MEU will assume operational control of a heavily populated area south of Baghdad that includes the cities of Mahmudiyah and Iskandariyah. As it relieves Army units being transferred elsewhere in Iraq, the 2,200-strong MEU will be beefed up with additional Marine forces, including 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines and Alpha Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.
Marine Corps News> 24th MEU Arrives in Iraq
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
The kind of enemy the United States now faces
From "The Wrong 9/11 Questions"
by Amir Taheri--Benador Associates
The typical politician in a democracy, starting with ancient Athens, is a deal-maker. He practices the art of compromise, not confrontation. He is always ready to understand the other side, to accept part of the blame, and to propose give-and-take. A more cynical version of this type of politics leads to triangulation, a la Bill Clinton. That kind of politics, however, does not work with the kind of enemy the United States now faces.
This enemy does not want to give and take, to compromise, or to triangulate. He wants you to obey him in every detail or he will kill you.
Once you assume some guilt on your own part, the whole thing could go like this: Well, you know, our wealth and power is bound to cause jealousy and humiliation among the poor and powerless; we also have a military presence in all but three of the Arab states, and don't we support Israel whose destruction is the dream of every Arab worth his salt?
The aims of the "enemy" in question, however, are not solely political.
He will not be happy even if, in the spirit of liberal generosity, you gave him half of your power and wealth. Nor would he settle for a total American withdrawal from the world. Nor would he be satisfied if you helped wipe Israel off the map.
This enemy's conflict with the United States, and alongside it other democracies, not to mention those Muslims who also aspire after democracy, is not political but existential.
He wants to rule you because he thinks he is the holder of a "the highest form of truth."
This enemy wants you, the whole world in fact, to convert to Islam because he believes the advent of Islam abrogated all other religions. Anyone who is not a Muslim is not a full human being.
"Our struggle is not about land or water," the late Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini said in 1980. "It is about bringing, by force if necessary, the whole of mankind onto the right path."
Amir Theri - Benador AssociatesSaturday, July 24, 2004
Change of Tactics in Iraq
The Thugees are going after the "neutral" nation citizens. Kenya, India and Egypt now have 72 hours to get out of Dodge before heads roll. Since none of these nations are members of the coalition of the willing the Thugees are going after support for the Iraqi economy. India and Egypt have thousands of worker ants in Iraq.
Analysis: Iraq's 'changing' war - (United Press International)
Analysis: Iraq's 'changing' war - (United Press International)
Friday, July 23, 2004
Islamist Terrorism:The Enemy's Goals
Anthony Browne in the Spectator writes: on the myth of the tiny minority of extremists that has taken over Islam.
A year ago I had lunch with an eminent figure who asked if I thought she was mad. ‘No,’ I saidke politely, while thinking, ‘Yup.’ She had said she thought there was a secret plot by Muslims to take over the West. I have never been into conspiracy theories, and this one was definitely of the little-green-men variety. It is the sort of thing BNP thugs claim to justify their racial hatred.
Obviously, we all know about Osama bin Laden’s ambitions. And we are all aware of the loons of al-Muhajiroun waving placards saying ‘Islam is the future of Britain’. But these are all on the extremist fringe, representative of no one but themselves. Surely no one in Islam takes this sort of thing seriously? I started surfing the Islamic media.
Take Dr Al-Qaradawi, the controversial Egyptian imam who was recently fawned over by the Mayor of London even though he promotes the execution of homosexuals, the right of men to indulge in domestic violence, and the murder of innocent Jews. During the brouhaha it went unnoticed that he also wants to conquer Europe. Don’t take my word for it, just listen to him on his popular al-Jazeera TV show, Sharia and Life.
‘Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects,’ he broadcast in 1999, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which translates his programmes. On another programme he declared, ‘Europe will see that it suffers from a materialist culture, and it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will seek no life-saver but the message of Islam.’
Far from being on the fringe, his immensely popular programmes are watched by millions across the Middle East and Europe. The BBC cooed that he has ‘star’ status among the world’s Muslims.
Dr Al-Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, is also the spiritual guide of the hardline Muslim Brotherhood, which is growing across Europe, and whose leader Muhammad Mahdi Othman ’Akef declared recently, ‘I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.’
In the most sacred mosque in Islam, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais of the Grand Mosque in Mecca uses his sermons to call for Jews to be ‘annihilated’ and to urge the overthrow of Western civilisation. ‘The most noble civilisation ever known to mankind is our Islamic civilisation. Today, Western civilisation is nothing more than the product of its encounter with our Islamic civilisation in Andalusia [mediaeval Spain]. The reason for [Western civilisation’s] bankruptcy is its reliance on the materialistic approach, and its detachment from religion and values. [This approach] has been one reason for the misery of the human race, for the proliferation of suicide, mental problems and for moral perversion. Only one nation is capable of resuscitating global civilisation, and that is the nation [of Islam].’
Al-Sudais is the highest imam appointed by our Saudi government ally, and his sermons are widely listened to across the Middle East. When he came to the UK in June to open the London Islamic Centre, thousands of British Muslims flocked to see him, our so-called race relations minister Fiona Mactaggart shared the platform, and Prince Charles sent a video message. He is probably the closest thing in Islam to the Pope, but I haven’t recently heard the Pope call for the overthrow of all other faiths.
Saudi Arabia, whose flag shows a sword, seems unabashed about its desire for Islam to take over the world. Its embassy in Washington recommends the home page of its Islamic affairs department, where it declares, ‘The Muslims are required to raise the banner of jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world.’ Saudi Arabia has used billions of its petrodollars to export its particularly harsh form of Islam, Wahabism, paying for mosques and Islamic schools across the West. About 80 per cent of the US’s mosques are thought to be under Wahabi control.
Saudi Arabia’s education ministry encourages schoolchildren to despise Christianity and Judaism. A new schoolbook in the kingdom’s curriculum tells six-year-olds: ‘All religions other than Islam are false.’ A note for teachers says they should ‘ensure to explain’ this point. In Egypt, the schoolbook Studies in Theology: Traditions and Morals explains that a particularly ‘noble’ bit of the Koran is ‘encouraging the faithful to perform jihad in God’s cause, to behead the infidels, take them prisoner, break their power — all that in a style which contains the highest examples of urging to fight’.
A popular topic for discussion on Arabic TV channels is the best strategy for conquering the West. It seems to be agreed that since the West has overwhelming economic, military and scientific power, it could take some time, and a full frontal assault could prove counterproductive. Muslim immigration and conversion are seen as the best path.
Saudi Professor Nasser bin Suleiman al-Omar declared on al-Majd TV last month, ‘Islam is advancing according to a steady plan, to the point that tens of thousands of Muslims have joined the American army and Islam is the second largest religion in America. America will be destroyed. But we must be patient.’
Islam is now the second religion not just in the US but in Europe and Australia. Europe has 15 million Muslims, accounting for one in ten of the population in France, where the government now estimates 50,000 Christians are converting to Islam every year. In Brussels, Mohammed has been the most popular name for boy babies for the last four years. In Britain, attendance at mosques is now higher than it is in the Church of England.
Al-Qa’eda is criticised for being impatient, and waking the West up. Saudi preacher Sheikh Said al-Qahtani said on the Iqraa TV satellite channel, ‘We did not occupy the US, with eight million Muslims, using bombings. Had we been patient and let time take its course, instead of the eight million there could have been 80 million [Muslims], and 50 years later perhaps the US would have become Muslim.’
It is difficult to brush this off as an aberration of Islam, which is normally just tickety-boo letting the rest of the world indulge in its false beliefs. Dr Zaki Badawi, the moderate former director of the Islamic Cultural Centre in London, admitted, ‘Islam endeavours to expand in Britain. Islam is a universal religion. It aims to bring its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole of humanity will be one Muslim community.’
In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into Dar al-Islam, where Muslims rule, and Dar al-Harb, the ‘field of war’ where the infidels live. ‘The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule,’ wrote Professor Bernard Lewis in his bestseller The Crisis of Islam.’
The first jihad was in ad 630, when Mohammed led his army to conquer Mecca. He made a prediction that Islam would conquer the two most powerful Christian centres at the time, Constantinople and Rome. Within 100 years of his death, Muslim armies had conquered the previously Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the rest of North Africa, as well as Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, until they were stopped at Poitiers in central France in ad 732. Muslim armies overthrew the ancient Zoroastrian empire of Persia, and conquered much of central Asia and Hindu India.
Ibn Warraq, a Pakistani who lost his Islamic faith, wrote in his book Why I am not a Muslim, ‘Although Europeans are constantly castigated for having imposed their insidious decadent values, culture and language on the Third World, no one cares to point out that Islam colonised lands that were the homes of advanced and ancient civilisations.’
It took 700 years for the Spanish to get their country back in the prolonged ‘Reconquista’. In the meantime the Turks, a central Asian people, had been converted to Islam and had conquered the ancient Christian land of Anatolia (now called Turkey). In 1453 they captured Constantinople — fulfilling Mohammed’s first prediction — which was the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The glorious Hagia Sophia, which had been one of the most important churches in Christendom for nearly 1,000 years after it was built in ad 537, was turned into a mosque, and minarets were added. The Turks went on to occupy Greece and much of the Balkans for four centuries, turning the Parthenon into a mosque and besieging Vienna, before retreating as their power waned.
In the Middle East, there are regular calls for Mohammed’s second prediction to come true. Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman al-’Arifi, imam of the mosque of the Saudi government’s King Fahd Defence Academy, wrote recently, ‘We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it.’
Not all conversion has been by the sword. Muslim traders peaceably converted Indonesia, now the most populous Islamic nation. But nor have the conquests stopped. Islam has continued spreading in sub-Saharan Africa, most notably in Nigeria and Sudan. Abyssinia — Ethiopia — is an ancient Christian land where Muslims have come to outnumber Christians only in the last 100 years. Just 50 years ago, Lebanon was still predominantly Christian; it is now predominantly Muslim.
Of course, Christianity has been just as much a conquering religion. Spanish armies ruthlessly destroyed ancient civilisations in Central and South America to spread the message of love. Christians colonised the Americas and Australia, committing genocide as they went, while missionaries such as Livingstone converted most of Africa.
But the difference is that Christendom has — by and large — stopped conquering and converting, and indeed in Europe simply stopped believing. Even President Bush’s most trenchant critics don’t believe he conquered Afghanistan and Iraq to spread the word of Jesus. It is ironic that by deposing Saddam, who ran the most secular of Arab regimes, the US actually transferred power to the imams.
I believe in a free market in religions, and it is inevitable that if you believe your religion is true, then you believe others are false. But this market is seriously rigged. In Saudi Arabia the government bans all churches, while in Europe governments pay to build Islamic cultural centres. While in many Islamic countries preaching Christianity is banned, in Western Christian countries the right to preach Islam is enshrined in law. Christians are free to convert to Islam, while Muslims who convert to Christianity can expect either death threats or a death sentence. The Pope keeps apologising for the Crusades (even though they were just attempts to get back former Christian lands) while his opposite numbers call for the overthrow of Christendom.
In Christian countries, those who warn about Islamification, such as the film star Brigitte Bardot, are prosecuted, while in Muslim countries those who call for the Islamification of the world are turned into TV celebrities. In the West, schools teach comparative religion, while in Muslim countries schools teach that Islam is the only true faith. David Blunkett in effect wants to ban criticism of Islam, a protection not enjoyed by Christianity in Muslim countries. Millions of Muslims move to Christian countries, but virtually no Christians move to Muslim ones.
In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West.
Anthony Browne is Europe correspondent for the Times.
A year ago I had lunch with an eminent figure who asked if I thought she was mad. ‘No,’ I saidke politely, while thinking, ‘Yup.’ She had said she thought there was a secret plot by Muslims to take over the West. I have never been into conspiracy theories, and this one was definitely of the little-green-men variety. It is the sort of thing BNP thugs claim to justify their racial hatred.
Obviously, we all know about Osama bin Laden’s ambitions. And we are all aware of the loons of al-Muhajiroun waving placards saying ‘Islam is the future of Britain’. But these are all on the extremist fringe, representative of no one but themselves. Surely no one in Islam takes this sort of thing seriously? I started surfing the Islamic media.
Take Dr Al-Qaradawi, the controversial Egyptian imam who was recently fawned over by the Mayor of London even though he promotes the execution of homosexuals, the right of men to indulge in domestic violence, and the murder of innocent Jews. During the brouhaha it went unnoticed that he also wants to conquer Europe. Don’t take my word for it, just listen to him on his popular al-Jazeera TV show, Sharia and Life.
‘Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects,’ he broadcast in 1999, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which translates his programmes. On another programme he declared, ‘Europe will see that it suffers from a materialist culture, and it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will seek no life-saver but the message of Islam.’
Far from being on the fringe, his immensely popular programmes are watched by millions across the Middle East and Europe. The BBC cooed that he has ‘star’ status among the world’s Muslims.
Dr Al-Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, is also the spiritual guide of the hardline Muslim Brotherhood, which is growing across Europe, and whose leader Muhammad Mahdi Othman ’Akef declared recently, ‘I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.’
In the most sacred mosque in Islam, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais of the Grand Mosque in Mecca uses his sermons to call for Jews to be ‘annihilated’ and to urge the overthrow of Western civilisation. ‘The most noble civilisation ever known to mankind is our Islamic civilisation. Today, Western civilisation is nothing more than the product of its encounter with our Islamic civilisation in Andalusia [mediaeval Spain]. The reason for [Western civilisation’s] bankruptcy is its reliance on the materialistic approach, and its detachment from religion and values. [This approach] has been one reason for the misery of the human race, for the proliferation of suicide, mental problems and for moral perversion. Only one nation is capable of resuscitating global civilisation, and that is the nation [of Islam].’
Al-Sudais is the highest imam appointed by our Saudi government ally, and his sermons are widely listened to across the Middle East. When he came to the UK in June to open the London Islamic Centre, thousands of British Muslims flocked to see him, our so-called race relations minister Fiona Mactaggart shared the platform, and Prince Charles sent a video message. He is probably the closest thing in Islam to the Pope, but I haven’t recently heard the Pope call for the overthrow of all other faiths.
Saudi Arabia, whose flag shows a sword, seems unabashed about its desire for Islam to take over the world. Its embassy in Washington recommends the home page of its Islamic affairs department, where it declares, ‘The Muslims are required to raise the banner of jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world.’ Saudi Arabia has used billions of its petrodollars to export its particularly harsh form of Islam, Wahabism, paying for mosques and Islamic schools across the West. About 80 per cent of the US’s mosques are thought to be under Wahabi control.
Saudi Arabia’s education ministry encourages schoolchildren to despise Christianity and Judaism. A new schoolbook in the kingdom’s curriculum tells six-year-olds: ‘All religions other than Islam are false.’ A note for teachers says they should ‘ensure to explain’ this point. In Egypt, the schoolbook Studies in Theology: Traditions and Morals explains that a particularly ‘noble’ bit of the Koran is ‘encouraging the faithful to perform jihad in God’s cause, to behead the infidels, take them prisoner, break their power — all that in a style which contains the highest examples of urging to fight’.
A popular topic for discussion on Arabic TV channels is the best strategy for conquering the West. It seems to be agreed that since the West has overwhelming economic, military and scientific power, it could take some time, and a full frontal assault could prove counterproductive. Muslim immigration and conversion are seen as the best path.
Saudi Professor Nasser bin Suleiman al-Omar declared on al-Majd TV last month, ‘Islam is advancing according to a steady plan, to the point that tens of thousands of Muslims have joined the American army and Islam is the second largest religion in America. America will be destroyed. But we must be patient.’
Islam is now the second religion not just in the US but in Europe and Australia. Europe has 15 million Muslims, accounting for one in ten of the population in France, where the government now estimates 50,000 Christians are converting to Islam every year. In Brussels, Mohammed has been the most popular name for boy babies for the last four years. In Britain, attendance at mosques is now higher than it is in the Church of England.
Al-Qa’eda is criticised for being impatient, and waking the West up. Saudi preacher Sheikh Said al-Qahtani said on the Iqraa TV satellite channel, ‘We did not occupy the US, with eight million Muslims, using bombings. Had we been patient and let time take its course, instead of the eight million there could have been 80 million [Muslims], and 50 years later perhaps the US would have become Muslim.’
It is difficult to brush this off as an aberration of Islam, which is normally just tickety-boo letting the rest of the world indulge in its false beliefs. Dr Zaki Badawi, the moderate former director of the Islamic Cultural Centre in London, admitted, ‘Islam endeavours to expand in Britain. Islam is a universal religion. It aims to bring its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole of humanity will be one Muslim community.’
In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into Dar al-Islam, where Muslims rule, and Dar al-Harb, the ‘field of war’ where the infidels live. ‘The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule,’ wrote Professor Bernard Lewis in his bestseller The Crisis of Islam.’
The first jihad was in ad 630, when Mohammed led his army to conquer Mecca. He made a prediction that Islam would conquer the two most powerful Christian centres at the time, Constantinople and Rome. Within 100 years of his death, Muslim armies had conquered the previously Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the rest of North Africa, as well as Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, until they were stopped at Poitiers in central France in ad 732. Muslim armies overthrew the ancient Zoroastrian empire of Persia, and conquered much of central Asia and Hindu India.
Ibn Warraq, a Pakistani who lost his Islamic faith, wrote in his book Why I am not a Muslim, ‘Although Europeans are constantly castigated for having imposed their insidious decadent values, culture and language on the Third World, no one cares to point out that Islam colonised lands that were the homes of advanced and ancient civilisations.’
It took 700 years for the Spanish to get their country back in the prolonged ‘Reconquista’. In the meantime the Turks, a central Asian people, had been converted to Islam and had conquered the ancient Christian land of Anatolia (now called Turkey). In 1453 they captured Constantinople — fulfilling Mohammed’s first prediction — which was the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The glorious Hagia Sophia, which had been one of the most important churches in Christendom for nearly 1,000 years after it was built in ad 537, was turned into a mosque, and minarets were added. The Turks went on to occupy Greece and much of the Balkans for four centuries, turning the Parthenon into a mosque and besieging Vienna, before retreating as their power waned.
In the Middle East, there are regular calls for Mohammed’s second prediction to come true. Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman al-’Arifi, imam of the mosque of the Saudi government’s King Fahd Defence Academy, wrote recently, ‘We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it.’
Not all conversion has been by the sword. Muslim traders peaceably converted Indonesia, now the most populous Islamic nation. But nor have the conquests stopped. Islam has continued spreading in sub-Saharan Africa, most notably in Nigeria and Sudan. Abyssinia — Ethiopia — is an ancient Christian land where Muslims have come to outnumber Christians only in the last 100 years. Just 50 years ago, Lebanon was still predominantly Christian; it is now predominantly Muslim.
Of course, Christianity has been just as much a conquering religion. Spanish armies ruthlessly destroyed ancient civilisations in Central and South America to spread the message of love. Christians colonised the Americas and Australia, committing genocide as they went, while missionaries such as Livingstone converted most of Africa.
But the difference is that Christendom has — by and large — stopped conquering and converting, and indeed in Europe simply stopped believing. Even President Bush’s most trenchant critics don’t believe he conquered Afghanistan and Iraq to spread the word of Jesus. It is ironic that by deposing Saddam, who ran the most secular of Arab regimes, the US actually transferred power to the imams.
I believe in a free market in religions, and it is inevitable that if you believe your religion is true, then you believe others are false. But this market is seriously rigged. In Saudi Arabia the government bans all churches, while in Europe governments pay to build Islamic cultural centres. While in many Islamic countries preaching Christianity is banned, in Western Christian countries the right to preach Islam is enshrined in law. Christians are free to convert to Islam, while Muslims who convert to Christianity can expect either death threats or a death sentence. The Pope keeps apologising for the Crusades (even though they were just attempts to get back former Christian lands) while his opposite numbers call for the overthrow of Christendom.
In Christian countries, those who warn about Islamification, such as the film star Brigitte Bardot, are prosecuted, while in Muslim countries those who call for the Islamification of the world are turned into TV celebrities. In the West, schools teach comparative religion, while in Muslim countries schools teach that Islam is the only true faith. David Blunkett in effect wants to ban criticism of Islam, a protection not enjoyed by Christianity in Muslim countries. Millions of Muslims move to Christian countries, but virtually no Christians move to Muslim ones.
In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West.
Anthony Browne is Europe correspondent for the Times.
Know your Enemy: Name your Enemy
How can you know your enemy in this politically correct world. Thomas Donnelly at AEI points out the money paragraph in the 911 report: "the enemy is not just terrorism some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy...the catastrophic threat at this moment...is specific ...it is ISLAMIST TERRORISM."
AEI - News & Commentary
AEI - News & Commentary
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Middle Eastern Men Probe Defenses On board Flights
We're being probed. Middle Eastern men have continually checked out air marshal's reactions during landings in preparation for another 9/11.
Scouting jetliners for new attacks - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - July 22, 2004:
Scouting jetliners for new attacks - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - July 22, 2004:
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Nuke Heads Found near Tikrit
The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said.
They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation.
Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq - (United Press International)
"The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said.
They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation.
Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq - (United Press International)
Abu Musab Zarqawi : KYE
Some of those who have fought him the longest say his skills and his ideology are overrated.
"He was basically a street thug. That's probably the best way I can describe it," King Abdullah II of Jordan said in a CNN interview this week. As Zarqawi rose to international notoriety in Iraq, his first cause was overthrowing the Jordanian monarchy, a longtime U.S. ally in the region.
"I think the press made him much more capable, much smarter and much more of a threat than actually he really is," the king said.
"They know they have no future in a successful Iraq. Their only future is if they can make the country ungovernable," he said. "They can only extend their control through thuggery and threats."
But on his movement's Web sites and in lengthy written analyses attributed to him, Zarqawi has presented a coherent — if bloody — strategy for achieving his ends in Iraq and the Middle East.
Zarqawi wants Sunnis in control - The Washington Times: World - July 21, 2004
"He was basically a street thug. That's probably the best way I can describe it," King Abdullah II of Jordan said in a CNN interview this week. As Zarqawi rose to international notoriety in Iraq, his first cause was overthrowing the Jordanian monarchy, a longtime U.S. ally in the region.
"I think the press made him much more capable, much smarter and much more of a threat than actually he really is," the king said.
"They know they have no future in a successful Iraq. Their only future is if they can make the country ungovernable," he said. "They can only extend their control through thuggery and threats."
But on his movement's Web sites and in lengthy written analyses attributed to him, Zarqawi has presented a coherent — if bloody — strategy for achieving his ends in Iraq and the Middle East.
Zarqawi wants Sunnis in control - The Washington Times: World - July 21, 2004
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Iran is a terrorist state.
"Organizers of the Council on Foreign Relations special task force to promote the appeasement of Iran must be cursing their uncommonly bad luck. They scheduled a meeting in Washington today to call for increasing normalization of relations between the United States and Iran.....Whatever chances they had of successfully advancing appeasement were shattered over the weekend, as some talkative source at the 9/11 Commission told the old media (notably Time and Newsweek) that there was new evidence documenting the longstanding relationship between al Qaeda and Iran, including the fact that ten of the 9/11 terrorists had crossed Iran from Saudi Arabia the year before the attacks in this country, and the Iranians were careful not to stamp their passports, so that the Iranian connection could not be documented.....These terrorists were not, as the Iranians were quick to pretend, under arrest. Nor, as Iranian officials put it the day after, had the al Qaeda groups been destroyed. Many were living in villas near Chalous on the Caspian Sea, while others were in Lavizan, either in or near a big military base.....Chalous is the locus of a major underground nuclear facility that has been heavily reinforced of late, while Lavizan houses the Shiyan Technical Research Facility within one of the largest Revolutionary Guards bases in the Central Province.
What a surprise! Terrorists at Iranian military bases! Who ever would have imagined such a thing? "
Michael Ledeen on Iran on National Review Online
What a surprise! Terrorists at Iranian military bases! Who ever would have imagined such a thing? "
Michael Ledeen on Iran on National Review Online
Isreal's First Strike Pilots Ready To Turn and Burn
Israel has completed military rehearsals for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear power facility at Bushehr, Israeli officials told the London-based Sunday Times.
"Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical."
Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
"Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical."
Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Monday, July 19, 2004
NWC Review, Winter 2001: Smith
NWC Review, Winter 2001: Smith: "What is network-centric warfare? What’s the point? Many attempts to answer these questions emphasize the “network” and the new technologies used to create more effective sensor and communications architectures. These architectures, it is argued, will enable us to create and exploit a common situational awareness, increase our speed of command, and “get inside the enemy’s OODA [observe, orient, decide, and act] loop.”1 Yet such descriptions of technologies and capabilities can leave us asking the same questions: What is it? Just what does it bring to warfare? Why is it so critical to America’s future military power that we must give up other capabilities to buy it?
Sunday, July 18, 2004
The White Hats
”We are of Muslim culture, we oppose misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism and the political use of Islam. We reassert a living secularism”
Manifesto
Manifesto
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Battle of Wits With Rebels Over Bomb Technology
The
New York Times > International > Middle East > Street
Weaponry: G.I.'s in Battle of Wits With Rebels Over Bomb Technology:
"It's
this constant chess match,' said Capt. J. Philip Ludvigson, a member of
the Stryker brigade combat team, named for the nimble armored vehicle
that made the sweeps.
'They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us,' he said, 'and we figure out new ways to counter it.'
The
test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained
and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices
said the game might also be providing new insight into the mysterious,
dedicated and skilled core of people who might be leading the
insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq."
New York Times > International > Middle East > Street
Weaponry: G.I.'s in Battle of Wits With Rebels Over Bomb Technology:
"It's
this constant chess match,' said Capt. J. Philip Ludvigson, a member of
the Stryker brigade combat team, named for the nimble armored vehicle
that made the sweeps.
'They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us,' he said, 'and we figure out new ways to counter it.'
The
test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained
and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices
said the game might also be providing new insight into the mysterious,
dedicated and skilled core of people who might be leading the
insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq."
Friday, July 16, 2004
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
MEMRI: Latest News: "e post September 11 war on terrorism has increased Islamist organizations' dependence on the Internet, making it a vital means of communication and indoctrination for both Islamist organizations and for the infrastructure of Al-Qa'ida supporters. As a result of Islamist websites often being tracked and in some cases hacked, or shut down by their Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the Islamist organizations have also become increasingly dependent on chat rooms and message boards for communication.
The following list of 25 Islamist websites and message forums, the first in a series of reports, includes website affiliations, IP addresses, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and information about their registrants.(1) The entries are categorized by ISP location.
The IP addresses and hosts included in the list were valid as of July 16, 2004.(2)"
The following list of 25 Islamist websites and message forums, the first in a series of reports, includes website affiliations, IP addresses, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and information about their registrants.(1) The entries are categorized by ISP location.
The IP addresses and hosts included in the list were valid as of July 16, 2004.(2)"
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Atlantic | February 2002 | Councils of War | Fallows
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
The Atlantic | February 2002 | Councils of War | Fallows: "Air Force colonel John Boyd attracted adherents, especially in the Marine Corps, with his view that 'fast feedback' loops were the key to military success. That is, the army that could observe and react to its opponents' movements the fastest would be the most likely to prevail. A young Marine captain named G. I. Wilson drew from Boyd's work the idea that the military should look for information as widely as possible. 'It takes both unclassified open source resources and classified intelligence to win in today's information age,' Wilson wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1995, with Major Frank Bunkers.
"
The Atlantic | February 2002 | Councils of War | Fallows: "Air Force colonel John Boyd attracted adherents, especially in the Marine Corps, with his view that 'fast feedback' loops were the key to military success. That is, the army that could observe and react to its opponents' movements the fastest would be the most likely to prevail. A young Marine captain named G. I. Wilson drew from Boyd's work the idea that the military should look for information as widely as possible. 'It takes both unclassified open source resources and classified intelligence to win in today's information age,' Wilson wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1995, with Major Frank Bunkers.
"
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Plan of Attack (know your enemy file)
Insurgents in Iraq are forging improbable alliances to fight what some analysts call a "netwar." The United States needs to adapt—and to relearn some old lessons
Guerrilla groups and terrorist organizations, on the other hand, learn lessons very well. They study their own mistakes and the successful operations of their enemies, and they adapt nimbly. The past year in Iraq has been a case in point: insurgents have moved from sporadic, relatively unsophisticated roadside bomb attacks to more coordinated, even synchronized attacks, with brutally successful results: growing numbers of coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians are dying; security in much of the country remains fragile or elusive; Iraqi resentment of the United States is increasing; and international political support for the American occupation, never exactly formidable to begin with, is withering. By many measures the insurgents are succeeding and we are failing.
The Atlantic | July/August 2004 | Plan of Attack | Hoffman
Guerrilla groups and terrorist organizations, on the other hand, learn lessons very well. They study their own mistakes and the successful operations of their enemies, and they adapt nimbly. The past year in Iraq has been a case in point: insurgents have moved from sporadic, relatively unsophisticated roadside bomb attacks to more coordinated, even synchronized attacks, with brutally successful results: growing numbers of coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians are dying; security in much of the country remains fragile or elusive; Iraqi resentment of the United States is increasing; and international political support for the American occupation, never exactly formidable to begin with, is withering. By many measures the insurgents are succeeding and we are failing.
The Atlantic | July/August 2004 | Plan of Attack | Hoffman
Sunday, July 11, 2004
3rd LAR Marine Iraq Bound
The Taunton Gazette: "Their annual family gathering was combined with the going-away party for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Eastman, a 2003 Taunton High School graduate. Eastman leaves this week for California before heading to Iraq, where he�ll miss his son�s first birthday."
The Taunton Gazette
The Taunton Gazette: "Their annual family gathering was combined with the going-away party for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Eastman, a 2003 Taunton High School graduate. Eastman leaves this week for California before heading to Iraq, where he�ll miss his son�s first birthday."
Monday, July 05, 2004
SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Military -- 'Strong and courageous'
In an early-morning ceremony, Marines paid their respects to two comrades who died while serving with Camp Pendleton's 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
Lance Cpl. Timothy R. Creager, 21, and Lance Cpl. James B. Huston, 22, died in separate incidents late last week while patrolling near the city of Fallujah. Since March, 12 Marines and one interpreter from the battalion have died. SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Military -- 'Strong and courageous'
Lance Cpl. Timothy R. Creager, 21, and Lance Cpl. James B. Huston, 22, died in separate incidents late last week while patrolling near the city of Fallujah. Since March, 12 Marines and one interpreter from the battalion have died. SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Military -- 'Strong and courageous'
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