Wednesday, May 01, 2013
BOSTON BOMBINGS BREAKING NEWS
Additional Arrests and an Obvious Question Ignored by Media
Three Arrested for Allegedly Aiding Bombers After Attack
Two Islamic Suspects Drove BMW With "Terrorist License Plate"
Saudis Might HaveWarned US About Older Brother and a Bomb Plot
The obvious question, inexplicably ignored by pundits and politicians: Given that the older Tasarnaev brother … and his mother … were (a) on terrorist watch-lists and (b) that the FBI had interviewed the older brother at Russia's request or suggestion … why didn't a database search lead to the brothers being found and questioned within hours of the attack? They lived just about two miles from the crime scene.
And, why, once the suspects had been identified through CCTV images, didn't the agent or agents who had interviewed the older brother some years ago immediately recognize him? Why did the authorities have to appeal to the public to identify the suspects?
Of what value is the watch-list if it can't be used in such cases?
Bangladesh Disaster Spotlights Criminality, Global Greed
From made-in-the USA to partnering with vicious Third World sociopaths--the moral and ethical collapse of the garment industry. Click here for the story; below, for a vintage TV ad that recalls a time when Americans still looked for the union label.
Fatah Facebook Page Praises Man Who Killed Israeli Father of 5
A Palestinian Arab terrorist who murdered an Israeli father of five children is glorified by the Palestinian Fatah organization. Click here for the sickening story.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
'Andalusia is Spain's Spain'
Massive unemployment … unbelievable youth unemployment … the face of a lost generation. Click here for the story.
Irish Biopower Plant Will Use Straw and Willow as Feedstocks
Project will Produce Electricity and Heat for 5,500 Homes
A 16.3 MWe biomass plant will covert locally grown straw and willow into heat and power. Read all about it.
UK Defense Ministry Deems Wind Towers National Security Threat
By John C.K. Daly
Editor's Note: The following article is republished with permission of Oilprice.com.
Twenty-plus years on, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 threatened massive Western defense budgets, bereft of a major enemy like the “Evil Empire.”
Western militaries conveniently found a new global enemy a decade later following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, and since then, they have struggled in the light of invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan to adapt their strategies to cope with the new threat, making defending the “homeland” the highest priority.
While the U.S. created the “Department of Homeland Security,” Washington’s less prosperous European allies have been forced to seek solutions to indigenous defense largely by themselves beyond NATO.
Except that the NATO charter Chapter 5 stipulates that an attack upon a member state will be met by the entire coalition.
European democracies have scrambled to define both national and European Union security issues, particularly since the global economic downturn, which began in 2008, forcing hard choices amongst European defense ministries.
Furthermore, many European nations now have significant post-colonial immigration populations, ramping up security concerns, from both indigenous citizens and ongoing concerns of foreign aggression. Defending the United Kingdom’s territorial, maritime and aerial space is the primary mission of Britain’s Ministry of Defense.
A laudable objective, but, in a time of declining MOD revenues amid energy imports, perhaps, a wind farm too far?
Needless to say, security encompasses protecting the country access to energy, so anything that reduces the kingdom’s dependency on foreign energy imports must be a good thing, correct?
Apparently not.
The latest threat to Britain?
Wind power, apparently.
The MOD has come out against two proposed 115 foot wind power towers in Cornwall, which they assert are so big they could look like planes on monitoring equipment.
The MOD assert that the wind towers green energy devices could confuse computer systems designed to protect the UK and identify the turbines as a threat , triggering the MOD to send in fighter aircraft to investigate, and while the RAF was preoccupied, allowing real enemies to sneak into British airspace, and accordingly, are against their construction.
The unpatriotic British citizens attempting to undermine British aerial defense are Richard and Ian Lobb, who want to install the 50 kilowatt towers on their adjacent farms in St Ewe, Cornwall. The ever vigilant MOD which warned the installation would cause "unacceptable interference" to an air traffic control radar 30 miles away in Wembury, Devon.
According to the MOD, "Wind turbines have been shown to have detrimental effects on the performance of MoD ATC radars. These effects include the desensitisation of radar in the vicinity of the turbines, and the creation of 'false' aircraft returns which air traffic controllers must treat as real. The desensitisation of radar could result in aircraft not being detected by the radar and therefore not presented to air traffic controllers. The creation of 'false' aircraft display on the radar leads to increased workload for both controllers and aircrews and may have a significant operati onal impact.
Furthermore, real aircraft returns can be obscured by the turbine's radar returns, making the tracking of conflicting, unknown aircraft much more difficult."
A tad of history and geography here.
Radar installations along the English Channel were crucial in Britain winning the crucial Battle of Britain in 1940 against Hitler’s Luftwaffe, so Britain’s RAF is hardly unfamiliar with the principles of radar, more than seventy years later.
Secondly, how does a stationary object generate a hostile radar signature, unlike an incoming aircraft moving at hundreds of miles per hour?
Thirdly, virtually all of the RAF’s interception missions during the Cold War and after were against Soviet, and now Russian military aircraft approaching from the northeast, across the North Sea.
Cornwall, in Britain’s extreme southwest, is geographically rather distant from this area.
So, who’s to send the threats?
France?
Spain?
Argentina?
The people of Cornwall deserve their green energy, and the MOD officials should be chastised for their ramping up of a non-existent problem.
The Armada was over four centuries ago, World War Two over 70 years ago--the people of Cornwall deserve electricity from renewable energy sources, as it hardly seems to be a threat to national security beyond those MOD boffins who have apparently spent too much time at the pub over lunch hour.
Documentary Claims Discovery of MIA Green Beret in Vietnam
Found 44 Years After He Was Shot Down and Presumed Dead
Dead Boston Bomber's Ex-Girlfriend Describes His Radicalization
British Tabloid The Sun Scoops the World
The dead Boston bomber, the elder Tsarnaev brother, changed from a pot-smoking, fun-loving guy into a violent Islamic extremist, according to an old girlfriend.
Read more.
US Poll Reveals Strong Anti-Intervionist Sentiment
Again, it's the Economy, Stupid!
Americans are turning inward, weary of war, worried about the economy, wary of new foreign entanglements and adventures that seem to almost always go badly wrong.
Too many unnecessary interventions, including the ruinous wars in Vietnam and Iraq, and the so-called humanitarian intervention in Libya, most recently, which created yet another Islamist hellhole, appear to have taken their toll. Unfortunately, however, the United States and its allies have real enemies--Radical Islam and Islamist Iran and Iran's partner in nuclear and missile crimes, North Korea. Ignoring the threats that these forces pose to our very existence won't make the threats disappear. A policy of appeasing and attempting toengage (collaborate with) enemies that muse openly about a world without America will not preserve the peace. On the contrary, appeasement and engagement of those who plot and plan our doom and the destruction of our allies will make wars inevitable--on the enemies' terms.
Greek Parliament Approves Massive Government Job Cuts
Monday, April 29, 2013
Death Toll in Bangladesh Factory Collapse Unknown
The death toll in Bangladesh could be 400 or more--the exact number will probably never be known.
Increasingly, the lives of ordinary people, especially Third World workers, are less than cheap in the eyes of the industrially developed world.
Read more.
Russia Kills Jihadist Linked to Boston Bomber
Calls for Vile UN Official to Resign
Boston Marathon Attack Apologist Angers Americans
The loathsome Richard Falk--how to kick him out of the UN.
Click here for the story.
Time to Derail the Saudi 'Visa Express'
Recent Terror Plots Highlight Risk of Reviving Fast-Track Entry
By Clare M. Lopez
One of the more striking—and worrisome—aspects of the April 2013 Boston Marathon terror attack and the cross-border al-Qa'eda/Iran plot to bomb a passenger railway that runs between New York City and Toronto, Canada is the realization that all four suspects so far identified in the two plots had entered legally into the United States and Canada, respectively. Crossing legally into Western countries targeted for terror attacks, entering immigrant and refugee streams without drawing attention from security services, and blending into existing multicultural communities while establishing personas indistinguishable from those of tens of thousands of other new arrivals, appears to be a tried and true modus operandi for Islamic jihadis. It definitely worked for the fifteen of nineteen 9/11 hijackers who were Saudis.
Given the reality of that threat, brought home yet again to North America with these two latest plots, now is probably not the best time for the current administration to revive the visa program that allowed the Saudi government to help screen visa applicants for fast-track entry into the U.S. And yet, that is exactly what just happened: an agreement between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was reached in January 2013 that would accept Saudi applicants into the Global Entry Trusted Traveler program. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef heads the Saudi Interior Ministry that will screen Saudi applicants when the pilot program begins in 2014. To his credit, bin Nayef has led an internal Saudi crackdown against al-Qa'eda and survived an al-Qa'eda assassination attempt in retaliation. On the other side of the ledger, however, Saudi Arabia is the world's foremost sponsor of both Islamic jihad and Da'wa [Islamic religious outreach], the source of funding and inspiration for promoters of Islamic Sharia law and anti-Western suicide bombers alike across the globe.
Accused Terrorists Worked the Legal System
As revealed in early stages of the recent plot investigations, none of these latest accused terrorists in the Boston Marathon and passenger train plots sneaked into Canada or the U.S. or paid a coyote to get himself past border controls. Rather, all of them (or their families) worked the legal system, then later (even years later) were activated—or recruited and then activated—to carry out an attack mission. According to The Iconoclast, the Tsarnaev brothers had been admitted to the U.S., along with multiple members of their extended family, under the aegis of the Refugee Act of 1980. Tamerlan, the elder brother, arrived in 2006 and was granted Permanent Resident status, while Dzhokhar, who arrived on a tourist visa in 2002, was given asylum status as a Chechen refugee from Dagestan, and eventually achieved U.S. citizenship on 11 September 2012.
In the Canada-U.S. railway bombing plot, Tunisian-born Chiheb Esseghaier moved to Canada in 2008 and was "granted permanent residency under Quebec's skilled worker program," according to the Canadian National Post. Accused co-conspirator Raed Jaser, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Canada with his parents and two brothers in 1993 on false French passports; although denied a request for asylum based on claims of persecution in Germany, most of the family eventually obtained Canadian citizenship. Jaser might have too, except that he racked up a criminal record while awaiting his final status ruling. However, because Jaser somehow was listed as a "stateless Palestinian" whose father had left the newly-established State of Israel in 1948 (instead of remaining to become an Israeli citizen), there was no place to where Canada could deport him, despite multiple efforts.
Every one of the nineteen 9/11 attack hijackers entered the U.S. on a valid passport and visa, too.
Janice Kephart served as a former counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information; a former immigration counsel to the September 11 Commission; and current National Security Policy Director at the Center for Immigration Studies. She also served as an expert witness in the Havlish case which, in December 2011, resulted in a Federal District Court ruling that Iran was co-responsible with al-Qa'eda for 9/11; and provided testimony for both the 9/11 Commission and the Havlish case. Kephart has emphasized the critical importance of travel documents for terrorists. In the affidavit she wrote for the Havlish case, Kephart discussed how Iranian material support to some of the al-Qa'eda hijackers, in the form of refraining from placing border stamps in their passports, ultimately enabled them to enter the U.S. with "clean passports" that bore no evidence of their having been in Afghanistan, Iran, or other Middle Eastern locations that would have drawn unwanted scrutiny. Although Kephart did not say so specifically, fifteen of those nineteen passports were Saudi passports -- and in at least eight of those cases, Saudi officials at some level would have to have been complicit with the Iranians to arrange a bilateral agreement on the mark in the hijackers' passports that would be seen and recognized by the Iranian border guards.
Saudi Involvement in 9/11
As Steven Emerson at The Investigative Project on Terrorism points out in an important -- and critical -- review of the new Saudi fast-track visa program, the book has never really been closed on Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, there is a 28-page classified section of the official 9/11 Commission Report that points to the "plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks," according to former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, and which former Florida Senator Bob Graham asserts would put our understanding of the Saudi role in those attacks in a different light.
Aside from the probable Saudi passport arrangement with Iran, Saudi individuals and entities were key links in the so-called "Golden Chain" of financial benefactors to Usama bin Laden and al-Qa'eda. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, those resources were "put together mainly by financiers in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states." A key list of al-Qa'eda funders was discovered in a 2002 search of the Bosnian offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, a Saudi-based funding mechanism for al-Qa'eda also designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department. Saudi donors featured prominently on the handwritten list of 20 names. The so-called "SAAR Network," named after Saudi billionaire Sulaiman Abdul Aziz al-Rajhi, was among them; it was raided by the FBI in 2002. The Rabita Trust was also a financial front founded in 1988 by Omar Abdullah Nasseef, who was then Secretary General of the SAAR-linked Muslim World League, and another senior Saudi close to the royal family—as well as to Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Clinton from 2009-2013.
Then there is the Saudi student, Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi, who was named "a person of interest" and detained under guard by U.S. federal officials at a hospital after the Boston Marathon attack. Al-Harbi, whose extended family clan includes multiple members identified by the Saudi government as al-Qa'eda terrorists as well as five GITMO detainees, was (or maybe still is) in the U.S. on a student visa to attend college in Ohio -- but was living in the Boston area at the time of the marathon attack. On Tuesday 16 April 2013, the day after the marathon attack, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) created an "event file" on al-Harbi, specifically citing him under a provision (212(a)(3)B) reserved for "proven terrorist activity." In other words, as Diana West reported, al-Harbi was on a no-fly list -- and apparently with good reason. Steve Emerson appeared on the FOX News Hannity show to report that al-Harbi was due to be deported on national security grounds. But then Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal; and by Wednesday, 17 April, al-Harbi's event file had been altered and all references to there ever having been a terrorist designation for him had disappeared. Al-Harbi has disappeared, too, at least in terms of coverage by the mainstream media.
The U.S. system for background checks (Security Advisory Opinion or SAR) prior to granting visas in cases that raise or ought to raise security flags obviously has some holes in it that do not seem to have been patched since 9/11. Instead, one of the things that has changed, and significantly, is the number of Saudi students studying in this country: as of 2000, before 9/11, there were around 5,500 enrolled. Today, in 2013, according to West, there are about 35,000, thanks to a "reckless agreement" between President George W. Bush and the Saudi government in April 2005.
Before the U.S. completely turns over security of the chicken coop to the fox, we need to get a solid grip on how many other Saudi students besides al-Harbi may have slipped through the SAAR system. Congressional leaders, who have asked DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano for a briefing on the al-Harbi case, have been stonewalled. The Saudi relationship with al-Qa'eda as well as Iran -- whether past, present, or ever -- needs both clarification and immediate termination. Preferential fast-lane treatment for Saudi visa applicants should be considered on a reciprocal basis, with verifiable Saudi progress in stopping funding for Wahhabi-Salafist mosque construction; Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated imams; antisemitic, anti-Christian, and anti-West curriculum materials; and jihadi fighters everywhere on Shariah battlefields.
'Austerity is the Curse of Our Time'
Political economy professor Stefan Collignon writes:
Austerity is the curse of our time. Governments cut spending, raise taxes, reduce employment and lower wages in the hope of better times. The consequences are dire. 26 million people are unemployed in the European Union. Youth unemployment is 6 million, in Spain and Greece more than 50 percent. A whole generation is desperately seeking work.
Click here to continue reading.
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