Sunday, 7 July 2013
San Francisco Plane Crash: First Impressions
Anti-Soviet Warrior Puts His Army on the Road to Peace
ROBERT FISK
MONDAY 06 DECEMBER 1993
OSAMA Bin Laden sat in his gold- fringed robe, guarded by the loyal Arab mujahedin who fought alongside him in Afghanistan. Bearded, taciturn figures - unarmed, but never more than a few yards from the man who recruited them, trained them and then dispatched them to destroy the Soviet army - they watched unsmiling as the Sudanese villagers of Almatig lined up to thank the Saudi businessman who is about to complete the highway linking their homes to Khartoum for the first time in history.
With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend. Chadored children danced in front of him, preachers acknowledged his wisdom. 'We have been waiting for this road through all the revolutions in Sudan,' a sheikh said. 'We waited until we had given up on everybody - and then Osama Bin Laden came along.'
Outside Sudan, Mr Bin Laden is not regarded with quite such high esteem. The Egyptian press claims he brought hundreds of former Arab fighters back to Sudan from Afghanistan, while the Western embassy circuit in Khartoum has suggested that some of the 'Afghans' whom this Saudi entrepreneur flew to Sudan are now busy training for further jihad wars in Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt. Mr Bin Laden is well aware of this.
'The rubbish of the media and the embassies,' he calls it. 'I am a construction engineer and an agriculturalist. If I had training camps here in Sudan, I couldn't possibly do this job.'
And 'this job' is certainly an ambitious one: a brand-new highway stretching all the way from Khartoum to Port Sudan, a distance of 1,200km (745 miles) on the old road, now shortened to 800km by the new Bin Laden route that will turn the coastal run from the capital into a mere day's journey. Into a country that is despised by Saudi Arabia for its support of Saddam Hussein in the Gulf war almost as much as it is condemned by the United States, Mr Bin Laden has brought the very construction equipment that he used only five years ago to build the guerrilla trails of Afghanistan.
He is a shy man. Maintaining a home in Khartoum and only a small apartment in his home city of Jeddah, he is married - with four wives - but wary of the press. His interview with the Independent was the first he has ever given to a Western journalist, and he initially refused to talk about Afghanistan, sitting silently on a chair at the back of a makeshift tent, brushing his teeth in the Arab fashion with a stick of miswak wood. But talk he eventually did about a war which he helped to win for the Afghan mujahedin: 'What I lived in two years there, I could not have lived in a hundred years elsewhere,' he said.
When the history of the Afghan resistance movement is written, Mr Bin Laden's own contribution to the mujahedin - and the indirect result of his training and assistance - may turn out to be a turning- point in the recent history of militant fundamentalism; even if, today, he tries to minimise his role. 'When the invasion of Afghanistan started, I was enraged and went there at once - I arrived within days, before the end of 1979,' he said. 'Yes, I fought there, but my fellow Muslims did much more than I. Many of them died and I am still alive.'
Within months, however, Mr Bin Laden was sending Arab fighters - Egyptians, Algerians, Lebanese, Kuwaitis, Turks and Tunisians - into Afghanistan; 'not hundreds but thousands,' he said. He supported them with weapons and his own construction equipment. Along with his Iraqi engineer, Mohamed Saad - who is now building the Port Sudan road - Mr Bin Laden blasted massive tunnels into the Zazi mountains of Bakhtiar province for guerrilla hospitals and arms dumps, then cut a mujahedin trail across the country to within 15 miles of Kabul.
'No, I was never afraid of death. As Muslims, we believe that when we die, we go to heaven. Before a battle, God sends us seqina, tranquillity.
'Once I was only 30 metres from the Russians and they were trying to capture me. I was under bombardment but I was so peaceful in my heart that I fell asleep. This experience has been written about in our earliest books. I saw a 120mm mortar shell land in front of me, but it did not blow up. Four more bombs were dropped from a Russian plane on our headquarters but they did not explode. We beat the Soviet Union. The Russians fled.'
But what of the Arab mujahedin whom he took to Afghanistan - members of a guerrilla army who were also encouraged and armed by the United States - and who were forgotten when that war was over? 'Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help. When my mujahedin were victorious and the Russians were driven out, differences started (between the guerrilla movements) so I returned to road construction in Taif and Abha. I brought back the equipment I had used to build tunnels and roads for the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Yes, I helped some of my comrades to come here to Sudan after the war.'
How many? Osama Bin Laden shakes his head. 'I don't want to say. But they are here now with me, they are working right here, building this road to Port Sudan.' I told him that Bosnian Muslim fighters in the Bosnian town of Travnik had mentioned his name to me. 'I feel the same about Bosnia,' he said. 'But the situation there does not provide the same opportunities as Afghanistan. A small number of mujahedin have gone to fight in Bosnia-Herzegovina but the Croats won't allow the mujahedin in through Croatia as the Pakistanis did with Afghanistan.'
Thus did Mr Bin Laden reflect upon jihad while his former fellow combatants looked on. Was it not a little bit anti-climactic for them, I asked, to fight the Russians and end up road-building in Sudan? 'They like this work and so do I. This is a great plan which we are achieving for the people here, it helps the Muslims and improves their lives.'
His Bin Laden company - not to be confused with the larger construction business run by his cousins - is paid in Sudanese currency which is then used to purchase sesame and other products for export; profits are clearly not Mr Bin Laden's top priority.
How did he feel about Algeria, I asked? But a man in a green suit calling himself Mohamed Moussa - he claimed to be Nigerian although he was a Sudanese security officer - tapped me on the arm. 'You have asked more than enough questions,' he said. At which Mr Bin Laden went off to inspect his new road.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Ultimate Chilling Effects: The Story Behind the Story, Behind Snowden and the NSA Affair....
Aug. 24, 2011
From: KR
To: All Internet Operatives and Interns
Re: Internet Operations -- For Immediate and Aggressive Implementation
CONFIDENTIAL -- EYES ONLY
Hello Gang,
You've all been working hard, and it's paying off. Obama's numbers are plummeting as I type this. Congratulations all around. But we can't afford to be complacent now.
I just want to briefly go over a few Mission Points with you.
1. Main mission: Infiltrate all liberal web sites, posing as disaffected liberals with liberal-sounding user names, icons and signatures. (Reference Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, FDR, Smedley Butler, Bill Clinton, etc.)
2. Express. Disappointment. With. Obama. (Whining pays double!) (jk!)
3. Push primary challenge. Push third party. Push Green. Push Socialist. Push write-in voting. Push non-voting to "send a message."
4. Effective memes/talking points:
The libs are disappointed that Obama hasn't turned America into a socialist paradise by now, but they're lazy and spoiled, not savvy and proactive like us. They think that by whining on a liberal web site they're engaging in some sort of "activism." They're "holding Obama's feet to the fire." They actually believe that DC policymakers or their staffers somehow have the time to read every ridiculous liberal blog. They don't get it that the only ones reading their whiny little rants are--wait for it--other liberals. So they're actually doing a whole lot of heavy lifting for us with all their dis-motivating buzz-kill, and we want to encourage them as much as possible. When your enemy is engaged in a circular firing squad, pass them the ammo!
Look, we suckered all those nutjob Christian fundies out of their votes and their money. LIberals are almost as easy to fool!
You've done great work so far. At this point, many of the liberal blog sites are virtually indistinguishable from RedState. (And can you imagine us on RedState trashing our own candidate? Riiiight.) On most liberal sites, anyone praising Obama is hounded and laughed out of town. Seeya later, blackwaterdog! We, with the help of the libs, have made it uncool to approve of or admit to liking Barack Obama on a liberal web site! Obama-trashing is now in vogue! Is this a great country, or what?!
Remember, in 2000, the Greens helped us put George in the White House by chanting that Al Gore was the same as Dubya! That George W. Bush was the same as the biggest liberal around! And libs bought that! They've obviously got a serious masochistic streak, so let's hand them a whip! (Can you imagine what America would be like today if we'd had that commie wuss Al Gore in the White House for eight years? Gives me goosebumps!)
The Internet was liberals' most effective weapon against us, for spreading lies and motivating other libs to vote and volunteer and donate, but not any more! Now the only effect of liberal blog sites is to sap enthusiasm and deter liberals from voting, period. We have monkey-wrenched our enemy's strength and turned it into a liability. The Republican Party owes Karl's Keyboard Kommandoes a huge debt of gratitude. You were instrumental in keeping Democrats home last November, and look what happened: we took back the House! I only wish I could thank you all in person. Mmmwahhh!
I know most of you work at home, but here at Crossroads I sometimes hear you guys yelling across your cubicles. "Hey, rec me on Kos! I'm owning those liberal schmucks! That's another Prius-load of Dims staying home! Spurn, baby, spurn! It's a beautiful thang!"
Gotta love that energy!
But we can't let up now. Now is the time to work even harder to sow and fertilize discontent out there in lib-land. The debates have begun and soon a front-runner will emerge for the libs to focus on and sling their mud at, instead of their own guy. (Go Ricky! Either or both! The Ricky/Ricky ticket! Anybody but that grotesque, hideous beotch from the Klondike!)
And we also have to acknowledge the work of our fellow patriots at the RNC and Heritage and CFG and AEI, etc., and all the private grassroots blog-warriors out there as well, such as the excellent Advantage Consultants. You guys are our Republican Underground, freedom fighters prosecuting our mission in the trenches on a daily basis. And don't think we don't recognize your commendable job of scrubbing all the filthy liberal lies out of Wikipedia.
Here are some helpful answers to your Frequently Asked Questions:
People, the bottom line is that I don't care what you do, or what it takes. We get it. The libs don't. We know it's all about votes, and the money and enthusiasm and volunteering that gets votes. The guy who goes to the White House in 2013 will have either an R after his name, or a D. Do we want the party of Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi and Sherrod Brown in our house, or do we want the party of Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers? So, all eyes on the prize, which is: Keeping those godless, America-hating libs away from the voting booths!
And remember: The month's top poster wins a dream lunch with KR!
Yours in liberty, free enterprise, and purity of purpose,
KR
8:26 PM PT: Wow, 50 HRs and counting. I stepped into a nest of rattlesnakes, I guess. I used to love this site years ago, but now I'm sick over what it has become. All I tried to do was hold up a mirror, and maybe some here didn't like what they saw. When so much of the work here is so closely aligned with that of our enemies (yes, the Republican party is my enemy), then I think we need to question what effect we're having. Of course this is interpreted by some (defensively, I feel) as an admonition to stop criticizing President Obama, and that is completely missing the point. We are talking mostly to each other here, so a constructive purpose of dissent on DK would be to rally others to action. What action are we rallying our fellow Kossacks to take?
8:51 PM PT: My greatest disappointment: Apparently no one got the reference of "Spurn, baby, spurn!" Didn't anyone here see "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"?
Boston: Tsarnaev Indictment Absurdities
The Boston Marathon Deception - In Dust We Trust
from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
Oh, look! Flour!
Friday, 5 July 2013
Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi is Not Dead
Simple. Abdulrahman's father, Anwar al-aulaki, was a Second Generation CIA recruiter for Jihad dating back to at least 1994.
He superfically appears to be an American Citizen - an American citizen extra-judicially killed by Presidential executive order.
But even the most superficial examination of Anwar al-Awalaki's background will reveal that it isn't true - and the Obama Administration went to great pains to ensure that it wasn't true and he had no constitutional rights or protections afforded by US Citizenship before adding his name to the pre-approved Kill/Capture list for CIA.
Cenk Does Petraeus' Dirty Work For Him and Spreads Coup Faction Black Propaganda. from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
Not a single claim or speculation made in this entire piece is either factually accurate, or true.
Bingo.
The had a CIA grieving father and a son with (legal) US citizenship (and a valid Colorado Birth Certificate), as well as a video camera and a monochrome filter. Get the ACLU on the Horn!!
Prove it
"In 1978, when he was seven years old, he returned with his family to Yemen. "
He is a Yemeni national with two Yemeni parents who at various times has claimed to have been born in both Yemen and New Mexico, claiming both Yemeni and US Citizenship and maybe travelling under both on different passports for different occasions.
There is no proof of either claim - but he is DEFINITELY a Yemeni National, with two Yemeni parents who grew up and spend most of his life in Yemen
"He lived in Yemen for 11 years, where he studied at Azal Modern School." Can we do better than that to clear this up? What if he was born (as is claimed) in New Mexico but there was a fire and they lost all the birth records? In other words, if the dates are found to match up and he can be reasonably estimated to have been born while his mother and father were studying at college, but no actual documentation can be found that definitively affirms that, does he have a reasonable claim to make a case? Do we have any case law on this? As it happens, actually - yes. We do. The clause's meaning was tested again in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898). The Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment a man born within the United States to Chinese citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States—and whose parents were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power—was a citizen of the United States. Subsequent decisions have applied the principle to the children of foreign nationals of non-Chinese descent. So, let's lawyer this one - the "official version" - systematically, statement by statement and see if we can't give the guy a break, here. Al-Aulaqi was born in the United States to parents from Yemen, He isn't automatically an American at birth, because neither of his parents are. Were either (or both) of his parents "[Yemeni]citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and ...carrying on business in the United States...?" while his father was doing graduate work at US universities. Evidently they weren't. "Work" in this case implies study, implies education. The actual work may or may not involve or consist of paid employment but that's totally irrelevant, even if it is the case, which is unlikely. Neither his father nor his mother can be said to be conducting "business" to support themselves - they are not in the country - primarily at least - for the sake of a job, even though they obviously do have ecconomic input and interactions and their admission into the country would be granted only if they fulfilled a certain very different set of criteria. They were clearly NOT resident in the US on an open-ended basis, nor was their stay in the country expected to be permanent or last beyond a certain point. His father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, was a Fulbright Scholar earned a master's degree in agricultural economics at New Mexico State University in 1971, Nowhere do we get told where he earned his undergraduate first degree prior to this.. which is a strange omission We might also note that the geological composition of Yemen is comprised almost entirely of enormous rocks and bare ground with 26 million desperately poor people, clinging round its coastline in fishing communities - the issue here is not merely the fact of there being no workable soil and next to no water (as with most of the rest of the Arabian Peninsular)... It's that next to none of the land for much of the country is anything close to being flat. When I said "big rocks", I meant really meant "big rocks", rather than mountains or sand dunes. it's a strange subject to major in - agriculture surely can never be economic in a land where nothing is able to grow. Which is surely one of the many reasons it's so desperately poor... received a doctorate at the University of Nebraska, and worked at the University of Minnesota from 1975 to 1977. In 1978, when he was seven years old, [Al-Awlaki] returned with his family to Yemen That's clear and unambiguous. Both parents were in the country on temporary student visas granted for the purpose of education, with no expectation that they would remain permanantly resident beyond the end of the final course and not therefore domiciled in the US. Everyone clear...?