World News
5/13/02 - 5/19/02

Sunday 5/19/02

US setting up military base close to Iran borders  5/19/02 AFP: "The military base is being set up in a region near Islam-Qaleh in Herat province, in Afghanistan, close to its border with Iran's northeastern Khorasan province, the Afghan official said on condition of anonymity."

US soldier killed in Afghanistan  5/19/02 BBC: and just what did this man die for? The Americans have already killed more Afghan civilian than they lost on 9-11. But according to colonial rules of warfare, they have to exact a 10-1 kill ration at least. This could prove expensive…

Support For Palestine Is Growing  5/19/02 Black World Today

'Secret' war prevents us from learning the truth  5/19/02 Guardian: if the Russians had these techniques, maybe they would have been able to stay 20 yrs before their defeat? Come to think of it, they didn't need them…

Bush told in August of specific threat to US  5/19/02 Independent, UK: "Despite White House claims that the briefing document related primarily to the threat of an attack on a US target overseas, the document also made very clear Mr bin Laden's desire "to bring the fight to America". It also emerged yesterday that the FBI had been aware for several years that al-Qa'ida was using US flying schools to train its pilots and, as early as 1996, it was told of a specific threat to use a plane in a suicide attack against the CIA's headquarters."

Indigenous peoples establish permanent presence at the UN  5/19/02 Indian Country: "It happened May 13 in New York City, at the United Nations headquarters. Nearly 1000 indigenous representatives from hundreds of Native nations throughout the world gathered to witness the opening of a recognition that will be permanent. And this is the operative principle: permanence. It says that indigenous peoples will not be disappearing; they will not be vanishing; they are here to stay."

An Unholy Alliance in Support of Israel  5/19/02 LA Times: "Now Israel's best friends here are people like former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed (who now heads the Georgia Republican Party) and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). The Anti-Defamation League even went to the extreme of reprinting as an advertisement in the New York Times and other newspapers an article titled "We People of Faith Stand Firmly With Israel" that Reed wrote for The Los Angeles Times. Is this the same ADL that has as its cornerstone fighting bigotry, supporting civil rights and maintaining separation between church and state? "

The Challenge of Terror: A Traveling Essay  5/19/02 Lederach: wise words shortly after 9-11 from John Paul Lederach, Professor of Conflict Studies and Resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Chávez purging military after coup  5/19/02 Miami Herqald: "Amid new threats of a military coup, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has purged nearly half the armed forces leadership and replaced it with younger officers believed to be loyal to his leftist ideals."

Foreigners Obtain Social Security ID With Fake Papers  5/19/02 NYT: "Some of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 had falsely obtained Social Security numbers, which allowed them to open bank accounts and get credit cards in this country."

Why Israel's 'seruvniks' say enough is enough  5/19/02 Observer, UK: "The laywer representing Israeli conscripts who refuse to serve beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines explains why a growing number of soldiers are disobeying orders, in order to protect the basic values on which Israel was founded."

Marines' chief under fire for Afghan 'farce'  5/19/02 Telegraph, UK: did the Russian commanders experience similar problems in the 80's?

Colombian Frontrunner Looks To War  5/19/02 Washington Post: "Uribe has become the most popular politician in the country by promising to double defense spending, give the military a freer hand, enlist civilians deeply in the war effort and perhaps call up as many as 30,000 reservists." More paramilitaries, more massacres, more race war.

Saturday 5/18/02

Really Bad Bird in Afghanistan  5/18/02 Cryptome: artwork to decorate a genocide

How Much Do US Presidents Know about Terror?  5/18/02 Debka, Israel: "It stands to reason that Ali Muhammad [jailed for the 1972 WTC bombing] was not the only Middle Eastern fundamentalist to be admitted to the US army; he must have been one of a group activated according to some concept. But who activated them? Who allowed them to enter the United States and who had enough clout to overrule a CIA veto? Who decided to place this Egyptian Muslim in a US special forces facility? And on whose authority was this Egyptian member of a US special forces unit allowed to travel freely round the world, including Afghanistan, and back, without once being detained at any American airport?"

Lay off US Powell tells Europeans  5/18/02 Guardian, UK: "Further evidence of the growing rift between the US and Europe came last night when the French president, Jacques Chirac, tore into what he called American "unilateralism". In one of his most hard-hitting indictments of the Bush administration, Mr Chirac said its recent decisions to impose steel tariffs and raise farm subsidies would harm the world's poorest nations."

Agents were aware of threats by 1996, U.S. officials say  5/18/02 IHT: "The FBI had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network were training pilots in the United States and elsewhere around the world, according to court records and interviews at flight schools and with law-enforcement officials. . The bureau knew by 1996 of a specific threat that Al Qaeda might use a plane in a suicide terrorist attack on American soil, U.S. officials conceded."

Alarm as Afghan bug spreads to more servicemen  5/18/02 Independent, UK: disease was one of the factors that led to the Russian defeat in Afghanistan.

U.S. Tells of Covert Afghan Plans Before 9/11  5/18/02 LA Times: this lends credence to early post 9-11 reports that Bush was threatening the Taliban with a buy 'em or kill 'em strategy around a US bombing campaign and the lucrative Unocal pipeline.

Cover-up and conspiracy: The Bush administration and September 11  5/18/02 World Socialist: has some good links on the wag the dog scenario. Consider this extract: "There is the example of the G-8 conference at Genoa, which took place July 20-22, 2001. After warnings from a number of sources, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a close US ally, that a hijacked airplane filled with explosives might be crashed into the conference building, the Italian authorities deployed anti-aircraft guns around the site and banned local flights. Throughout the summit, Bush spent his nights on a US navy warship in the harbor, because of security concerns. Yet Rice claims that two weeks later, when the President’s daily briefing contained a warning that Al Qaeda was targeting US airplanes for hijacking, no one considered the possibility that the planes could be used as flying bombs."

Friday 5/17/02

ISRAEL'S TALIBAN - The rising tide of Israeli extremism  5/17/02 Antiwar.com: "What we can see in Netanyahu, and the radicalized Likud, is the Jewish equivalent of the Taliban rising out of the fundamentalist, militant, and messianic currents roiling Israeli society. Sharon is held captive to this constituency, and cannot govern without them. Netanyahu's coup at the Likud party conference was but a prelude to the coming challenge to Sharon's leadership. The Likud has always stood for the idea of a Greater Israel – a concept that has more to do with religious fundamentalism than any genuine concern for "security." There cannot be a Palestinian state, in this view, for the simple reason that God promised the Jews not only all the lands of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank), and Gaza, but beyond, from the Nile to the Euphrates. Describing God's covenant with Abraham, Genesis 15:18 proclaims: "To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates."

1999 Report Warned of Suicide Hijack  5/17/02 AP: "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) (CIA (news - web sites)), or the White House," the September 1999 report said."

Israel Soldiers Reportedly Kill Boy  5/17/02 AP

Mullah Omar warns US of war  5/17/02 Arab News: “As for Afghanistan, I can say that the war has just started, its fires have been kindled. That fire will reach the White House because it is the seat of all injustice and oppression and where they launched a war against Islam and Muslims without any legitimate reason....When the killing of the oppressed people increased in number we decided to withdraw from the land and start the phase of guerrilla war in the mountains so that the lives of people and the poor Mujahedeen may be spared,” he said. Omar said those who carried out the attacks in the United States had a clear objective. “What is important for the US now is to find out why they did that. America should remove the cause that made them do it.”

Is truth a victim?  5/17/02 BBC: Funny how these interviews of Dan Rather talking about the patriotism madness in the US media only appear in the UK: "It's been coined "Milatainment" - entertainment programmes about the military, which include the shows Military Diaries, American Fighter Pilot and Profiles from the Front Line."

Israeli forces 're-enter Jenin'  5/17/02 BBC

Defending Cynthia McKinney  5/17/02 Counterpunch

Terrorist Warnings by Rep. Cynthia McKinney  5/17/02 Counterpunch

THE EMPIRE ISN'T IN AFGHANISTAN FOR THE OIL!  5/17/02 Emperor's Clothes

Feature / U.S. Jews opposing Israel are increasingly vocal  5/17/02 Haaretz, Israel: "On the fringes of the pro-Israel solidarity marches, the fund-raising events in support of Israel's military efforts, and American Jews' solidarity missions to Israel, several U.S.-Jewish groups have started to make their voices heard. Far from echoing the line that America's Jewish communities have been espousing, these new voices are critical of Israeli operations in the territories, and are calling for an end to the occupation and respect for Palestinian rights."

By night, Israelis stalk Palestinians  5/17/02 IHT: just like the death squads the Israelis trained in Central America.

Veteran anchor attacks media for being timid  5/17/02 Independent, UK: "you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tyres around people's necks if they dissented," said Mr Rather. "And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tyre of lack of patriotism put around your neck."

Catorce organizaciones venezolanas otorgan el galardón Fabricio Ojeda a La Jornada  5/17/02 La Jornada, Mexico: "Catorce organizaciones de venezolanos ubicadas en distintos países de América Latina otorgaron ayer a esta casa editorial el reconocimiento Periodismo veraz: Fabricio Ojeda, por la información difundida durante el mes de abril en torno al golpe de Estado en contra del gobierno de Hugo Chávez."

Officials Told of 'Major Assault' Plans  5/17/02 LA Times: is this story from 9/20/01 a smoking gun? "FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into this country and planning "a major assault on the United States," a high-ranking law enforcement official said Wednesday. The advisory was passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. It cautioned that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable," the official said." Interesting story never heard from again. Does this warning have something to do with the work of the "Israeli Art Students" who were frequently located right next to the hijackers?

Bush Given Invasion Plan Two Days Before 9/11  5/17/02 Peter Dale Scott: 9-11 was a pre-emptive strike? - `The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity.' In many respects, the directive, as described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans "off the shelf," Miklaszewski said.'

Viewpoint: "CONSPIRACY THEORIES" HIT THE FAN  5/17/02 Radio Havana: "We are still waiting to see how President Bush will explain to the relatives of September 11 victims and the thousands of innocent civilians killed in Afghanistan that all this killing could have been avoided with a minimum of commonsense and intelligence - something that unfortunately the White House's security agencies lack. One should note that the whole affair made George W. Bush look extremely good and enabled him to consolidate more power into his hands than any of his predecessors had enjoyed."

Periodistas de Europa y Latinoamérica analizarán el papel de los medios de comunicación en Caracas y su apoyo al golpe de Estado  5/17/02 Rebelion

The iron wall  5/17/02 Salon: relevant article from 4/98 - "A few weeks ago, in this holy city, a public lecture was offered by Benzion Netanyahu. It was in honor of a man named Abba Ahimeir. Neither of these two men is, perhaps, as well known as he ought to be. Benzion Netanyahu, the 87-year-old father of the [then-]Israeli prime minister, is a scholar at Princeton University and the author of The Origins of the Inquisition … Abba Ahimeir was a writer and activist in British Mandate Palestine, and a zealous lieutenant of Jabotinsky. In the pages of the magazine Doar Hayom, during the late 1920s and '30s, he wrote a celebrated column titled 'From the Notebook of a Fascist." He hymned Mussolini, referred to Jabotinsky as 'Our Duce,' and even went so far as to say that Hitler was on the right track, except for his excessive anti-Semitism. … Ahimeir, said the elder Netanyahu, had been his mentor."

Another coup attempt in Venezuela?  5/17/02 Stratfor: from a respected strategic forecasting firm which somehow does not get the coup story right: "During his tenure as vice president, Cabello was responsible for organizing and coordinating the Bolivarian Circles. Although STRATFOR security sources in Caracas believe Cabello is grossly exaggerating the number of Bolivarian Circles in a possible effort to intimidate the political opposition, the violent events of April 11 – when 17 civilians were killed and more than 100 were wounded by gunfire during an anti-Chavez demonstration – showed that even a small number of armed civilian militias can inflict significant physical and material damage." Many of the victims were in fact Chavez supporters who were shot from above by right wing snipers.

Venezuela: Amnesty International (AI) reports that Portuguesa State senior police officer Miguel Angel Zambrano Heredia has received death threats  5/17/02 Vheadlines: “police officers have attempted to kill him for giving evidence to an inquiry into the activities of police death squads in Portuguesa state.”

Thursday 5/16/02

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe faces expulsion from Haifa University for supporting Palestinian rights  5/16/02 Al Ahram: "According to a statement issued by Pappe, the real reason why Haifa University is seeking to put him on trial lies in his "past critique of the university's conduct in the Katz affair". Teddy Katz was an MA student who was expelled by the university in 2001 for unearthing evidence of a massacre committed by Israeli forces in the coastal village of Tantura in May 1948."

The case for Israel  5/16/02 Boston Phoenix]: classic Israel apologia, includes such gems ranging from " 'Palestinian territory' — there is, of course, no such thing — " to "Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently estimated that the percentage of the Israeli population killed by suicide bombers — nearly 500 deaths — translates proportionally in American terms into many tens of thousands of people. No thinking person could say with any seriousness that if we suffered such atrocities in our malls, restaurants, buses, and other public places, we would do anything less than what Israel is doing: exact a horrendous price from the perpetrators." The classic colonial war recipe which ends when the colonial state has to fold its cards as the struggle becomes too expensive.

Big Brother Is Watching, Listening  5/16/02 CBS: ""I'm about to go to a meeting, very stressful day, all of a sudden, the FBI calls." The agent wanted to know about the computer systems at Independent Media, a leftist Web site where Josh occasionally works as a volunteer technician."

White House On The Defensive  5/16/02 CBS News: "Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information?'' asked Daschle.

Prison Guards Playing God  5/16/02 Cryptome: "Mr. Powers and Mr. Garcia would cause inmates convicted of sex offenses, or who were otherwise disliked by them, to be assaulted by other inmates, and in two instances, by the defendants themselves."

Bush Administration Explanations for Pre-9-11 Warnings Fail the Smell Test  5/16/02 From the Wilderness

New York is starting to feel like Brezhnev's Moscow  5/16/02 Guardian, UK: "Listening to these anguished but private complaints suddenly reminded me of the Soviet Union of the Brezhnev era when lower-level officials, journalists and other fringe members of the regime sat around their kitchen tables, expressing their true views only to family and close friends. A far-fetched analogy, of course, until you look at the narrowness of public discussion, not just on Israeli-Palestinian issues, but also on the threatened American attack on Iraq and the administration's war on terrorism in general."

Tribal Rift Is a Matter of BloodTribal Rift Is a Matter of Blood  5/16/02 LA Times: "My heart is just really, really heavy that these folks have so much hatred when their own ancestors did not have it," black Seminole Lena J. Hunt Shaw said. "People of African descent played a major role, I mean a major role, in helping those Indians survive. Everybody has the blood in them."

SHAM IN BAGRAM - Officers blast politicians as mountain mission ends in fiasco  5/16/02 Mirror, UK: "Privately British officers are furious with politicians for sending troops at America's request without, they believe, asking enough questions. They feel the marines - seen as the best mountain troops in the world - have been humiliated. One middle-ranking officer said: "If we can't do what we do best, fighting wars, then we shouldn't be here. "And if we start taking casualties without any obvious results on the ground, the politicians who are keeping us here are going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do."

U.S. planned for attack on al-Qaida  5/16/02 MSNBC

War in Colombia: Guerrillas, Drugs and Human Rights in U.S.-Colombia Policy, 1988-2002  5/16/02 National Security Archive: ". But recently declassified U.S. documents show that despite the legal limits and repeated public assurances by government officials, U.S. aid has blurred the lines between counterdrug and counterinsurgency to the point that the U.S. is on the brink of direct confrontation with the guerrillas and ever deeper involvement in Colombia’s seemingly intractable civil conflict. The Bush administration’s proposed aid figure for Colombia in fiscal year 2003 includes nearly $500 million in military and police aid alone." And some of that will wind up in the hands of paramilitary organizations engaged in drug trafficking and terrorism.

108 Rabbis-to-Be Sign in Sympathy With Palestinians  5/16/02 NY Observer: "Ms. Weintraub said she felt physically threatened. Then one of the men surrounding her recognized the dynamics of the confrontation—which was being taped, after all—and said, "We’re empowering her." And the group backed away. For the rabbinical students, that was the revelation of the rally. Rather than being intimidated by displays of right-wing solidarity, they felt galvanized. They came back to New York with a strong sense that they had done the right thing, and that they have a voice in their community. There had been 50 rabbinical students at the Washington rally. Ten days later, they sent off their letter calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and a recognition of Palestinian suffering, to the heads of Jewish organizations, and it was signed by 108 people. That list includes a quarter of the rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary (though none from the Orthodox Yeshiva University). "

Bush Was Warned bin Laden Wanted to Hijack Planes  5/16/02 NYT

Afghan Gas Pipeline Planned, Will Depend on US Commitment to Afghan Security  5/16/02 Peter Dale Scott

Apartheid in the Holy Land by Desmond Tutu  5/16/02 SF Bay View: "In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders. What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."

Black Congresswoman draws vile censure  5/16/02 SF Bay View

"THE OVERTHROW OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC", Part Twelve  5/16/02 Sherman Skolnick: "Old-timers remember. Bad times have a positive good. They cause the real stuff to come out. Why? Well, a simple reason is that people in key managerial positions get laid off in a bad recession or full blown Depression. And if they cannot find good work, or any work suitable to their talent. Well, what more do they have to lose? They start talking. They put details into the ears of loudmouths. And so the common Americans find out what is really happening. The 1930s were such a period. So you do not know that. Well, maybe you forgot to talk to your elders."

PARDONGATE AND BUSHFRAUD  5/16/02 Sherman Skolnick: readable article from 3/18/01 - "An aircraft departs Colombia, flies to the Bahamas to rest and refuel, and then, when a weather window opens, continues the flight to Nova Scotia or Quebec. Again, rest and refuel. Then continue to a US-Canadian border landing strip." The former operative goes on to detail the acts and doings of FBI Senior Agent Terry Nelson, of southern Florida FBI office, who has business and relatives near the U.S., Montana-Canada border "Nelson not only recruits the law enforcement officials and politicians he needs, he can also supply data from the law enforcement arena such as the DEA NADDIS computer, Customs TECS II, EPIC, FBI, and others involved in ongoing investigations. Nelson then provides this intelligence to his drug contacts. This helps obstruct any investigation and diffuse potential problems. Terry Nelson, a senior agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, continues to provide his valuable services to drug cartels and others who will pay his fee, out of his FBI office in southern Florida."

Penetrating the Defenses at Defense – and State  5/16/02 They Dare to Speak Out: The diplomat offers an example from his own experience. “I received a call from a friend of mine in the Jewish community who wanted to warn me, as a friend, that all details of a lengthy document on Middle East policy that I had just dispatched overseas were ‘out.’” The document was classified “top secret,” the diplomat recalls. “I didn’t believe what he said, so my friend read me every word of it over the phone.”

Al-Qaeda worth $5 billion: Italian secret service  5/16/02 Times of India

The Terrorists Flew and Bush Knew  5/16/02 TruthOut: "The idea that Bush allowed 9/11 to happen for his own gain is difficult to swallow, and even more difficult to prove. As things stand today, however, the evidence and information in hand is damning enough. The Bush administration was repeatedly warned by foreign intelligence services of immediate threats via aircraft to American targets. FBI agents in Phoenix had more evidence in hand, which was ignored. Bush himself was warned of Al Qaida hijack threats, but failed to augment airline security. Vice President Cheney lied on national television about having received these warnings, and Ari Fleischer has been bolstering this lie with many of his own since the story broke. Add this to already-existing reports that the administration stood down its anti-terrorism forces many months ago out of concern that such investigative activities might offend a variety of oil-rich nations. This stand-down came on the eve of the conclusion of a major deal involving a natural gas pipeline through the Subcontinent that was sponsored by Unocal."

Pipeline dream - The emerging connection between oil plans and the 9-11 attacks  5/16/02 Working for Change: "In light of Brisard and Dasique's allegations, the last several days have offered a number of corroborating news stories. A twelve year veteran agent with the FBI named Robert G. Wright, Jr. has filed suit in Washington D.C.'s District Court alleging that the agency willfully ignored terrorist threats from Hamas. According to Wright, the FBI intentionally thwarted his efforts to curtail Hamas activities in America that threatened American citizens. Wright's lawsuit came one day after Congress chastised the FBI for failing to look into warnings from Arizona agents about suspicious Arab men seeking flight training at American aviation schools."

Wednesday 5/15/02

Viva Vin Weber  5/15/02 City Pages, Minneapolis - St, Paul: "Weber, a power player in GOP political circles who retired from Congress in 1993, has served as chairman of the board for the obscure but influential National Endowment for Democracy since January 2001. The NED, a private nonprofit agency, was founded in the early Eighties with the express goal of fostering democratic ideals abroad...In all, some $877,000 in NED funds has been distributed in Venezuela in the past year. Most of those funds were funneled to opposition movements by the four NED affiliates, including the International Republican Institute (IRI). The day after Chavez's removal, IRI President George Folsom--an advisor to former President George H.W. Bush--issued a statement praising the coup, saying, "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country." Defending it against the 60% of the people who voted for Chavez, not once but twice?

Afghans shot in raid may not be Taliban  5/15/02 Herald, UK: errors upon errors

Russian accuses government of attacks  5/15/02 Philadelphia Inquirer: "From London, where he fled in November 2000, Litvinenko, 39, talks to anyone who will listen about the Federal Security Service's alleged role in apartment-house bombings that killed more than 300 people in Russia in 1999. He claims to have vital evidence stashed in a suitcase waiting for independent investigators. Many Russians have questioned the official version of the 1999 events, which blames the bombings in Moscow and the southern city of Volgodonsk on Chechen rebels. But prosecutors have shown little interest in the contents of Litvinenko's suitcase."

Harvard Law School and Its Racial Woes - Torts Chamber?  5/15/02 Village Voice: "In fact, the professor, David Rosenberg, who repeatedly said in class that "feminism, Marxism, and the blacks have contributed nothing to torts," has said his comments were simply misunderstood. By "blacks," he was referring to supporters of critical race theory, he says. Moreover, instead of an apology, he wrote in an open letter that limiting his or any speech would have "a chilling effect" on campus debate. "

Tipping Toward Hate  5/15/02 Village Voice: Battles are raging on campuses across the US: "criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because other countries do things that are far worse and nobody complains. Besides, he adds, when individual Israeli soldiers commit questionable acts, they are tried and punished. As a state, he insists, "Israel doesn't commit human rights abuses. Any you can name, I can justify. Anything they do in the West Bank is purely for self-defense."

Tuesday 5/14/02

Israeli Convicted in Secrets Case  5/14/02 AP: "Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Yaacov, 76, was commander of the armed forces weapons development unit until 1973. After retiring from active service he wrote a book of memoirs and another book, which he described as fiction. But the prosecution charged that both contained nuclear weapons secrets."

Facing attack, a rogue ally hands US an ultimatum  5/14/02 Boston Globe: "''Karzai will lose here if he sends troops, and I will never support the Americans again in this region,'' said Khan, 57, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and wearing a sash of bullets across his chest and a pistol on his left hip. This is far more than the run-of-the-mill, post-Taliban warlord feud. The dispute directly threatens the continuation of Operation Mountain Lion, a US-led search for Al Qaeda soldiers in the border region that has so far yet to turn up a single member of Osama bin Laden's group. If civil war breaks out between Karzai's forces and Khan, the US could lose the services of Khan's 600 to 800 soldiers in the manhunt, suddenly face chaos on the ground, and would almost certainly consider ending the operation."

Bush in Colombia: An Old War Gets a New Boost  5/14/02 Common Dreams: "Probably few Americans know that by the end of this week the United States may be even more deeply entrenched in the Colombian war. The Bush administration wants to escalate the conflict there, with U.S. soldiers digging in on the new Latin American front in the "war on terrorism."

Mystery of ‘Israeli spies’ in America: the ecstasy factor  5/14/02 Daily Star, Lebanon: "US authorities believe Tuito has been seeking to form alliances with US crime families, but in an equally sinister development the United Nations Narcotics Control Board reported in February that Colombian drug cartels were now shipping cocaine to Europe to exchange it for ecstasy which was smuggled into the US through Latin America. Israel has a long history of involvement with the Colombian and other cartels in Latin America. Former Israeli Army and intelligence officers supplied the drug barons with weapons and trained their private armies, including special assassination squads, throughout the 1980s. One of the more notorious of these Israelis, a lieutenant colonel in the army reserve named Yair Klein, was convicted by an Israeli court in 1991 for illegally exporting arms to the Colombian cartels. He was fined $40,000. In 1998, Klein, a balding ex-paratrooper, was indicted in Bogota on charges of training Colombian paramilitaries in terrorist tactics in the 1987-89. He was allegedly one of four Israelis hired by Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the Medellin cartel’s most violent bosses, who was later assassinated…. His current whereabouts are unknown, but Israeli arms dealers are still working with Colombian paramilitaries. On May 7, Nicaraguan and Panamanian authorities launched an investigation into how 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition shipped from Nicaragua by two Israeli-owned arms companies to Colombia on Nov. 10, 2001, and wound up in the hands of the United Defense Forces of Colombia, a group the US government has branded as terrorist… In the 1980s, with Israelis deeply involved in Latin America’s political turmoil, US and British investigations found that New York’s Hassidic community was being used to launder as much as $200 million a year in drug cartel profits. One such operation was linked to David Marcus Katz, who controlled much of Israel’s arms dealings in Central America from his base in Mexico City throughout the 1970s and 1980s. A 1992 report by Yediot Ahronot, based in part on FBI documentation, said Israeli intelligence organizations were directing a US-based money laundering network, including those run by Hassidic Jews, and using some of the profits to finance clandestine operations." And today in Venezuela, we have a similar tale with another dealer in Israeli arms, Isaac Perez Recao, who was implicated in supporting the recent coup for which he supplied arms.

A wolf in legal clothing?  5/14/02 Haaretz, Israel: "To judge by the sudden spate of warnings in the media in the past two weeks, there is no escaping the conclusion that the senior legal-security echelons of the State of Israel have suddenly become concerned, perhaps even alarmed, by the possibility that prominent Israelis, members of the security services as well as politicians, will have to stand trial abroad in the near future, for committing war crimes."

B'Tselem: Settlements control 42% of West Bank  5/14/02 Haaretz, Israel

No Blueprint for Peace Seen in West Bank Map  5/14/02 LA Times: Finally the issue makes it into the US media: "The pattern of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was designed to make a Palestinian state impossible, an Israeli human rights group charged in a report issued Monday. The group, B'Tselem, said the Jewish state had "stolen" tens of thousands of acres of Palestinian land to establish the settlements--considered illegal under international law--for hundreds of thousands of Israelis. "It's the intentional plan of the development and location of the settlements ... precisely to prevent any sort of viable Palestinian state," said Jessica Montell, the group's director."

ABC to End 'Politically Incorrect'  5/14/02 New York Times: if you don't follow the party line, your show will be terminated.

RENEGADE RATTLES ISRAELI NUKE PROGRAM  5/14/02 NY Post: "Israel, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, refuses to formally acknowledge the existence of these weapons because it would trigger a series of U.S. laws that would result in the cutoff of U.S. military and economic aid to the Jewish state."

COLOMBIAN ARMY AGAIN ACCUSED OF SHARING BED WITH RIGHT-WING PARAMILITARIES  5/14/02 Radio Havana: "Last Sunday, several Colombian newspapers published an open letter from residents of one of the towns denouncing the armed forces-paramilitary connection. Leftist rebels accepted partial responsibility for the civilian casualties, but affirmed that the paramilitaries used them as human shields at gunpoint. The guerrillas also charged that the army and government have allowed the paramilitaries to control the region, noting that the first Colombian soldiers didn't even reach the two towns until five days after the fighting was over." The EU has declared the paramilitaries to be terrorist organizations.

Thousands who backed wrong side held in Afghan 'Auschwitz'  5/14/02 Sydney Morning Herald: "The European Union's special envoy to Afghanistan has called for urgent action by Afghan authorities to end the plight of more than 2000 starving Taliban supporters being held prisoner in conditions he compared to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz."

Arms blown up by Marines were mine, says Afghan ally  5/14/02 Telegraph, UK: Sounds more and more like Nam, just like the fake body counts we now have fake arms counts: "THIRTY lorry-loads of supposed terrorist arms destroyed in Afghanistan by the Royal Marines probably belonged to a coalition ally, it emerged yesterday. Ibrahim Omari, a former commander in the anti-Soviet resistance, said the four caves detonated amid much fanfare over the weekend at Gerdaserai in south-eastern Paktia province contained weapons and ammunition he had stored there 15 years ago."

Jacques Monsieur arrested in Turkey  5/14/02 The Public I: "A Belgian man alleged to be one of Europe's biggest gunrunners -- and who has threatened to reveal secrets about the involvement of intelligence agencies and oil corporations in his illicit trade -- has been arrested in Turkey."

Saudi officials silent as anti-U.S. boycott spreads  5/14/02 WorldTribune: direct from spookland: "Saudi activists said members of the royal family have pledged their support for the boycott in protest of Washington's support for Israel. The government in Riyad has not expressed an official position… "With each dollar you pay you kill a Palestinian," one Saudi message said in reference to Israel's use of U.S.-made weaponry in the war against the Palestinians."

Monday 5/13/02

Poll Points Toward Peace  5/13/02 Alternet: "An in-depth poll conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Initiatives (PIPA) found that a majority of Americans do not agree with the views advocated by pro-Israeli hawks in the White House and Congress."

Idea of Islamic dinar gaining momentum  5/13/02 Arab News: "The two-day seminar, scheduled to be held on June 25-26 in Kuala Lumpur under the patronage of the Institute of Islamic Thought, a Malaysian think tank, hopes to bring together a cornucopia of central bank officials, economists, bankers, businessmen, academics and other interested parties. Dr. Mahathir, who is also the country’s finance minister, first mooted the idea of an Islamic gold dinar as a standard unit of currency for trade and financial transactions between the 54 member countries of the Jeddah-based trans-national Islamic Development Bank (IDB), last year. This in the aftermath of the currency crisis that hit the Asian countries, including Malaysia, so badly in 1999 and in 2000."

Warning to Venezuelan leader  5/13/02 BBC

Police Seize Rental Truck With TNT Traces  5/13/02 Fox News: what will they think of next? "A bomb-sniffing dog first detected explosives on one of the men and inside the truck. High tech equipment was used later to confirm the presence of TNT and RDX plastic explosive. Documents read to Fox News indicate that both driver and passenger were Israeli nationals. Investigators say a roadside check of the national database of immigration records indicated that one of the men had not entered the country legally, and the other was in violation of his visa."

Opec chief warned Chavez about coup  5/13/02 Guardian, UK: "The answer to the mystery, Newsnight was told by a Chavez insider, is that several hundred pro-Chavez troops were hidden in secret corridors under Miraflores, the presidential palace. Juan Barreto, a leader of Mr Chavez's party in the national assembly, was with Mr Chavez when he was under siege. Mr Barreto said that Jose Baduel, chief of the paratroop division loyal to Mr Chavez, had waited until Mr Carmona was inside Miraflores. Mr Baduel then phoned Mr Carmona to tell him that, with troops virtually under his chair, he was as much a hostage as Mr Chavez. He gave Mr Carmona 24 hours to return Mr Chavez alive."

Spies, or students?  5/13/02 Haaretz: "As far as Israel is concerned, this is the only explanation for the affair, and anything more is just a fabrication based on the original reports, which in itself is based on the paranoia of one government official." As anyone who peruses the DEA reports knows, this is a compendium of the work of many investigators.

Key House panel targets international tribunal  5/13/02 IHT: the biggest rogue state of them all at it again: "With strong administration support, an important House committee has voted authorization for the president to use force to rescue any American held by the new International Criminal Court and to bar arms aid to nations that ratify the court treaty."

ARAB BOYCOTT AGAINST AMERICAN GOODS CONTINUES GAINING MOMENTUM  5/13/02 Radio Havana: "An informal boycott of American goods has continued gaining momentum in the Arab world, leading to a drastic drop-off in business for fast-food outlets, Starbucks coffee shops and basic groceries from Pepsi to Pampers. The boycott is taking on dimensions unseen since the Arab League embargo on companies trading with Israel trailed off in the early 1990s, according to a report over the weekend in the New York Times."

Turbulent Colombian Panorama  5/13/02 Z Mag

Venezuela: A Coup With The Smell Of Hamburger, Ham And Oil  5/13/02 Znet: "According to private investigations, one of the results of the coup was to be the denationalization of oil: the privatization of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), leaving it in the hands of a U.S. firm linked to President George Bush and to the Spanish company Repsol; to sell PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, to Gustavo Cisneros and his U.S. partners; and the end of the nation's underground reserves."

World News

"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to Democracies as against despots: suspicion." -- Demosthenes

Qawafil-ush-Shuhadaa http://www.shuhadaa.com [ARABIC]

Islam Question & Answer - Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

Islaam Homepage

Islamic Assembly of North America [IANA on LINE]

Jam'iat Ihyaa' Minhaaj al-Sunnah Homepage

Nida'ul Islam/ The Call of Islam Magazine Online

Words Written in Blood. Arabic book collection of Shaheed Sheikh

Abdullah Azzam [ARABIC]

Maps & Weather

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/

A number of maps here
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/afghanistan.html

http://www.weatherhub.com/

Estimates of the total number of Muslims range from 0.7 to 1.2 billion worldwide and 3 to 6 million in the U.S. About 20% of all people on earth follow Islam. The religion is in a period of rapid growth.

Christianity is currently the largest religion in the world. It is followed by about 33% of all people -- a percentage that has remaind stable for decades. It is expected that, if current trends continue, Islam will become the most popular religion sometime in the mid-21^st century.

-- http://www.religioustolerance.org/islam.htm

Death from America

Iraq news: Soaring death rates among Iraqi children, 1999 BBC, UNICEF 500,000 child deaths

Ramsey Clark: Report to UN Security Council re: Iraq, 1/26/2000
1.5 million deaths

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