Do you suppose it is really true that if the first pictured Mullah had been on his toes, the second one might not have escaped from Afghanistan in 2001?  And further, Senator Levin contends, we might not now be fighting the war in Afghanistan if bin Laden had been captured in 2001.

Predicting the future is always a risky business, but will the number of books on the failed presidency of POTUS #43 be more than fifty by the year 2012?  Seems possible to me…  What do your divining rods say out there in the internets (you know, those bunch of tubes)?

Um plano de ataque programado para o dia 25/12/2009 foi descoberto pelo serviço de inteligência norte-americano. Os terroristas planejavam destruir o símbolo do capitalismo natalino. Confira as imagens:

Senate report: Bin Laden was ‘within our grasp’ – Yahoo! News

Very interesting.

I don’t yet hear any analysis of the report, however. This would be a good time to start asking questions like: how do we know that Bin Laden “walked unmolested out of Tora Bora,” and when did we (or rather, our military leaders) become aware of this? Who was behind the decision? Was it a matter of knowing and ignoring the fact that Bin Laden was “within our grasp,” or simply a loss of initiative?

Perhaps most important, how can this report inform the steps we take in the coming weeks, months and (God forbid) years regarding our current situation in Afghanistan?

“….it would take weeks to get a large enough U.S. contingent on the scene and bin Laden might disappear in the meantime.”

“….there were sufficient troops available in Afghanistan and nearby Uzbekistan to mount a genuine assault on Osama bin Laden’s position at Tora Bora. And they could have been augmented within about a week by reinforcements from the Persian Gulf and the United States.”

The assault would not have required thousands of conventional forces. A large number of troops would have taken too long to deploy and alerted Al Qaeda to the approaching attack. ‘‘My opinion is that bin Laden would have left even earlier as soon as he received word that the U.S. troops were surrounding him,’’ Fury told the Committee staff. ‘‘I think he only stayed as long as he did because he thought the mujahedin would not aggressively pursue him.’’

“…..deploying 1,000 to 3,000 American troops would have required several hundred airlift flights by helicopters over a week or more.

DeLong defended the decision not to deploy large numbers of American troops. ‘‘We didn’t have the lift,’’ he told the Committee staff. ‘‘We didn’t have the medical capabilities. The further we went down the road, the easier the decision got. We wanted Afghanistan to be peaceful for Karzai to take over. Right or not, that was the thinking behind what we did.’’

According to various news items posted this weekend (Nov 28-29, 2009) is one about Bin Laden and how he could have been taken out of circulation.

This decision will surely go down in the history books as “What was Rumsfeld thinking?”.

Gordon Brown wants Bin Laden turned in . FORGET Bin Laden, another will take his place.Deal with what’s happening in Britain now THAT’S the problem! And STOP all handouts.Turn off the support at source.

The PM voiced anger that Al Qaeda’s leader is still at large EIGHT years after the 9/11 attacks on New York. And he warned that British lives are at risk because Bin Laden is still free to mastermind terror attacks on the UK.

Mr Brown delivered his message in a phone call this weekend to Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.The PM said Pakistan must throw its full weight behind the war on Islamic fanatics.

Mr Brown’s broadside came hours after he had set out a timetable for British troops to pull out of one or two districts in Helmand Province by the end of next year.The PM claimed another five provinces could be handed back to Afghan security forces in 2010 too.

But he voiced deep frustration at Pakistan’s failure to capture Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Zawahiri.

“We want, after eight years, to see more progress in taking out these top two people in Al Qaeda who have done so much damage and are clearly behind many of the operations in Great Britain,” he said at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

Mr Brown will repeat his message when he meets Pakistan premier Yousaf Raza Gilani in Number 10 on Thursday.Read more in the SUN

Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden was within the grasp of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001, but U.S. military leaders decided not to grab him, resulting in the long-term terror war that continues today, a new Senate report says.

The report comes as President Obama prepares to announce his decision on sending more troops to the region, including reportedly 9,000 Marines who will be deployed in short order after the announcement.

A review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Usama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora,” reads the 49-page report authored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for Chairman John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

MORE…...foxnews.com/

Der Gag, den sich jeder halbwegs bei Verstand wissende Zeitgenosse bislang mit Bedacht von der Backe putzte, ist nun in Gestalt eines Schreibfehlers in die Welt und unter die Leser der taz gekommen:

Die US-Armee hätte Osama Bin Laden nach einem Bericht des Senats bereits vor acht Jahren haben können. Danach haben es die Streitkräfte unter der Regierung von George W. Bush aufgrund militärischer Fehlentscheidungen verpasst, den El-Kaida-Führer in Afghanistan zu schnappen. Obama sei praktisch vor ihrer Nase über die Grenze nach Pakistan entwischt, heißt es in dem am Samstag veröffentlichten Report des auswärtigen Ausschusses der Kongresskammer. [Hervorhebungen von mir]

Bestimmte Teile etwa des israel-freundlichen Fanwesens bzw. Politiker des Likud-Blocks mögen sich indes bestätigt fühlen: Obama war ja schon immer ganz ein unsicherer Kantonist:

“The Obama administration is an enemy of the Jews and the worst regime there ever was for the State of Israel,” said Yossi Naim, the head of the Beit Aryeh regional council, at the Ra’ana meeting. “I announce to Obama: You won’t be able to stop us.”

Wer mit zweitem Vornamen Hussein heißt, muss sich ohnehin nicht wundern über den antiarabischen Rassismus in der Welt, oder wie? Wie sagt uns ein “Don Geilo”, ein aufs verdiente Abstellgleis gesperrter User aus einem Polit-Forum:

Es ist allzu offenkundig, dass der Mullah-Versteher Hussein Obama
grundlegend anders zum Judenstaat Israel aber auch zu den Islamofaschisten
in Teheran bzw. deren Lakaien und Ableger Hamas und Hizbollah steht.

Und ich hatte schon an Obama gezweifelt…

…as in, our forces knew where he was in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains (or so says a Senate report release today) but then failed to move in on him. Why? Oh, maybe there was a good “Law & Order” rerun on that night. Or maybe we were totally gonna go, but then got sucked into a game of Halo and, well, there went the night.Right? Wrong. The blame for this epic mistake lands squarely on the shoulders of the higher ups.

The report, entitled, “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today” (alternate title: “How We Managed to Screw the Pooch Yet Again in the Middle East and Why They Still Might be Kinda Miffed At Us About It.”) lays it out nicely for us. It’s a pretty sweet read (and by sweet, I mean cringe-inducing), and at 49 pages, a quick one too.

If you’re wondering exactly what the hell happened and who was responsible, here’s an abbreviated blow-by-blow (released just as President Obama is to share his plans for troops in Afghanistan):

By early December 2001, Bin Laden’s world had shrunk to a complex of caves and tunnels carved into a mountainous section of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.

Note: At this point, US troops were bombing the bejeezus out of the region. So Bin Laden was essentially cornered.

Bin Laden expected to die. His last will and testament, written on December 14, reflected his fatalism. ‘‘Allah commended to us that when death approaches any of us that we make a bequest to parents and next of kin and to Muslims as a whole,’’ he wrote, according to a copy of the will that surfaced later and is regarded as authentic. ‘‘Allah bears witness that the love of jihad and death in the cause of Allah has dominated my life and the verses of the sword permeated every cell in my heart, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together.’How many times did I wake up to find myself reciting this holy verse!’’ He instructed his wives not to remarry and apologized to his children for devoting himself to jihad.

Got it? The guy knows his jig is up.

But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected.(…) Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan’s loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes.

Also ixnayed were requests for troops to block paths running through the mountain to Pakistan. And that worked out really welll for Bin Laden, who retains his top spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list:

On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.

Still in the wind....

What the…?!?! Who would make such a moronic decision?

The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom.

Oh. Right. Those two. But why?

Rumsfeld said at the time that he was concerned that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan would create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread insurgency. Reversing the recent American military orthodoxy known as the Powell doctrine, the Afghan model emphasized minimizing the U.S. presence by relying on small, highly mobile teams of special operations troops and CIA paramilitary operatives working with the Afghan opposition. Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, Franks refused to deviate from the plan.

Oh, come on. First off, the report tells us that there were already enough troops there to successfully carry out what needed to be done — get Bin Laden. Furthermore, I’m wondering what happened to this fear of an “anti-American backlash” by the time the decision to attack Iraq (for no legitimate reason whatsoever) rolled around? What obscured their clear vision of things?

The report says it as plainly as can be; That our failure to capture of kill Bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora has been a f**k-up of the first magnitude.  And how the strategy of both Rumsfeld and General Franks risked far too much in order to keep a “light footprint” in a region where now our presence has been increased dramatically.  And Bin Laden was within our grasp, it seems that he just wasn’t important enough of a target to deviate from the strategy we had in place, yeah, good decision on that one.  I can’t believe that Republicans still run on the “strong defense” and “we’ll keep you safe” horse manure that they spread at election time.

No doubt this report will be dismissed by the conservatives, and they can whine about it all they want to.  They are the ones that decided to let Bin Laden escape, and there is no getting around that fact.

PDF of Senate Report

Excerpt from the summary

...Removing the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat. But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide.

The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism, leaving the American people more vulnerable to terrorism, laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan. Al Qaeda shifted its locus across the border into Pakistan, where it has trained extremists linked to numerous plots, including the July 2005 transit bombings in London and two recent aborted attacks involving people living in the United States.

The terrorist group’s resurgence in Pakistan has coincided with the rising violence orchestrated in Afghanistan by the Taliban, whose leaders also escaped only to re-emerge to direct today’s increasingly lethal Afghan insurgency.

This failure and its enormous consequences were not inevitable.  By early December 2001, Bin Laden’s world had shrunk to a complex of caves and tunnels carved into a mountainous section of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora. Cornered in some of the most forbidding terrain on earth, he and several hundred of his men, the largest concentration of Al Qaeda fighters of the war, endured relentless pounding by American aircraft, as many as 100 air strikes a day. One 15,000-pound bomb, so huge it had to be rolled out the back of a C-130 cargo plane, shook the mountains for miles.  It seemed only a matter of time before U.S. troops and their Afghan allies overran the remnants of Al Qaeda hunkered down in the thin, cold air at 14,000 feet.

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Homepage

_______________________________________________________

Heck of a job, Rummy.

I think by now we all know that the Bush administration was comprised of a bunch of clowns; interested only in enlarging the bulge in their already bulging pockets. A few of those in the administration, those with a brain and dignity, such as General Colin Powell for example,  resigned; knowing that  they had aligned themselves with the wrong “leaders.”

Even the most staunch Republicans, at the very least those with enough sense of morality, would have to admit that George W. Bush and his cohorts were nothing but a bunch of circus clowns. They were totally clueless when it came to doing what was right for this country. Invading Iraq was no more than a misguided and failed attempt to settle old scores, if not a business opportunity, at the expense of the security and future of the United States.

George W. Bush and those assigned to protect him are probably getting drunk right about now, preparing lures for tomorrow’s fishing expedition. Meanwhile, the former Vice-President is more than likely getting ready to go quail hunting in the morning. And while this takes place, the cancer (actually this is a compliment) pictured below continues to plan the destruction of the western world. Yeap, these good-ol’ boys really did a mighty fine job indeed… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.

More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.

“Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the report says. “But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.”

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.”

On or about Dec. 16, 2001, bin Laden and bodyguards “walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area,” where he is still believed to be based, the report says.

Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 U.S. commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down their prey.

“The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines,” the report said.

At the time, Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large U.S. troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden’s location.

-

On the Net:

The report: http://foreign.senate.gov/

Desde que o ousado e astuto plano de Bin Laden em atacar o coração financeiro do mundo deu certo ao destruir as torres gêmeas do World Trade Center e ferir o orgulho norte-americano, em Nova York, em 11 de setembro de 2001, a segurança daquele país já não é mais a mesma.

Antes padrão de segurança e modelo a ser seguido em outros aeroportos americanos e internacionais, esta passou a ser questionada pelo mundo todo: Como dois aviões derrubaram as torres gêmeas tão facilmente? 

Com medo de um novo ataque terrorista, o governo Bush, a partir de então, mandou fazer uma vistoria completa em todos os passageiros e suas bagagens, causando um certo mal-estar, desconforto e insatisfação de muitos.

Mas essas medidas, apesar de ainda estarem em vigor, não evitaram a evidência de quão frágil é o sistema norte-americano que permitiu a aparição de homens-bomba, “discípulos” de Bin Laden.  

Caso específico do ataque de Fort Hood, em que o americano Nidal Malik Hassan, de 39 anos, que irônicamente era psiquiatra do exército norte-americano, abriu fogo contra seus companheiros. Depois dos disparos, Hassan foi ferido pela polícia e está sob custódia em um hospital da região.

Saldo do tiroteio na maior base militar do mundo, em Fort Hood, Texas: 13 pessoas morreram e 28 ficaram feridas. De acordo com o comandante da base, Robert Cone, testemunhas disseram que na hora dos disparos, Nidal  empunhava duas armas e gritava: Allah Akbar, Deus é Grande, em árabe.   

Esse caso, faz conexão com outro massacre:

American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2009 – Iraqi security forces arrested 18 suspected al-Qaida in Iraq associates today, and earlier this week captured a terrorism suspect they’ve been pursuing for three years, military officials reported.

Iraqi forces and U.S. advisors searched several houses in Mosul looking for an alleged al-Qaida in Iraq regional leader who is suspected of staging deadly attacks against Iraqi civilians and security forces.

Based on preliminary questioning and evidence gathered at the scene, Iraqi forces arrested 18 of his suspected associates.

The arrests in Mosul are expected to contribute to greater safety for Iraqis from attacks during the upcoming Eid al-Adha, or “Festival of Sacrifice,” Muslim holiday.

In Diyala province Nov. 22, Iraqi security forces, advised by U.S. forces, arrested a suspected leader of a terrorist group, along with a suspected associate.

The judicial court of Muqdadiyah had issued a warrant for Harith Sadun Dawud al-Rubayi for suspicion of murder, kidnapping and bombing attacks against Iraqi citizens and Iraqi security forces. He also is suspected of smuggling weapons, home invasions and stealing money from Iraq’s interior ministry.

He is believed to be linked to the kidnapping and murder of the son of a former Muqdadiyah mayor in September, as well as the murder of an Iraqi policeman in Abu Sayda. The suspect has been wanted by authorities and had evaded capture for three years.

(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

Jeremy Scahill

The Nation, November 23, 2009

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.”

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war–knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater’s covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, “From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct,” adding, “There’s no question that’s occurring.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me because we’ve outsourced nearly everything,” said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater’s role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater’s involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. “Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don’t have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it’s that simple. It would not surprise me.”

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said the source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.” The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. “It’s a very rudimentary operation,” says the source. “I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It’s very bare bones, and that’s the point.”

Blackwater’s work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA’s counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a “media-scouring/open-source network,” according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. “They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them,” he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater’s classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, “The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you’re doing is really one military guy to another.” Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified “black” operations. “With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above ’secret’–even though you have no business doing so,” said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that “do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust,” he added. “Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That’s exactly what it is: a circle of love.” Blackwater, therefore, has access to “all source” reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. “That’s how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors,” said the source. “We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don’t unless they ask.”

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up,” he said, adding, “They have a sizable force in Pakistan–not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way–but to support a legitimate contract that’s classified for JSOC.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT “was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it.” Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. “Nobody even gives them a second thought.”

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as “Qatar cubed,” in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. “This is supposed to be the brave new world,” he says. “This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it’s meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It’s strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don’t have to deal with that because they’re operating under a classified mandate.”

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. “That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,” he said. “So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?”

Pakistan’s Military Contracting Maze

Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. “The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets,” he said. “It’s not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people.” Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls “Blackwater Vanilla,” and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. “Good or bad, there’s a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That’s probably a good thing,” said the source. “It’s the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they’re the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It’s not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They’re very good at what they do.”

The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, “that’s not entirely accurate.” While he concurred with the military intelligence source’s description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral’s main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.

A spokesperson for the US State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. “We cannot help you,” said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. “You’ll have to contact the companies directly.” Blackwater’s Corallo said the company has “no operations of any kind” in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.

According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues “regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States.” Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.

For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. “Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship,” he said. “They’ve met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another.” Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral’s forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry’s paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as “frontier scouts”). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater “is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral’s folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they’re having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they’re executing the job,” he said. “You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas.” He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. “You’ve got BW guys that are assisting… and they’re all going to want to go on the jobs–so they’re going to go with them,” he said. “So, the things that you’re seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that–in some of those cases, you’re going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house.” Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. “That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, ‘Hey, no, we don’t have any Westerners doing this. It’s all local and our people are doing it.’ But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work.”

The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, “There’s no real oversight. It’s not really on people’s radar screen.”

In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by “a private American security contractor.” The statement said, “Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments.”

Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.

In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at “hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft.” In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.

The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. “Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it’s JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”

The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. “Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that,” he says. “Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don’t care. If there’s one person they’re going after and there’s thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That’s the mentality.” He added, “They’re not accountable to anybody and they know that. It’s an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?”

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. “The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?” asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. “Let’s forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren’t about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory.”

JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney’s Extra Special Force

Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal’s elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war–which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan–there is a concomitant rise in JSOC’s power and influence within the military structure. “I don’t see how you can escape that; it’s just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it’s inevitable, I think,” Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, “I’m alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command,” under which JSOC operates. “That’s backward. But that’s essentially what we have today.”

From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater’s 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army’s Delta Force, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators–which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater’s alleged contracts with JSOC.

Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. “The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they’ve been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don’t,” said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. “They’re known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they’ve got the experience. They’re very valuable.”

“They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia,” said the military intelligence source. “They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they’re talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It’s a ridiculous revolving door.”

While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. “What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing,” said Colonel Wilkerson. “That’s dangerous, that’s very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don’t tell the theater commander what you’re doing.”

Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. “I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good,” says Wilkerson. “I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions.” He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld “built up initially because Rumsfeld didn’t get the responsiveness. He didn’t get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse’s mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch–read: Cheney and Rumsfeld–wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier.”

Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. “When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn’t tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, ‘Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?’ So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him–we rendered him home.”

As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using “reprogrammed” funds “without explicit congressional authority or appropriation,” according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA’s authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end “near total dependence on CIA.” Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may “conduct clandestine HUMINT operations…before publication” of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.

The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the “darkest acts” in part to keep them concealed from Congress. “Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress,” said the source. “They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: ‘Preparing the Battlefield.’”

The significance of the flexibility of JSOC’s operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA’s is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress,” she said. “If they are not, that is a violation of the law.”

Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan

For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater’s alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater’s operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved–almost from the beginning of the “war on terror”–with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater’s presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, “Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan.” In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater’s rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater “provides security for a US-backed aid project” in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. “We have no contracts in Pakistan,” Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. “We’ve been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there.”

Reports of Blackwater’s alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. “The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar,” he said. “That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities.” Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are “wildly incorrect,” saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has “found refuge from potential U.S. attacks” in Karachi “with the assistance of Pakistan’s intelligence service.”

In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi’s Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, “The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in.”

The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired “bungalows” in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate originally established “for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan.” Its motto is: “Home for Defenders.” The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.

The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it’s the contractors’ fault, not the government’s. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. “We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention,” said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. “In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it’s almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations.” Addicott added, “If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That’s one of the reasons we’re not members of the International Criminal Court.”

If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater’s alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. “Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we’re going to go as a nation that are dangerous,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

For et par uger siden blev Shiaonline.dk hacket, dette er anden gang i løbet af omkring 365 dage. Jeg har derfor i den anledning fundet frem til Shiaonline.dk’s Super Admin Assadullah.

Her er et udpluk af interviewet med Assadullah, det skal siges han er et meget sympatisk menneske, for han ville bruge lidt af hans tid, selvom han har familie, arbejde og studie ved siden af, så lidt af hans tid er kostbart. så her er interviewet:

MJ: Først og fremmest vil jeg takke dig Asadullah for at du ville stille op til interview i min ydmyge blog.
I efterårsferien sidste år var shiaonline.dk udsat for et hacker-angreb fra anti-shiitiske grupperinger, dengang var der et mindre ”kold Krig” mellem forskellige muslimske hackere, er det tilfældet denne gang?

Assadullah:

Ja, der er desværre stadig en masse onde mennesker, som er kede af vores fremgang online og som bruger alle kneb for at stoppe os. Det vil vi selvfølgelig aldrig tilladt og med Allahs (jwa) hjælp vil vi komme stærkere tilbage hver gang.

MJ: Hvem var hackerne denne gang, og kom de med et budskab?

Assadullah:

Sidste gang brugte vi en masse tid på at finde ud af, hvem det var, der hackede den mest populære af vores hjemmesider. Det var en palæstinenser som var bosat i Palæstina og som ejede nogle servere i Texas, USA. Dog havde vi hverken tid eller lyst til at gøre det denne gang, da vi alligevel ikke havde tænkt os at gøre noget ved det udover at launche hjemmesiden igen med forbedret sikkerhed og design.

MJ: shiaonline.dk været nede i flere uger, og der har været rygter om at alt blev slettet, hvor omfattende var angrebet?

Assadullah:

Sidste hackerangreb var udført af en amatør som kun formåede at ændre forsiden ved at udnytte nogle sikkerhedshuller i den gamle version af phpBB. Denne gang var det en professionel hacker som slettede alle vores filer og databaser, dog vil vi inshallah – når vi kommer online igen –  komme op med al vores data uden tab.

MJ: Har i taget kontakt med jeres udbydere, om evt. et forbedring af sikkerheden? Eller var sikkerhedsbristet fra jeres side af?

Assadullah:

For at være ærlig, så har det været vores egen skyld, da vi ikke har lukket alle sikkerhedshullerne løbende, især i en tid, hvor vi ved, at vi har mange ”fjender”, desværre. Men det har vi lært noget af. Jeg har personligt stået for at lave en ny plan, der skal sikre at dette – om Allah (jwa) vil – aldrig sker igen.

MJ:Nu hvor i er oppe at køre igen, er der så kommet ændringer og forbedringer som den enkelte bruger kommer til at bemærke?

Assadullah:

Vi er desværre ikke kommet op på benene endnu, men det vil ske inshallah og når det sker, så vil vi skifte over til et helt nyt system, nyt design og ny forbedret sikkerhed.

MJ: Hvad er dit sidste ord til læserne (Og evt. Hackerne)?

Assadullah

Jeg takker dig kære broder for dit smukke arbejde, og så vil jeg også takke alle vores brugere for deres loyalitet og udholdenhed. Jeg lover jer alle at vi meget snart vil være oppe igen endnu bedre end før. Og til hackeren vil jeg sige:

”De planlagde, og Allah planlagde. (Men) Allah er sandelig den bedste planlægger.” [Koranen:  3:54]

MJ: SuperAdmin Asadullah, tak skal du have….

Assadullah:

Fornøjelsen er helt på min side

E’ uscita una classifica sui 500 musulmani più influenti al mondo (il .pdf).

Non so come definire questa operazione, quindi passo alla sua descrizione, che è un po’ complicata.

Studiosi coinvolti nella pubblicazione: John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin della Georgetown University di Washington. Cioè due esperti, a giudicare dai loro curricula.

Committenza:

1. il Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding di Washington:
2. il Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center di Amman;

Il primo è un istituto fondato nel 2003 e che, prima di ricevere 20 milioni di dollari dal principe saudita Al-Walid Bin Talal, si chiamava semplicemente “Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding”.

Il secondo è il “principale strumento” per la diffusione del “Messaggio di Amman” e ha come obiettivo “proteggere preservare e propagare l’islam tradizionale, ortodosso e moderato” nelle forme e nei modi sanciti  dai tre punti del “Messaggio di Amman”.

E che cos’è questo “Messaggio di Amman”?

E’ un messaggio su “che cos’è l’islam”  partito inizialmente dal re di Giordania Abdullah II e un gruppo abbastanza prezzolato di ulama (studiosi, scienziati dell’islam)  e recepito nel dicembre 2005 dall’intera Organizzazione della Conferenza Islamica (stati membri), che ha sede a Jedda.

Il messaggio insiste su 3 domande:

1. chi è musulmano?
2. è possibile dichiarare apostata qualcuno?
3. chi può promulgare una fatwa (cioè un editto religioso)?

E le risposte sono:

1. è musulmano chi appartiene a una delle otto “scuole” riconosciute dal messaggio;
2. fra musulmani non ci si può dichiarare apostati a vicenda;
3. le otto scuole decidono chi possa emanare editti religiosi

E quali sono queste otto scuole? Non è facile da capire. Bisogna leggere lo schemone che si trova nel .pdf.

Allora, secondo i valletti  Esposito e Kalin, l’islam è compartimentato in 3 “divisioni ideologiche”:

1. islam tradizionale (96%)
2. modernismo islamico (1%)
3. fondamentalismo islamico (3%)

L’”islam tradizionale” è quello del “Messaggio di Amman”.

Le otto “scuole” sono:

1. le quattro sunnite (Hanafiti, Shafi’iti, Malikiti, Hanbaliti:  il 90% dei musulmani tradizionali);
2. una “scuola” ibadita (0.5%)
3. tre “scuole” sciite (duodecimani, isma’iliti, zayditi: 9,5%)

In realtà le scuole (madhhab) sono solo sunnite: ibaditi e sciiti non hanno questo genere di divisione. Ognuna delle differenziazioni non sunnite è in realtà una sorta di “partito” … ma lasciamo perdere. Basti sapere che l’unico vero distinguo che fanno gli estensori di questo “Messaggio di Amman” è fra  musulmani “tradizionali” e “non-tradizionali”.

In un contesto del genere – dove tutto “congiura” – è imbarazzante leggere che il primo della lista è, praticamente, lo sponsor principale della pubblicazione. Mentre il quarto della lista ospita nel suo regno uno dei due sponsor. E che fra i primi 10 most influential ci sono ben 4 sovrani assoluti (Arabia Saudita, Marocco, Giordania, Oman).

Nota triste: la classifica dal 50° posto in poi divide i personaggi per categorie (ad esempio: educazione, sviluppo, filantropia). Vi sono anche le categorie “lignaggio” e “donne”.

Nota inquietante: nella lista compaiono Bin Laden e compagnia, sotto la categoria “radicals”, il ché contraddice i 3 punti del messaggio di Amman: infatti i jihadisti, in quanto wahhabiti old school, dichiarano infedeli un gran numero di musulmani. Come dire, non sono musulmani ma in lista non possiamo non metterli altrimenti non siamo più credibili.

Nota di colore: i Bin Laden in lista sono 2:  Osama e Bakr. Il secondo figura nella categoria “sviluppo” in quanto chairman del Saudi Bin Laden Group, la compagnia di costruzioni di papà Laden che a suo tempo ricostruì tutta la Mecca e mezza Medina.

Conclusione? Se volete sapere come vuole essere l’islam dei soldi e del potere fatevi una lettura del pdf. Altrimenti sappiate che fare una classifica del genere non ha alcun senso.Vi si inseriscono persone che fra loro non hanno veramente nulla a che vedere.

Per chiudere passo all’esamina di altre classifiche, forse meno assurde anche se altrettanto di parte di quella appena considerata:

1. un sondaggio lanciato da un blog di Reuter in parallelo all’uscita dell’elencone dei 500 ha in comune con esso soltanto il nome di Erdogan per quanto riguarda i primi dieci posti. Tutti gli altri sono occupati o da personaggi massmediologici conosciuti per il loro estremismo o da leader sufi (mistici);
2. un sondaggio sui 20 intellettuali più importanti del mondo, lanciato da Foreign Policy la scorsa estate e un po’ truccato, vede 10 musulmani ai primi 10 posti. Mammaliturchi!!

Here is an article that everyone should read, and then read again. Please ponder what you read and then read it one more time. The body of that writing presents facts but then opines about a conclusion as if it is a bona fide fact.

It is true that there are differing viewpoints within the so called Tea Party movement. That piece implies that this is something new, but those of us participating from the start have known about this reality all along. Indeed, we have always understood that coming together with these differing viewpoints, and staying together cordially while working through them, is the example we have intended to set for our elected officials all along. This example is what has scared those in government and in media to no end. It is exactly why demonizing and dismissing a lumped together movement has been their chosen action to this point. Because that tactic failed so miserably, they are now seeking to exploit what they decry as division. What we view as honest disagreement and diversity of opinion, they view as a wedge to drive between us.

It is noteworthy to realize that this is the exact tactic that Osama Bin Laden himself employed on 9-11. He viewed a fractured nation, as a result of the 2000 election, ripe for splitting by driving between us what he views as a wedge that would shatter us completely. War. Some folks will not like this, but, to a certain extent he succeeded. We shall not fall into that trap again. Never Again. Never Forget.

Such wedge issues are viewed by some as a tool that will ensure that something they oppose fails. This failure is desired so that they can retain or augment their existing power structure. There is one quality that such a tactic cannot defeat no matter whether it is employed by a terrorist, a politician or a media outlet. Resolve.

Even when something of a moment of insight occurs, some still refuse to open their minds to the reality of what has actually occurred and what will continue to occur. A fire has been rekindled and it cannot be extinguished with “old ways” antics. Planting the seeds of discord and then watering them religiously may have worked in the past but it shall succeed no more. Patriots are standing up, all in our own ways, and quality change is afoot as a result. Freemen will always rise to defend freedom itself when it is attacked. It is precisely these so many ways that those with power today fear the most. In the end, they know that freedom cannot be defeated. They know that the only way they can accomplish their goal is to trick people into standing down their own freedoms willingly. That is what the article intends to do. It seeks to have people think that the movement is all falling apart so they stop participating now or decide not to begin participation in the future.

As much reading as I do, I find a tidal shift in what is admitted within that article. For one of the first times, 9-12ers are referred to directly as 9-12ers – as opposed to being lumped together as just “Tea Partiers”. There has always been a difference between these entities and that is a great thing. More than one group going more than one direction toward the same or similar goal is diversity that brings about worthwhile accomplishment. That writing tries to present a strength as a weakness. It is the old “up is down” strategy. There is more than a pinch of of Saul Alinksy in that writing, to be sure. This is how some folks are trying to rationalize missing such a very important point from the very beginning. It is how they admit they were wrong without actually admitting they were wrong.

Another thing I noticed within that article is the never ending aversion to free market principles. That writing finds free and open competition to be a fault rather than a strength. Nothing could be further from the truth, even if some folks refuse to admit it. A free exchange of ideas and information is taking place at what this author determines to be a grassroots level. It is driving the power brokers in media and government crazy because this is happening outside their control at the individual level. It befuddles them that this can be happening without a top dog celebrity to pin it on by creating a poster boy to chide or praise. The closest thing they have been able to create depicting this movement is a poster girl who is currently nothing more than a private citizen. You might have heard of her, her name is Sarah Palin. Ask yourself, why are they hammering her today as they did when she was a sitting and running politician? Their own fear is the answer. As I talked about already, it is the individual free Citizen exercising their rights that they fear the most.

Within this charge to defend freedom, some folks think that a third party is the answer, while some people think that cleaning up the two main established parties is the answer. Some folks think that fund raising for particular candidates is the answer. Some think that protest after protest is the answer. Some think that top down leadership is the answer, while others think that bottom up leading of ourselves is the answer. Some think that PACS are the answer, while others think that making campaigns about information instead of about money is the answer. I could go on and on with this list, but I think you get the general idea.

Here is the actuality, the unbridled, unbiased and straight truth. All of these things combined is the answer. Each group of individuals pursuing their own means toward the protection and defense of Liberty is the answer. Each of us leading ourselves to membership and participation within each of these group endeavors is the ultimate example of the true power that the exercise of Individual Liberty contains. Freedom is ringing loudly today and I implore everyone to continue to ring their own bell over and over again. We will all ring our common bell together, at the same time, when we go vote. This will be the moment that honest disagreement about the how is shown to be a strength pertaining to accomplishing the what.

It should not come as a shock to anyone that media elites and government elites would enlist any method to discourage the happenings, in all their forms, seen around this country these days. After all, what all the various groups are doing is expressing the fact that to be governed justly we must offer our consent to be governed. We are shedding power long held over us by refusing to consent to an overreaching government and a media that fabricates and steers news instead of honestly reporting news as it is, thus returning that power, that Liberty, to it’s rightful owner. The individual.

To this end, I quote a good President who had war foisted upon his administration and his countrymen; “We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”

I ask that each person remember these words and feed upon them in times of trial. They are the sustenance that will see Individual Liberty defended for us and for our posterity.

Texto escrito pra um concurso cultural em Maio deste ano..

Gostaria de ter escrito a reportagem sobre a Guerra do Afeganistão. A imprensa do mundo mostrou apoio à hegemonia política norte americana aceitando as verdades impostas por Washington. Bin Laden foi transformado no maior rival da América. Verbos foram manipulados nas manchetes dos principais veículos de notícias. Fatos foram “arrancados” de contextos históricos e lançados a mercê do patriotismo.

Nunca concordei com a figura de mocinho criada pela mídia para George W Bush e, após ler o livro “Deus é inocente a imprensa, não”, de Carlos Dornelles, percebi que minha insatisfação tinha fundamento. Carlos relata a campanha realizada pelo governo americano para vender a idéia de vingança. Bush, com certeza, não foi o único a promover guerras injustas e amordaçar a imprensa, mas fez isso de forma brilhante.

O jornalista deve ter sensibilidade, talento e, sobre tudo ousadia.  Caco Barcellos conquistou o respeito da sociedade pela honestidade e capacidade de aprofundar discordâncias. A imprensa vende ideologias, modifica a imagem de pessoas segundo seus interesses e transforma povos em ameaças de toda a civilização. Discutir sobre si própria e se conscientizar de que precisa ser criticada nada tem a ver com ameaça à liberdade de expressão.

Justo quando defendemos a liberdade de imprensa, percebemos que por trás de cada palavra existe uma rede de poderes que direciona ou omite informações que nos são vendidas como verdadeiras. Defendo a exigência do diploma de Jornalismo, pois, é na Universidade que aprendemos a ser independentes e ouvir todos os envolvidos. Porém, de nada adianta nos aprofundarmos em teorias se, ao ingressarmos no mercado de trabalho esquecemos do nosso papel de educadores. Quero ser jornalista para lutar contra a incapacidade geral de se opôr a um pensamento.

When it comes to bare faced cheek,this one takes the biscuit.

 The son of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Omar, has told a British magazine that he would like to promote peace and work for the United Nations. His comments were published on Thursday in New Statesman magazine.
“I do not believe that I would be a good politician – I have a habit of speaking the truth, even when it does not serve me well. But I would like to be in a position to promote peace. I believe that the United Nations would be ideal for me,” said Omar Bin-Laden.
Last year in November, Omar requested asylum in Spain, but his application was refused. (now there’s a surprise)
He was travelling on a Saudi Arabian passport and was detained at Madrid’s Barajas Airport after arriving on a flight from Egypt.
In the interview, Omar told New Statesman that he would seek God’s advice in whether to report his father if he knew where he was hiding.
“If such a time comes, God will guide me to the correct path. But any child on earth would have difficulty with such a situation.”
Omar was also asked about his life as a child in the Bin Laden household and said he remembers most of it as being “sad“.(My heart bleeds for him, his lot left a lot of people sad)
“There were lots of kids…But when my father was around, we were quiet and obedient,” he said.
“My childhood was mainly sad and lonely because of my father’s passion for supporting the Afghan people against the Russians. I rarely had time with him and he was afraid for our safety, so we had to play indoors,” Bin Laden said.
“When we left Saudi Arabia for Sudan, we lived more normally, but then we moved to Af­ghan­istan and life became more than tough.”
The Bin Laden family is one of the wealthiest in the Kingdom, where they possess an impressive conglomerate including one of the largest construction firms and are involved in equity management.
Omar, 28, is one of 19 children of the Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who tops America’s most wanted list. Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts remain unknown. He is accused of being behind a number of atrocities, including the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001.(Why does Bin Laden even think he’ll be considered for the UN in view of what his father has done it would be a smack in the face for every victim of 911) Story here

Offenbar stand die US-Armee Ende 2001 kurz davor, Osama Bin Laden zu schnappen. Laut einer Untersuchung des Senats ließ jedoch die militärische Führung den Al Qaida-Chef entkommen. Im Bericht wird der Bush-Regierung schweres Versagen vorgeworfen.

Die Untersuchung von Dokumenten und Interviews mit den Beteiligten haben ergeben, dass das US-Militär Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in der Lage war, Bin Laden zu schnappen. Das Pentagon entschied jedoch, auf einen massiven Militäreinsatz zu verzichten und liess Bin Laden am 16. Dezember 2001 ungehindert nach Pakistan reisen.

Die Gefangennahme oder Tötung von Bin Laden hätte zwar die weltweite extremistische Bedrohung nicht gebannt, wird im Bericht festgehalten. Aber “das Versagen, die Aufgabe abzuschließen, ist eine verlorene Gelegenheit, die für immer den Gang des Konflikts in Afghanistan und die Zukunft des internationalen Terrorismus verändert hat”, heißt es in dem Bericht weiter. Verantwortlich für das Versagen sei die damalige Regierung von US-Präsident George W. Bush mit Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld und General Tommy Franks.