it. Especially when the potential insurrectionists are well-connected Democrats. Don't believe me? Please follow the link...

http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7915

Good day,

Bryan Preston
http://junkyardblog.blogspot.com


That link is to the story I posted comments about below--the one that advocates overthrowing President Bush and gutting the Constitution, and is currently running on Democrats.com. I'd say that advocating a rebellion while we're trying to fight a war is a little bit worse than Cal Thomas' unfortunate column, and just a teensie bit more extreme than anything Ann Coulter's written. Let's see if TAPPED agrees.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

SOME STORIES JUST SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

: In Pakistan, a teenage girl was ordered to be gang-raped to pay for an offense committed by her younger brother. The offense? He walked unchaparoned with a girl from an upper-class tribe.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

BENEVOLENCE INTERNATIONAL

, recently shut down by the feds for their alleged links to al Qaeda (never mind the possible links to Terry Nichols), still has an operational website. Whois time...

Here are the results. With their Chigaco connections, it's no surprise that it's based in Illinois.

(another catch by Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 08:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AN ARMY OF GEEKS

: The US Army's newest recruiting tool is a set of computer games. Well, it's got to be better than that "Army of One" crap.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DISTANCE LEARNING FOR TERRORISTS:

Where does a young, enthusiastic terrorist-to-be get the know-how to become an effective killing machine? If he happens to have an internet connection, he can log on to Hamas' chat room, where the following exchange was recently picked up

HAMAS CHAT: HOW TO MURDER AMERICANS
Internet surfers looking to discuss how to murder American citizens, need only to log on to the official Hamas terror gang website. The site’s chat room has recently hosted a discussion, in which participants have described how they would go about murdering Americans. Here are some excerpts from the discussion
(courtesy of the IDF website):

Al-Awsad (user number 1):
Once a week, a group of American "dogs" come near us on the sea front. I have been following them for a long time and am interested in your suggestions for ways to get rid of them secretly.

Salam (user number 2):
If they arrive in a private car, put a large amount of sugar in the gas tank of the car. Then, you can ambush them on the way back because the car will get stuck in the way. You will have many options to get rid of them. You can run them over on the road, after they abandon the broken down car. You can put a trap on the beach if they tend do a lot of walking. If you have people with you and 4 cars, you can stop them at a certain point on the road, at a traffic light for example, block them from all directions and burn them in their cars using a Molotov cocktail.

MSKZ (user number 3):
Read Koran verses on them and then kill them one by one, after you have made sure they are Israeli American tyrants.

Al- Awsad (user number 1):
Thank you all very much, but I would like to get rid of them quietly. They have a cabin on the beach were they meet every week. It is very easy to get into; that is, the operation can be carried out using a poison gas or an electrical short circuit. Don't forget that they have communications devices like cellular phones etc, and that there are between 5-10 Americans.

Habib Allah (user number 4):
I believe that if you sneak in (the cabin) on days they are not there and spread an effective and quick poison that works on contact with places like door handles and telephones, or put poison in the food or on cups and plates, it would be very effective because it would kill them on the spot. You can search for a way to prepare the poison on the forum itself. But my advice to you is that you get to know the poison extremely well or get help from someone who is in a science or pharmaceutics faculty.

Al- Awsad (user number 1):
This is an excellent way, but what are the strong poisonous materials that act quickly? Maybe I should put the poison in the water (tank) before they come?

Saafalaha (user number 5):
Why be discrete? Let them serve as an example for others like them. Let the Americans understand that they are not safe in Muslim countries. Burning their car is excellent or you could shoot all of them. The country is filled with weapons.


That's one reason I've been going after their web sites here. They're probably using them to communicate and coordinate right under our noses.

(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 06:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MORE FROM DEMOCRATS.COM

: Here's what Democrats.com writers John Stanton and Wayne Madsen think of the Bush Administration, which they call "totalitarian." The title of the article is "Toppling a Totalitarian Regime in America: What Can Be Done?" The first paragraph is a quotation of the Declaration of Indepence, used here as a pretext for overthrowing George W. Bush. On what grounds, you ask?

From November 2000 to June 2002 those who record such events will note that the Bush Regime rushed the United States to the heretofore unseen Stygian depths of greed and corruption, ushered in Gestapo-like treatment and profiling of US resident aliens and US citizens, pillaged the environment, education and infrastructure budgets, closed “Peacekeeping Operations” in the Pentagon, adopted an aggressive nuclear weapons testing and first-use doctrine, swept aside the checks and balances of the US Constitution...


It's the Bush Administration that's actually blocking racial profiling, you dunderheads. Pillaged the environment--state time and place please. The Administration also increased education spending and has extended peacekeeping operations, but these guys never let the facts get in the way. So what do they think should be done about the Texan menace?

Instead of targeting nations for preemptive nuclear and conventional attack, US governing leaders should call a worldwide summit at a neutral location to address global inequities that lead to despair, hatred and hunger. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford would do the nation a great service by immediately calling for such a meeting. Invitees must include those nations who have most suffered most from ill conceived US and Western European policies. Critics of such calls are fond of dismissing diplomacy, but aggressively remind of the noble US effort to rebuild Europe after WWII. They would do well to support such a cause that includes the “non-white” resource-rich playgrounds of empires new and old. Brutish capitalism must give way to reasoned generosity, along with enlightened US reentrance into the global community to be evidenced by adoption of protocols and treaties gutted by the current Regime. For starters, the US must sign-on to the International Criminal Court, Convention on the Banning of Landmines, Conventions on Children in War, and the Kyoto Protocols.


Global inequities that lead to despair...ill conceived US and Western European policies...brutish capitalism...blah blah blah. Surrender our soveriegnty, in other words, become a socialist workers' paradise and let Jimmah Carter and Gerald Ford, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, orchestrate things outside the Constitution. I repeat, Democrats, where's the outrage? Or do you guys really think Bush is a totalitarian, right now, this instant? And do you really think that two failed Presidents should exercise authority over the current President, or even overthrow him?
Posted by B. Preston at 05:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HEY HEY HO HO, NORM MINETA'S

got to go.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THOSE DELUSIONAL SAUDIS

: Coming to a theatre (of war) near you. One of the House of Saud's clown princes, Defense and Aviation Minister Prince Sultan bin Abd Al-Aziz, recently found a few open mikes and let fly some interesting theories. On why the US press is mean to Saudi Arabia:

The evil columnists do not hesitate to attack any stable Islamic and Arab country. I recently asked several friends: 'You are friends working in the Western media. Why do you attack a friendly country with which you have great interests?' They replied: 'We do not curse you. The ones who curse you are two specific [types] of people: the Zionists and those whom you treat well, because they envy you and wish evil upon the [Saudi] state, its security, and its welfare. If there were chaos and anarchy in your [country], as in the others, no one would envy you. Now they envy you, and you are forced to suffer for it.'"

"The image of the Saudi has not changed [following September 11], and remains as it was: a man of religion, a man of love, a man of peace.


That sounds like the talk of your typical columnist, doesn't it--"They curse you because you're beautiful." Sheesh. As for that last sentence, I have one rebuttal: 15 of 19.

On whether al Qaeda wants to destroy Saudi Arabia:

I do not believe [that Saudi Arabia is targeted by Al-Qa'ida], but evil exists in every place and at every time. We thank Allah that the state is protected because it clings to Allah and the Sunna of His Prophet Muhammad. Anyone who seeks to do evil will be discovered, apprehended, and tried in accordance with Islamic religious law. But if [you ask me] whether Saudi Arabia is a target, the answer is no... These missiles are light and not carried by cars. SAM 7 and 8 missiles are all light and can be dismantled and put in a suitcase.


Hmmmm. Bin Laden's from Saudi Arabia. Lived there most of his life, even got his maniacal start there, and sitrred up enough trouble that the House of Saud eventually revoked his citizenship. But he was never apprehended or tried in accordance with Islamic law or any law. As for that bit about the missiles....? Why's he talking about surface-to-air missiles? Did anyone check his luggage at the airport?

And my favorite, what's he think about Jewish US Congressmen?

It is enough to see a number of congressmen wearing Jewish yarmulkes to explain the allegations against us.


Uh, prince, I'm no Jew and I don't like you at all. Explain that.

(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 12:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 01, 2002

A CASE THAT'S LIKELY TO BLOW BACK

: World class boomerang hurler Betsylew Ross Miale-Gix, 43, of Brier, Wash., was arrested Sunday, June 30, 2002, in Windsor Locks, Conn., after arguing with a security screener at Bradley International Airport, state police said. Miale-Gix, a world-class competitive boomerang thrower faces a criminal charge after trying to bring boomerangs through a security checkpoint. Check out FreeRepublic's take. Some of these people should get blogs.

By the way, she's not only deadly with a boomerang--she's a lawyer. Yikes.

(thanks to Chris)
Posted by B. Preston at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

LOOKS LIKE IT'S TIME TO CHASE SOMEONE OFF THEIR SERVER AGAIN

: The Taliban's web site is back. Their poll is offline due to "illegal or adult material," which probably means their poll provider got wind of who they were and kicked them off. As for running a whois search, I already have.

The culprit this time is in Arizona, long a hotbed (no pun intended) of Islamofascist activity, and former stomping ground of Timothy McVeigh.

UPDATE: It's time for another terrorist site scavenger hunt. Go to this site. It's all in Arabic or Thai so I can't read it, but no matter. It looks innocent enough, right (well, except for the graphic that says "War Against Islam")? No maps of Palestine, no obvious anti-Semitic slurs. First, scroll down to the bottom, and just north of the "Janeen Gallery" line you see a little line about their "hero number one," who turns out to be old Weirdbeard himself. Now scroll back up to the top, and look at the column on the right marked "Services." Click on the "English Version," and you'll be whisked away to familiar digs. These guys just don't seem to quit using our own technology against us. Of course, we can also use it against them.

Shall we run a whois on "muslimthai?" Well, it seems that its site host is in Kansas. Anyone out there have the FBI's email address?


(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

IS ARAFAT'S DESPOTIC GRIP LOOSENING?

Chris Regan sends in this encouraging story about unemployed Palestinians who stormed his HQ today demanding a better life. There were 4,000 of them there to protest, which considering the Palestinian population of a few million is a fairly large protest. And it's all the more significant considering recent stories of Palestinian "collaborators" summarily executed by Arafat's good squads. Even though most of the protesters weren't blaming Arafat himself for their predicament, that will change if things don't get better. This is one Palestinian behavior we should cheer on.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A CHALLENGE ISSUED

: I just sent TAPPED the following email:

Dear TAPPED,

Last week, your site issued a challege to bloggers--renounce Cal Thomas' column in which he said that the Ninth Circuit's Pledge ruling was worse than the 9-11 attacks. Many bloggers, including myself, took up that challenge and said what we thought of Thomas' column (none of us thought it was a good column). The Democrats, or more properly, Democrat activists, run a website called Democrats.com which is an even worse example of overheated political rhetoric. It accuses President Bush of planning 9-11 to create a police state. It's running a cartoon that tries to tie Christianity with last fall's anthrax attacks, and that same cartoonist depicts SecDef Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft as Nazis, and Christians as racists, on his own site. If Democrats.com were a fringe site it wouldn't raise concern, but Democrats.com is no fringe site. It's run by former Clinton Administration official David Lytel, and well-known Democrat activist Bob Fertik (he wrote the post on Democrats.com alleging that the photo the Republicans recently sold depicted the moment during which President Bush ordered Flight 93 shot down over Pennsylvania, irrespective of the fact that no evidence that the President took such action exists).

I issue TAPPED a challenge--repudiate Democrats.com for airing irresponsible conspiracy theories. Repudiate Democrats.com for airing anti-Christian hate speech, in the form of the cartoon I mentioned earlier. Find your own reasons for repudiating Democrats.com. You folks on the left are always making Republicans answer for the David Dukes and silly columnists on our side--it's only fair that you guys answer for the radicals on your side.

Thank you,

Bryan Preston
http://junkyardblog.blogspot.com


ONE MORE TIME: Democrats.com is tied to Dem bigwigs--a former Clinton Admin official founded it, for crimeny's sake. I repeat, Democrats.com isn't a fringe site. That's why I keep harping on about it. Go check it for yourself, and Google search the advisory board members. David Lytel worked for Clinton in the Science and Technology policy area, and Democrats.com makes its money by contracting out consultant services to Democrat candidates around the country. I say this because people keep wanting to make excuses for them, or try and convince me that I'm off my rocker about it. Democrats.com is run by party insiders, folks, pure and simple, and they're spewing hate when they think the rest of us aren't looking. I'm just calling them out on it.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Tom Cruise turns coward, says he'll raise his kids outside the US. Why?

He said he could no longer keep his 'eyes wide shut' to America's terrorism threat, crime, faltering financial status and corporate corruption.


So go already. If you can't stand living under the threat of terrorism like the rest of us, then admit you're a yellow-bellied crapweasel and go.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HEY DEMOCRATS

: Where's the outrage? Does Democrats.com speak for you guys or not?
Posted by B. Preston at 05:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MORE LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH

: A US District judge has just ruled the federal death penalty unconstitutional. Cue the backlash...
Posted by B. Preston at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

QUICK TAKE ON THE PLEDGE

: From liberal icon, former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas:

The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concern or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter.


(via NRO's Byron York)
Posted by B. Preston at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WHY I'M HAPPY THAT AL GORE IS MOUTHING OFF

about the war:

1) He's explosing the anti-war sentiments seething within the Democrat party, and exposing the Dems' irresponsibility vis a vis their recent criticisms of the war. Either they know how corrosove their rhetoric is, which disqualifies them from being taken seriously, or they don't know how corrosive their rhetoric is, which also disqualifies them from being taken seriously.

2) He's turning Sec of State Colin Powell into a fighter. It's about time.

3) He may expose the Clinton Administration's malfeasance in not nabbing Usama bin Laden when they had the chance.

Keep talking, Gore. You're doing great.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DEMOCRATS.COM

is no fringe group, as some of you seem to think. It was founded by David Lytel, who was part of the Clinton Administration. According to this site, Lytel worked for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Site co-founder Bob Fertik has been a rabble-rouser for the Dems for years, including trying to get Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris indicted for, among other things, trying to enforce the law by getting votes from felons discounted. Here is a list of their advisory board. Who's that in the top picture? Why, it's President Clinton himself, hanging out with site founder David Lytel. Though it isn't the official Donkey Party voice, Democrats.com seems to have deep links to the Democrats as a whole.

Democrats.com also features a very lengthy dissertation on 9-11, the thesis of which is that President Bush planned it so that he could create a police state. Here's part of that series of posts. Their take on 9-11 represents one of the least level-headed conspiracy theories I've ever read, and it also succumbs to that typical leftie connundrum--is Bush an evil genius or a doofus dweeb? Democrats.com wants to have its dummy and eat him alive too.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2002

SINCE TONIGHT'S THEME

seems to be linking to sites to flush out their stupidity, check out Norm Jenson. He seems to think that Yasser Arafat is a more legitimate president than George W. Bush:

From Yellowtimes... You're going to love this piece.

''Arafat calls for democratic elections in the United States''

"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87 percent of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. (1) "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn’t deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East."'


Yes, he quoting from Yellowtimes, but he's quoting with approval. I could point out that the only evidence of voter fraud, especially relating to African Americans, points to Democrats trying to discourage them away from voting Republican. I guess it should be pointed out that Arafat's term expired three years ago, and that he's been ruling ever since as an unelected despot. It might also be worth mentioning that the vote that actually put him into office was tainted by the usual thuggery of Third World lands, notwithstanding Jimmah Carter's nods of approval. For Carter's record just look at Cuba--he travels over there, hobnobs with Castro while meekly mouthing democratic platitudes, and Castro gets the puppet legislature to vote for a perpetual socialist government as a way of way of saying "Thanks for the legitimacy, Jimmah."

I would point all this out, but it's not likely to make much difference. When it comes to lefties, facts never get in the way of a pithy line.

UPDATE: Another humorless lefty compares Bush to Arafat, preferring Arafat. (thanks the to the Judd Bros for exposing this buffoon)
Posted by B. Preston at 11:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DEMOCRATS.COM

supports Cynthia McKinney, the reprehensible Rep from Georgia who thinks an investigation might show that President Bush knew about 9-11 on, say, 9-10. And they've made a believer out of The Indepundit. Looking at the exhaustive group of quotes he's come up with, he may be right that she's just "misunderstood." An investigation might prove that to be the case.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

PADILLA UPDATE

: John Berger has posted what amounts to a synopsis of all we know to date, and has filled in his own speculation on how the dots might be connected. Having read it over prior to posting, I have to say that it's the most level-headed conspiracy theory I've ever read. One problem I have with 99.99% of all conspiracy theories (yes, Vampagan, I'm talking to you) is that they require such incredibly efficient scheming, clockwork timing and superhuman performance to get them started and keep them going. John's summary is plausible because of its very ordinariness--Padilla gets assigned to a minor role in OKC because he's interested, he rises through the terrorist ranks because he got away with OKC, then gets sold out for reasons that benefit the terrorists but that don't require some Rube Goldberg-like machinery to get him into a strategic position. It makes sense, whether it ultimately is proven right or not. John's done fine work throughout the search for Jose Padilla and his possible role in Oklahoma City. This summary is the capstone of that work, and is an illustration of the benefits blogging can have. John and I have worked together on this pursuit, though we live far apart and hail from opposite ends of the ideoligical spectrum, and we've been able to wade into a radioactive story that most "mainstream" outlets won't touch. Hopefully John has given those outlets a place to start, and maybe one or more will devote some of its resources to unravelling the mysteries of Oklahoma City.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A JUNKYARD DILEMMA

: Lately I've noticed that a certain person calling himself "Vampagan" has been leaving nasty comments about faith and other things upheld as right by this site, generally positioning himself as my heckler. Thus far it's been mostly playful--the guy is obviously an atheist fundamentalist, and he's been trying to goad me into ranting uncontrollably about God or prayer or whatever it is that I say that he doesn't like. There does seem to be an awful lot about this site that fits that bill--the flags in the masthead annoy him, the numerous references to Christianity offend him, the general tone and attitude I take on most issues is beyond him--but he keeps coming back, reading up on the latest here, then commenting on it on his own blog. All of this was going on without my knowledge, as I don't Google myself obsessively to see what others are saying about me and don't know the contents of all 40,000 or so blogs out there, nor do I always click on the links in my comments--there are only so many hours in the day. And the links to me on his blog have, to date, sent exactly zero, zilch, nada visitors my way. But today I open up my email, and someone has sent he a link to Vampagan's blog suggesting that I check it out. It's quite a doozy, really--faked pics of President Bush laughing while the Twin Towers burn in the background, etc (though he and I do agree that Lord of the Rings is a great movie). I already mentioned he's an atheistic fundamentalist, the type that wants all references to God scoured from the public square because his constitution, irrespective of the actual Constitution, just can't handle it. But this staunch atheist is at heart a believer, but in conspiracies, and selectively so--if the conspiracy puts George W. Bush at the nexis of evil he's all for it, but if the conspiracy points elsewhere then apparently he's not interested. He's apparently simlultaneously a believer in Bush's dumbness and his evil genius as the Conspirator in Chief, a common position on the radical fringe that makes no sense. He suggested in a comment on this site somewhere that I should read up on www.whatreallyhappened.com, which is evidence of a real dimensia at work. That's the site that turns chest hair on Palestinian terrorists into Star of David jewelry, and thinks that all we know about 9-11 is wrong.

But back to his site, he insults me in his mind by calling me "disgustingly Christian" (I added the "Christ" part, which he abbreviates with an x because his widdle fingers can't bear to type the name) and says that he just might not link to me anymore because I never answer his silly charges, never link back, etc. Oooh, I'm scared--how will I replace the nonexistent traffic that I depend on streaming in from his site? I could turn this site off completely and still get as much traffic as his site has sent me so far. Anyway, I never knew his site existed until I got that email which, to clue you in a bit, is actually how most blogs get the word out--emailing bigger established blogs for a plug. I'm only too happy to plug a new blog, even one I disagree with, both because I like the marketplace of ideas that blogging represents and because I'm confident that I can debate well enough to hold my own on most topics. Had I known that "Vampagan" had a blog, I'd have linked to it to expose its lameness if for no other reason.

But now I face a dilemma--should I link to him, thereby rewarding his petulance, or not link him and risk accusations that I only link to those in agreement with me (which, by the way, is easily disproven by simply looking through my permalinks)? I've decided that I'll link, so that you the reader can make up your own mind. I think this guy represents the loony fringe of society, a real Fiskian armed with a blog. What do you think?

(thanks to Vincent Ferrari for the heads up)

UPDATE: Now that I've blogged about the lack of traffic Vampagan's site sends my way, a miracle occurs and suddenly there's lots of traffic coming from him. But like a Benny Hinn miracle, upon closer inspection a mundane explanation presents itself--someone's sitting there periodically clicking through his link. I can tell this from certain characteristics that show up in my stats--they all come from the same ISP, they're all running Windows 98, etc. It could be someone other than the site's owner...it really could.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DUST BIN LADEN:

Mark Steyn says Usama bin Laden is dead, for the obvious reason--we haven't seen anything new from him in so long. As a whole the column is a scream, replete with references to Usama's, er, shortcomings, but it ends on a sober note:

But the real story here is not 11 September, or the attack on the USS Cole, or the embassy bombings in Africa, or even Oklahoma City, which seems more and more likely to have had a radical Islamic component. These events are separated by months, years, but in-between the splashy headline-grabbers the real work goes on day after day in the Saudi-funded madrasahs radicalising Muslims in South Asia, Pakistan, the Balkans, Western Europe and America. The President’s speech on Monday was, among other things, a colossal rebuff to ‘Crown Prince’ Abdullah’s fictional Saudi peace plan and may or may not signal a full-scale re-evaluation of America’s long-turned blind eye to Saudi misdeeds. Is Osama dead? Yes. Is American cosseting of the House of Saud dead? That’s far harder to say.


So bin Laden is likely dead, as I've been saying since February, but the Administration has good reasons not to acknowledge that just yet. I can buy that. On to other good news, Fox just reported that Israel has confirmed the timely death of Hamas' bombmaker, apparently having received an Israeli shell. Tag him and bag him.

UPDATE: Dave sends in this link about speculation that the FBI lab is testing remains dug up in Afghanistan that could turn out to be those of bin Dusted himself. Interesting.
Posted by B. Preston at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

PADILLA UPDATE

, er, sort of: Lest we get too attached to the resemblance between photos of Abduyah Padilla and John Doe No. 2, Katie Granju offers a tale about the inaccuracy of police sketches. Imagine, being robbed by an Amish farmer at gunpoint. What a hypochrite that guy was.
Posted by B. Preston at 01:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OKLAHOMA CITY AND "LILY WHITES":

On Fox News tonight, Rita Cosby interview terrorism expert Yoseff Bodansky about the possibility that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were recruited "lily whites"--potential operatives with no prior connection to terrorism and therefore wouldn't trip the terror alarms--by Middle Eastern terror groups for the Murrah Building bombing. As NewsMax reports, if you couple this evidence with recent relevations that a Saudi Arabian intel source in 1995 phoned former CIA Counter-Terrorism Chief Vincent Cannistraro to warn that an Iraqi cell was planning an attack on American soil--and that the target that topped that cell's list was the federal building in Oklahoma City--you have another scrap pointing to a broader group at work in the 1995 bombing.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack