Hi Livyjr,
Here you go - Volume 6

Good morning, Cardinal .....

It is nice to see you ......

And here we go .....

One more time again ....

With Life in OUR America, a whole new volume ....

And so .....

Well, Snuf ......

What can really be said .....

Other than that the "dreams" of some .....

The "dreams" of people like Donald "GASBAG" Rumsfeld .....

Who could and should be called the "BUTCHER OF BAGHDAD" .....

And Dick Cheney ....

The man with no real heart at all ...

But a good mind for profits for Halliburton all the same .....

And "CON-JOB CONNIE" (KILLER) Rice .....

Who knows "where and how the bread is buttered" .....

And so has lined herself up to get a "slice" .....

For herself, of course ...

Lives, hopes and dreams of any others on the face of this planet of OURS be damned right to HELL ....

And poor deluded "out-in-space" George W. Bush .....

Well ...

What are called "dreams" to them .....

ARE LIVING NIGHTMARES .....

For a host of other living breathing people .....

Who unfortunately for them .....

Have become what is known simply as "COLLATERAL DAMAGE" .....

Which is a kind of AMERICAN/BRITISH euphemism .....

For "TRASH TO BE REMOVED, NO FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS AS TO HUMANITY REQUIRED" .....

And so .....

Had I not been to Viet Nam, myself ...

Perhaps I might be surprised .....

Or shocked .....

At what this person above here is saying ...

But I was ...

And so .....

I am not ...

Because when I heard the voices of people like George W. Bush .....

And Dick Cheney .....

Who himself could wade through or climb over a whole city's worth of dead bodies ...

Of women and children .....

To get at a wallet with some money still in it ...

On the other side ....

Without the dead bodies troubling him none .....

So long as the contents of that wallet were safely in his hands ....

And "DEAD-EYES" Donald Rumsfeld .....

Whose job it was during the INVASION of IRAQ .....

To approve the mass murder of innocent civilians ......

AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE .....

When that number was going to be more than THIRTY at a time ....

And "CON-JOB CONNIE" (KILLER) Rice .....

Whose callous disregard for human life and human suffering ...

IN PLACES OTHER THAN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ...

Has propelled her right into the "BIGGEST" of "BIG TIMES" .....

Down here on this earth of OURS ...

Where in her grasp now ...

Are the lives and futures of millions of human beings ...

Who she can crush at any time the impulse strikes her ...

To close her hand .....

When I heard these people's voices .....

All those years ago ....

In my own head ...

I heard the shrieks ....

And screams .....

Of those in similar straits .....

Over there in Viet Nam ...

Who also got a chance to be killed for OUR country ...

And so .....

For many years ...

I personally operated ...

On a foolish hope .....

That America had learned something from Viet Nam .....

But it hadn't .....

Because America never went to Viet Nam, at all .....

Only some of us from here did .....

And many of those never returned .....

Even if their bodies did ....

Dead ....

Or seemingly alive ....

Same, same, either way ....

And so ....

"I believed then, just as I believe now, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves our people and our principles."

-- John Kerry, April 22nd, 2006 in Boston

"Pentagon says Iraq violence spreading"

By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:36 p.m., Friday, September 1, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday.

In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon said illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of security as well as basic social services.

The report described a rising tide of sectarian violence, fed in part by interference from neighboring Iran and Syria and driven by a "vocal minority" of religious extremists who oppose the idea of a democratic Iraq.

Death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians are a growing problem, heightening the risk of civil war, it said.

"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife," the report said, adding that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable" even as it is overshadowed by the sect-on-sect killing.

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," the report said.

It is the latest in a series of quarterly reports required by Congress to assess economic, political and security progress.

A growing number of members of Congress are calling for either a shift in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy or a timetable for beginning a substantial withdrawal of American forces.

Although administration officials say progress is being made in Iraq, U.S. commanders have increased U.S. troop levels by about 13,000 over the past five weeks, to 140,000, mainly due to increased violence in the Baghdad area.

Col. Thomas Vail, commander of a 101st Airborne brigade operating in the mostly Shiite areas of eastern Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that an intensified effort to root out insurgents and quell sectarian violence in the capital is bearing fruit, leading to a decrease in sectarian murders in recent days.

"They understand a big stick," he said, referring to a bigger U.S. and Iraqi force confronting militias and others responsible for violence like the barrage of coordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad that Iraqi police said killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 286 within half an hour Thursday.

Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, in a separate session with reporters, said that although there has been progress this summer in reviving the Iraqi economy and raising electricity production, the security conditions have deteriorated even as the number of trained Iraqi troops has increased.

The report covered the period since the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki was seated May 20.

"The last quarter, as you know has been rough," Rodman said.

"The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing."

From that date through Aug. 11, the average number of attacks per week against Americans and Iraqis was 792, up 24 percent from the previous period of Feb. 11 to May 19.

The 792 figure was the highest for any counting period since the war began.

The previous high was 641 in the Feb. 11 to May 19 period.

"The last quarter, as you know has been rough," Rodman said.

"The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing."

That assessment was tempered by a degree of optimism that the Iraqi government -- with support from U.S. troops -- will succeed in quelling the sectarian strife.

Optimism among ordinary Iraqis, however, has declined, the 63-page report said.

When asked if they believe "things will be better" in the future, the percentage of Iraqis responding positively has dropped over the past year -- whether they were asked to look ahead six months, one year or five years -- according to polling data cited in the report.

"The security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom," the report said, using the U.S. military's name for the war that was launched in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

And as REPUBLO-FASCISM .....

Continues to tighten its grip ....

On OUR America .....

And as it continues to spread its tentacles .....

Through the "fabric of life" ...

Here in OUR America .....

Seeking to crush out the spark of truth ...

Here in OUR America ....

To replace it ....

With nothing but PROPAGANDA .....

As all totalitarian regimes must do .....

To maintain their grip on power .....

Anywhere in this world of OURS ....

Including here in OUR OWN AMERICA ....

We have ....

"Pentagon moves toward monitoring media"

By MATTHEW PERRONE, Associated Press
Last updated: 10:35 p.m., Thursday, August 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for monitoring the tone of Iraq news stories filed by U.S. and foreign media.

Proposals, due Sept. 6, ask companies to show how they'll "provide continuous monitoring and near-real time reporting of Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. media," according to the solicitation issued last week.

Contractors also will be evaluated on how they will provide analytical reports and customized briefings to the military, "including, but not limited to tone (positive, neutral, negative) and scope of media coverage."

The winner of the contract will likely also be required to develop an Arabic version of the multinational force's web site.

Attempts by The Associated Press to contact officials connected to the project via telephone and e-mail were not successful Thursday night.

The program comes during what has appeared to be a White House effort, before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, to take the offensive against critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq.

President Bush addressed the American Legion's national convention in Salt Lake City on the issue Thursday, stressing that a U.S. pullout from Iraq would lead to its conquest by America's worst enemies.

He continued a theme set by both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when they spoke to the administration-friendly group earlier in the week.

The military last year was criticized for a public relations program in Iraq that included hiring a consulting firm that paid Iraqi news media to carry news stories written by American troops.

Pentagon officials have defended the program as a necessary tool in the war on terror.

But critics have said it contradicts American values of freedom of the press.

end quotes

THOUGHT CONTROL IS COMING ....

THOUGHT CONTROL IS COMING ....

THOUGHT CONTROL IS COMING ....

THOUGHT CONTROL IS COMING ....

Check your brains in at the door ....

Have no fear ...

They will be properly disposed of ......

Then ....

Just take a seat ....

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ....

Stare at the floor .....

Make no eye contact with anyone .....

Do not attempt to communicate with your neighbor ......

Have no opinion that can be called your own .....

Do what you are told .....

In all regards ....

And Ja, you too will be a GOOD AMERICAN .....

ZEIG HEIL ....

http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1031
Bush's Terror Analysis: Erroneous and Exaggerated
by Rami G. Khouri Released: 1 Sep 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIRUT -- There is something sad about a grown man playing children’s make-believe war games in a tree-house in grandpa’s back yard -- which is how George W. Bush came across Thursday night in his speech on the importance of winning the war in Iraq in the global battle against terrorism. Rarely does a leader of a great country like the United States malign history, his people’s intelligence and the dignity of over a billion Muslims in one speech. But Bush did that Thursday night and will probably keep doing it for a while.

Terrorism is no joke or game, I know: The September 11, 2001, and subsequent attacks around the world were tragic and criminal deeds. Nobody has to tell us in the Middle East about terrorism’s evil, because we suffer its negative impact in two ways -- as victims of terror for many decades, and also as the owners of the societies that give birth to so many terrorists.

Yet Bush’s response to terror remains hobbled by three constraints: misdiagnosing the causes and aims of terror; waging a “global war on terror” that has only expanded the problem by giving terrorists new reasons to cause havoc; and, exaggerating the nature and extent of the terror threat to Americans and the world -- primarily for domestic political purposes.

The cumulative consequences of such an approach have been devastating in various ways: to Bush’s own political standing at home, the United States’ credibility and clout around he world, and the continued threat of terror around the world. The shortcomings of Bush’s anti-terror approach are very clear five years after the September 11 attack, yet he keeps promoting historically inaccurate and morally deviant approaches to the problem that only make the problem worse in many cases.

The president’s speech Thursday night was most compelling for its capacity to say nothing new -- that he has not said repeatedly in the past three years -- while adding new layers of misinterpretation and diversionary confusion that he sells to the American public on the basis of emotionalism, patriotism and nostalgia. His main thesis sums up his shameful misanalysis: “The war we fight today is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.’’

Really? The decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century is launched by a small band of criminal deviants like Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri from caves in Afghanistan, who play on the lost minds and restless psyches of young mainly Arab and Pakistani men already angered by conditions in their societies? The terror problem is one that some good quality American high school guidance counselors could probably diagnose accurately, if given a chance to do so without the distorting dictates of domestic politics.

I can think of a lot more credible candidates for this century’s decisive ideological struggle, including fighting poverty, expanding equitable global trading patterns, promoting good governance and the rule of law around the world, giving ordinary people everywhere a sense of being treated with dignity and justice, safeguarding the global environment, and a few others.

Bush is wrong about the real threat from terror and has been wrong since he first had to deal with the impact of September 11: It is neither a global ideological movement, nor does it plan to take the battle to the streets of Peoria and Memphis. His idea that different sorts of Islamic extremism and militancy form “a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology’’ is also a gross exaggeration and simplification, but one that fits comfortably into the neo-conservative-driven Republican White House view of the world (and their electoral imperative in the United States).

Bush also does a disservice to the world and insults his own people’s intelligence by mixing together into one ideological movement what is in reality a range of very different movements, inspired by different local and global causes. By linking Iraq, the recent Israel-Hizbullah war, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Syrian policies as elements in a single threat that must be fought by America’s freedom agenda, he generates a common threat that does not exist as a single, coordinated adversary. This is one reason why Bush is having such a hard time with his foreign policies achieving any goals in the Middle East, or reducing the threat of terror attacks.

He also perpetuates his misreading of the problem with his continuous insult to over a billion Muslims around the world by glibly and repeatedly speaking of Islam, fascism and terror in the same breath. This constant demonizing of an entire religion that promotes piety, peace and justice as its core values is only creating conditions that generate new terrorists among the ranks of wayward and fearful young men living in Arab-Asian societies -- young men whose distorted and freak politics are due, in many cases, to the impact of decades of American policies.

George W. Bush is responding to the terror of what started as a small band of miscreants with a shameful form of intellectual terror that has empowered them to recruit and expand. It is tragically sad when a man who should know better behaves like an adolescent and fights make-believe enemies in tree-house environments.


Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, and editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
----------------
Released: 01 September 2006
Word Count: 872
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rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1030

The Tiger at Bay: Scary Times Ahead
by Immanuel Wallerstein Released: 1 Sep 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When many years ago, some of us said that the decline of United States hegemony in the world-system was inevitable, unstoppable, and already occurring, we were told by most people that we ignored the obvious overwhelming military and economic strength of the United States. And there were some critics who said that our analyses were harmful because they served as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then the neo-cons came to power in the Bush presidency, and they implemented their policy of unilateral macho militarism, designed (they said) to restore unquestioned United States hegemony by frightening U.S. enemies and intimidating U.S. friends into unquestioned obedience to U.S. policies in the world arena. The neo-cons had their chance and their wars and have spectacularly failed either to frighten those regarded as enemies or to intimidate erstwhile allies into unquestioned obedience. The U.S. position in the world-system is far weaker today than it was in 2000, the result precisely of the very misguided neo-con policies adopted during the Bush presidency. Today, quite a few people are ready to talk openly about U.S. decline.

So what happens now? There are two places to look: inside the United States, and in the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, governments of all stripes are paying less and less attention to anything the United States says and wants. Madeleine Albright, when she was Secretary of State, said that the United States was "the indispensable nation." This may have been true once, but it is certainly not true now. Now, it's a tiger at bay.

It's not yet fully the "paper tiger" of which Mao Zedong spoke, but it's certainly on its way to being exposed as a tiger crouching in self-defense.

How do other nations treat a tiger at bay? With a great deal of prudence, it must be said. If the United States is no longer capable of getting its way almost anywhere, it is still capable of doing a great deal of damage if it decides to lash out. Iran may defy the United States with aplomb, but it tries to be careful not to humiliate it. China may be feeling its oats and sure that it will get still stronger in the decades to come, but it handles the United States with kid gloves. Hugo Chavez may openly tweak the tiger's nose, but older and wiser Fidel Castro speaks less provocatively. And Italy's new Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, holds Condoleezza Rice's hands while pursuing a foreign policy clearly aimed at strengthening a world role for Europe independent of the United States.

So why are they all so prudent? To answer that, we must look at what is going on in the United States. The de facto chief executive, Dick Cheney, knows what needs to be done from the point of view of the macho militarists, whose leader he is. The United States must "stay the course" and indeed escalate the violence. The alternative is to admit defeat, and Cheney is not someone to do that.

Cheney does however have an acute political problem at home. He and his policies are clearly losing support, massively, within the United States. The scare speeches about terrorists and the accusations of treason launched at his critics no longer seem to be as effective as they once were. The recent victory of war critic Ned Lamont over war defender Joe Lieberman in the Democratic senatorial primary in Connecticut has rattled the U.S. political establishment of both parties. Within days, a very large number of politicians seemed to move some distance in the direction of closing down the Iraq operation.

If, as seems quite possible now, the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress in the November 2006 elections, there risks being a stampede to withdraw, despite the hesitancy of the Democratic congressional leadership. This will be all the more sure if, in various local elections, prominent antiwar candidates win.

What will the Cheney camp do then? One can't expect that they will gracefully acknowledge the coming of a Democratic president in the 2008 elections. They will know that they have probably only two years left to create situations from which it would be almost impossible for the United States to retreat. And since they would not, with a Democratic congress, be able to get any important legislation passed, they will concentrate (even more than now) on trying to use the executive powers of the presidency, under the docile front man, George W. Bush, to stir up military havoc around the world and to reduce radically the sphere of civil liberties within the United States.

The Cheney cabal will however be resisted, on many fronts. The most important locus of resistance will no doubt be the leadership of the U.S. armed forces (with the exception of the Air Force), who clearly think that the current military adventures have greatly overextended U.S. military capacity and are very worried that they will be the ones held for blame later by U.S. public opinion when Rumsfeld and Cheney have disappeared from the newspaper headlines. The Cheney cabal will be resisted as well by big business who see the current policies as having very negative consequences for the U.S. economy.

And of course they will be resisted by the left and center-left within the United States who are feeling reinvigorated, angry, and anxious about the course of U.S. policy. There is a slow but clear radicalization of the left and even the center-left.

When that happens, the militarist right will retaliate very aggressively. When Lamont won the primary, a reader of the Wall Street Journal wrote a letter saying that "we have reached a tipping point in this country -- if we allow the left to govern as the majority our country is finished." He calls Republican leaders "inept." He, and many others, will be looking for fiercer leaders.

Everyone worries about civil war in Iraq. How about in the United States? Scary times ahead!


Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

Copyright ©2006 Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global
----------------
Released: 01 September 2006
Word Count: 993
----------------
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rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

"Term 'Islamo-fascism' aids terrorists"

By TRUDY RUBIN
First published: Friday, September 1, 2006

Are we "at war with Islamic fascists"?

That's what President Bush said right after British police broke up a plot to blow up aircraft crossing the Atlantic.

The term "Islamo-fascism" is being used with increasing frequency in the blogosphere and in conservative journals as an all-purpose label for extremist Muslims.

It's certainly a convenience for politicians -- a great sound bite to rally voters by giving the enemy a concrete image.

The label provides a rallying cry for those who want to cast themselves in the mantle of Churchill fighting World War II.

But does raising the specter of "Islamic fascists" aid the antiterrorist struggle?

First, let's examine the accuracy of the phrase.

Fascism originated in Italy as a mass movement that Mussolini rode to power in 1922.

But the term fascist is widely thrown around to cover almost any authoritarian movement or bully.

Webster defines fascism as "a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized government control, belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism."

In other words, fascism is a political doctrine.

Muslim critics say the President's term defames their religion.

Indeed, it would be more accurate to use the term "Islamist fascism" or "fascist Islamism."

The distinction is more than a semantic quibble.

Why so?

Because it's important to stress the difference between religious Muslims and those who use the religion for political purposes.

Islamism is the term for a political ideology that misuses religious precepts as a tool to take power.

Islamism is similar to the many "isms" of the 20th century, and Islamists are its followers.

Islamism is gaining ground in the Middle East after the failure of Arab socialism and nationalism, and growing Arab cynicism about liberal democracy.

In its most radical forms, Islamism espouses a rigid Islam as the basis for an authoritarian system.

Radical Islamism is hostile to the West (not just to Western policies) and to non-Muslims.

In some virulent Sunni forms, Islamism calls for the death of Muslims who don't toe a particular religious line.

The Taliban are radical Islamists.

Those who join al-Qaida are radical Islamists.

The label also applies to the present Iranian government, which suppresses political opposition, squeezes Iran's economy, and stirs up a poisonous brew of populist nationalism and virulent hostility toward Israel and Jews.

During the last Iranian election campaign, some reformist candidates warned that presidential candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populism could lead to "fascism."

So it is philosophically apt to apply the term fascism to specific Islamist political movements.

But does it help the antiterrorist struggle for the President to label it a "war against Islamic fascists"?

For several reasons, the answer is a resounding no.

This blanket term confuses the American public about the nature of the struggle they are facing.

This is not World War II, where an Adolf Hitler was bent on, and capable of, territorial conquest.

This is not a war of standing armies seeking to capture land.

The West is engaged in a long-term fight against disparate radical Islamist groups that are alienated by globalization and the backwardness of their countries.

In the words of Steven Cook, Mideast expert for the Council on Foreign Relations:

"There are different groups with different political interpretations of Islam and different goals."

"There is no real address for 'Islamo-fascism.' "

Lumping all these groups under a single rubric creates the image of one worldwide and powerful jihadi movement, rather than disparate groups whose differences can be exploited.

For example, Iranians hate al-Qaida, which considers them to be infidels.

And Arab Sunnis will never follow the lead of Shiite Iranians, no matter the current cockiness of Tehran's leaders.

By exaggerating the unity and destructive power of terrorist groups, we play into al-Qaida's hands, says James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly after conversations with 60 of America's top terrorist experts.

We bolster Osama bin Laden's ego and reputation, along with the inflated self-image of Ahmadinejad.

We also blur the strategies for countering such groups as Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida, Pakistani's Lashkar-e-toiba, or British Islamist cells.

Such strategies differ by country, and involve diplomacy and police work as much as military action.

Raising the "Islamo-fascist" cry fosters false hope that terrorism can be halted with one great military strike -- a Berlin or Hiroshima.

I keep getting e-mails suggesting we can win if we bomb Tehran.

On the contrary, al-Qaida would get thousands of new recruits who, while they despise Shiites, would join up because America was killing Muslims.

In the meantime, the Iranian regime would grow stronger.

There is still a chance to change Iran's direction through diplomacy -- backed by carrots and (economic) sticks.

The term "Islamo-fascism" has political wings and plays to the President's mantra of good vs. evil.

But it obscures the complex nature of the struggle Americans will face over the next decade.

It misleads more than it informs.

Trudy Rubin writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her e-mail address is trubin@phillynews.com.

end quotes

REPUBLO-FASCISM .....

On the other hand ........

Is right in here among us ....

Getting stronger ....

AND STRONGER ...

AND STRONGER ...

As it seeks to divert OUR attention elsewhere ....

To other than itself ....

As it continues it virulent spread .....

Through OUR national life ...

And so ....

If you are a believer in REPUBLO-FASCISM .....

Then at least for you ...

Come November, your path is clear ....

As for the rest of us .....

Well ......

What you vote for .....

Is what you will be stuck with ...

For quite some time to come ...

And so ....

This following is a touch long perhaps ...

And it is a political speech ....

But it is worth reading down through ...

Or at least I found it to be .....

As an older American .....

More used to a different breed or form of political discourse .....

Than that which seems to exist today .....

Here in OUR America ....

Especially in these times that we now find ourselves in .....

Where as an essentially Christian nation .....

Or a nation that espouses what it likes to call "Christian Values", anyway ....

And more to the point ...

A NATION BUILT ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE .....

Whether we personally have religion ...

OR NOT ....

We are being told ...

BY OUR NATIONAL LEADERSHIP ....

IN THE WHITE HOUSE ....

DOWN THERE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. .....

That we have to adopt ....

An ideology .....

THE IDEOLOGY OF GEORGE W. BUSH .....

And his ....

That is based upon racism ...

And hatred .....

Towards a religion ....

That is not our own .....

And that we have to treat as OUR enemies ......

Those towards whom this intolerance is aimed at .....

Which as far as I am concerned ...

As one of this nation's many disabled combat veterans ....

IS PLAIN, FLAT UN-AMERICAN ...

This inciting of one religious group .....

The Christians .....

To hate another religious group ....

The Muslims ....

And so ....

What follows is the text ...

Of a Jun 23, 2006 Address ...

By Thomas R. Suozzi .....

Who many in the CORRUPT State of New York ...

Hope ...

Will be the state's next Governor ...

So that we can begin the necessary change .....

To end the CORRUPT practices .....

That presently plague Albany, New York ...

A speech that is along this same theme ...

And so ...

Provokes some thought on the subject ....

And so ....

Sons of Italy Convention, Friday, June 23, 2006

Keynote Address by Thomas R. Suozzi
Sons of Italy Convention
Friday, June 23, 2006
Albany, New York

Good afternoon.

Today I want to talk to you about a problem that has emerged in today’s political discourse that has moved people of faith to vote along party lines.

I will talk about how that political discourse can divert us from attending to some of the very real problems facing us today.

I will talk about how my faith informs my public life and finally I will invite you to join me in an effort to focus on those problems.

My grandfather, the patriarch of our family, would always deliver a blessing at family weddings to the new couple: “non che sono rose senza le spine” which means “you can’t have the roses without the thorns.”

He meant that you can’t have the beautiful things in life without the thorns as well –the hardships and the struggle, the heartache and the pain.

You couldn’t appreciate the good things and the good times in life without the hard times and the tough times as well.

We also know that roses have roots – and in this case, the roots are the values and traditions that nourish and replenish our families and our communities.

We know that there will always be pain, but that there will also always be happiness.

We know that there will be laughter and good times when we go to grandma’s house for pasta on Sunday afternoon, I’ll never forget the steam on the kitchen windows.

We remember when we had different kinds of fish on Christmas Eve, when we drink some of that homemade wine that friends and relatives have made and they brag about how theirs is the best.

We smile when we go into a friend’s house and see that bottle of Galliano with the Napoleon head on it – that nobody every really drinks – or the statue of Saint Michael or a plaque or church calendar with a blessing on the wall.

It’s what draws us together today; I am an Italian American like the rest of you – it is those shared experiences that make us comfortable with each other.

It’s why we can greet each other with a smile and say, “Hey, how are you” and maybe even slap each other on the back even though we have never met each other before.

It’s why we can think; “yeah, he’s ok,” based on our shared values and our common experiences that give us an understanding of one another.

Through my personal life experience and in my life as a public official, I have interacted with so many different people of diverse backgrounds.

I feel just as comfortable having corned beef and cabbage with the Irish side of my family on St. Patrick’s Day and I love it when my dad sings “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” to my mother.

My in-laws are proud that I know all the words in Polish to the song “Sto Lat” and we share the blessings of the oplatek at Christmas.

In my life as a public servant I have come into contact with countless cultures and communities, each rich in their our own traditions – their own prayers, their own dances, their own food and songs.

Each culture finds ways to celebrate and bond; to share and to teach; to pass something intangible and unique and personal to the next generation.

From father to son, from mother to daughter – we celebrate these traditions and find pride and comfort in passing them on to our own children and grandchildren.

One of the most enjoyable parts of my public life has been to learn about the wonderful Jewish traditions and those of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and other Christians from African Methodists, to Baptists and Evangelicals.

I have tried so many different foods and attended so many functions to celebrate different cultures.

In Nassau we have ethnic night concerts – Punjabi, Armenian, Israeli, Turkish, Italian, Irish, Latino, African American, Greek, Indian, Polish, German, Korean, Chinese, Ukrainian, Scandinavian, Pakistani and Caribbean – each with unique sounds, foods and traditions.

At most of these events I have had the opportunity to watch proud parents and grandparents and community members celebrate their children.

I have seen the gentle respect shown to their elders.

I have seen a fond embrace by brothers and sisters brought together from their shared experience.

But beyond the uniqueness that each culture brings to the America experience, as human beings we all have a lot more in common.

I have learned, deeply to the very core of who I am – that there are certain universal values and beliefs that transcend the idiosyncrasies of each culture, community and religion.

We all share the big fundamental questions of who loves me, who doesn’t love me and who do I love – and what’s right and what’s wrong – and how am I going to educate and take care of my children and how am I going to pay my bills and how am I going to make my family and community better.

We all think these same things.

Each of these faiths and cultures have their own ways of expressing their commitment to community and to connecting with their fellow man.

Whether it is the injunction to “love thy neighbor” or the acceptance that I am “my brother’s keeper” – whatever the expression may be, I fundamentally believe in the goodness of all people, and in their desire to do good.

I believe in the intrinsic worth of all people regardless of their attributes and beliefs that may be different than mine.

With all that we have in common, with all that should be bringing us together, the main point that I want to make today is about my concern that a division has emerged in politics today that is not based upon ideas as to how government should or should not function, but rather is a division based upon our fundamental beliefs and backgrounds.

My good friend Monsignor Tom Hartman and his partner Rabbi Gellman of the God Squad have spent a lifetime reminding us all that there is so much more that unites us than divides us.

I am concerned about the division that is emerging among Democrats and Republicans that has nothing to do with being Democrats or Republicans – it centers on the questions of faith.

There is an effort to divide us – an almost un-American style of politics that demands an adherence to the absolutes of the political orthodoxy of both Parties.

About a month and a half ago, The New York Times reported on a Pew Research Center study that found the majority of those Americans who attend religious services on a regular basis, despite their party registration, will vote Republican, and that the less people attend religious services the more likely it is they will vote Democratic.

According to the Pew survey, among some groups, such as white voters, 71 percent of those who attend religious services at least once a week voted Republican in the last election.

It is a remarkable finding, the implications of which should cause my party – the Democratic Party – to pause and think about the message that it is sending to the American electorate.

Many people are uncomfortable talking about politics and faith, but despite the risk, I think we have to talk about it, because I believe so strongly that the Democratic Party needs to recognize that many of its members – like myself – are motivated by our faith.

I attend church every Sunday.

I am not a religious fanatic or extremist.

I am just a regular guy who tries to go to Mass with his family every week, and observes the sacraments of my faith.

I try to remember to say my prayers of thanks before dinner and teach my children the same practices.

My faith and values are a major part of who I am, and are the main reasons I remain in public service.

I want to help poor people.

I want to house the homeless and feed the hungry and help the elderly.

I don’t tolerate racism.

I don’t believe in taking advantage of people.

I think a decent education and an opportunity to find a job is something that will help us all experience human dignity.

I am in public life, informed by my faith, to help people, to serve people.

And my party, which is built upon the idea of helping people through government, is supposed to be about doing things – about helping those who need it, protecting the Divine creation of the Earth, and protecting the basic human dignity of every American.

But while I feel that many members of the Democratic Party share my desire to serve others, the statistics indicate that less and less people who share my practice of regularly attending religious services – regardless of their faith – feel welcome in the party I have chosen.

Too many politicians in both parties have centered election messages on the important moral issues of abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty to the exclusion of some very real problems of jobs, education and property taxes.

As a result many people are losing confidence in my party that appears to have lost its way and forgotten its roots.

A large part of my public life has been about getting back to our roots, to the basics.

As Americans we believe we have an obligation to those who simply cannot make it on their own: the frail, the elderly, the children, the mentally ill, the addicted, families crippled by a catastrophic physical illness, the abused and neglected, and the veteran returning home changed or maimed by the trauma of war.

We also believe in personal responsibility.

We believe that while helping those who cannot help themselves, we cannot burden the rest of our society with wasteful practices and giveaways of inefficient government, or pass the costs of high taxes to pay for poorly managed government along to those already struggling to get by.

And it is those principles and values that I have tried to bring to my job as Nassau County Executive.

I have worked to make our government work better and cost less – while helping more people.

But good intentions are not enough – they must be accompanied by good works.

When I became County Executive I became the leader of what had been described the “worst run county” in the United States of America.

The eight departments that comprised Health and Human Services had not historically been assigned a place of priority – but I was drawn to them – for two reasons.

First, I was drawn to it because I wanted to help people who urgently needed help, and second, when I entered office in the midst of a fiscal crisis, these departments accounted for nearly $800 million of our County budget, most of it mandated by our State officials.

We put this huge portion of the County budget under the microscope of our larger program of sweeping reform.

Our goal was to serve the real needs of the people most in need, but to do so in a more cost-effective way.

So we established a single point of entry into Nassau’s Health and Human Services – consolidated, instead of eight departments in five locations, all departments at one location.

We call it “No Wrong Door.”

By consolidating financial operations, information technology, maintenance and security we saved money.

We also saved additional funds and helped more people by looking at their problems holistically.

Does a person seeking a Medicaid application or a welfare payment have a mental illness?

Is a senior citizen involved or a veteran?

We helped people address real problems and by doing so improved services and lowered costs.

For decades, going back to the greatest governors of social conscience, Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and their policies begun in New York that FDR brought to Washington as the New Deal, America has worked to create a society that provides room at the table for everyone.

Today there are dozens of Federal, State and local programs that offer assistance for those most in need.

But the complexity of the bureaucracy, the overlapping of programs, the lack of communication between providers, has been both wasteful to the taxpayers and a source of further problems for the clients.

This is not a new situation in government.

Nor is it new that elected officials should call for providing services in a more comprehensive, coordinated fashion so that we can help people solve problems, make their lives better, and at the same time save tax dollars.

What is new is that we have done it.

We have designed and put in the place “No Wrong Door” program that we believe will serve as a national model.

We created a program designed to put all of those organizations under one roof and they meet weekly to coordinate on cases, and it works.

No Wrong Door symbolizes the long journey Nassau has taken in a very short period of time, a journey which proves that good will and hard work can break the cycle of cynicism and political expediency, and rekindle idealism and optimism.

We have started a new era of compassionate and cooperative service to our community.

“No Wrong Door” not simply a vision for the future.

It is a real program that is already happening and helping real people.

The pundits said that we could never do it.

The challenge was too great, the obstacles too many, the time too short, the money too scarce.

Whenever the pundits spoke, I was reminded of the little Italian boy who watched Michelangelo for many weeks as he sculpted his magnificent David from a huge block of marble.

And when Michelangelo had finished, the boy looked at the statue and asked in wonder: “How did you know he was in there?”

Michelangelo knew he was in there, just as we know that New York can be and will be great again.

We just need to chip away at the excess in government.

We need honest, energetic and efficient leadership and the creative vision to see the possibility.

Our state government may never be a work of art, there is so much to be done.

But we can again be guided by Michelangelo – the philosophy by which he lived and worked.

He put it this way:

“The greatest danger facing us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we hit it.”

Centuries later, the choice before us is still whether to aim high, or to play it safe.

Today, most of our leaders aim low – and if they hit a high mark, claim they meant to do it all along.

We have to make a choice – we can strive to do great things, or to join those mediocre under-achievers who, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

It is no accident that Teddy Roosevelt, with his rare courage and clear vision, was the only Long Islander ever elected Governor of New York.

Or as my mother likes to say, that he was the first Long Islander to be elected Governor of New York.

Roosevelt knew that mediocrity – aiming low and hitting low – can only invite disaster.

We witnessed that truth first-hand when we took over Nassau.

But we aimed high.

We rolled up our sleeves and got to work and hit our marks.

We turned it all around.

We learned that waiting for Albany to change was an exercise in futility.

Their indifference and inaction inspired me to start a campaign called Fix Albany.

Fix Albany was a political movement that ran candidates against incumbents in the state legislature from both parties who had stood in the way of real reform, and we beat them.

And that led to this campaign, where we are aiming even higher.

We are running on a platform of values and common sense – a common sense approach to creating jobs by reducing the cost of doing business in New York State, which is currently rated one of the most hostile business climates in America.

A common sense approach to fixing our schools, by investing in our troubled schools and reforming them so that more teachers are trained in math and science and the best teachers are encouraged to work in the schools that need them the most.

A common sense approach to reducing property taxes, because New Yorkers can no longer endure what are the highest local taxes in the United States of America –72% above the national average.

It is common sense based on our values.

Every politician will tell you they will solve your problems, but as they say in the old country “guarda le mane, non ascoltare la boca.”

Watch the hands, don’t listen to the mouth.

Look at the work we have done, not simply the speeches we make.

You know we can do it, because we have done it.

New York and America are at a crossroads.

For too long the politicians have coasted – deferring the hard choices we have to make about our shared destiny – and refusing to fight the battles against those who benefit from the current dysfunction.

It seems that many of our leaders have forgotten the history of our founding – the struggles, the sacrifice of blood and lives.

The thorns if you will, that gave rise to the rose called America.

Too many of our leaders have forgotten their roots and values.

Rather than make the hard choices, they have hidden behind false choices.

Rather than risking their own necks where all that they might lose is an election, they have allowed our state to drift, while our people are losing their jobs, their homes and their sense of hope.

If we are going move past words into action, we have to elect a candidate who has a real record of reform and performance and a candidate willing to take on the armies of the status quo – and their general.

We have to cut the wasteful and disgraceful spending in Albany.

We have to reduce the burdens that the state government transfers to local governments.

We have to invest in creating a stronger business climate.

We desperately need better schools in our cities to ensure the next generation of New Yorkers can compete with kids around the world.

And we must reconnect with the values that make our country and its people great.

Right now the pundits and self-appointed experts say that Tom Suozzi is a great guy, but he has no chance.

It doesn’t matter what they say – I am running because it is what I believe in.

I believe that the best way to help people is for me to run for this job and to win it.

I believe that things happen for a reason.

I have been blessed with a wonderful family and I believe that everything I have done in my professional life has prepared me for this particular job at this particular time.

I believe I am the best person for the job – so this is what I am supposed to do – and I am doing it.

It’s not a question of fate or destiny.

It is about fighting for what’s right, and the determination to get it done.

But to really change New York, I need people who don’t normally vote to get involved and to take responsibility for changing it.

What the people who oppose me are really counting on is that you will stay home and sit out this election – that you are so frustrated with both parties because they do not really represent your values that you will throw up your hands and walk away, so that then they can keep spending your money.

Typically less than 14% of the registered voters actually vote in a Democratic primary.

In election after election fewer and fewer people vote, while year after year more and more of your money is spent on things you never asked for or thought you would ever need.

And little by little as your taxes grow higher, your dollar gets smaller and your wallet gets lighter, we all look at each other and wonder “where did we go wrong”?

Well, it’s time for us to stop standing by.

I need the Democrats, the Republicans and the Independents in this room who believe in my message to find Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary on September 12th.

For those that do not like what I have said here today – please go on vacation around election time.

For those of you who don’t feel comfortable any more in the Democratic Party, or concerned that it has become the party that has forgotten its roots and lost its way, I am here today as living proof that that’s not true.

Some people would say that for a Democrat to give this kind of speech, especially one who is in a Democratic primary will permanently damage my career.

Not that I haven’t heard that before!

But I believe that Democrats like many in this room, including my mom and dad, don’t feel that the Democratic Party speaks to their values anymore.

And I believe that there are millions of Democrats across New York who feel the same way.

But I wanted to give this speech to tell them they are wrong.

I am running in the Democratic Primary for Governor of the State of New York.

And I speak to your values, because I live them every day.

I am a Catholic and a Democrat and those two groups should not be mutually exclusive – and for those who may not be here today –those of the Jewish faith, and Baptists and those that are “born again” and Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and Greek orthodox and any other person of faith who may no longer feel comfortable in my party – the Democratic Party – I am opening the door to you.

I do not ask you to join me in some religious or spiritual quest.

I ask you to join me in politics and government to try and improve the quality of life for our fellow human beings – consistent with our shared values, and based on the belief that as John F. Kennedy once said “here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”

I will not appeal to you with the divisive language that has been used to excite us regarding the moral questions of abortion, gay marriage or the death penalty.

There are already too many politicians that invite us to those divisions.

Instead I will try and appeal to you on some old fashioned “bread and butter” issues.

How do we create jobs so that our citizens can live lives of dignity in pursuit of the American Dream, how do we educate our children so they can live full productive lives, and how do we make it affordable for people to live and prosper in our state?

It is time for us to stand up.

It’s time for us to force our government and its leaders to return to its values.

And I need your help to make them do that.

Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."

"Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The odds are against us, and it won’t be easy.

Nothing worthwhile ever is.

If implementing reform was easy it would have already been done.

I know this is going to be hard and that even when we win it is will take a long time to set things right.

It will be hard to change course because we have been headed in the wrong direction for so long.

But I think the people here in this room know better than just about anyone - Rome was not built in a day.

And I believe – I know – that we can do it.

I know we can do it, because we’ve done it.

Thank you.

end quotes

Having FAITH ...

And VALUES .....

Has nothing whatsoever ...

To do ...

With going to some church ....

OR NOT ...

Having FAITH ...

And VALUES ...

Means really having them .....

And practicing them ....

24/7 ......

And not exploiting .....

Some type of "religious affiliation" .....

Like being an alleged "Born-Again Christian" ....

FOR PARTISAN POLITICAL GAIN ...

Here in OUR America .....

And so ....

"Nation's tragedy lies in response to 9/11"

First published: Friday, September 1, 2006

The fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is in less than two weeks.

It should be a time of national disgrace and shame.

The events of Sept. 11 never should have happened.

Americans have been so busy for the past five years in the search for revenge that they have not bothered to ask why the attacks happened and have not asked seriously who was responsible.

Why was a ragtag band of religious fanatics able to humiliate this country?

What did we do wrong?

Until we admit our shame, we will not be able to avoid another such national ignominy.

The primary responsibility belongs with the airline industry and Congress, dominated by the Republicans and beholden to big business.

In 1996, a commission chaired by then-Vice President Al Gore recommended a number of regulations to protect the safety of airline passengers.

Among the recommendations was that steel doors separate the flight deck from the rest of the aircraft.

Characteristically, the airline industry lobbied against the legislation on the grounds that such doors would cost too much.

The absence of the doors, however, probably cost almost 3,000 lives.

The airline presidents and lobbyists responsible for the defeat of those regulations ought not to be able to sleep at night because of this deadly betrayal of their passengers.

Neither should the news media, which did not denounce the greed of the airlines -- not then and not even after the Sept. 11 attacks.

If the terrorists had known that they could not have gained access to the flight decks, they probably would not have tried to execute their plot.

If they had, it would not have worked.

Corporate greed, congressional cowardice and media silence were the primary causes of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

To deny this is to lie, one more lie in five years of terrible lies.

We were done in that Sept. 11 by capitalist greed and congressional and media corruption.

The most guilty individuals were President Bush and his national security adviser at the time, Condoleezza Rice.

They wrote off the warnings about al-Qaida they inherited from the Clinton administration.

We won't give terrorism as high a priority as the previous administrations, Rice effectively told Richard Clark.

In a work of prestidigitation worthy of the greatest political crooks in history, the administration excused itself from responsibility and shifted the blame onto President Clinton.

Again the national media let them get away with it.

Moreover, Mr. Bush promptly assumed the mantle of a wartime president which, as the Wall Street Journal editorial page crowed, destroyed the controversy over the dubious Florida vote in the 2000 election.

Bush used this mantle of a nation at war to claim leadership in a war on global terror and with Rice indulged in an aggressive, go-it-alone foreign policy that alienated almost every other country in the world.

Egged on by his coterie of neoconservative intellectuals, Bush launched a frivolous and foolish fiasco in Iraq in which almost 3,000 Americans and tens of thousands Iraqis have been slaughtered.

Yet precisely because of the myth of his success against terrorism, Bush prevailed in the congressional elections of 2002.

He was re-elected in 2004 and his power will almost certainly survive the congressional elections this November, once more in the name of the war on terror -- more recently the war on Islamo-fascism.

Now, it would seem, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are planning a war against Iran.

Historians will doubtless say that the Sept. 11 attacks were a national tragedy.

They will also contend that the nation's response to that tragedy was even worse.

The American people were not responsible for the former, but they will certainly be judged guilty for all the evil of the latter.

If I were Osama bin Laden and I wanted to hit America with an anniversary attack, I'd look for more weaknesses like the absence of steel doors on airliners -- such as, for instance, the inadequate screening of checked luggage.

This time, the guilty will not only be the airlines and Congress.

It will be the rest of us who have settled for inadequate security because real security costs too much.

Andrew Greeley's e-mail address is agreel@aol.com.

Last night ...

On the radio news ....

I heard that the people who made the hurricane forecasts last year ....

For this year ....

Have now decided that they were wrong ...

About the number of storms that were supposed to occur this year ....

And so ...

They have revised their estimates downwards .....

Which seems to be consistent with reality as experienced to date ....

And so ....

"Weakened Ernesto drenches Mid-Atlantic"

By KASEY JONES, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:35 a.m., Saturday, September 2, 2006

BALTIMORE -- Disrupting the start of the Labor Day weekend, Ernesto drenched the Mid-Atlantic region, cut power to more than 400,000 customers and forced evacuations as it weakened to a tropical depression.

Flash flood watches were posted early Saturday for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

Flood warnings were issued for North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Ernesto was blamed for at least five deaths in Virginia and North Carolina, where it swirled ashore late Thursday as a tropical storm, a day after severe thunderstorms had already drenched the region.

Eastern North Carolina got 8 to 12 inches of rain, while southeastern Virginia measured up to a foot.

Seven inches fell in Worcester County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and a wind gust of 61 mph was recorded in Ocean City, said Ed McDonough, spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

Sheriff's deputies in St. Mary's County, Md., on Friday evacuated about 30 residents of St. George's Island, which juts into the Potomac River where the river meets the Chesapeake Bay.

The county ordered the evacuation of all tidal areas, about 3,000 people.

Greg Gill, 36, waded through waist-deep water to leave the island.

"It pushed me back and forth as I walked through it," he said.

"I was going to stay (in my house), but it just keep getting worse and worse."

More than 200 homes were evacuated in Richmond, Va., and about a dozen people had to leave their homes in coastal Poquoson, which is still recovering from Hurricane Isabel three years ago.

About 50 homes on Chesapeake Bay's Northumberland County were also evacuated, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said.

In Gloucester, Va., a husband and wife were crushed to death when a tree fell on their modular home, said Maj. T.P. Doss, a spokesman for the county sheriff's office.

Two traffic deaths in Virginia and one in North Carolina were also blamed on Ernesto.

The red flags were up along the New Jersey shore on Friday, a warning to would-be bathers that the storm was on the way.

"You get close to that water, it'll just suck you out," Lifeguard Capt. Rob Albright said as he ate a cheeseburger on the Asbury Park boardwalk.

More than 460,000 customers were without power from North Carolina to New Jersey, with the majority of the outages in Virginia.

The governors of North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the mayor of the District of Columbia, each declared a state of emergency because of the storm.

Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich said he decided against one because his state has been so dry.

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley planned to take an aerial tour Saturday of the Northeast Cape Fear River.

By late Friday, the river rose to over 16 feet in Chinquapin, a few inches above its flood stage of 13 feet.

It was expected to crest Sunday at around 18 feet, at which point numerous roads would flood and residents would need to be evacuated, said Scott Kennedy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Morehead City.

Arlene Losaw lost her mobile home to Hurricane Fran 10 years ago.

As the river rose Friday, water gradually covered her driveway and began lapping at the front stoop of her newer mobile home in Chinquapin.

She and her husband, William, were hoping they wouldn't have to evacuate -- or lose their home again.

"I thought we were done with this mess," Losaw said.

"It keeps coming and, depending on how bad it gets, we may have to get out of here."

------

Associated Press writers Sonja Barisic in Norfolk, Va., Mike Baker in Chinquapin, N.C., and Jeffrey Gold in Asbury Park, N.J., contributed to this report.

One of the "stories" that I have been following in here .....

Which is known as the "PATAKI STING" .....

Up here in the State of New York .....

Named as it is .....

After REPUBLICAN New York State Governor George Pataki .....

A "water carrier" for George W. Bush .....

Actually goes back to the days leading up to the last presidential election .....

In 2004 ....

When George W. Bush ....

And his REPUBLICAN MACHINE .....

Needed us scared out of our wits ....

Believing that TAY-RISTS were actually going to come tumbling out of the sky ....

Battalions and battalions of them .....

Descending down on New York City .....

After apparently infiltrating the 82nd Airborne .....

Or something like that, anyway .....

So that they could have access to all the planes and parachutes and artillery and such like ......

That they would need to take over OUR America .....

And so ....

One "SLOW NEWS DAY" .....

As the media later reported on it ....

There was REPUBLICAN Pataki .....

Standing there in his FORTRESS CITY .....

Of Albany, New York .....

Giving forth on this big TAY-RIZM BUST .....

That had just been conducted by George W. Bush's crowd .....

Right there on the mean, dilapidated streets .....

Of Pataki's CORRUPT CAPITAL CITY ....

Where you can get your head blown off ....

Any day of the week .....

By some fifteen-year old punk with a $1200 Ruger .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun .....

And where an Albany Police Lieutenant was killed by a FEDERAL PAROLEE with a MAC-10 knock-off .....

Right outside the Albany Police station in Pataki's CORRUPT CAPITAL .....

But notwithstanding those realities .....

WHICH ARE SO COMMONPLACE IN PATAKI'S CORRUPT CAPITAL of Albany, new York .....

That people accept them as the REALITY .....

Pataki and George W. Bush's crowd .....

Needed to really scare us .....

So they gave us this PATAKI STING ....

Where these couple of individuals .....

NOT LIKE US, OF COURSE ....

Since they are brown-skinned ....

And Muslims .....

Were arrested in the great big media event ....

For taking part, allegedly .....

IN SOMETHING THAT NEVER EVEN EXISTED .....

Which is kind of Orwellian on its face .....

But that notwithstanding as well .....

This case has been making its way, one-sidedly .....

Through the federal court system up here .....

WHICH FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM SEEMS MORE AND MORE ......

TO BE NOTHING MORE .....

THAN AN EXTENSION ....

OR AN APPENDAGE .....

OF GEORGE W. BUSH'S FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ....

WHICH IS ITSELF ...

AND EXTENSION ....

OR APPENDAGE .....

OF GEORGE W. BUSH HIMSELF ....

And so .....

Me, being an American .....

Who believes ....

That one of the things that separates ...

And differentiates ....

OUR America ....

From all these other nations on the face of the earth .....

And especially the TOTALITARIAN NATIONS ....

IS OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM ....

THAT SUPPOSEDLY GAVE US A FEDERAL JUDICIARY .....

THAT WAS NOT AN APPENDAGE OF THE PRESIDENT .....

BUT WAS INSTEAD SUPPOSED TO BE INDEPENDENT ....

WHICH IT NO LONGER APPEARS TO BE ....

AT LEAST FROM THE APPARENT CHARADE THAT IS GOING ON UP HERE ...

WHERE THE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR .....

AND THE COURT ....

ARE HAVING "SECRET" CONVERSATIONS BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THEMSELVES .....

AS IF THE FEDERAL COURT WERE A LITTLE "CLUBHOUSE" .....

FOR THEM ONLY .....

Well ...

Let's just say ....

For a lot of reasons ....

STARTING WITH THE BLATANT POLITICAL NATURE OF THIS CASE .....

AND ITS TIMING ...

COMING AS IT DID JUST BEFORE THE NOVEMBER 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ....

I have decided to "track" this case along in here .....

And to "OBSERVE" its iterations .....

And permutations .....

As it moves along .....

One of those PERMUTATIONS ....

At least in the pages of the Albany, New York Times Union .....

Being the CONVERSION ....

Of this Pakistani "informant" .....

An alleged CRIMINAL here in the State of New York ....

WHO IS WHAT IS KNOWN HERE IN OUR AMERICA .....

AS A "GOVERNMENT HUMP" .....

Into what is now being called, in this last Times Union article above here ....

A "CONFIDENTIAL FBI AGENT" .....

WHICH IS QUIT

POST ABOVE CONTINUED .....

When he was arrested in the State of New York in connection with a SCAM he was operating .....

Something to do with getting bogus New York State driver's licenses for people who did not deserve them .....

AND INSTEAD OF HIM GETTING HIS *** KICKED OUT OF OUR AMERICA .....

After serving his time, of course .....

Which he never did ....

THIS GOVERNMENT HUMP .....

WHO LIVES IN LOUDONVILLE, NEW YORK ...

Just outside of Albany .....

WHICH IS THE "RICH SECTION" ....

Of this area .....

Where doctors and lawyers live ....

ALONG WITH THIS GOVERNMENT HUMP ....

Well, the GOVERMENT HUMP .....

Appears to be doing quite well for himself .....

WITH THE SUPPORT OF GEORGE W. BUSH'S GOVERNMENT, ANYWAY ....

SINCE THE GOVERNMENT HUMP ....

AN ORDINARY CRIMINAL, HERE IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK ....

WAS NEVER DEPORTED ...

NEVER SERVED ANY TIME IN JAIL ....

GETS TO LIVE IN THE RICHEST PART OF THIS AREA ...

THAT BEING LOUDONVILLE ....

WHICH IS A PLACE REAL AMERICANS WHO DO ABIDE BY THE LAW UP HERE COULD NEVER AFFORD TO GET INTO ....

AND NOW ....

IS BEING CALLED AN FBI AGENT ....

BY GEORGE W. BUSH'S GOVERNMENT ....

WHICH APPARENTLY NOW WANTS US TO BELIEVE ....

THAT MAKING COMMON CRIMINALS ....

WHO AREN'T EVEN AMERICAN CITIZENS .....

INTO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT "AGENTS" .....

IN THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION .....

OF GEORGE W. BUSH'S FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE .....

IS SOMEHOW "GOOD" .....

FOR WHAT HE CALLS OUR "NATIONAL SECURITY" .....

And so ....

PLEASE ....

Pardom me for being overlong here .....

But as an American ...

This crap involving this Pakistani GOVERNMENT HUMP .....

WHO IS A COMMON CRIMINAL UP HERE ....

Being afforded this RED-CARPET TREATMENT .....

BY OUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT ....

JUST SEEMS TO STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN .....

WHEN THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT HUMP ....

WHO IS A COMMON CRIMINAL ....

Gets to live better ....

Than real Americans ....

Who have to work real jobs ...

And stay honest ....

UNLIKE THE GOVERNMENT HUMP ....

FOR THE OPPORTUNITY ....

TO LIVE EACH DAY OF THEIR LIVES ....

Here in OUR America ....

A lot worse off than this GOVERNMENT HUMP .....

WHO IS NOW AN FBI CONFIDENTIAL AGENT ....

DESPITE BEING A COMMON CRIMINAL ....

And so ....

The tragedy is that the macho militarism worked.

Saddam Hussein DID have a WMD. It was the Euro which, starting in September 2000, he readily accepted instead of US Dollars for his oil (Oil for Food Program).

The US dollar, which used to hold its world value because of the US manufactured products for which it could be exchanged, now was useful mainly for buying oil. In 1975, Kissinger cut a deal with OPEC making it the EXCLUSIVE means of payment, thus making the dollar which Nixon had just liberated from Gold backing an oil-backed currency.

If the macho-military allowed this atrocity to stand, with Iran and Venezuela also ready to switch over (and Russia thinking about it as well),

WHAT WOULD BECOME OF THE US DOLLAR???

A devaluation, like Argentina, to a level of maybe 25% of what it is now.

Ugly.

But it explains what they did, even tho they didn't explain the true reasons themselves. At least not to us.

And now, jeffmoskin ....

We are where we are ....

And so .....

And that brings me back up above here .....

To the PATAKI STING ....

Where if you are from up here .....

Where this all allegedly happened ....

Right down there on the mean streets of George Pataki's HELLHOLE ....

Of Albany, New York .....

Where people walking around with guns .....

And using them on other people .....

Is as common .....

As fleas on a mangy dog up here .......

TO NOW BELIEVE .....

A SINGLE WORD .....

THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IS SAYING IN CONNECTION WITH THIS MATTER .....

YOU LITERALLY HAVE TO SUSPEND BELIEF ITSELF .....

TO ARRIVE AT THAT JUNCTURE .....

And so .....

And to more fully understand ....

Or appreciate that statement .....

It is only necessary to go back to that day back in 2004 .....

WHEN THE GREAT BIG DEAL GO DOWN SING HALLELUJAH, SAY AMEN .....

The day the GREAT BIG ALBANY, NEW YORK TAY-RIZM BUST WENT DOWN .....

When the streets of Albany, New York ....

The CAPITAL of REPUBLICAN George Pataki's REPUBLICAN EMPIRE of New York ....

According to published media reports themselves .....

Were jam-packed, bumper-to-bumper-to-bumper, on and on and on ....

With media buses and vans of every description ....

All jockeying and vying for a vantage point .....

To record every detail possible of these TAY-RIZM arrests that were about to take place .....

And there was George Pataki .....

Telling all the world .....

Not just parochial Albany ....

BUT LITERALLY ....

The whole wide world ....

That George W. Bush had just foiled a plan .....

A FAKE PLAN, IN ACTUALITY ....

ALTHOUGH PATAKI NEVER LET ON ABOUT THAT, AT FIRST, ANYWAY ....

To kill the Pakistani Ambassador to the U.N. .....

WITH A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT-ISSUED STINGER GROUND-TO-AIR SHOULDER-FIRED MISSLE ....

WHICH THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IS NOW GOING TO PROVE ....

IN FEDERAL COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ....

IS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION ....

THIS PROOF COMING HARD ON THE HEELS, OF COURSE ....

OF WORLD-WIDE KNOWLEDGE ...

THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ITSELF .....

PROLIFERATED THE BE-JAYSUS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN WITH THESE SAME STINGER MISSLES .....

BACK WHEN IT WANTED AFGHANI MUJAHEDEEN TO SHOOT DOWN RUSSIAN HELICOPTERS WITH THEM ....

WHICH HAS THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ARGUING TODAY, THEN ...

THAT BACK THEN, THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WAS KNOWINGLY AND WILLFULLY PUTTING WMD'S IN THE HANDS OF TERRORISTS ....

IN AFGHANISTAN ....

WHICH POLICY HAS NOW COME BACK TODAY ....

TO BITE US RIGHT IN THE *** ....

But anyway ....

THIS WORLD-WIDE BROADCAST BY PATAKI .....

BACK THEN ....

IN 2004 ....

WAS HEARD BY THE REAL PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. ....

WHO APPARENTLY BECAME QUITE UPSET ....

THAT HE WAS GOING TO BE THE VICTIM .....

OF A SHOULDER-FIRED MISSLE .....

THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT .....

HAD ITSELF PLACED IN THE HANDS OF THESE ALLEGED TAY-RISTS .....

WHICH PROTESTATION BY THE PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR ....

FORCED THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE .....

TO COME BACK AND HAVE TO SAY ...

PUBLICLY ....

THAT THE STINGER THIS PAKISTANI "HUMP" OF THEIRS .....

WAS SCHLEPING AROUND THE STREETS OF ALBANY .....

LIKE IT WAS A VIOLIN, OR SOMETHING ...

IN ITS GREAT BIG CARRYING CASE ....

AND ALLEGEDLY SHOWING OFF TO THESE ALLEGED TAY-RISTS ....

AS THE WEAPON HE WAS GOING TO KILL THIS PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR WITH ......

WAS NOT REALLY REAL ....

IT WAS A DUMMY THAT REALLY COULDN'T BE FIRED ...

AND SO ...

THE PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR'S LIFE WAS NEVER REALLY IN DANGER .....

And on ....

And on ....

And on ....

From there ....

A FARCE .....

As defense attorney Terry Kindlon said a long time ago .....

Right after all the media people were openly talking about getting scammed themselves in this one ......

"THE WHEELS CAME OFF THIS PUPPY, RIGHT AWAY ..."

And so they did .....

And it was a comedy of errors .....

THAT TO BE "GOOD" AMERICANS TODAY ....

IN 2006 .....

WE ARE SUPPOSED TO NOW ....

"NOT REMEMBER" ....

WHAT REALLY DID HAPPEN IN 2004 ...

ACCORDING TO PUBLISHED MEDIA ACCOUNTS ....

WHICH WERE AS A DIRECT RESULT .....

OF A MEDIA FRENZY .....

THAT WAS ORCHESTRATED ....

BY REPUBLICAN NEW YORK STATE GOVERNOR GEORGE PATAKI .....

AND THE OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY ....

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK .....

SAID MEDIA FRENZY ....

IN CONNECTION WITH THIS ALLEGED "TAY-RAH PLOT" ....

TO KILL THE PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR ....

WITH A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT-ISSUED STINGER MISSLE .....

BEING WHIPPED UP ....

BY PATAKI ....

TO GAIN PARTISAN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE FOR GEORGE W. BUSH ....

GOING INTO THE NOVEMBER 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ....

And today .....

We are asked to treat all of that ....

As if it never happened .....

And accept ...

Which is to say ...

PRETEND ....

That something totally different ...

Happened instead ....

Although what that might have been ....

Is a secret .....

That we can apparently never know .....

As we the people of this federal court district ....

Are asked to convict these two men, anyway .....

Despite our knowledge of what really did happen that day ....

When the GREAT BIG DEAL went down ....

And so ....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 5, 2004

SCHUMER: ALBANY ARRESTS ARE WARNING SHOT ON SHOULDER-HELD MISSILES

FBI sting in NY State Capital this morning shows terrorists as desperate as ever to get hands on shoulder-mounted missiles to take down jetliners.

White House has slow-walked Stinger response when strong action is needed.

Schumer - with Senator Boxer - has led charge in Senate to equip every commercial jetliner with anti-Stinger technology – plan pays by itself with Star Wars funds but is being blocked by White House ideologues.

US Senator US Senator Charles Schumer today took the White House to task for slow-walking its response to the threat from shoulder-fired missiles to commercial airliners.

This morning’s arrests of two Albany men for attempting to purchase a Stinger missile – coming almost one year after a similar bust in northern New Jersey – shows that shows terrorists as desperate as ever to get their hands on these portable weapons to take down jetliners.

“Even though no real Stinger was found, there arrests should still be a shot across the bow for the Administration, because it shows just how anxious terrorists are to get their hands on a shoulder-held missile,” Schumer said.

“The bottom line is that next time the threat could be real."

"The fact that we could already have started to equip every jetliner in the US with a Stinger defense system without spending a single dollar in new money – but instead have done next to nothing – boggles the mind.”

Since January 2003, Schumer - Chair of the Senate Democratic Task Force on National Security - and Senator Boxer have been pushing to equip every commercial jetliner in the United States with anti-stinger technology at a cost of approximately $1 million per plane.

In February 2003, Schumer co-sponsored the Commercial Airline Missile Defense Act, legislation that requires all commercial airliners to be equipped with missile defense systems and directs the Secretary of Transportation to purchase this technology and make it available to all air carriers.

Their plan would pay for itself by taking the funds for this equipment out of the $80 billion Star Wars missile defense system, but it has been blocked by a White House that is seen as unwilling to tap into Star Wars funds on ideological grounds.

Instead, the White House is only in the early stages of a preliminary Stingers plan that would not protect a single jetliner for years.

Had the Schumer/Boxer plan been initiated when first proposed, the conversion of the nation’s jetliner fleet would already be nearly completed.

Hundreds of shoulder-fired missiles are readily available on the black market and US intelligence suggests that at least 26 terrorist groups around the world possess these weapons.

General John Handy of the United States Transportation Command has said that, in the war on terror, shoulder fired missiles pose “perhaps the greatest threat that we face anywhere in the world.”

When Admiral James Loy – now the number two Homeland Security official in the United States – was in charge of the Transportation Security Administration, he echoed this assessment stating, “the potential for actual attacks is very real.”

There are reportedly as many as 3,700 to 10,000 handheld missiles from Saddam Hussein’s arsenal that remain unaccounted for in Iraq despite the efforts to collect them.

The missiles can be sold on the black market for a far higher price – some reports say $5,000 for a single one – than the $500 reward reportedly being offered by the military for each missile, making it unlikely that all the missiles will be recovered.

Two leaders of a mosque in Albany were arrested early this morning on charges stemming from an plot to purchase a shoulder-fired missile that would be used to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador in New York, according to court papers filed today.

Fears of an attack on American soil involving shoulder-launched missiles have increased since the terrorist attack in late 2002 on an Israeli passenger plane in Kenya in which terrorists used a Soviet-made Strela shoulder-launched missile.

Soon after, US intelligence officials alerted airliners and law enforcement agencies that terrorists had smuggled shoulder-fired Stinger and SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles into the United States.

The alert came after a Saudi security officer found an abandoned SA-7 missile launcher near a desert air force base used by US forces near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

This news was especially disturbing since Al Qaeda and Hezbollah both possess SA-7 and Stinger missiles, according Jane's Intelligence Review.

In November 2003, an Illinois National Guard Chinook helicopter in Iraq was shot down using a shoulder mounted missile, killing 16 soldiers including the pilot.

Subsequent investigations showed that this helicopter had only a basic anti-missile system and had not been upgraded to a more effective system.

Also in November 2003, an Airbus jet belonging to the German courier service DHL made an emergency landing in Iraq after being fired upon by a surface-to-air missile.

DHL temporarily suspended service to the war zone after this event.

“If the terrorists got off even a single shot at a jetliner taking off or landing in the US – air traffic would come to a standstill – and our economy would quickly follow,” Schumer said.

end quotes

The GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .....

Allegedly OUR government .....

IS THE OWNER ....

AND SOLE POSSESSOR .....

AND CREATOR .....

OF ALL THE STINGER MISSLES IN THE WORLD ...

SO IF THE TAY-RISTS .....

AND AL-QAIDA ....

HAVE STINGERS ....

THE ONLY PLACE THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN THEM FROM .....

IS FROM THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT .....

And so .....

NOW THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ...

HAS CREATED A CREDIBLE THREAT ....

TO COMMERICAL AIR TRAFFIC ....

BY PUTTING THESE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ....

IN THE HANDS OF TAY-RISTS .....

HERE COMES CHARLEY SCHUMER ....

ON BEHALF OF SOME CONTRACTOR ....

OR OTHER ...

WHO IS PEDDLING THIS SECURITY SYSTEM ....

TO COUNTER THE THREAT OF THESE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT-ISSUED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ....

And so ...

Isn't capitalism just the finest thing there ever was?

INVENT THE DISEASE .....

PROLIFERATE THE DISEASE ....

AS A COST OF DOING BID-NESS ....

THEN MAKE YOUR REAL KILLING ....

SELLING THE CURE ....

WITH THE HELP OF THE CHARLEY "CHUCK" SCHUMER'S OF THE WORLD ....

And so .....

http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebs...gers080504.html

"2 Men Snared In Missile Sting"

ALBANY, N.Y., Aug. 5, 2004

FILM COVERAGE - Yassin Aref, left, the imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, one of the mosque's founders are taken into custody. (WCBS)

Quote

"The investigation has been going on for a year and is not related to the Bush administration's decision earlier this week to raise the terror alert level for certain financial sector buildings in New York and Washington, the officials said."

(CBS/AP) Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., have been arrested in an alleged plot involving a scheme to buy a shoulder-fired missile, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Court papers filed in the case alleged that the weapon was to be used to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador at that country's consulate across from the United Nations in New York.

The two men — identified as Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, one of the mosque's founders — were arrested on Wednesday night in a government-run "sting" operation, Deputy Attorney General James Comey told a Justice Department news conference.

Two U.S. law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the two men have ties to a group which has been linked to the al Qaeda terror network.

The New York Times reported a top U.S. official said the sting and arrests were intended to send "a disrupting message" to those who might be plotting terror attacks, but that there was no real terrorist plot."

"This is not a case where the defendants were discovered plotting terrorist violence," James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, said at a news conference, according to the Times.

"The terrorist plot in this case is one that the government's agent, the cooperating witness, represented to be under way."

"It was not real."

The alleged al Qaeda link was not mentioned in legal papers, however, and Comey said he could not comment on it, although he said the pair's background might be brought up by the government later at a detention hearing.

The two are being charged with providing material support to terrorism by participating in a conspiracy to help someone they believed was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile.

The person was in fact a convicted felon working undercover for the government to reduce his prison sentence for document fraud, officials said.

The informant, a non-U.S. citizen, told the men he was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammed, an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

According to court records, the informant told the pair that the missile would be used to mount an attack on the Pakistani consulate across the street from the United Nations.

The target would be the Pakistani ambassador.

No missile ever changed hands.

Both suspects face up to 70 years in prison and a $750,000, said Comey in a statement.

"Today's charges represent our commitment to infiltrate and expose those who seek to do us harm or to facilitate those who seek to harm our homeland," Comey said.

"It is our hope that today's arrests will give pause to anyone considering terrorist activity and cause them to question whether their accomplice is not really one of our agents in the field."

Among the charges were allegations of money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism.

The Albany case was not related to the Bush administration's terror alerts over the weekend indicating that al Qaeda may be plotting attacks against U.S. financial buildings, officials said.

Some have criticized the decision to issue the warning, which was largely based on intelligence that was several years old.

Some mosque members held morning prayers Thursday on a nearby sidewalk and voiced anger over the arrests.

"This, we believe, is an act of … bias and stereotyping - an undo scrutiny of the Muslim community," Faisal Ahmad, a worshipper at the mosque, tells CBS Radio News.

"It is certainly difficult on the Muslim community to have these type of investigations, especially in the middle of the night, and to come and find their house of worship closed for prayers.

"Unscheduled visits in the middle of the night are really difficult for the Muslim community and create a lot of fear."

Concerns about terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles to take down commercial airliners were heightened in November 2002 when two SA-7 missiles narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.

It's believed al Qaeda probably was behind the attack, which coincided with a bomb blast at a nearby hotel.

Last November, a shoulder-fired missile struck a DHL cargo plane at Baghdad International Airport, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.

The Homeland Security Department has contracted with three companies to develop plans for anti-missile systems that could be used to defend U.S. commercial planes against shoulder-fired rockets.

It's estimated that it would cost about $1 million per plane to install anti-missile systems.

There are about 6,800 planes in the U.S. commercial fleet.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to pursue the technology, citing the cost and noting that other security measures adopted since the Sept. 11 attacks have diminished the threat against aircraft.

Last August, three men accused in a plot to smuggle shoulder-fired missiles that could shoot down a commercial airliner were arrested in New York and New Jersey after an international sting operation.

In the sting, the men allegedly tried to sell a dummy Russian-made SA-18 Igla missile to undercover agents posing as terrorists.

Although weapons experts say the Igla is the most sophisticated, accurate and difficult-to-obtain portable rocket, there are other choices for terrorists, including hundreds of American-made Stinger shoulder-fired missiles the United States sold to Afghanistan in the 1980s.

There are also thousands of a class of missile known in the West as the SA-7 Grail and in Russia as the Strela, or Arrow, which have been produced in Russia, Eastern Europe, China, the former Yugoslavia, Egypt and other countries.

Some have sold for as little as $500, according to U.S. intelligence.

They tend to weigh just 35 to 40 pounds, and their 5-foot tubes are compact enough to be easily concealed in a large duffel bag.

Although their performance varies depending on the type, the missiles tend to have a minimum range of 600 yards and a maximum of roughly 3 miles, and can hit airborne targets ranging from 50 feet to 10,000 feet.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/05/...ain634339.shtml

end quotes

Ah, yes ...

The fruits of capitalism ....

Develop a disease ....

With government funding, of course ....

PROLIFERATE THE DISEASE ....

With government sponsorship ....

And aid ...

And assistance .....

And backing ....

And financial support ....

And then ...

With government assistance ....

And financial support ....

MAKE A KILLING .....

OFF OF SELLING THE CURE ....

And so ...

http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2004/08...y_mosque_r.html

Thursday, August 05, 2004

"Albany Mosque Raided In Terror Plot Sting"

New York's WCBS News 88 reports that last night federal agents raid mosque in Albany.

The radio stations's broadcast stated the raid involved a sting operation concerning the purchase of shoulder fired missiles.

The written reports don't mention that, but News 88 said their reporter had exclusive information.

According to the Associated Press:

Federal agents and city police raided a Muslim mosque overnight Wednesday, with armed officers sealing off a block in downtown Albany for several hours.

Authorities declined to immediately discuss the raid at Masjid As-Salam mosque.

An FBI spokesman said a press conference was tentatively set Thursday afternoon in Washington.

Some mosque members held morning prayers Thursday on a nearby sidewalk.

WTEN-TV reported two men were arrested and are suspected of providing material support for terrorism.

Calls to the U.S. attorney's office were not immediately returned.

That press conference may be interesting.

UPDATE: CBS News reports:

Two men were arrested in Albany, N.Y. early Thursday on suspicion of planning to buy shoulder-launched stinger missles, CBS News has learned.

The men, Yassim Muhhidin Aref, 34 yr, Imam of the Majid Al Salam mosque; and Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, 49, founder of the mosque, are suspected of ties to the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports.

The arrests were the result of a long-running FBI operation.

The arrests may have been ordered because one of the men purchased a plane ticket.

There was not report of any link to the current U.S. terror alert.

The men allegedly sought help from a confidential informant and were attempting to launder money to purchase shoulder-launching stingers.

UPDATE II: The Associated Press reports that the men who were arrested have ties to Ansar al-Islam.

The men have ties to a group called Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to al-Qaida, according to two federal law enforcement authorities speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials have said that Ansar's members are thought to be affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.

The arrests came as FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences late Wednesday and early Thursday.

The men were identified as Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, one of the mosque's founders.

Ansar al-Islam is a radical extremist group of Iraqi Kurds and Arabs formed in September 2001.

The group was active in northern Iraq, and has been declared a terrorist organization by the State Department.

The group is thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Although it is not clear from the reports, the missle may have been sought for use against an airliner.

Last year, a British arms dealer, arrested in New Jersey, was charged with trying to sell a shoulder-fired to an undercover agent posing as a Muslim terrorist bent on shooting down a U.S. airliner.

The government should move more quickly on equipping airliners with defenses against stingers.

A successful "virtual" test of an airliner defense system was coducted last month.

Last October it was reported that Israel had installed defenses on some of El Al's airliners.

The estimated cost of installing a defense, a million dollars per plane, is staggering, but it isn't as much as the cost to the airlines in lost traffic if an airliner is shot down by the evildoers.

UPDATE III: According to this Associated Press report the stinger would be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York.

Jeff Quinton at Backcountry Conservative is all over this story and has rounded up other blogs posting about it.

"Imam's missile-plot defense: All a joke!"

BY GREG B. SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref is led out of Albany Federal Court after being denied bail yesterday as co-defendant in money-laundering sting by FBI informant.

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing.

Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States."

They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store.

That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court in the successful bid to deny bail to Aref and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, a pizzeria owner and co-founder of the imam's mosque.

Prosecutors charge both men helped launder $50,000 for what they thought was an arms dealer selling his wares to terrorists.

The dealer was really an FBI informant who allegedly told the duo the missile was to be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York City.

Aref's lawyer, Terry Kindlon, claimed the imam believed the missile plot was a joke and did not think he was doing anything other than witnessing a legitimate financial transaction.

"He heard the reference to a missile and he thought they were joking," Kindlon said.

Kindlon said the informant only referred to the missile twice when talking with Aref - and in one encounter, the imam seemed skeptical and demanded to know if the informant was recording the conversation.

The informant insisted he was not, and even raised his shirt, a reaction that caused both men to laugh.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney David Grable tied Aref to a notebook found by soldiers in June 2003 at a terrorist group's camp in northern Iraq.

Grable did not identify the group but sources say it's Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish group that has ties to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

In the camp, soldiers found rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired missiles and other weapons, Grable said.

The book contains an Albany address that Aref says was his five years ago, and next to it was the phrase "Commander Yassin United States" in Arabic, Grable said.

When questioned by the FBI, Aref claimed "he's never been in the military and does not know why his name is in the book," Grable said.

He also revealed Aref had mailed a package using a false name, and possessed a Syrian ID in his name that was valid through 2007.

Aref contends he's an Iraqi citizen who fled to the U.S. seeking refuge from Saddam Hussein's regime.

Prosecutors alleged Aref also made $15,000 to $18,000 in wire transfers to northern Iraq.

Kindlon insisted the money was going to Aref's three brothers who still live there.

Authorities said Aref recently applied to travel to Iraq this December.

His lawyer counted the imam was merely planning to visit relatives.

Originally published on August 11, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/221079p-189988c.html

FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED, YOU DECIDE

"Feds Nab Two in Albany, N.Y., Mosque Raid"

Thursday, August 05, 2004

ALBANY, N.Y. — Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were arrested Thursday and charged with helping an undercover informant posing as a weapons dealer who was plotting to buy a shoulder-launched missile that would be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York City.

Yassin Muhhiddin Aref, 34, the Imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, the 49-year-old founder of the mosque and owner of the local Little Italy Pizzeria, were arrested early Thursday morning at their homes.

The person they were allegedly collaborating with was not a terrorist but an informant participating in a sting operation; no missile ever was exchanged.

"The fact is, there are terrorists among us who want to engage in acts to attack us again and take away our freedom," Gov. George Pataki said in a news conference Thursday.

"Our government, our administration in Washington … and local officials are taking this threat to our freedom very seriously and will continue to be aggressive and proactive against those who would wish to do us harm."

The arrests were in large part due to tips from the public, Pataki and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said.

Within the past two years, there have been several arrests in the Buffalo and Syracuse areas of people suspected of having terror ties, including the so-called Lackawanna Six.

"Ultimately, this war against terror … depends on the eyes and ears of the people of America and the people of New York," Pataki said.

Saying the tipsters "know who they are," Jennings said:

"We want people to feel good about what happened today because we are on top of it, we are being proactive … to make sure our communities are safe."

The suspects' wives denied the men were involved in any terror plot.

"It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie," Hossain's wife, Mossamat, said in a telephone interview.

Authorities said the men were paid $65,000 in checks and cash to purchase a missile and disguise the source of the money involved.

The men are charged money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism.

Both could face up to 70 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

U.S. Magistrate David Homer ordered the men held without bail pending a hearing on Tuesday.

The men may also have ties to terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network, according to law enforcement officials.

However, that link was not noted in court documents.

Ansar al-Islam has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, kidnappings and killings in Iraq, and has ties to the U.S.-led coalition's most-wanted terrorist there, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey declined to discuss any alleged ties but said more information about their backgrounds may come out in court proceedings.

The FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences.

Officials said the arrests have nothing to do with the U.S. government raising the terror alert level for New York, Washington, D.C., and Northern New Jersey on Sunday.

The informant told the men he was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed), an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

According to court records, the informant told the pair that the missile would be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York.

Hossain then allegedly referred to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as an "idiot" and a "bastard."

The men were picked up Thursday morning because of law enforcement's concern that they were flight risks; one of the men reportedly tried to buy a plane ticket recently.

The investigation has been going on for a year, officials said, and several searches in the Albany area related to Thursday's arrests are being conducted.

Comey stressed to reporters Thursday afternoon that the case is not connected to the current terrorist threat and the men charged weren't necessarily plotting terrorist violence.

"This is not the case of the century," he said.

"That does not mean, however, that this is not an important case ..."

"We hope it will send a disrupting message to those out there who might be plotting to harm this country ... our agents and informants are putting a full-court press on in this country and around the world."

Although Comey was questioned as to whether Aref and Hossain were entrapped for no good reason, the government official said there is more to the story that will soon be revealed.

"We believe there was ample predication for this investigation ... this is a good case, a solid case, and it sends a message," Comey said.

A detention hearing for the suspects likely will be held next week, Comey added.

The Charges

The criminal complaint against the mosque leaders was filed Thursday in federal court in Albany.

They are officially accused of attempting to launder money and conspiring to launder money from illegal activity to fund the purchase and use of a weapon of mass destruction.

The criminal complaint says that during the summer of 2003, when the probe began, the FBI monitored and recorded most of the conversations between the FBI's informant and Aref and Hossain.

The conversations were mostly in Urdu between Hossain and the informant; the conversations between the informant and Aref were mostly in English.

According to the complaint, the informant had helped Hossain get his brother a fake New York state driver's permit, and the two got to talking about jihad, or holy war.

The informant asked whether money could be made by jihad; Hossain first said no, then possibly and asked for a loan.

The government says that in November, the informant showed Hossain a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile and told Hossain that he imports weapons from China to New York City.

The informant said Hossain smiled when he saw the missile and said that he had never seen such a weapon before except on television.

The informant also said that Hossain said a lot of money could be made from such an importation.

During a December conversation in Hossain's pizzeria, the informant proposed that Hossain take $50,000 in cash proceeds from the missile importation, then repay $45,000 of that by writing the informant monthly $2,000 checks and keeping the remaining $5,000 for himself.

"After initially indicating that he did not need that much money, Hossain agreed to the proposal," the complaint charges.

Hossain allegedly then said that he could make it appear that the proceeds of the missile importation had been generated through Hossain's rental properties.

On Dec. 5, Hossain told the informant he had been questioned by FBI agents about others around Albany; they discussed having Aref as a witness to the transactions and Hossain allegedly said Aref is "not afraid of anything."

"He's only afraid of God."

On Dec. 10, the informant met with Aref and Hossain and discussed the operation for "brother mujahadiin."

They wrote down the details of the transaction.

They met again on Jan. 2 to allegedly consummate the deal.

Hossain wrote the information down and Aref signed as a witness.

Money was continuously changing hands.

On Jan. 14, the informant told Aref that he was working with Jaish-e-Mohammed and that the purpose of the missile was to teach Musharraf a lesson.

Aref said the Jaish-e-Mohammed are working for Allah and "it is wise for you to help them if you can."

The informant cited had been previously arrested in Albany and had pleaded guilty to a felony related to the fraudulent acquisition of documents.

The informant, not a U.S. citizen, is cooperating in the hopes of getting a reduced sentence and has provided information leading to other arrests.

Proud to Be an American?

Some mosque members held morning prayers Thursday on a nearby sidewalk; they weren't allowed to enter the building, which is located at 276 Central Ave. near the corner of N. Lake Ave., just a few blocks from Washington Park.

The mosque's name means "house of peace."

Hossain, who emigrated from Bangladesh in 1985, worked as a dishwasher in diners before saving up enough money to open his own pizzeria in downtown Albany in 1994.

In a recent interview with the Albany Times Union, the married father of five said it was his dream to come to America.

He also said he's "proud to be an American."

Mossamat Hossain said in a phone interview that more than a half-dozen agents stormed the family's apartment at about 1:30 a.m., just as her husband returned from New York City, where he had gone to buy a plane ticket to Bangladesh for her mother.

Aref's wife, Zuhor Jalal, said the FBI came to her home about 2 a.m. and told her they had her husband in custody.

They took her and her three young children to a hotel and then searched their home.

Jalal said she and her husband are natives of Kurdistan and lived in Syria for five years before coming to America.

"We come for freedom and job," she said.

Concerns about terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles to take down commercial airliners were heightened in November 2002 when two SA-7 missiles narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.

It's believed Al Qaeda probably was behind the attack.

Last November, a shoulder-fired missile struck a cargo plane at Baghdad International Airport, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.

Estimates put the number of such missiles around the world at 750,000, and they're easy to obtain on the black market.

The arrests were the second such get for law enforcement when it comes to shoulder-fired missiles.

Hemant S. Lakhani, 68, was arrested last August after he tried to buy an anti-aircraft missile in Newark from an undercover agent working with the FBI.

Lakhani thought he was dealing with a man representing a Somali terrorist group.

Prosecutors said more than 150 covertly recorded conversations prove that the Indian-born British citizen was trying to deal arms to terrorists.

Also arrested in August were Yehuda Abraham, 76, a New York diamond dealer, and an Indian citizen, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, 38.

FOX News' Liza Porteus, Anna Stolley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128088,00.html

"2 mosque officials held in sting"

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

August 6, 2004

Two officials at an Albany, N.Y., mosque have been arrested in a sting operation for trying to help purchase a shoulder-fired missile to assassinate a top Pakistani diplomat in New York, authorities said yesterday.

Yassin Aref, 34, imam at the Masjid As-Salam mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, a mosque founder, were taken into custody Wednesday night by FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Arrested after a yearlong undercover investigation, the men are suspected as having ties to a radical Islamic group known as Ansar al-Islam, or "Soldiers of Islam," named in connection with the 2001 assassination of Franso Hariri, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the attempted killing of Burhan Salih, head of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government.

U.S. intelligence officials have said members of Ansar al-Islam are believed to be affiliated with Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Islamic militant at the center of attacks on U.S. military forces in Iraq.

The Ansar al-Islam connection is not mentioned in a criminal complaint filed in the case and Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who announced the arrests, declined to comment on it.

"Today's charges represent our commitment to infiltrate and expose those who seek to do us harm or to facilitate those who seek to harm our homeland," said Mr. Comey.

"It is our hope that today's arrests will give pause to anyone considering terrorist activity and cause them to question whether their accomplice is not really one of our agents in the field."

FBI and ICE agents took the men into custody while executing search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences.

They are accused of providing material support to terrorism in a scheme to help someone they believed was a terrorist buy the shoulder-fired missile.

The buyer was a convicted felon working as an undercover informant for the government.

No missiles were purchased or delivered.

"The terrorist plot in this case is one that the government's agent, the cooperating witness, represented to be under way."

"It was not real," Mr. Comey said.

"This case is a sting, a sting in which the government offered two men the opportunity to assist someone who they believed was a terrorist facilitator, supplying weapons to be used to commit terrorist acts."

Authorities said the arrests were not related to warnings issued over the weekend about possible new terrorist attacks in the United States.

Records show the informant approached Mr. Hossain in November, telling him he was affiliated with a Pakistani Islamic group known as Jaish-e-Mohammed and sought to purchase a shoulder-fired missile to kill the Pakistani consul general in New York.

Several meetings were secretly audio and videotaped by authorities.

An affidavit by FBI Agent Timothy Coll said the informant told Mr. Hossain he imported weapons and ammunition from China and he received $50,000 from the sale of each missile.

During a meeting at an Albany pizzeria owned by Mr. Hossain, the affidavit said, the informant offered Mr. Hossain $50,000 to launder on the informant's behalf with the understanding that Mr. Hossain could keep $5,000.

The affidavit said Mr. Hossain agreed to make it appear he had earned the money from rental properties.

Mr. Hossain then recruited Mr. Aref, the affidavit said, to witness the laundering transactions.

Mr. Comey said Mr. Hossain and Mr. Aref received $40,000 and returned to the informant $25,000 in checks for the bogus missile transactions.

Both men remained in custody yesterday.

A detention hearing is scheduled for next week.

The Washington D.C.-based Council on American Islamic Relations yesterday described the suspected scheme as "deeply troubling," adding that it should not be used to associate all American Muslims with violence.

"We strongly support any legal efforts to ensure the safety and security of our nation," the organization said in a statement.

"The alleged actions of individuals should not be used to tar an entire community with the brush of terrorism."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20...13249-5882r.htm

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Religion of peace? I'm not so sure"

The two men arrested in Albany for allegedly taking part in a terrorist plot were men of God.

So friends and neighbors have been telling reporters.

Mohammed Mosharref Hossain was a pillar of the local congregation.

Yassin Muhiddin Aref was a prayer leader.

They called their mosque the House of Peace.

The mosque belongs to the North American Islamic Trust, which runs many other mosques in the U.S.

The trust is funded mostly by the Saudis.

It has other enterprises, too, including a book club.

One of its featured offerings is "Jihad: A Commitment to World Peace."

Or if you are not a reader, you can express commitment to jihad in action.

Like the Albany warriors who, the government charges, signed up to help gun down a senior Pakistani diplomat on the streets of New York City, using a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile.

The upstate jihadis are not unique.

On the contrary, they are just the latest in a long and growing list of local Islamic "spiritual leaders" and national Muslim leaders who have been implicated in terrorist activity.

Take Abdurahman Alamoudi, for example, founder of the American Muslim Council (hailed in 2002 by FBI chief Robert Mueller as "the most mainstream Muslim group" in the U.S.).

Alamoudi faces up to 23 years in prison for "engaging in illegal business deals" with Libya.

What kind of deals?

According to court documents, he was part of a plot to murder the Saudi crown prince.

Then there are the three leaders of America's largest Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation.

They are awaiting trial in Dallas on a 42-count federal indictment for funneling millions of dollars to Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East.

The head of another major Islamic charity, Benevolence International Foundation of Illinois, was recently convicted of sending funds to Islamic terrorist groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.

And so on and so forth.

At this point, I'm supposed to add The Caveat: Most American Muslims are peaceable, law-abiding, terror-hating folks.

Islam itself is a "religion of peace."

Sorry, but I'm no longer convinced.

It may be that Islam in its true form is as gentle as a lamb.

But in the real world, it is an aggressive, violent political ideology.

It may also be that a majority of U.S. Muslims object to the jihad being waged against infidel Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, agnostics and democrats of all denominations.

But if so, they are keeping it to themselves.

After Abdurahman Alamoudi's confession of guilt, his lawyer, Stanley Cohen, warned that "there are those people who will seek to manipulate this plea into an attack on the entire Muslim community."

The Muslim establishment in America uses this form of intellectual jujitsu every time one of its leaders gets caught conducting holy war.

Mosques and Muslim schools and institutions are hotbeds of agitation and terrorism?

Why, just making the charge is a hate crime.

This trick has worked amazingly well on Americans who pride themselves on pluralism and good manners.

For years, it kept the feds away from mosques and the politicians insisting against all evidence that Islam is nothing more than another path to the God of Us All.

But almost three years after 9/11, this hocus pocus is losing its potency.

"There are terrorists among us," Gov. Pataki said after the Albany jihadis were arrested.

He didn't specify because he didn't need to.

If America's Muslims don't want to be identified with America's enemies, they are going to need new leaders and loud voices.

Slapping the word "peace" over the door of the mosque just isn't going to do it anymore.

Zev Chafets was born and raised in Pontiac, Mich. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he moved to Jerusalem, where he spent 33 years in politics, government and journalism. Chafets is a founding editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine and the author of nine books of fiction, media criticism and social and political commentary. His column in the Daily News began running in the fall of 2000. He now lives in the New York area.

E-mail: zchafets @yahoo.com

Originally published on August 7, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/...8p-189096c.html

And as the fruits of a whole lot of lies told to us ...

Here in OUR America ....

By this BUSHCO REGIME .....

Become ripe for the plucking ....

Woe unto them ...

That bought into those lies .....

As if they were some type of truth ....

And so ...

"Death penalty recommended in Iraq raid"

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer

37 minutes ago

An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in a raid in Iraq should face the death penalty, according to a report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

Lt. Col. James P. Daniel Jr. concluded that the slayings were premeditated and warranted the death sentence based on evidence he heard at an August hearing.

The case will now be forwarded to Army officials, who will decide whether Daniel's recommendation should be followed.

The soldiers, all from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, are accused of killing three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 on a marshy island outside Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett and Spc. Juston R. Graber have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during the raid on the island.

According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaida training camp.

Hunsaker told investigators that he and Clagett were attacked by the three men, who were being handcuffed, and shot them in self-defense.

Clagett said he was hit in the face, and Hunsaker claimed he was stabbed during the attack.

Prosecutors argue the soldiers conspired to kill the men and then altered the scene to fit their story.

They contend Girouard stabbed Hunsaker as part of the killing plot.

Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker also are accused of threatening to kill another soldier who witnessed the slayings.

Girouard, the most senior soldier charged, faces several additional charges, including sexual harassment and carrying a personal weapon on duty.

Paul Bergrin, Clagett's civilian attorney, said he was surprised that Daniel recommended the case be taken to trial at all.

"I'm extremely disappointed and disheartened," Bergrin said Saturday.

"They are being used as pawns in the war on terror."

"They followed the rules of engagement."

"They were confronted with violence by a known al-Qaida training camp member."

Other lawyers in the case, several of whom are deployed to Iraq, did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment.

The soldiers are expected to be tried at Fort Campbell.

They have been jailed in Kuwait since their arrests this year.

The U.S. military has not executed a soldier since the 1960 hanging of a soldier convicted rape and attempted murder.
___

Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell, the El Paso, Texas, correspondent, reported this story from Glendale, Ariz.

"Error In Albany 'Terror' Case"

ALBANY, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2004

Quote

"It doesn't change their behavior."

"It doesn't change the significance of where this notebook was found."

- U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby

(CBS/AP) A key piece of evidence against a jailed mosque leader accused of supporting terrorism has come into question, with federal prosecutors acknowledging that a note found in a terrorist camp may have been mistranslated.

Yassin Muhiddin Aref is charged with aiding a government informant in a sting operation involving a fake plot to buy a shoulder-fired missile to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat.

The translation discrepancy stems from a notebook that the FBI said was found in a terrorist camp in northern Iraq last summer.

The indictment said an entry in Arabic script referred to Aref as a "commander" and listed his former address and phone number in Albany.

However, FBI translators now have a copy of the original entry and disagree with the earlier conclusion, saying the word was in the Kurdish language, not Arabic, and actually means "brother," prosecutors told the judge in a letter.

Aref is the imam of the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany.

Also charged earlier this month in the sting operation was Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49, one of the mosque's founders.

The notebook was cited last week by Magistrate David Homer as part of his rationale for refusing to set bail for Aref.

Defense attorneys say the translation error undermines the entire government case, and that both men should get out on bail.

"It's a travesty," lawyer Terence Kindlon said.

U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby said authorities are not yet sure which translation is correct, but said it doesn't change the case.

"It doesn't change their behavior."

"It doesn't change the significance of where this notebook was found," he said Tuesday.

Aref, a native of Kurdistan, and Hossain, who is from Bangladesh, face up to 70 years in prison if convicted.

Also Tuesday, prosecutors said they would try to restrict the release of some information relating to the case.

"The United States believes that disclosure of this material would raise issues of national security that the court should address before any of this material is provided to the defense," Suddaby said in a court filing.

Under the Classified Information Procedures Act, the government can ask to submit only summaries of classified evidence.

If the court refuses but the attorney general insists, the government can keep the material secret.

According to an FBI affidavit, the men laundered money for the purchase of the launcher they were told would be used to assassinate the ambassador at the Pakistani consulate across from the United Nations in New York.

The murder supposedly was meant to punish the Pakistani government for cooperating with non-Muslims.

In fact, there was no such plot.

The purchase of the RPG-7 grenade launcher and the assassination scheme were fabrications put forth by a convicted felon who was secretly cooperating with federal prosecutors to reduce his prison sentence on document fraud charges.

The arrests in Albany were unrelated to the Bush administration's recent terror alerts indicating al Qaeda may be plotting attacks against U.S. financial buildings, federal officials have said.

According to the FBI affidavit, Hossain approached the FBI informant in the summer of 2003 about getting a fraudulent New York driver's license.

In subsequent meetings, the informant told Hossain that he imported weapons from China, the affidavit said.

At a videotaped meeting on Nov. 20, the informant showed Hossain a picture of an RPG-7, a fairly rudimentary anti-tank weapon developed by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.

The two discussed using such a weapon, according to the affidavit.

The FBI said its informant, who wasn't identified except as a non-U.S. citizen, told the men he was affiliated with Jaish e-Mohammed, an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan that the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization.

Authorities said the men were paid $65,000 in checks and cash to purchase a missile and disguise the source of the money involved.

Two U.S. law enforcement officials who spoke only on condition of anonymity said Hossain and Aref have ties to a group called Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to al Qaeda.

Prior to the March 2003 U.S. invasion, Ansar was based in an area of northern Iraq that may have been outside of Saddam Hussein's control.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/05/...ain634129.shtml

"Evidence disputed in terror sting case - Prosecutors cite translation error"

By Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters | August 19, 2004

NEW YORK -- US prosecutors have found a possible translation error in a key piece of evidence against two leaders of an upstate New York mosque accused of supporting terrorism, US officials said yesterday.

But a Justice Department spokesman said the error was ''totally irrelevant" to the case against Yassin Aref, 34, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, who pleaded not guilty Aug. 10 to charges of money laundering, supporting a terrorist organization, importing firearms without a license, and conspiracy, and were ordered held without bail.

Aref's attorney Terence Kindlon said the error meant the case ''has to be reexamined from the ground up."

''I think the Department of Justice is exploiting everybody's legitimate fear of terrorism for political purposes."

"This is a stark example," Kindlon said, calling the case a ''piece of junk" and a ''two-bit frame-up."

News of the mistake, which in evidence against him originally described Aref as ''commander" instead of ''brother" as officials now believe, is certain to boost other critics of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies.

They say officials have jumped to conclusions in several terrorism cases that fizzled or had to be dropped after initial high-profile announcements.

US officials say such criticism disregards other advances in the war on terror, which they say have made America safer.

Aref and Hossain were arrested in a sting operation in Albany, N.Y., in which authorities said the two men agreed to help an FBI informant launder money to buy a shoulder-fired missile as part of a plan to assassinate Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations.

If convicted, both might face at least 20 years in prison.

Aref, a Kurdish refugee from Iraq, also might face deportation.

US authorities previously had said an address book found in what they called a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq in June 2003 referred to Aref as ''the commander" in Arabic, but the Justice Department spokesman said FBI translators now thought the word was Kurdish and actually meant ''brother."

The original translation was done by the Defense Department.

''In our view it does not affect the case at all," said Glenn Suddaby, US attorney for the northern district of New York, who is prosecuting the case.

''Whether the translation is 'commander' or 'brother,' it really doesn't change the significance of where his name and address and contact information was located within the camp in Iraq, and it most certainly doesn't change the alleged criminal activity that he's been charged with here in the northern district of New York."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles...ror_sting_case/

"Defense motions denied in terror sting case - Albany mosque leaders inch closer to trial"

ALBANY, Jan. 9, 2006

By BILL LAMBDIN

The two Albany men caught in an FBI terrorism sting inched toward trial Monday.

The judge rejected several defense maneuvers, while still failing to answer the key question of when the trial will begin.

It's been 17 months since the FBI and local police raided an Albany mosque and arrested Imam Yassin Aref as well as pizza shop operator Mohammed Hossain.

The two are accused of meeting with an FBI informant and taking part in a plot that would have laundered money supposedly to purchase a shoulder-fired missile.

Both men strongly insist they're not guilty.

The government claims key evidence involves secret information.

It's planning to use laws that would prevent disclosure in open court and sharply limit the ability of even defense attorneys to know what their clients are accused of doing.

“Our situation here is like that old TV program ‘What's My Line’ because you have to try to guess what it is that you're disputing,” said Aref’s attorney Terry Kindlon.

Kindlon and Hossain’s attorney, Kevin Luilbrand, took notice of recent revelations that the Bush administration has been spying on Americans without obtaining judicial authorization.

They want to know whether any of that warrantless searching was done in this case.

Monday's court appearance failed to answer that question or make progress on various other legal maneuvers the defense tried.

“The judge denied everything from the beginning to the middle to the end."

"Not an unusual result in a criminal case, especially a federal criminal case,” Kindlon said.

Meanwhile, Hossain remains free on bail.

But Aref, with supposed ties to insurgent groups in Iraq, remains in custody.

“He's miserable,” Kindlon said.

“He's locked down 23 hours a day."

"He's at the end of his rope.”

Last Updated: Mon Jan 9 17:12:00 EST 2006

http://www.wnyt.com/x6538.xml?ag=x995&sb=x183

CNN

"Two men arrested in missile sting operation - Feds: Defendants were not plotting terrorist violence"

Friday, August 6, 2004 Posted: 0354 GMT (1154 HKT)

VIDEO - New York Gov. George Pataki says the probe took months.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN) -- An FBI sting operation composed of bogus plans to launder money and attack a Pakistani official led to the arrests Thursday of two leaders in a New York mosque, federal law enforcement officials said.

The suspects are Yasin Aref, a 34-year-old Iraqi who is an imam -- or prayer leader -- at the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany, New York, and the mosque's founder, Mohammed Hossain, 49, a U.S. citizen and native of Bangladesh who owns a pizzeria in the city.

Investigators developed the sting operation because they suspected that Aref, who has asylum status, of shipping money from the United States to Islamist radicals overseas, a federal law enforcement source said.

The sting operation involved an informant who had pleaded guilty to felony charges of document fraud and agreed to work with authorities, according to the criminal complaint.

The informant told Aref and Hossain that the money they would launder came from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that he would use against Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations in retaliation for Pakistan's support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the complaint says.

But no such plot existed, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Comey told a news conference, "This is not a case where the defendants were plotting terrorist violence."

Asked whether the two men might have been entrapped, Comey said that was a question for a jury to consider:

"Was he dragged into criminal activity to which he was not predisposed, by a government overbearing his will?"

Comey also emphasized that the government had information about the background of the two men that it could not release yet.

"We believe there was ample predication for this investigation," he told reporters.

Law enforcement sources said the men were believed to be connected to Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist organization previously based in northern Iraq with links to the notorious Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi has links to al Qaeda.

The men are accused of money laundering and conspiring to conceal support and resources "knowing and intending that they are to be used in preparation for, and in carrying out a violation of" a U.S. law banning unlawful use of weapons of mass destruction.

Community support

A federal magistrate ordered both men held without bail pending a hearing Tuesday.

Hossain requested his own attorney, and Aref, through an interpreter, said he wanted a court-appointed lawyer.

About a dozen family and friends were in the courtroom, and several cried.

The mosque's president, Shamshad Ahmad, released a statement decrying "all forms of terrorism" and expressing concern about anti-Muslim backlash and hate crimes.

He called on people not to draw conclusions from the arrests.

Later in the evening, Faisal Ahmad, a teacher at the mosque, told reporters he served as spokesman for the local Muslim community and that "Muslims condemn terrorism."

"We don't condone terrorism or violence in any way."

Aref "has nothing to do with violence and terrorism," Ahmad said.

He said the mosque, called House of Peace in English, has been in the community for 10 years, and it is unfair to associate it with evil.

"Let us not rush to judgment," he said.

Terror links suspected

The investigation began a year ago, and was conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes federal, state and local authorities.

The informant gave the men thousands of dollars in checks and cash, saying the funds to be laundered were proceeds from the purported importation of a missile and that they could keep some of the money in exchange for their help, according to the complaint.

Comey told reporters the undercover informant struck up a relationship with the two men, and Hossain asked the informant's help in fraudulently securing a New York driver's permit for his brother.

Hossain told the informant that he believed now is not the time for "violent jihad," Comey said.

But when the informant proposed the laundering scheme, Hossain agreed, and suggested that Aref assist, Comey said.

The men received about $40,000 in cash and returned $25,000 in cash, Comey said.

Raids on mosque, homes

Raids of the mosque and two houses started about 11 p.m. Wednesday, a U.S. government official said.

They wrapped up just before 6 a.m. Thursday.

Aref's wife, Zuhur, 33, said that the FBI took her and her three children at 2 a.m. to a hotel for questioning.

She declined to say what officials asked her about and said she was unaware of what charges her husband faces.

After the charges were described to her, she responded, "I have no idea about that."

"I don't think so."

Hossain's landlady said Hossain, his wife, and five children have rented their apartment from her for 10 years.

Hossain's wife, Mossammat, told the Albany Times Union that her husband had returned home at 1:30 a.m. from a trip to New York City when the FBI arrived at the couple's apartment above their Little Italy pizzeria.

The newspaper said agents took $6,000 in cash, a computer hard drive and assorted personal records.

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said, "It's been an ongoing investigation, and obviously the results are good," he said.

"This is something we've anticipated."

"People shouldn't be concerned because we've been on top of this for quite awhile."

CNN's Kelli Arena, Alina Cho, Terry Frieden, Jeanne Meserve and Richard Roth contributed to this report.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/08/05/ny.missile.sting/

FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED, YOU DECIDE

"Pakistan Protests FBI Sting in Albany, N.Y."

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

ALBANY, N.Y. — An FBI sting operation that used a purported assassination plot against a Pakistani diplomat to snare two leaders of an Albany mosque has drawn complaints from Pakistan, which issued a protest Tuesday.

An FBI informant who said he was an arms dealer asked the two suspects to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used to kill Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, according to the federal complaint.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan on Tuesday condemned the FBI sting operation, saying it was bizarre and dangerous.

"This has increased our ambassador's and our mission's vulnerability ... and could have endangered the life of our ambassador," Khan said in a statement.

He said Pakistan had filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

A 19-count indictment, unsealed Monday, charges Yassin Muhiddin Aref, 34, and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49, with conspiring to launder money and promote terrorism.

It did not provide details about allegations they are tied to an extremist group linked to Al Qaeda.

Aref's lawyer, Terry Kindlon, said the entire case is based on government fabrication.

"The facts of this case exist in the imagination of the government," he said.

U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby said the ambassador was never in any danger.

"It was not something that we thought anybody would be upset about," Suddaby said at a hearing Tuesday during which the two men were denied bail.

The indictment chronicles exchanges of money that authorities allege were for the fictitious missile sale.

It claims that in a Feb. 12 meeting, the men believed the attack would take place the following week.

Authorities said an FBI informant told the men he was an arms dealer who received $50,000 for importing a shoulder-fired missile.

The informant said he needed to conceal the source of the income and asked Hossain to issue a series of $2,000 checks from his businesses, according to court documents.

Hossain planned to keep $5,000 for laundering the money, authorities said.

Both men have been jailed since Thursday when federal agents conducted pre-dawn raids at their homes and the Masjid As-Salam storefront mosque in Albany.

Prosecutors opposed bail, saying both men posed a flight risk and the plot involved violence.

Kindlon unsuccessfully argued that his client should be freed on bail because he has no prior criminal history and did not pose a flight risk because his wife and three children live in Albany.

Aref is the imam of the mosque and Hossain is one of its founders.

Both Albany men are charged with money laundering and attempting to conceal material support for a terror organization.

Aref, a refugee from Kurdistan, and Hossain, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Bangladesh, face up to 70 years in prison if convicted.

In an affidavit, the FBI said U.S. soldiers discovered a notebook at an Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq last summer that referred to Aref as "the commander" and included his former address and telephone number in Albany.

The judge ordered prosecutors to provide Aref's attorney with a copy of the notebook entry.

He said while the proposal to buy a missile was entirely the government's idea, neither defendant backed out when it became clear the financial deal involved "a weapon of mass destruction."

U.S. officials have said that members of Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamic group, are thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.

Ansar al-Islam members have trained in Afghanistan and provided safe haven to Al Qaeda members fleeing after the U.S. invasion.

Last March, the State Department declared the group a foreign terrorist organization.

The indictment does not mention Ansar al-Islam.

Hossain had been under FBI scrutiny since last summer when he approached an FBI informant about fraudulently obtaining a New York driver's permit for a relative, according to an FBI affidavit.

A dozen mosque members attended the bail hearing.

They issued a statement condemning terrorism, and saying they find it "unbelievable" Aref could knowingly have been involved in any violent activity.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128622,00.html

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Albany Muslims fear backlash after mosque arrests -Acquaintances of 2 charged call sting operation 'setup'"

Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, August 7, 2004

(08-07) 04:00 PDT

Albany, N.Y. -- A wrinkle ran across Yassir Ahmad's forehead as he moved swiftly between aisles of rice and pickled grape leaves, carrying trays loaded with fried fish, cases of soft drinks and small packets of fragrant spices.

It was Friday, the Muslim day of prayer and rest, of spiritual contemplation and joy.

But for Ahmad, who sells Middle Eastern food at the Sabah Food Mart on Albany's main Central Avenue, and for many of the city's practicing Muslims, it was also the day of apprehension.

In two predawn raids Thursday, federal agents arrested two leaders of Masjid As-Salaam mosque, next door to Ahmad's store, on terror-related charges arising out of a sting operation.

Dozens of television cameras, print and radio reporters descended on Central Avenue, bringing unwanted attention, said Ahmad, who fears that it might translate into a backlash against Albany's approximately 500-strong practicing Muslims.

"People used to live next to us and not think who we were, what religion we were," said Ahmad, and shook his head.

"Now, they are going to think: 'Oh these Muslims, what are they doing to do to us?' "

Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of Masjid As-Salaam, and the mosque's co- founder, Mohammed Hossain, 49, remained in jail Friday pending a bail hearing next Tuesday.

They are charged with money laundering and other offenses, including conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism, all of which could bring them up to 70 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

The two were the targets of an elaborate FBI sting operation during which they allegedly agreed to launder money for what they thought was the purchase of a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile launcher, supposedly to be used by terrorists to assassinate a Pakistani ambassador in New York.

The men allegedly agreed to launder $50,000 after an FBI informer, who Hossain and Aref thought was a weapons smuggler, persuaded them to do it for a $15,000 fee.

Law enforcement officials cited by the Associated Press on Friday said documents found by U.S. troops at a camp operated by the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group in northern Iraq last year referred to Aref as "the commander" and included his address and telephone number in Albany.

The officials, who refused to be named, said the evidence indicated that Ansar al-Islam was active in the United States.

But Aref's court-appointed attorney, Terrence Kindlon, insisted Friday that the case amounted to entrapment.

"It looks like it was cooked up by somebody who had spent too much time reading the National Enquirer," he said.

Some Albany residents who know Aref and Hossain echoed Kindlon's opinion, calling the sting operation "a setup," and insisted the two were innocent.

"The government wants to try to make Americans believe that Muslims are terrorists, but those who are smart will not buy into this," said Marlon, a construction worker from Iraq who ate a breakfast of cheese, honey and flatbread at Ahmad's store Friday.

So far, Ahmad said, non-Muslim residents of this ethnically and religiously diverse city of 95,000 people have not bothered him or any of his friends.

Acts of vandalism against the nondescript mosque, which some had feared, have not occurred.

Pastor Jeffrey Davoll of Latham Bible Baptist Church said he did not expect the arrests to cause a rift between Albany's Christian majority and the city's Muslims.

"It isn't that big of an issue," said Nancy Pandonfo, who works at the Ohav Shalom synagogue.

"I don't think (the arrests) would affect the way this particular community treats its Muslim members."

But the day after the arrests, there were observable, if small changes: A police officer in a car parked right outside the mosque.

An obscenity yelled from a passing car.

The uneasiness of a non-Muslim taxi driver who, when asked to drive to the mosque, remarked: "I hope they don't shoot us there."

Albany police officials said the last time they had received complaints about hate crimes against Muslims in the area was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when there were a number of anti-Muslim incidents across the country.

"We don't expect any hate crimes now," said Jim Miller, an Albany police spokesman.

Ahmed Kobeisy, who heads the Islamic Center of the Capital District in the nearby city of Schenectady, said his center had received what he interpreted as a threatening phone call overnight.

The caller, a male who did not identify himself, left a message on the center's answering machine that said. "You guys talk about hate crimes -- we'll have to do what we have to do."

Kobeisy said his center has not notified the police.

E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...MNGUJ84H1M1.DTL

CAPITAL 9 NEWS

"CA lawmaker takes credit for raid"

Updated: 11/11/2004 9:01 AM

By: Capital News 9 web staff

A California congresswoman is claiming she tipped off the FBI to the alleged terror conspiracy at an Albany mosque.

Congresswoman Diane Watson said that she told federal agents about the possible terror plot.

In early August, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain of the Masjid As-Salam mosque were arrested and charged with money laundering and supporting terrorism.

Watson said the FBI launched an investigation based on her call.

However, FBI officials said their case started long before they received Watson's tip, and that it was a phony plot.

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headli...=33&ArID=103718

CAPITAL 9 NEWS

"Terror sting nets two arrests, governor and mayor react"

Updated: 8/5/2004 6:50 PM

By: Capital News 9 web staff

Governor Pataki and Mayor Jennings spoke out about Thursday mornings arrest at a local mosque.

The raid came after a long term investigation into Aref and Hossain's connection to terrorist organizations.

Both Pataki and Jennings were aware of the federal investigation and said the arrests show how important it is for law enforcement to work together in the War on Terror.

"First, I wanted to stress that, so the people of the Capital Region know that law enforcement and government is acting very proactively, working extremely cooperatively in doing everything we can to protect the people of this area."

"And the specifics as to the reason for the raid this morning will be provided from Washington," Pataki said.

WATCH THE VIDEO - Pataki and Jennings react

Governor George Pataki and Mayor Jerry Jennings held a news conference in Albany Thursday. Capital News 9's Erin O'Hearn spoke with them about the raid of a Muslim mosque in Albany overnight.

Mayor Jennings said, "Our men and women are very well trained."

"They know what they have to do."

"This isn't taking a toll."

"It's good police work, it's what they are trained to do."

"Working together with state and federal officials makes it easier on all of us, so it really hasn't taken a toll."

"It's a good reward for the hard work they've put into this investigation, it really is."

Pataki encourages anyone who sees anything suspicious to call local or federal law enforcement.

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headli...D=33&ArID=87737

Published on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

"Pakistan Complains to US Over Sting that 'Targeted' UN Envoy"

by David Usborne in New York

An untimely diplomatic spat erupted between Pakistan and the United States yesterday after it emerged that an FBI sting to snare two leaders of a mosque on terrorist-related charges in Albany, New York, was built around a purported plot to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations.

The two suspects, Mohammed Hossain, the founder of the small, shop-front mosque, and its prayer leader, Yassin Aref, were arrested last week.

Prosecutors said that they were lured by an FBI informant into agreeing to launder money after being told it would later be used to buy a shoulder-launched missile to kill the UN envoy.

But the plot against the ambassador, Muneer Akram, never existed and was purely a concoction of the FBI to trick the suspects.

However, Pakistan officials said the notion of setting up their diplomat in New York as the purported target of the plot was "mind-boggling".

The row comes at a time when both governments have been anxious to trumpet improved relations.

In recent days, Washington has been at pains to applaud Pakistan's leadership for stepping up co-operation on countering terrorism.

It was information seized by Pakistan that exposed new information about purported al-Qa'ida reconnaissance on financial buildings in the United States and triggered the recent elevation of America's terrorist alert.

But there was no attempt by Pakistani officials in Islamabad to disguise their astonishment at the nature of the Albany sting, which is not connected to the new terror alerts.

"It is mind-boggling why they could not use the name of an American functionary," Masood Khan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a news conference.

The government said it had made a formal complaint to Washington.

"We have made a démarche to the US embassy here," Mr Khan added.

"We hope that the US will realize its mistake and give instructions for rectifying this faulty methodology."

The two suspects in Albany are in custody and will face a court hearing today.

American officials said they fell for the sting after being told by the FBI informant that he worked for a Pakistan-based terror group, Jaish e-Mohammed, and that he needed them to launder cash that would be used to purchase the missile.

The men have been charged with money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism.

Both could face up to 70 years in prison and a $750,000 (£400,000) fine.

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print....s04/0810-04.htm

"Democrats admonish Rumsfeld"

Associated Press
First published: Thursday, August 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Democrats chastised Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for questioning the historical grasp of those who criticize the Bush administration's handling of war, accusing him Wednesday of engaging in "dangerous business."

In a speech Tuesday at an American Legion gathering in Salt Lake City, Rumsfeld said war opponents displayed the kind of thinking that delayed military action against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

He said the world faces "a new type of fascism" and he warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement.

His speech prompted angry reactions from Democrats hoping to win back control of Congress.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "If Mr. Rumsfeld is so concerned with comparisons to World War II, he should explain why our troops have now been fighting in Iraq longer than it took our forces to defeat the Nazis in Europe."

Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff responded:

"There are important lessons from history that we ought to be mindful of as we talk about how we are going to meet the challenges extremist terror organizations present."

Also Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Iraqi security forces will need another year to 18 months before they can take over from American troops.

The assessment, which came on a day when at least 78 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, drove home a growing realization that U.S. troops will stay longer and in greater numbers in Iraq than once anticipated by ground commanders and the Bush administration.

"Bush equates Iraq fight with history's great wars -
President says battle equal to struggles against fascism, Nazism and communism"

By JAMES GERSTENZANG, Los Angeles Times
First published: Friday, September 1, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY -- President Bush began a new effort Thursday to shore up flagging support for the war in Iraq, telling a veterans group that the fight against terrorism was no mere military conflict but "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."

Addressing the national convention of the American Legion, the President denied Iraq had degenerated into a civil war and cast the fight there as a successor to the grand campaigns of the 20th century, against fascism, Nazism and communism.

Repeating a past theme, he said that if the United States left Iraq before insurgents were defeated and the country was secure in its new democracy, the battle against terrorism would eventually be fought on U.S. streets.

Democrats on Thursday answered Bush's speech by saying his policy in Iraq had failed.

"At a time that calls for serious leadership, the President is offering yet another public-relations campaign," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in a written statement.

"His dire warnings of the cost of failure in Iraq do nothing to make success more likely, and his stubborn insistence on staying with a failed policy all but ensures continued violence and chaos."

Also, according to the Washington Post, congressional Democrats are planning to push for a vote of no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this month for his role in the Iraq war.

In his speech, Bush linked the fighters in Iraq to the terrorists who struck on Sept. 11, 2001, those arrested in the London plot, and Hezbollah forces that attacked Israel, and said each would "impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world."

They are, he said, "successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century."

In Iraq, rockets slammed into buildings, bombs exploded on the streets and mortar rounds fell from the sky before nightfall Thursday in an apparently coordinated strike on Baghdad, killing at least 53 people and injuring almost 200, authorities said.

The multiple attacks struck a broad swath of largely Shiite Muslim districts in east Baghdad.

The attack came as U.S. and Iraqi authorities have lauded the results of a joint security crackdown in the capital.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voiced hopes Thursday that Iraqi forces could take over security responsibilities for most of Iraq by the end of the year.

Also Thursday, U.S. authorities announced the deaths of two soldiers and one Marine in attacks in Iraq, bringing the U.S. death toll since the 2003 invasion began to at least 2,627, according to a count by The Associated Press.

"Voters must keep Congress in check"

By MICKEY EDWARDS
First published: Saturday, September 2, 2006

In a little more than 60 days, voters will choose the men and women who will represent them in Congress.

There are two questions every voter should ask of each candidate.

First, if elected, do you promise to fulfill your constitutional responsibilities as a member of a separate, independent and equal branch of government?

Second, if elected, do you promise to work in a bipartisan manner, open to cooperation with members of the opposing political party?

There was a time when neither question would have had to be asked.

Members of Congress understood that they had obligations imposed by the Constitution and that those obligations trumped any allegiance to party or president.

For example: When Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with justices more favorable to his programs, the plan was opposed by his own vice president, John Nance Garner, and defeated by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress.

Roosevelt's War Department was investigated by a Democratic senator, Harry S. Truman.

Decades later, when Democratic President Carter proposed cutting spending on federal water projects, he was rebuffed by a Democratic Congress.

And when Republican President Reagan proposed a tax increase, the opposition was led by Republican House members.

In each case, members of Congress were willing to stand up to a president of their own party to do what they thought was right.

Contrast that with the current feeble congressional response -- from both parties --to President Bush's claims of expanded presidential authority and his administration's clear contempt for the legislative branch.

In a parliamentary system, power rests with the executive, and the legislative majority functions in a supporting role.

But the U.S. Congress is intended not to be a rubber stamp but a check on presidential power and the principal architect of national priorities.

As the "first branch" of government, Congress has all legislative authority and is charged with determining what the law shall be and how much, if anything at all, is to be spent for any proposed project.

Yet when Bush thumbs his nose at Congress -- declaring his authority to disregard legislation, permitting agency officials to lie to Congress and to walk out of hearings, ignoring clear statutory requirements -- members of Congress mumble and pout and do nothing.

Congress is fading into irrelevance, and it is up to the voters this fall to demand of their prospective representatives whether they intend to perform their constitutional duties.

The second question to legislators is equally important.

One reason given for Democratic opposition to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman in this month's primary was his failure to be a "team player"; Lieberman's willingness to find common ground with Republicans was seen as disloyalty.

The bitter polarization about which so many observers complain is not merely ideological; it is partisanship carried to an extreme.

Instead of morphing from candidates to members of Congress on the day they are sworn in, today's legislators engage in permanent campaigns.

Neither party is willing to allow the other to gain credit for an achievement that might help it in the next election, so the center aisle that divides Democrats from Republicans in the House has become a wall.

But there comes a time, after the votes are counted, when being American trumps being a member of a particular political party.

The issues facing this nation are difficult and complex.

For examples, one need look no further than immigration or the problems of energy dependence.

There is a pressing need for members of the House and Senate, regardless of party, to work together to find solutions both sides can agree on.

Voters should insist that they do.

Candidates for the House and Senate will be making urgent appeals to the voters for the next two-plus months.

During that time, citizens can make a few appeals of their own.

One is for a Congress that recognizes its responsibilities and takes them seriously.

And if they do not get satisfactory assurances, citizens can withhold their votes.

Complaining is not enough; it is time for voters to demand a Congress that does its job.

Mickey Edwards teaches at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

Ah ....

Yeah .....

Right, George Pataki ....

"City sees increase in gun violence - Nine are shot in Albany since mid-July, up from one or two a month"

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

ALBANY -- Nine people have been shot on city streets since mid-July, a sharp increase in gunfire that has city police trying to figure out what's behind the heightened violence.

"We were down to one or two per month."

"It's a couple of groups that have triggered it," Chief James Tuffey said Saturday.

The latest shootings came at 11 p.m., Friday, when two South End residents were shot on First Street in Arbor Hill.

"Last night concerned us again."

"We're putting every resource we've got into it," Tuffey said.

The shootings seem to be occurring between groups from the South End and Arbor Hill, though Tuffey stopped short of calling it gang-related.

Investigators have responded to the crime scenes within minutes of the shootings, but have not always been successful in catching the shooters, he said.

In addition to the two men shot Friday night, the other shootings include:

Four men shot on First Street between Lexington Avenue and Judson Street on Aug. 23.

A man shot in the face at Orange Street and Lexington Avenue on Aug. 12.

A 17-year-old man shot in the leg on Livingston Avenue on Aug. 8.

A woman shot in the abdomen near Thornton Street on July 31.

Not counted as official shootings are such recent incidents as shots fired at a car at Clinton Avenue and Quail Street at midnight on Saturday; three shots fired on Madison Avenue, Wednesday, Aug. 30; and a shot fired on Schuyler Street at Officer William Van Amburgh on Tuesday, Aug. 28.

"Over the past couple of weeks there has been a spike."

"There was a long period of time where shootings and shots fired were down dramatically," said Detective James Miller, a police spokesman.

The department has roving patrols making checks throughout the city.

The two men shot Friday night were stopped by a patrol before the incident.

"They went through the checkpoint shortly before the shooting."

"We were right there when it happened," Tuffey said.

The proposed closing of the Arbor Hill station will not be halted by the upswing in shooting incidents, Tuffey said.

"We're not going to pull out of the neighborhoods."

"It's to put more officers on the street."

"That's how we fight crime," the chief said.

The FBI reported in June that crime statistics show a one-year increase in violent crime in the nation's cities in 2005 from 2004 except for those of more than 1 million, where there was a slight decrease.

Albany is not included in the statistics as its population dropped under 100,000 in the 2000 census.

The state Division of Criminal Justice Services reported that felony arrests in upstate New York were up 14.7 percent for the first six months of this year compared to the same six months in 2005.

While Albany is seeing more shootings, the only other city in the Capital Region to report any incidents is Schenectady.

During the same period, two shootings were reported by Schenectady Police.

Two men were reported shot at Becker and Furman streets on Aug. 16.

Three were shot in Olympic Diner on Brandywine Avenue on Aug. 7.

No shootings were reported in the cities of Saratoga Springs, Troy, Cohoes and Watervliet.

C. Crowe II can be reached at 581-8438 or by e-mail at kcrowe@timesunion.com.

end quotes

But don't think about local violence .....

Because that is real American violence .....

By real Americans ....

As opposed to violence .....

That is imported .....

Here to OUR America ....

By TAY-RISTS ....

Armed with exploding sneakers ....

Or with flame-throwers up their noses .....

Or NU-Q-LAR WEPPINS ....

Concealed in the mufflers and tailpipes of their cars .....

And if you happen to get killed by some real American punk spraying bullets around in REPUBLICAN George Pataki's corrupt, decrepit and decaying CAPITAL CITY of Albany, New York ......

Well .....

That's better than getting killed by some TAY-RIST who is not from here .....

A foreigner ....

Carrying around a NU-Q-LAR WEPPIN in a suitcase, isn't it?

Here is poor beleaguered Jimmy Tuffey .....

The Police Chief in REPUBLICAN George Pataki's corrupt, decrepit and decaying CAPITAL CITY of Albany, New York ....

And he don't know ...

If he is a'foot .....

Or horseback ....

And he is pulling in ....

Back behind the barricades .....

Ceding more and more of Pataki's CAPITAL CITY's mean streets ......

To the armed gangs that rove the mean streets of what is known as PATAKI-VILLE ON THE HUDSON ....

A place you just don't go to .....

If you have any sense in your head at all ....

And there is Pataki .....

In his high, whiney voice that always sounds as if he is about to start crying .....

And where Pataki wants to put OUR money ....

And OUR law enforcement effort .....

Is into REPUBLICAN George W. Bush's eternal WAR OF GLOBAL TERROR ......

Where that money .....

And that effort ...

Will go ....

Into fighting brigands ......

In some high mountain pass over in the Hindu Kush .....

Before those brigands can get over here ...

To Pataki's corrupt and decaying CAPITAL CITY .....

To fight US .....

Right here on OUR own streets ....

Or into some remote village over in Afghanistan .....

Or over in Iraq, somewhere .....

So that we can be safe .....

To be gunned down ....

By some punk with a $1200 Ruger .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun, fully loaded .....

Right outside of Pataki's BUNKER COMPLEX .....

At the top of State Street Hill .....

In decrepit and decaying Albany, New York .....

And so ...

And while this PATAKI STING CHARADE continues to go down up here ......

In REPUBLICAN George Pataki's REPUBLICAN EMPIRE of New York .....

A CHARADE that REQUIRES US .....

The AMERICAN CITIZENS .....

Who reside here in the vicinity of Albany, New York ......

To buy into this CHARADE .....

THAT IS REALLY ASKING US .....

THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA ....

WHICH IS WHO WILL SIT IN JUDGMENT OF THIS CASE ....

TO ABANDON SO MUCH OF OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ....

THAT PROVIDES US ....

THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA ....

WITH AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY ....

A CHARADE which asks us to cede control .....

Of OUR INDEPENDENT COURTS ....

TO THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ....

In the State of New York ....

Right now, today ....

Two New York State Troopers are lying seriously wounded .....

In what has been called an AMBUSH ATTACK .....

On them ....

Which has them both in critical condition right now .....

And in need of prayers ....

If people are so inclined ....

But the point .....

Has to do with threats .....

To OUR health, safety and well-being right up here where I am .....

And where those threats might come from ....

And more to the point ...

Who those threats might come to ...

First .....

And that likely is people like these New York State Troopers who were just recently gunned down by an AMERICAN who got out of jail, right here in New York State, with a can opener ...

And who has been on the run, since then .....

And has shot three New York State Troopers, to date ......

And in the meantime ......

George W. Bush ......

And his underling here in New York State, George Pataki .....

Want us to believe that sending all of OUR resources over to Iraq .....

And holding Muslims in jail, indefinitely ....

With the promise of a KANGAROO COURT .....

That mocks JUSTICE ....

Here in OUR America .....

To hold them there forever ....

WILL IN SOME WAY .....

MAKE US SAFER ......

RIGHT HERE IN THE VICINITY OF GEORGE PATAKI'S CAPITAL OF NEW YORK ....

WHERE WE ARE NOT SAFE AT ALL ......

FROM WHO IS ALREADY DOWN THERE .....

And so ....

TO MAKE OURSELVES FEEL SAFE UP HERE .....

FROM SOME PERSON LIVING IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND .....

OVER IN THE HINDU KUSH ....

WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO NOW DO .....

IS CONVICT THESE TWO MUSLIMS ....

IN A KANGAROO COURT ......

THAT REQUIRES AN AMERICAN JURY ...

TO CONVICT A MAN .....

ANY MAN ....

OR WOMAN ....

REGARDLESS ....

CONVICT A MAN OR WOMAN ......

ON SECRET EVIDENCE .....

THAT THE JURY CAN KNOW NOTHING ABOUT .....

BUT HAS TO TAKE FOR GRANTED .....

BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY TOLD THEM IT WOULD BE SO .....

And so .....

To me, who am old ......

And who has sworn an oath to OUR United States Constitution ....

Regardless of the cost of fulfilling that oath ....

THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE ABDICATION .....

OF RESPONSIBILITY .....

BY US ....

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE .....

THAT WE ARE BEING ASKED .....

OR REQUIRED .....

TO PUT OUR IMPRIMATUR ON .....

As the NEW STANDARD OF JUSTICE up here .....

Where being convicted of something based upon secret testimony ...

That you can never know about ....

Has now become the norm ...

FOR ALL OF US ....

And so ....

"Troopers continue to fight for life - Officials say attacker who ambushed pair shot at them 11 times with high-powered rifle; one cop returned fire"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

One of the two state troopers from Saratoga County who were shot Thursday night in western New York fired back at his attacker, police said Saturday as the two men continued to fight for their lives.

Joseph Longobardo, 32, of Ballston Spa and Donald Baker Jr., 38, of Clifton Park, both eight-year Police veterans assigned to Loudonville-based Troop G, remained in critical condition late Saturday as a manhunt continued for their assailant.

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, a career criminal who escaped from Erie County jail in April -- and allegedly shot another state trooper in June -- fired on Longobardo and Baker 11 times, State Police told reporters.

Longobardo was shot in the leg during the ambush, and the bullet severed a main artery and broke his thighbone, a person close to the situation said.

He's being treated in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit of Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, where family, friends and fellow troopers are keeping a bedside vigil.

The person close to the case said Longobardo was scheduled to have the wounded leg amputated Saturday morning.

Baker is at Hamot Hospital in Erie, Pa., where he's being treated for a gunshot would to the abdomen.

A vigil also is being kept there.

Capt. William Sprague of Troop G in Loudonville said Baker's parents returned to the Capital Region on Saturday for their daughter's wedding.

He said the parents were expected to return to the Erie, Pa., hospital where their son is being treated.

There was no word on where the wedding took place.

Both Baker and Longobardo are heavily sedated, State Police Maj. Michael Manning said at a press conference Saturday night, and haven't communicated with police about their attack.

According to the Erie Times-News, Baker was given more than 40 units of blood, forcing the Community Blood Bank of Northwestern Pennsylvania to put out a plea for donors Friday.

Meanwhile, Manning said police are searching for Phillips, whom he called a coward, and said:

"Right now our number one concern is our two troopers in injured condition."

"Our second concern is bringing Ralph 'Bucky' Phillips back into custody."

Manning said police have no reason to believe there was more than one shooter and that there is little motive for anyone besides Phillips to fire on the troopers.

The goal is to bring Phillips in alive, Manning said, and to let the courts do justice.

But around town some locals don't think Phillips will let that happen.

"If you got three counts of attempted murder on you, what are you going to do?" asked Fredonia resident Jake Mosier, who was sitting in a local diner.

"Go out in a blaze of glory like Clint Eastwood."

Phillips, who escaped from jail using a can opener, is the main suspect in the June 10 shooting of state Trooper Sean M. Brown in Chemung County.

Brown recovered from his wounds.

Manning said he is "100 percent certain" Phillips shot Brown.

The ambush involving Longobardo and Baker took place in a wooded area behind Phillips' ex-girlfriend's home in Pomfret, just outside Fredonia, when the attacker used a high-powered rifle on the troopers at dusk.

Saturday afternoon the blinds were pulled on the property's log home and two unleashed dogs guarded the front porch.

A dirt driveway leads off the rural road to the home, and the yard was littered with debris, an overturned barbecue grill and broken bits of plastic.

Six people have been arrested for helping Phillips, including Kasey Crowe, his ex-girlfriend who lived at the log home.

Authorities said they were aware, based on witness interviews, that Phillips made threats against police after the Aug. 21 arrest of Crowe, their daughter and the daughter's boyfriend.

Crowe was accused of giving Phillips clean clothing and a place to stay in her home the day before her arrest.

Police have been searching for Phillips since he escaped from prison in April.

About 75 officers were added to the detail Friday.

Nearly 280 officers are in a rotation searching for Phillips.

On Saturday, police stood in pouring rain to peer through vehicle windows and inspect trunks and cargo holds at 22 checkpoints in the Chautauqua County area.

Manning said since the reward for Phillips increased to $225,000 Friday, several good leads were received, which police are following.

Still, he said, investigators have a difficult job considering that they are searching a wide swath of land and Phillips is considered to be a skilled woodsman.

"All you gotta do is drive around and look at the woods," he said.

"It's a heavily wooded area, and you can't possibly patrol all that area."

Kate Perry can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at kperry@timesunion.com.

end quotes

But at least we are safe ......

From that guy in the hole in the ground ......

Over there in Kazakhstan ......

Or somewhere over there .....

Anyway ....

That is just too too TOP SECRET to even know about ...

Let alone talk about ....

Lest that guy in the hole in the ground ...

Can hear us talking .....

And so ...

"'He's a little bit of a legend' - Ralph "Bucky" Phillips called folk hero by some, fugitive by others"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

CASSADAGA -- To State Police, Ralph "Bucky" Phillips is considered an armed and dangerous fugitive.

Yet, to some in the western end of the state, he's been a folk hero since he used a can opener to escape from an Erie County jail five months ago.

Some locals are still rooting for Phillips, despite a massive manhunt across southwestern New York for his alleged role in the unprecedented shootings of three state troopers.

"He's a little bit of a legend; he's always gotten away," said Sarah Smith, who works with Phillips' ex-girlfriend in a local nursing home and lived down the from the fugitive when he was a teenager.

"He can run."

On June 10, police say Phillips shot state Trooper Sean M. Brown in Chemung County.

Saturday, Phillips remained the "prime suspect" in the shootings of Troopers Joseph Longobardo of Ballston Spa and Donald Baker Jr. of Clifton Park, both of whom were critically wounded.

Some in the Fredonia region of Chautauqua County, where Phillips has spent much of his life, say they want the man behind bars.

State Police Maj. Michael Manning told reporters Phillips is no longer getting support in western New York.

And yet Phillips' fandom has not completely waned.

When a film crew for a Geraldo Rivera show crowded around a tiny checkout line Saturday to interview people about the manhunt, local resident Edward Daughenbaugh told them Phillips should be punished.

Yet if Phillips managed to stay ahead of police, Daughenbaugh said, "More power to him."

Frustration toward state troopers mounted among some locals Saturday as they were forced for a second straight day to navigate more than a dozen checkpoints in the area.

Others have shown more direct support for the fugitive.

The Bucky Burger was a weekly special at Grandma's Family Kitchen in Chautauqua County earlier this year.

Web sites have popped up where supporters cheer his ability to evade police.

"Buckys (sic) keeps growing every day."

"I'm so proud of him," wrote one Phillips fan, identified by the screen name "Bucky supporters," on a topix.net message board.

An experienced woodsman, Phillips has managed to avoid police for months, and his ingenuity has apparently fueled some of the fascination.

According to The Buffalo News, police suspect that his path may have gone as far as Ohio and Kentucky.

He's described as a cunning fugitive, who has burglarized homes and stolen cars to sustain himself.

Jake Mosier, a Fredonia resident, doubted Phillips would be traveling on main roads.

Daughenbaugh said the police were no match for the fugitive.

"(Police) don't know where they're at and what they're looking for," Daughenbaugh said.

"They couldn't find their butt with a good GPS."

When Phillips stole a 2004 Ford Mustang in August, he replaced the New York license plates with a tag from Pennsylvania but was careful enough to only affix the plate to the rear bumper of the vehicle, as is the practice in the Keystone State, the News reported.

Some residents, including Smith, say they aren't convinced Phillips has shot anyone.

Locals know Phillips as a man who spent much of his adult life in prison, mostly for stealing cars, but they never viewed him as a threat, said Smith, sitting at the counter of Grandma's in the town of Cassadaga on Saturday.

"The only thing he's ever stolen in his life is cars," she said.

"Now these troopers have him backed into a corner like a wild animal."

Police not only describe Phillips as dangerous; they bristle at praise for him.

"We have a trooper that was shot and someone's creating a burger named after a criminal?"

"You got to be kidding me."

"I can guarantee you there won't be a trooper eating there today," Manning told Elmira's WETM Ch. 18 in July.

Daniel M. De Federicis, president of the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association, got choked up as he spoke about people using Phillips' name to make money.

"It's just disgusting," he said at a Friday news conference in Albany.

Kate Perry can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at kperry@timesunion.com.

"What, Mr. Rumsfeld? - The defense secretary uses distorted references to history to counter criticisms of the Iraq war"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces "a new type of fascism" and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement.

Rumsfeld alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."

-- Associated Press

In a tidy and accountable world, it would be easy enough to deal with what sounds like a subtlety or two short of a rather scary rant.

That's because under such circumstances, the word former would be properly placed in front of Mr. Rumsfeld's name and title in these news reports.

He could say whatever was on his mind, in this case to an American Legion convention, and it could be taken and dismissed in the appropriate context.

Only Mr. Rumsfeld remains very much in power in a Bush administration where loyalty counts above all, and arrogance and incompetence are overlooked.

The result is that this was a disturbing speech.

For evidence of that, look no further beyond the fact that Mr. Rumsfeld's aides were rushed into service Tuesday to explain that, no, their boss wasn't actually accusing critics of the Iraq war of intending to appease terrorists.

He was merely instructing them.

"It is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

That was a repeat of history, all right -- of, say, Spiro Agnew lashing out at the opponents of the Vietnam War in a political climate that equated such criticism with support of communism.

Just who, exactly, is being appeased by questioning the war that Mr. Rumsfeld and the others in the Bush White House show no more sign of ending than actually winning?

Even more to the point, what does terrorism -- even if it is, as Mr. Rumsfeld suggests, the early 21st century's equivalent of pre-World War II fascism -- have to do with the Iraq war?

Is Mr. Rumsfeld sticking with the administration line that there's a connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks?

If he is, he's in for a lesson in recent history of his own.

It was just last week that President Bush had to acknowledge, and none too cheerfully, that there is no such link.

To quote the President:

"Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September 11 were ordered by Iraq."

Mr. Rumsfeld, meanwhile, drones on.

"Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America -- not the enemy -- is the real source of the world's troubles?" he asks.

The Iraq war, independent of a different battle against genuine terrorists, will get its own chapter in any definitive history of these times.

A prominent mention should be reserved as well for how Mr. Rumsfeld resorted to questioning the patriotism of those who wouldn't support that war three and half years and almost 3,000 American casualties later.

"Oil, insurgency keep U.S. in Iraq"

First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Late in the 1952 election campaign, he promised that he would "go to Korea."

So in late November, Dwight Eisenhower and aides "used light planes to fly along the front":

"Except for sporadic artillery fire and sniping there was little action at the moment, but in view of the strength of the positions the enemy had developed, it was obvious that any frontal attack would present great difficulties."

With that assessment, laconically recalled in his 1963 memoirs, the experienced soldier decided to liquidate the war.

He had seen at a glance that continuing it was not worth the costs.

George W. Bush might yet face an "Eisenhower moment" regarding Iraq.

But not yet, in the opinion of Sen. John Warner, the five-term Virginia Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee.

Warner's father was a field surgeon in World War I; his great-uncle lost an arm fighting for the Confederacy at the Wilderness.

Warner joined the Navy in 1944 at 17, served until 1946, then was called up to the Marine Corps during Korea.

Because he is a military man who broadly construes the President's inherent powers as commander in chief, it was startling when he recently said that the Oct. 11, 2002, resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq did so for purposes that were largely achieved by the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Last month Warner asked:

"What is the mission of the United States today under this resolution if (Iraq) erupts into a civil war?"

"... I think we have to examine very carefully what Congress authorized the President to do in the context of a situation if we're faced with all-out civil war and whether we have to come back to the Congress to get further indication of support."

But Warner, who in 27 years has served with 260 of the 1,885 people who have been U.S. senators, and who in May became the 26th senator to cast 10,000 votes, knows that no Senate vote is apt to determine war policy.

On July 25, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson, meeting with Democratic Senate committee chairmen, was angered when even Georgia's hawkish Richard Russell questioned his Vietnam policy.

Johnson acidly told the group:

"If you want me to get out of Vietnam, then you have the prerogative of taking out the resolution" -- the Tonkin Gulf resolution -- "under which we are out there now."

"You can repeal it tomorrow."

Every war ends, but none ends that way.

Speaking in his Senate office -- the furniture includes the chair President Theodore Roosevelt sat in at Portsmouth, N.H., at the 1905 conference that ended the Russo-Japanese war and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize -- Warner says he is convinced that the essential characteristics of civil war are not yet present in Iraq.

Iraq's government, he says, is "functioning," the security forces are improving, and senior military officials are not plotting against the government.

But Warner also knows: The Iraqi government's writ barely runs beyond Baghdad's Green Zone.

The security forces are not yet competent to hold areas that U.S. forces clear of insurgents.

Holding such areas might require sending more U.S. forces to Iraq, which would further alienate Iraqis.

Moqtada al-Sadr, whose support helped make Nouri al-Maliki Iraq's prime minister, has a militia that is becoming Iraq's Hezbollah -- a sovereign force within the state, and one imperfectly controlled by Sadr.

For three reasons, Eisenhower's challenge in ending the Korean War was simpler than Bush's problem would be in extracting U.S. forces from Iraq: Eisenhower had a static military front.

The U.S. objective of pushing the invaders from South Korea had been accomplished.

And Eisenhower had a coercive threat.

In "The Cold War: A New History," John Lewis Gaddis of Yale, who calls Eisenhower "at once the most subtle and brutal strategist of the nuclear age," says that Eisenhower early in his presidency believed -- he later changed his mind -- that when nuclear weapons "can be used on strictly military targets and for strictly military purposes," they should be used "exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else."

And Eisenhower allowed America's adversaries to know that his military advisers were seeking ways to use such weapons to end the Korean fighting.

Warner believes that most congressional Democrats understand that there is an unpopular way to oppose an unpopular war -- by voting for abandonment of all the objectives for which blood has been shed.

Warner defines the U.S. objective in Iraq not in terms of a glittering achievement, democracy, but as avoiding something appalling -- the Iraqi oil fields in jihadists' hands.

Regarding Iraq, there will not soon be an Eisenhower moment.

George Will's e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.

"Democrats, GOP face off in earnest - Republicans confront prospect of losing House, perhaps Senate"

By CHUCK RAASCH, Gannett News Service
First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In a sour political season, the big question is whether Americans' angst and anger translate into anti-Republican or anti-incumbent votes.

So far, the former appears most likely, and that could give Democrats control of at least one house of Congress after the Nov. 7 elections -- a blow to President Bush's agenda and authority in his last two years in office.

Democrats and Republicans approach the traditional Labor Day start of fall politicking in a fierce struggle to define the 2006 campaign's narrative.

Democrats are focusing on rising worries about the war in Iraq and the economy.

President Bush and his GOP allies argue that staying with Bush's policies on both fronts will be best for America's long-term security.

Analysts say Democrats have a good chance to gain the 15 seats necessary to control the House of Representatives on Nov. 7, and that Republicans may struggle to hold onto the Senate, where they now have 55 of 100 seats.

Overall, this election represents the Democrats' best chance to gain control of one or both houses of Congress since the Republican sweeps of 1994.

Bush's job-approval ratings, while up slightly from earlier in the summer, still are generally at or below 40 percent -- dangerous territory for a party in power.

Voters' anger at the GOP-controlled Congress is as high as any time since '94.

Majorities of Americans tell pollsters that the country and economy are on the wrong path.

"The national mood remains bleak for Republicans," says political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, who recently raised his prediction of Democratic House gains to 15-20 seats, enough to flip control to the Democrats.

Here are four keys to this election:

Economic outlook.

Will easing gas prices alleviate pocketbook concerns enough to blunt Democrats' charges that Bush's economic policies -- tax cuts, free trade, less regulation -- are not good for average families?

The election comes amid signs -- falling home prices, higher interest rates, forecasts of rising unemployment -- the economy is cooling.

Good Bush vs. Bad Bush.

In the last nonpresidential election in 2002, Republicans made uncharacteristic gains in the House and Senate because President Bush's job approval still had the afterglow of post-9/11 unity, the Iraq war had not begun and the economy was on an upswing.

Democrats had trouble running against the status quo in 2002, but not this time.

"George Bush isn't on the national ballot but his agenda is, and the Republicans who have rubber stamped his policies in Congress are," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO.

Iraq and the war on terrorism.

Bush has begun a two-week blitz designed to change the focus from daily body counts to the broader struggle against terrorism.

Democrats call Iraq a distraction that's made the country less safe.

Republicans call these critics "defeatocrats."

But, as evidenced by last month's primary defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., an anti-war movement is gaining steam in the Democratic Party.

Lieberman remains in the race as an independent.

Republican malaise.

Conservatives are irked that a Republican-controlled Congress has piled up big deficits, pushed pork-barrel spending to new highs and flinched on tougher immigration laws.

Fearful that these supporters will stay home on Election Day, Republicans have begun warning that a Democratic Congress would be far worse than the status quo.

"Republican ads show distance from Bush"

By DAVID HAMMER, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:55 a.m., Monday, September 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Republicans who were once cozy with President Bush are distancing themselves from both the president and their party in campaign ads.

Consider Rep. Deborah Pryce, the fourth-ranking House Republican struggling to hold onto her seat in an evenly split district in central Ohio, near Columbus.

In 2004, her campaign Web site featured a banner of her and Bush sitting together, smiling.

But in her latest television ad, Pryce is described as "independent."

The spot also highlights how she "stood up to her own party" and the president to support increased federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research.

As chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, Pryce rallies colleagues to the party message.

With the election in about two months and Bush's approval ratings still low -- 33 percent in the most recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll -- Republicans involved in tight races are avoiding party labels and playing down their ties to the president.

On issues from the Iraq war to Amtrak spending, GOP candidates are trying to argue that they don't follow in lockstep.

Among some of the ads:

--In Pennsylvania, Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach tells voters: "When I believe President Bush is right, I'm behind him."

"But when I think he's wrong, I let him know that, too."

Gerlach is in a close contest with Democrat Lois Murphy, who nearly beat him in 2004.

--In Minnesota, where an open Senate seat is at stake, Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy has an ad titled, "Crossing Party Lines," in which he says:

"I'm a Republican."

"On issues like taxes and spending, I vote like it."

"But on other issues, I cross party lines."

In 2002, in his run for the House, a Kennedy ad showed him walking and shaking hands with Bush at the White House.

Today, he lists the issues on which he has split from the president.

--In South Florida, heavily populated by retirees, Republican Rep. Clay Shaw criticizes the president's stalled plans to change Social Security and says in his ad, "I represent the state of Florida, not a political party."

Ed Patru, a spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee, shrugged off the latest ads.

"That's nothing new, that's just being a smart campaigner," said Patru, who argued that the candidates were reinforcing the moderate positions that have helped them win in swing districts.

Democrats naturally have a different view.

"What we're seeing is a number of candidates who embraced Bush in previous elections are now treating him like a leper," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Senate Democratic campaign organization.

Shanto Iyengar, a campaign advertising expert at Stanford University, said the 1974 midterm elections, in the immediate aftermath of President Nixon's Watergate-driven resignation, were similar to today's advertising atmosphere.

"In most congressional races the conventional wisdom is it's all local," Iyengar said.

"But every now and then, it is possible to nationalize these races, and I believe all the stars are in place for that in 2006."

New Mexico pollster Brian Sanderoff, who is closely watching the re-election campaign of Rep. Heather Wilson, a moderate Republican, said that as the president's approval ratings drop, "incumbents are becoming even more clear in expressing their independence or distance from the White House."

In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, No. 3 in the GOP Senate leadership, has stood with the president on scores of issues, from abortion to same-sex marriage to taxes.

Trailing his Democratic challenger Bob Casey in the polls, Santorum brags about breaking with the administration on Amtrak money.

"And the White House probably called me a lot of things when I fought their efforts to cut Amtrak funding," Santorum says.

Another vulnerable Senate incumbent, Ohio Republican Mike DeWine, has welcomed the president for two events that raised $2 million.

Yet his ads have touted his independence and ability to work with Democrats.

In Missouri, Republican Sen. Jim Talent's first ad of 2006 said:

"Most people don't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat."

"... They care about getting things done."

Talent's opponent, Democrat Claire McCaskill, argues that Talent is trying to "reinvent himself" from 2002, when an ad showed Bush praising Talent.

------

On the Net:

Deborah Pryce ad: http://www.pryce4congress.com/commercial03.php

Mark Kennedy ad: http://www.markkennedy.com/

Jim Talent ad, with commentary: http://www.talentforsenate.com/multimedia/details.aspx?id7

end quotes

ME?

I'm an American .....

And when I vote .....

It is as an American ....

Not as a Republican ....

Which term has come to connote "bigoted extremism" to me ....

Not as a Democrat .....

But as an American .....

And so ...

And then ....

There is the weather ...

"Tropical depression forms over Atlantic"

Associated Press
Last updated: 5:25 a.m., Monday, September 4, 2006

MIAMI -- A tropical depression is brewing over the open Atlantic, and meteorologists said Monday it was forecast to become the next tropical storm of the 2006 hurricane season.

The depression was located about 1,345 miles east of the Lesser Antilles, according to the National Hurricane Center.

At 5 a.m. EDT, the sixth depression of the season had top sustained winds near 35 mph and was moving toward the northwest near 12 mph, forecasters said.

The depression would be named Florence if it reaches tropical storm strength with winds of at least 39 mph.

Forecasters said it could become a tropical storm by Monday or Tuesday.

It comes on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which was briefly the season's first Atlantic hurricane.

------

On the Net:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

"N.Y. trooper searching for convict dies"

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:46 a.m., Monday, September 4, 2006

FREDONIA, N.Y. -- Troopers stood in salute as flags were lowered to half-staff. Hours earlier, one of their own had died, and state police said a fugitive hiding in western New York was to blame.

About 100 troopers bowed their heads in silence Sunday before one sang a slow, a cappella "Amazing Grace."

Then some went back to work, chasing Ralph "Bucky" Phillips in what has become a massive, five-month manhunt.

State police say Phillips is the prime suspect in the sniper-style shootings of two troopers during a stakeout Thursday night in Chautauqua County.

Joseph Longobardo, who was shot in the leg, died Sunday.

His colleague, Donald Baker Jr.'s condition was upgraded from critical to serious after a third surgery, state police said.

Before the evening ceremony, State Police Superintendent Wayne Bennett sent Phillips a threatening message:

"You can run but you can't hide."

"Sooner or later, I don't care how good you are, we will find you."

Longobardo, 32, and Baker, 38, were ambushed in the woods outside the home of Phillips' former girlfriend.

Baker was shot in the back.

One trooper managed to return fire, but state police did not say whether the sniper, who fired from less than 100 yards away, was hit.

Longobardo's leg had been amputated, and he never regained consciousness after being shot.

He died at a Buffalo hospital with his wife and parents at his side.

"He was your advocate."

"He was our trooper."

"Don't ever forget it, please," Bennett said.

Earlier in the day, troopers held a candlelight vigil for Longobardo and Baker and vowed to track down Phillips.

"We are not going to put up with it," police spokeswoman Rebecca Gibbons said.

"He's angered a family, and we're going to be out here until he is in custody."

Hundreds of troopers -- 140 per shift -- were searching for Phillips.

State police were hoping a new $225,000 reward for help in his capture would inspire residents to come forward.

Six local people have been arrested in recent days and charged with harboring Phillips, including his daughter and former girlfriend.

Phillips, 44, has been on the run since April, when he used a can opener to cut an opening in the kitchen ceiling of an Erie County jail and escaped through the roof.[/u]

Since then, he has been suspected in the June shooting of Trooper Sean Brown near Elmira in southern New York, and police said he has survived on the run by stealing about 15 vehicles and breaking into hunting camps and a gun shop.

Some in rural western New York had viewed the manhunt with amusement, but that changed after Thursday's shootings.

"There has been a marked difference in the cooperation that we are receiving," Bennett said.

Authorities say Phillips' disdain for police was well known.

He once allegedly left officials a note threatening "to splatter pig meat all over Chautauqua County."

But state police said the threat now extended to the public.

"Clearly now, there can be no discussion about the fact that he is a dangerous person," Bennett said, "and he's a risk to everybody, law enforcement and non-law enforcement alike."

At the state police barracks in Fredonia, Trooper Mark O'Donnell said Longobardo's death did not change the way they viewed their mission to catch Phillips.

"You can't be more determined," O'Donnell said.

"We were determined from the day he shot Sean Brown."

------

On the Net:

http://www.troopers.state.ny.us

And on top of everything else .....

There apparently was a guy out there .....

On the TV .....

From what I understand .....

And he would be shown with all these different dangerous animals .....

And snakes and things like that .....

And he would say "Crikey" .......

Which apparently made kids laugh .....

And so .....

By saying "Crikey" .....

This guy got to be a big TV star .....

And to maintain his ratings ...

He had to find more and more dangerous animals and such to point to and say "Crikey" ......

Which was his "signature" word .....

And in the course of finding evermore dangerous things to point to and say "Crikey" ......

He mixed it up with a Sting Ray ......

Who gave it to him good .....

Right in the heart ......

Which probably made him say "Crikey", alright ......

But just that one last time .....

And so ......

As they say about the American soldiers dying for George W. Bush in Iraq .....

This "Crikey" guy died doing something that he loved .....

And so ....

"Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin"

By BRIAN CASSEY, Associated Press
Last updated: 9:35 a.m., Monday, September 4, 2006

CAIRNS, Australia -- Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef.

He was 44.

Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous barb on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

"He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat at the time.

Crew members aboard the boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter.

Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

Irwin was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchword "Crikey!" in his television program "Crocodile Hunter."

First broadcast in Australia in 1992, the program was picked up by the Discovery network, catapulting Irwin to international celebrity.

He rode his image into a feature film, 2002's "The Crocodile Hunters: Collision Course" and developed the wildlife park that his parents opened, Australia Zoo, into a major tourist attraction.

"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton told reporters in Cairns.

"He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind."

"He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'"

Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked Irwin to attend a gala barbecue to honor President Bush when he visited in 2003, said he was "shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death."

"It's a huge loss to Australia," Howard told reporters.

"He was a wonderful character."

"He was a passionate environmentalist."

"He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

Irwin, who made a trademark of hovering dangerously close to untethered crocodiles and leaping on their backs, spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a thick Australian accent and was almost never seen without his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt and heavy boots.

Wild animal expert Jack Hanna, who frequently appears on TV with his subjects, offered praise for Irwin.

"Steve was one of these guys, we thought of him as invincible," Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday.

"The guy was incredible."

"His knowledge was incredible," Hanna said.

"Some people that are doing this stuff are actors and that type of thing, but Steve was truly a zoologist, so to speak, a person who knew what he was doing."

"Yes, he did things a lot of people wouldn't do."

"I think he knew what he was doing."

Irwin's ebullience was infectious and Australian officials sought him out for photo opportunities and to promote Australia internationally.

His public image was dented, however, in 2004 when he caused an uproar by holding his infant son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen.

Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to the child, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.

Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary.

Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, on the top of their tail.

The barb, which can be up to 10 inches long, flexes if a ray is frightened.

Stings usually occur to people when they step on or swim too close to a ray and can be excruciatingly painful but are rarely fatal, said University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin.

Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and directly into his heart.

"It was extraordinarily bad luck."

"It's not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.

News of Irwin's death spread quickly, and tributes flowed from all quarters of society.

At Australia Zoo at Beerwah, south Queensland, floral tributes were dropped at the entrance, where a huge fake crocodile gapes.

Drivers honked their horns as they passed.

"Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you."

"Rest in peace," was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.

"We're all very shocked."

"I don't know what the zoo will do without him."

"He's done so much for us, the environment and it's a big loss," said Paula Kelly, a local resident and volunteer at the zoo, after dropping off a wreath at the gate.

Stainton said Irwin's American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

The couple met when she went on vacation in Australia in 1991 and visited Irwin's Australia Zoo; they were married six months later.

Sometimes referred to as the "Crocodile Huntress," she costarred on her husband's television show and in his 2002 movie.

------

On the Net:

http://www.crocodilehunter.com

And as Labor Day weekend draws to a close .....

And the run-up ....

To the November Congressional elections ....

Begins in earnest ....

Let's have some hard facts ...

Concerning ...

What is now being called ....

George W. Bush's BUNGLED INVASION ....

AND OCCUPATION ....

Of Iraq ....

Which QUAGMIRE ....

We are not getting out of any time soon ..

Which makes it a losing strategy .....

For the Democrats to advocate for immediate withdrawal right now ...

As opposed to a complete top down sacking at the Pentagon .....

Getting rid of Donald Rumsfeld ...

And all his "YES MEN" generals ...

Who are incapable to getting us finally out of that mess over there ....

And replacing them with more competent generals ...

Who do have real experience at nation-building ....

Since that is the PHASE of the war that we are now stuck in, over there ...

FOR THE DURATION ....

And so .....

"Blood will not win war on terror - Analysts say U.S. reliance on bombs and bullets fails to address roots of extremism"

By WARREN P. STROBEL and JONATHAN S. LANDAY, McClatchy
First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Five years ago, the United States fired its first shots in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror here in Afghanistan, evicting al-Qaida and toppling the Taliban regime that hosted Osama bin Laden's network.

Today, the United States and its allies are struggling to halt advances by a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in large swaths of this still desperately poor and unstable country.

"Things are going very badly," admitted an official with the allied military forces, who asked not to be identified because the issue is so sensitive.

"We've arrived at a situation where things are significantly worse than we anticipated."

While no further terrorist attacks have occurred on U.S. soil, the trends in Afghanistan appear to mirror the global war on terror a half-decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Bush administration and allied governments have won battle after battle, but appear to be in danger of losing the war.

Indeed, a growing number of analysts, many of them former top government counterterrorism officials, argue that the very notion of a "war" on terrorism is the wrong strategy.

In relying overwhelmingly on bombs and bullets, they say, the United States has alienated much of the Muslim world, driving away even moderates who might be open to Western ideas.

The West has largely failed to offer a positive vision or deal with the root causes of Islamic extremism.

The "tactical firefighting" of disrupting terrorist cells and stopping attacks "works pretty well," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College.

"But it's not resolving the strategic problem."

"The ranks keep on coming."

The "war" on terrorism "is something that has outlived its usefulness as a concept," said Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman.

A global counterinsurgency strategy would put "more emphasis on political reform, economic development, information operations, and less emphasis on the kinetics -- the killing and capturing," Hoffman said.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't be killing and capturing terrorists.'

"But ... we've had a disproportionate emphasis on that as a solution."

On the ground, the good news is that bin Laden's al-Qaida network, which executed the Sept. 11 attacks, has been badly damaged, perhaps even crippled, by a multipronged international assault by soldiers, spies, policemen and bankers, according to senior U.S. officials and private analysts.

But the threat from anti-Western Islamic extremists has rebounded, mutated and grown.

Bin Laden's warped message of violent jihad has spread, with help from the Internet, like a contagious virus.

The ranks of potential terrorist recruits -- while still representing a small, embittered minority of the Muslim world -- appear to be swelling.

To them, round-the-clock TV images of the war in Iraq and the U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment of Lebanon are proof of bin Laden's contention that the West is waging war on Islam.

U.S. and allied intelligence operatives have killed or captured high-ranking members of bin Laden's network repeatedly.

Then they've had to target those operatives' replacements.

Many -- if not most -- counterterrorism experts now see the U.S. invasion and bungled occupation of Iraq as a grave misstep in the struggle against Islamic extremism.

The U.S. intelligence community reported more than a year ago that al-Qaida's leaders, weaned on the conflict against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, would be replaced by a new generation of terrorists trained on the battlefields of Iraq.

European and Arab nations are bracing for the day when citizens who went to join the jihad against U.S. troops return home.

"The terrorists have found in Iraq a better sanctuary, training ground and laboratory than they ever had in Afghanistan."

"They have also been given what they desire most: American targets in close proximity," former White House counterterrorism officials Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote in their 2005 book, "The Next Attack."

With the United States bogged down in Iraq, some specialists say they worry that America's enemies feel emboldened.

Some of the early gains after Sept. 11 -- when al-Qaida was ousted from Afghanistan and countries from Iran to Libya avoided confrontation with Washington -- may be dissipating.

A new report by the respected British research group Chatham House concludes:

"There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East."

In Lebanon, Iranian proxy Hezbollah is resurgent after Israeli bombs failed to dislodge it.

Hezbollah has outpaced the Lebanese government in rebuilding villages, and its teams bring along TV cameras to record the effort for its propaganda value.

Islamists control ever-larger swaths of lawless Somalia, while in nuclear-armed Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf walks a tightrope between counter-terror cooperation with the West and appeasing his own Islamists.

In Afghanistan, which has been viewed as one of the enduring successes against terrorism, the Taliban appear stronger than at any time since Sept. 11.

Despite successions of offensives and airstrikes more intense than those in Iraq, the Taliban and their sympathizers now operate freely in six southeastern provinces and control pockets of them, said officials from the U.S. and Afghan governments and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

As the strife deepens, President Hamid Karzai's government and its foreign backers are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the country's citizens.

Despite billions of dollars in foreign-financed reconstruction, growing numbers of Afghans -- including members of the Parliament -- are furiously questioning the inability of history's most powerful armies to halt the violence and curb the growing civilian toll.

Many Afghans -- now with access to internationally funded free media -- cite the war in Iraq and U.S. support for Israel in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories when they accuse President Bush of waging war on Islam.

That perception has brought new motivation and recruits to the Taliban.

Western and Afghan officials insist that it's not too late to stem the crisis if the United States and its allies devote more reconstruction resources, time and troops.

"We've had a lot of success, but we have not won, and we need a major push for several years that is linked to development and security," said Ronald E. Neumann, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.

"Our success in the kinetic realm (of military operations) is certainly not matched in the 'soft power' realm," said James Forest, director of terrorism studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Increasingly, the face of terrorism is no longer that of bin Laden, who's believed to be hiding in some Afghan cave or Pakistani city, but of self-generated "pop-up" cells of disaffected young men living on the margins of society in Western Europe.

The attacks they plan, such as the July 2005 bombings of London's transportation system, which killed 56 and injured more than 700, may bear only passing signs of al-Qaida's guiding hand.

Henry Crumpton, the CIA operative who designed the campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and who is now the State Department's counterterrorism chief, recalled a meeting he had before Sept. 11 with Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaida agents on Sept. 9, 2001, asked him whether the U.S. government was more interested in defeating al-Qaida or helping the Afghan people, he said.

Crumpton reluctantly replied that it was the former.

"That still resonates with me," Crumpton recalled.

"You can't do one without the other."

"You can't defeat a terrorist enemy without denying a safe haven to the enemy and without replacing that safe haven" with something better.

"It's a lesson for us all."

"You've got to do both."

And with respect to George W. Bush's cobbed-up mess of things .....

Over there in Iraq .....

Where Donald Rumsfeld is just the wrong man ......

To get it done .....

Because he can't ....

We have ....

"Violence in Iraq prompts warning by leading cleric - al-Sistani tells prime minister other powers will act if government doesn't curb killing"

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press
First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric on Saturday warned the prime minister to quell violence or risk "other powers" filling the gap, while police found the tortured and blindfolded bodies of 13 Pakistani and Indian Shiite pilgrims and their Iraqi driver.

At least 15 violent deaths were reported elsewhere in Iraq, while the government announced it had formally taken over the notorious Abu Ghraib prison from coalition authorities.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, the cleric's office said.

In July, al-Sistani was credited with restraining the Shiite community from widespread retaliation against minority Sunnis following horrific attacks on Shiite civilians.

"If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty, and this a very dangerous matter," al-Sistani's office quoted him as saying.

The meeting came two days after a barrage of coordinated attacks across mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad killed 64 people and wounded 286.

The prime minister's office said in a statement that 17 suspects had been arrested after the bombings, but gave no further details.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in violence this week, despite a massive security operation in the capital involving an extra 12,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops that has targeted some of Baghdad's most problematic neighborhoods.

In Washington, a day after a Pentagon report described spreading sectarian violence, President Bush painted a rosier picture.

"Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war," Bush said in a radio address, although he acknowledged "a bloody campaign of sectarian violence" and the "difficult and dangerous" work of trying to end it.

Authorities, meanwhile, canceled a highly anticipated ceremony in which Iraq's Defense Ministry was to assume operational control of the country's armed forces command from the U.S.-led coalition.

No new date was set for the event.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, originally said the delay was due to miscommunication between coalition forces and the Iraqi Ministry of Defense regarding the timing of the ceremony.

Meanwhile, an Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in a raid in Iraq should face the death penalty if convicted, according to a report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

The case will now be forwarded to Army officials, who will decide whether the recommendation should be followed.

The soldiers, all from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, are accused of killing three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 on a marshy island outside Samarra.

Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett and Spc. Juston R. Graber have claimed they were ordered to kill all military-age males during the raid on the island.

And then ....

Of course ....

There is ....

The weather ....

"Long Island gets walloped by storm"

Associated Press
First published: Sunday, September 3, 2006

NEW YORK -- More than 30,000 customers on Long Island were without power Saturday evening as the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto hammered the region, also causing flooding and beach erosion.

Swimming was banned at most New York beaches due to rip tides.

Waves up to 12 feet high sucked away pieces of shoreline, turning some usually flat, sandy stretches into miniature bluffs up to four feet high.

"We haven't seen these types of conditions in a couple of years," George Gorman, regional director of the New York state parks on Long Island, said by telephone from his wind-rocked car.

He said some of the damaged beach areas may need to be repaired with bulldozers.

Police and fire departments stayed busy responding to accidents and reports of distressed wind surfers and overturned boats, including a sailboat that sank in Orient Harbor on Long Island Sound.

The National Weather Service reported as much as 4 inches of rain on Long Island; the New York metro area received about an inch of rain during the day.

Gusts from the tropical depression felled trees and knocked out power to homes, stores and offices.

Long Island Power Authority chairman Richard Kessel said Saturday evening that more than 30,000 customers were without service, most in Hempstead and Babylon.

About 668 employees were working until midnight to restore power, and 136 were scheduled to work overnight, he said.

Consolidated Edison said 22,000 customers lost power for at least part of the day in Westchester County and New York City, mostly in areas of the Bronx and Staten Island.