Two Plus Two, Part 7

We continue with our Two Plus Two series; previous installments are at these links:

Two Plus Two, Part 1

Two Plus Two, Part 2

Two Plus Two, Part 3

Two Plus Two, Part 4

Two Plus Two, Part 5

Two Plus Two, Part 6

We begin with an article entitled McCAIN AND THE KLA CONNECTION by Justin Raimondo -- from February 25, 2000. I have reproduced the text in its entirety, with much of its formatting but not its links, and interspersed my comments.

George W. Bush has been taken out to the woodshed by the liberals for appearing on the stage at Bob Jones University – in this day and age, to even appear on a platform provided by a politically incorrect group or institution is enough to condemn a candidate to perdition. And the McCain campaign was quick to capitalize on it. But why isn't McCain subjected to the same scrutiny? Please direct your attention to the photo below: the caption informs us that McCain is speaking at "a pro-Kosovo, pro-McCain rally across the street from his New York City hotel Friday morning, Feb. 11, 2000. McCain is in New York for the day to attend fundraisers and to talk to the press before returning to South Carolina Friday night." But who is the man on the right, with the colorful KLA scarf and his big mouth wide open? The caption-writer is mute on this point, but to anyone who knows anything about New York's ethnic politics, the face is all-too-familiar: it is none other than former Republican Congressman Joe DioGuardi, now the loquacious leader of the Albanian-American Civic League (AACL) – a group that not only actively represents the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in America, but whose leader has become a spokesman for the most radical fringe elements of the KLA.

Here is an image from that article, showing the photo in question:



See also McCain's Ties to Islamic Terrorists -- and Heroin Traffickers?, Smuggler's Blues, Part 1, Smuggler's Blues, Part 2 and The Next Two Balkan Wars.

WHO IS JOE DIOGUARDI?

DioGuardi is an extremist who lost his seat in Congress because his growing preoccupation with creating a "Greater Albania" did not exactly fit in with the pothole-fixing skills that must be the first concern of New York City politicians. Most Albanian-Americans support independence for Kosovo, and look with disdain and bewilderment at the US government's official position that Kosovo is still an "autonomous" province of Yugoslavia. But DioGuardi goes one step – indeed, several steps – further, and envisions a "Greater Albania." Visitors to AACL's website are confronted with a map of this Albanian Empire, which, as Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute said in his testimony before Congress, illustrates "a breathtaking agenda," including as it does "Albania, Kosovo, western Macedonia (along with its capital, Skopje), southeastern Montenegro (along with its capital, Podgorica), northern Greece, and southern Serbia (north of Kosovo)." A comment found in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch newsletter on this outrageous map hit the nail on the head:

"When I first saw this map it struck a recollection of something I had seen before. It occurred to me that it is quite similar to one I have (printed by the State Department in 1947) of interim territorial arrangements during World War II. I can understand that there is an element of hyperbole in critics' calling NATO's air campaign "Nazi," but fail to see what interest the United States has in helping to restore the Nazi-imposed borders of 1943 or how this helps preserve European stability."

THE KLA: A SHORT HISTORY

It is well-known that the original straight-arm salute of the KLA was suppressed, by its CIA and German intelligence handlers, in favor of a less controversial American-style greeting. While one wing of the KLA looks to the old-fashioned Stalinism of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian Communist dictator who aided the early student organizations that made up the Albanian separatist movement, the other looks to the "Skanderberg Division" of the Nazi SS, Albanians recruited by the Germans to fight for Hitler's cause, for its political antecedents. DioGuardi has been a vigorous publicist on behalf of the KLA political commissar, Adem Demaci, a militant who spent years in Yugoslav prisons. Demaci denounced the Rambouillet agreement as a sellout and (along with DioGuardi) rejected all negotiations on principle. DioGuardi even wrote a letter congratulating his fellow extremist when Demaci was appointed chief of the KLA's political wing.

FOLLOW THAT GENIE!

Demaci, DioGuardi, and the KLA militants are now acting on their dream of a "Greater Albania": this is the meaning of recent events in Kosovo. Madeleine Albright is so frightened by the rising demands of the pan-Albanians that she made a special trip to Tirana to denounce the idea as "no more viable than that of a Greater Serbia." But the genie is already out of the bottle, and the question is: what will the next Administration do?

A GREATER ALBANIA

As the KLA conducts its reign of terror in Kosovo, driving out the Serbs and marching, in tens of thousands, on the northern city of Mitrovica in an effort to storm the last Serb bastion, John McCain is standing alongside a man who is the chief apologist, organizer, and fundraiser of the KLA in America, a man who once declared:

"It is unfortunate that misguided European politics, overly and unfairly influenced by Russia and Greece in the early part of the twentieth century, resulted in a partition of the Albanian nation so that more than half the Albanians in the Balkans live outside the state of Albania in hostile Slavic regimes, especially Serbia and Macedonia. . . . With UDBA in Belgrade and the Sigurimi in Tirana collaborating to buy, trick or kill those Albanians with democratic aspirations, it is no wonder that it has been extremely difficult for seven million. Albanians to organize themselves as a nation, or even politically within the five jurisdictions in which they reside. While there is some cooperation among political parties in certain areas and across borders, true democratic, independent-minded Albanian leadership has been lacking and this has contributed to the divisions, confusion, and betrayal of the Albanian cause in the Balkans and in America."

CONSPIRACY THEORY

How's that for a conspiracy theory? According to DioGuardi, all the nations of Europe conspired to keep his people disunited. Naturally it is assumed that every living ethnic Albanian must live in an Albanian state, since, in the neo-fascist ideology of the KLA, the State embodies the Race and must defend its interests irrespective of current national borders. And, oh yes, that's what we definitely need: more "cooperation among parties in certain areas and across borders," so as to spread the rabidly revanchist ideology of the KLA and set the Balkans aflame.

Here is Kosovo, populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, and now independent as of this year:



Greater Albania will mean a spread of the Balkan wars into nearby nations, specifically into those regions of neighboring nations populated by ethnic Albanians.



And, to be sure, ethnic Albanians are not the problem, any more than Americans are the problem because of criminals and terrorists in our midst. But, DioGuardi represents a violent, criminal element in ethnic Albanian circles, which, in turn, is closely tied in to Islamic extremists, including to Osama bin Laden -- I point this out frequently at posts on my blog.

THE DIOGUARDI-McCAIN CONNECTION

There they are, the two of them, DioGuardi and McCain, side by side: one who would carve an Albanian empire in the midst of the blood-soaked Balkans, and the other who would be President of the United States. It is a disturbing juxtaposition, to say the very least. For if we can accuse poor Dubya of endorsing the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Bob Jones fundamentalists simply by speaking at their auditorium, then what are we to make of would-be President John McCain appearing with a radical Albanian nationalist who sees not only Belgrade but also Skopje and Athens as the enemy? After all, this is perhaps the wrong signal to the Macedonians, who have so far enjoyed a fragile peace, and no doubt the Greeks, our NATO allies, would be less than pleased. And what of the Montenegrins, whose capital city DioGuardi and the Albanian lobby covet, and whose independence we are pledged to defend against the alleged threat posed by Milosevic? If Bush must be called to account for supposedly aligning himself with the forces of intolerance in the US, for the sin of appearing at Bob Jones U, then should we not call McCain to account for sharing the platform with a radical Albanian extremist and endangering the peace of Europe.

TURNING THE TABLES

Although the McCain campaign piously denied it, it has since come out that they were responsible for phone calls during the Michigan primary, run ostensibly by a group called "Catholic Voter Alert," which demanded to know why Bush had not disavowed the rhetoric of Bob Jones and his flock about the church being "a Satanic cult'! This from the campaign McCain piously described to his followers as "one you can be proud of"! Well, then, is it not time to turn the tables, and send out a "Voter Alert" demanding to know why McCain hasn't repudiated the rhetoric of Joe DioGuardi and his KLA friends who want to ignite the Balkan tinderbox with their crazed scheme to create an Albanian empire? Indeed, this is a lot fairer than the alleged Bush-Jones connection, because Bush has no history of anti-Catholicism – the news of his sudden conversion to the Jonesian doctrine that the Church is "the great Whore" foretold in the Bible came as a bit of a surprise. But McCain's apparent conversion to the cause of pan-Albanian nationalism is far more credible. For McCain was the most militant and visible supporter of the Kosovo war, who demanded Clinton pull out all the stops and send in the ground troops – even going so far as to introduce a Senate resolution that went down to a well-deserved defeat at the hands of his Republican colleagues.

THE KLA CANDIDATE

As General Wesley Clark, the US commander of our troops in Kosovo, calls on NATO and Washington to send in more troops – and I see, as I write this, that the Marines are practically on the way – the crisis in the Balkans is approaching critical mass. The NATO-crats are cranking up the propaganda machine, as the KLA gets ready to complete the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and proceed to the next stage of the ongoing struggle for a "Greater Albania." Ideologues like Adem Demaci, in Kosovo, and Joe Dioguardi, in America, want to drag the US into yet another Balkan war, to "finish the job" and completely dismember the remnants of Yugoslavia – using the US and NATO as both their sword and their shield. With a sympathetic President in the White House, who remembers how much money and political support was raised on that trip to New York at a crucial time in his campaign, DioGuardi and the KLA may yet see their expansionist dream realized. With Serbia finally subjugated, Albania would be free to expand, absorbing not only Kosovo but also destabilizing Macedonia and threatening Greece.

HOW MUCH?

The last GOP presidential candidate to cash in on the Albanian connection was Bob Dole: in May 1987, Dole and DioGuardi attended an Albanian-American fund-raiser in New York City that raised $1.2 million for Dole's campaign and $50,000 for DioGuardi's, according to journalist Diana Johnstone and researcher Benjamin Works. The caption accompanying the above photo says McCain was in New York doing some fundraising, and it is fair to ask: how much money did he get from the Albanian lobby? As the great "reform" candidate who denounces the influence of "special interests" and the power of money in politics, McCain had better tell us exactly how much the Albanian lobby has thrown his way – and to what effect. Of all the lobbyists in Washington, it is the "special interests" represented by the agents of foreign powers that pose the greatest threat to the integrity of the Presidency. Joe DioGuardi, rabid Albanian nationalist and chief American apologist for the drug-connected totalitarians of the KLA, has spread the money from his political action committees far and wide, and no doubt McCain is also the recipient of his largess – but at what price to the American people? The McCain campaign must immediately release the figures, and give us some "straight talk" about the KLA-McCain connection: how much did they get-and in return for what? The American people have a right to know how many American soldiers will be put at risk in the Balkans in the service of paying off President McCain's political debts.

ALBANIAN PANDERFEST

Republicans are screaming about the panderfest presided over by the Reverend Al Sharpton, at which Al Gore and Bill Bradley outdid each other in denouncing "white skin privilege," but what about McCain's panderfest with the Albanian warmongers, who want to drag the US even deeper into the Balkan quagmire? At least Sharpton isn't demanding that the lives of American soldiers be put at risk.

THE BUCHANAN FACTOR

Naturally the American media, which made itself into the willing instrument of the War Party during the Kosovo conflict, is reluctant to uncover the fact of McCain’s connection to Albanian extremists. The inability or unwillingness of the Bush campaign to call McCain to account on this question is due in large part to its own commitment to the Albanian lobby; their foreign policy advisor, Richard Perle, was also an advisor to the Bosnian Muslims, who enthusiastically supported the Kosovo war. The only major candidate who has made opposition to the Kosovo war – and opposition to the influence of foreign lobbyists – a campaign issue has been Patrick J. Buchanan, the likely Reform Party candidate. Buchanan is the specter that is haunting this primary season, with everyone and his brother claiming the mantle of "reform" – but scurrying away from the vital foreign policy issue, which only Buchanan has addressed. If McCain, the would-be conqueror of the Balkans, is the GOP nominee, then the Republicans, independents, and Democrats who opposed that war – and are horrified by its frightening results – will be driven into the Reform Party column. Combined with the general distaste for McCain among conservatives, this is the one factor that those who prate about the "electability" of the Warrior Candidate never discuss. Once again, the Bush people are constrained from making their best argument against McCain, this time for fear of breaking the embargo on all discussion of Buchanan and Reform as viable alternatives. The impotence of the Bush campaign in the face of the McCain insurgency is a function not only of the shortcomings of their candidate, but of the internationalism of his Establishment foreign policy advisors and their instinctive fear of the Right. And that, in the end, will be their undoing.

That was 2000 -- now it is 2008.

If elected, McCain's foreign policy will be subservient to the interests of those who traffic in heroin, arms, women for forced prostitution, nuclear secrets, and any other contraband-du-jour -- McCain's foreign policy will mean supporting close allies of Osama bin Laden in the Balkans.

We see McCain, because of his military experience and status as a war hero due to his time in captivity in Vietnam, as stronger in the "War on Terror" -- but long before there was a "War on Terror", McCain very knowingly sold his country out to the very terrorists against whom our troops now fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, a vote for Obama is a vote for peace? Not exactly, and for a variety of reasons. As we have seen in previous posts in this series, and as we shall see again -- very soon, because the election is just over two weeks away! -- Obama's foreign policy will be steered by the very same organized crime faction that seeks to carve an organized crime and militant Islamic extremist empire in the Balkans.

Stay tuned, as we look again at Obama's running mate, Senator Biden.

Smackdown, Part 1

I begin with an article on a subject that an email tipster alerted me to, NATO agrees on Afghan drug role for military, from October 10, 2008:

BUDAPEST, Hungary - NATO defense ministers Friday authorized their troops in Afghanistan to attack drug barons blamed for pumping up to US$100 million (euro74 million) a year into the coffers of resurgent Taliban fighters.

Sound promising?

Ah, but longtime readers of my blog are aware of the importance of heroin in Afghanistan -- and thus, they know that this is not the beginning of the story, and neither will it be the end.

Before we continue with this, perhaps we should review some history. Though I have written extensively about this in the past, I will nevertheless paint the picture again in this series of posts.

I present material from an article that appeared on October 9, 2008, entitled U.S. Study Warns of Crisis in Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON -- A draft report by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by corruption within President Hamid Karzai's government and by an increase in attacks by militants operating from Pakistan, the Times said, citing U.S. officials familiar with the document.

There are two problems. One is that Pakistan is a sanctuary for the militants; the other is that of corruption in the Kabul government.

In reviewing my Genesis series, it is not surprising that Pakistan is a sanctuary for the militants; indeed, as I often pointed out during the Genesis posts, it sure looked like Pakistan was behind the rise of the Taliban. No wonder the Taliban would flee to the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and no wonder Islamabad has been unable to root them out, and unwilling to give the US permission to enter Pakistani territory to do so.

Is it not interesting that one thing Benazir Bhutto was proposing was to get the militants out of the border area, without US help if possible, but with US help if necessary? And, of course, look what happened to her!

Then, there's the corruption in the Kabul government.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is set to be finished after the November elections and will be the most comprehensive U.S. assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan, the paper said.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants from neighboring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials said.

The report cites gains in the building of Afghanistan's national army. But officials said it also laid out in stark terms what it described as the destabilizing impact of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy.

Back now to NATO agrees on Afghan drug role for military from October 10, 2008:

"With regard to counter-narcotics ... ISAF can act in concert with the Afghans against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai, referring to the NATO force.

The United States has pushed for NATO's 50,000 troops to take on a counter-narcotics role to hit back at the Taliban, whose increasing attacks have cast doubt on the prospects of a Western military victory in Afghanistan.

However, Germany, Spain and others were wary and their doubts led to NATO imposing conditions on the anti-drug mandate for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Troops will only be able to act against drug facilities if authorized by their own governments; only drug producers deemed to be supporting the insurgency will be targeted; and the operation must be designed to be temporary — lasting only until the Afghan security forces are deemed able to take on the task.

So, what is going on here?

We now begin with a translation by Ferghana.Ru of an article that originally appeared in Russian, entitled US AF serving Afghani drug dealers, from November, 2007; keep in mind that, as a translation by a non-native speaker of English, it reads just a little rough in places:

Afghani drugs are as much a pressing problem of the international community as the global warming is. Existence of the problem is recognized by everybody but a solution to it is not known. An international conference on the subject took place in Kabul in late October. According to the UN report presented there, Afghani opium reaching the international market accounts 93% of the global production. Fifty percent of Afghani drugs is produced in Gilmand on the border with Pakistan, a province where British troops are quartered.

Persuading the House of Commons to send British troops to Helmand last year [as this is a 2007 article, that would be 2006 -- YD], Premier Tony Blair capitalized on the danger to Great Britain posed by Afghani heroin. Paradoxically as it is, British servicemen and their American colleagues have found themselves now dragged into the international mafia that buys drugs made in Afghanistan and smuggles them abroad.

The information this publication is based on came from various Afghani sources that cannot be identified for quite understandable reasons. All the same, indirect evidence indicates that the Western military is involved in traffic. An operation against poppy plantations was to take place in several southern and southeastern provinces of Afghanistan this May (they were to be sprayed with defoliants). Sources in administration of Kandahar and Jalalabad say, however, that commanders of the US and British contingents in these provinces made a pact with the Afghanis and cancelled the operation.

Did you catch that? "[I]ndirect evidence indicates that the Western military is involved in traffic."

Of course, since then, there has been more of an outcry on the part of the Russian Federation regarding the involvement of the US military in the heroin trade.

Sources point out that interests of the Western military involved in trafficking out of Afghanistan (usually by US military aviation) coincide with interests of Afghani chieftains who control poppy fields. Afghani officials say that 85% of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation.

Again, that was a report from a year ago: "Afghani officials say that 85% of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation."

There are several ways of shipping drugs abroad. Some sources maintain that the chain begins with civilian salesmen - usually Americans acting under the cover of all sorts of non-governmental organizations and security firms. They buy "goods" from Afghani wholesale dealers and take them to military bases (usually the airfield in Kandahar). A well-informed source in Afghani security structures claims in the meantime that the American military never deals with Western civilian structures and works with local Afghani officials directly. It is these officials who deal with field commanders, from Taliban more often than not, who are in charge of drug production. The Talibs control bank accounts money is transacted to in all sorts of devious ways via the Afghanis living in the United States and West Europe.

As a matter of fact, money is not the only commodity drugs are paid with. Weapons will do too. Afghani sources claim that drugs-for-weapons barter deals with the Talibs are widely used. (One cannot help recalling the "deals" between our servicemen and the mujahedin during Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.) It may be added that the mujahedin nowadays get weapons from the northern provinces to which the merchandise is smuggled in the first place from Asian states. Insiders say that a great deal of merchandise passes via Shurtepa, a settlement on the Afghani-Turkmen border. Insiders say that weapons and munitions are ferried to the Taliban-controlled provinces of Afghanistan by American or British armored vehicles.

Does this ring any bells?



From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: Can you elaborate here on what countries you mean?

SE: It's interesting, in one of my interviews, they say "Turkish countries," but I believe they meant Turkic countries – that is, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of these countries play a big part in the sort of things I have been talking about.

CD: What, you mean drug-smuggling?

SE: Among other things. Yes, that is a major part of it. It's amazing that in this whole "war on terror" thing, no one ever talks about these issues. No one asks questions about these countries – questions like, "OK, how much of their GDP depends on drugs?"

CD: But of course, you're not implying...

SE: And then to compare that little survey with what countries we've been putting military bases in --

And, it's not just today's fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban; the same connections to corrupt US officials permitted 9/11 to occur (so it could be used as cover for a bigger crime).

From State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade -- FBI Whistleblower by Fintan Dunne, June 7, 2004:

Because of a provisional gag order issued by Judge Reggie B. Walton which prohibits revealing specific details, Edmonds can only paint a picture in the broadest of brush strokes.

But her measured words hint at politically explosive connections between criminal drug/intelligence networks, and the 9/11 attacks.

"You have [a] network of people who obtain certain information and they take it out and sell it to... whomever would be the highest bidder. Then you have people who would be bringing into the country narcotics from the East, and their connections. [It] is only then that you really see the big picture."

"And you see certain semi-legitimate organizations that may very well have a legit front, but with very criminal illegitimate activities -- who start coming at you from these investigations."

"And the picture becomes, actually, very clear. Crystal clear."

From 'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes' by Andrew Buncombe; published on Friday, April 2, 2004 by the Independent/UK:

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used -- but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities -- with skyscrapers."

[snip]

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission -- 90 per cent of it -- related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

For a wild ride, stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as this series continues!

Principle, not Politics: Rights for the Accused

I have an excerpt of an article that just appeared at Yahoo News, entitle AP Exclusive: Documents say detainee near insanity:

WASHINGTON - A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

While the treatment of prisoners at detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq have long been the subject of human rights complaints and court scrutiny, the documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States.

Two American citizens, inside the United States....

The Bush administration ordered the men to be held in military jails as "enemy combatants" for years of interrogations without criminal charges, which would not have been allowed in civilian jails.

If Bush can do this to them, Bush can do this to you.

All he has to do is declare you to be an "enemy combatant".

You may protest your innocence, but who will stick up for you?

Who will insist that your civil rights not be violated?

Who will insist that your Constitutional safeguards against self-incrimination not be violated?

Though you only be accused, and not even convicted of anything, the treatment you receive will be both cruel and unusual -- it will include acts which US courts have on previous occasions declared to be war crimes.

And, who will stick up for you?

After all, nobody wants to be seen as being soft on terrorists.

And, we all know that if you weren't a terrorist, the Bush Administration wouldn't accuse you and take you into custody....

The men were interrogated by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, repeatedly denied access to attorneys and mail from home and contact with anyone other than guards and their interrogators. They were deprived of natural light for months and for years were forbidden even minor distractions such as a soccer ball or a dictionary.

"I will continue to do what I can to help this individual maintain his sanity, but in my opinion we're working with borrowed time," an unidentified Navy brig official wrote of prisoner Yaser Esam Hamdi in 2002. "I would like to have some form of an incentive program in place to reward him for his continued good behavior, but more so, to keep him from whacking out on me."

Yale Law School's Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic received the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by two attorneys Jonathan Freiman and Tahlia Townsend, representing another detainee, Jose Padilla. The Lowenstein group and the American Civil Liberties Union said the papers were evidence that the Bush administration violated the 5th Amendment's protections against cruel treatment. The U.S. military was ordered to treat the American prisoners the same way prisoners at Guantanamo were treated, according to the documents.

However, the Guantanamo jail was created by the Bush administration specifically to avoid allowing detainees any constitutional rights. Administration lawyers contended the Constitution did not apply outside the country.

Our great decider -- for whom I was happy and proud to vote after eight years of Bill Clinton -- esteems the Constitution about as much as his predecessor did.

The ethical question: "Can I get away with it?"

And how many will justify this, pointing out the exigencies and the dangers of possible terrorist acts, and saying that safeguarding some terrorist's rights is nothing compared to the large number of deaths and the vast destruction that might result from a terrorist act.

Osama bin Laden can kill people, Osama bin Laden can destroy property, but Osama bin Laden is unable to destroy America -- only Americans can do that, by forgetting what America is really about.

Our dear leader, our Führer, leads us in the War on Terror, destroying the very reasons that make America worth fighting for -- worth dying for -- and how many go mindlessly, blindly goose-stepping along behind him?



Mr. President: I voted for you in 2000, and I voted for you again in 2004.

I am an American and a Republican; you, sir, are a criminal, and I hereby call for your impeachment.

It may not mean a great deal practically at this point, but there is a principle involved, and I, sir, stand on principle, not on politics.



Madam Speaker of the House: By taking impeachment off the table, you have abrogated your duties to this country. This is not about politics, this is about principle. You fail to do your Constitutional duty, that of standing up to a President who is in violation of our most important laws. Madam Speaker, you are a disgrace to America.



And to anyone who abandons me because of my viewpoint on this matter, know that I would rather stand alone than in bad company.

To The Enemy We Called "Friend"

Wine, women and song:
For these pirates spend money;
But what in a terrorist's mouth
Tastes far sweeter than honey?

A president was bought,
And so was his successor;
Election time again,
Of evils we seek the lesser.

Bin Laden hates America,
But rushes to his own demise,
As business in Washington
Is built on the same lies.

Pirates and terrorists,
But who gives us straight talk?
Listen not to their words,
Rather see how they walk.

Terrorists or politicians,
The deal remains the same:
Focus on the narcotics,
For they fuel the common game.

More honest is the pirate,
Who steals a means to his end,
Than a politician who sold his country,
To the enemy we called "friend".

The Sword of Allah, Part 10

Following on to Part 9, we actually continue from Part 6 by finishing our review of Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

That is where we are today. The solution remains a simple one: execute the policy developed in 2007. It requires the following steps:

1. Inform President Karzai that he must stop protecting drug lords and narco-farmers or he will lose U.S. support. Karzai should issue a new decree of zero tolerance for poppy cultivation during the coming growing season. He should order farmers to plant wheat, and guarantee today's high wheat prices. Karzai must simultaneously authorize aggressive force-protected manual and aerial eradication of poppies in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces for those farmers who do not plant legal crops.

2. Order the Pentagon to support this strategy. Position allied and Afghan troops in places that create security pockets so that Afghan counternarcotics police can arrest powerful drug lords. Enable force-protected eradication with the Afghan-set goal of eradicating 50,000 hectares as the benchmark.

3. Increase the number of D.E.A. agents in Kabul and assist the Afghan attorney general in prosecuting key traffickers and corrupt government officials from all ethnic groups, including southern Pashtuns.

4. Get new development projects quickly to the provinces that become poppy-free or stay poppy free. The north should see significant rewards for its successful anticultivation efforts. Do not, however, provide cash to farmers for eradication.

5. Ask the allies either to help in this effort or stand down and let us do the job.

There are other initiatives that could help as well: better engagement of Afghanistan's neighbors, more drug-treatment centers in Afghanistan, stopping the flow into Afghanistan of precursor chemicals needed to make heroin and increased demand-reduction programs. But if we — the Afghans and the U.S. — do just the five items listed above, we will bring the rule of law to a lawless country; and we will cut off a key source of financing to the Taliban.

But we know that will never happen, don't we.



From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: Can you elaborate here on what countries you mean?

SE: It's interesting, in one of my interviews, they say "Turkish countries," but I believe they meant Turkic countries – that is, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of these countries play a big part in the sort of things I have been talking about.

CD: What, you mean drug-smuggling?

SE: Among other things. Yes, that is a major part of it. It's amazing that in this whole "war on terror" thing, no one ever talks about these issues. No one asks questions about these countries – questions like, "OK, how much of their GDP depends on drugs?"

CD: But of course, you're not implying...

SE: And then to compare that little survey with what countries we've been putting military bases in --

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SH: And as you pointed [out], some of this information has been confirmed in the public. I know when you speak about the Iranian informant...

SE: Correct.

SH: ...who warned in April of 2001 -- that was even confirmed by Mueller, the director of the FBI.

SE: Absolutely there was actually an article in the Chicago Tribune in July 2004 saying that even Mueller expressed surprise that during the hearings, the commissioners didn't ask about this. And guess what, nobody reported all these omissions. What would happen if you hit them with 20 cases? And I'm talking about 20 affidavits from experts and veteran agents.

SH: This is all about the question of prior knowledge and who knew what, when before the attack.

SE: And also what happened afterward. I started working three days after Sept. 11 with a lot of documents and wiretaps that I was translating. Some of them dated back to 1997, 1998. Even after Sept. 11, covering up these investigations and not pursuing some of these investigations because the Department of State says, "You know what, you can't pursue this because that may deal with this particular country. If this country that the investigation deals with are not one of the Axis of Evil, we don't want to pursue them." The American people have the right to know this. They are giving this grand illusion that there are some investigations, but there are none. You know, they are coming down on these charities as the finance of al-Qaeda. Well, if you were to talk about the financing of al-Qaeda, a very small percentage comes from these charity foundations. The vast majority of their financing comes from narcotics. Look, we had 4 to 6 percent of the narcotics coming from the East, coming from Pakistan, coming from Afghanistan via the Balkans to the United States. Today, three or four years after Sept. 11, that has reached over 15 percent. How is it getting here? Who are getting the proceedings from those big narcotics?

From Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 07, 2004:

JH: Here's a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?

SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it's extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it's what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don't hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It's extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap -- money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That's what I'm trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it's getting into somebody's political campaign, and somebody's lobbying. And people don't want to be traced back to this money.

From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

SE: The fact that there are no investigations -- I will give you an analogy, okay? Say if we decided to have a "war on drugs," but said in the beginning, "right, we're only going to go after the young black guys on the street level." Hey, we already have tens of thousands of them in our jails anyway, why not a few more? But we decided never to go after the middle levels, let alone the top levels...

It's like this with the so-called war on terror. We go for the Attas and Hamdis -- but never touch the guys on the top.

CD: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?

SE: Oh yeah, they know.

CD: So why don't they get them?

SE: It's like I told you before -- this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling -- and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.

Heroin -- the Sword of Allah!

May Allah be pleased with our officials in Washington this Ramadan!

:)

Taking Care of Business, Part 5

We continue from Part 4 looking at the UK's BAE scandal. Here we look at Saudi prince 'received arms cash', from June 7, 2007:

A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.

The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.

Prince Bandar "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.

The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.

Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.

"I was the one who won the contract," he said. "I don't know anything about him (the prince) at all. I would have remembered that name."

When asked about the secret payments, Sir Lygo said that it was not going on when the deal was signed.

"I would have known if it was going on at the time. I was not aware of it, so as far as I am concerned it was not occuring.

"Yes, we paid agents. Nothing illegal about that. It was absolutely in accordance with the law at the time... there was nothing untoward about the deal whatsoever."

Private plane

The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.

The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.

David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.

He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."

Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".

"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.

From An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Two by Chris Deliso, July 1, 2004:

CD: [snip] At several points you state that such organized crime networks employ "semi-legitimate organizations" as their point of interface with governments and the "legit" world. Can you explain exactly what you mean?

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front -- say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities -- and they might even do that -- but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything -- from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

CD: So with these organizations we're talking about a lot of money --

SE: Huge, just massive. They don't deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.

Continuing with Saudi prince 'received arms cash':

Investigation stopped

According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".

They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.

It remains unclear whether the payments were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.

The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.

Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the Panorama allegations.

But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".

The SFO's inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point where there was a risk that BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh.

Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.

Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.

The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.

She believed the payments would thrust the issue back into the public domain and raise a number of questions.

'Bad for business'

Labour MP Roger Berry, head of the House of Commons committee which investigates strategic export controls, told the BBC that the allegations must be properly investigated.

If there was evidence of bribery or corruption in arms deals since 2001 - when the UK signed the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention - then that would be a criminal offence, he said.

He added: "It's bad for British business, apart from anything else, if allegations of bribery popping around aren't investigated."

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".

"It seems to me very clear that this issue has got to be re-opened," Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.

"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."

From An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Three by Chris Deliso, July 1, 2004:

CD: What are they so afraid of?

SE: They're afraid of information, of the truth coming out, and accountability -- the whole accountability issue that will arise. But it's not as complicated as it might seem. If they were to allow the whole picture to emerge, it would just boil down to a whole lot of money and illegal activities.

CD: Hmm, well I know you can't name names, but can you tell me if any specific officials will suffer if your testimony comes out?

SE: Yes. Certain elected officials will stand trial and go to prison.

It is amazing how America's Sibel Edmonds case gives us such insight into the UK's BAE case, isn't it?

More to follow as Taking Care of Business continues.

Taking Care of Business, Part 4

We continue from Part 3. Here we review commentary that provides some background to the BAE scandal, from Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal by by Chris Floyd:

So says the Guardian, which has had a sneak peek at the evidence compiled by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in its lengthy investigation of vast corruption in a decades-long arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the Anglo-American arms merchant, BAE, Tony Blair's favorite war profiteer. The SFO's probe was preemptorily quashed by Blair's ever quiescent attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last December. Now the Guardian has learned that BAE paid a quarterly bribe to Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud -- long-time ambassador to the United States, and so intimate with America's ruling family that the president nicknamed him "Bandar Bush." BAE was plying Prince Bush with $30 million every quarter -- for ten years. Nice work if you can get it.

The background to this sordid business can be found in a piece I did last year: Last Bad Deal Gone Down: War Profits Trump the Rule of Law. A brief excerpt below sets the scene:

Slush funds, oil sheikhs, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney – it's a scandal that has it all: corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it – even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war.

Sound familiar?

But here's how the deal went down. On Dec. 14, the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith (Pete Goldsmith as was, before his longtime crony Tony Blair raised him to the peerage), peremptorily shut down a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a massive corruption case involving Britain's biggest military contractor and members of the Saudi royal family. SFO bulldogs had just forced their way into the holy of holies of the great global backroom – Swiss bank accounts – when Pete pulled the plug. Continuing with the investigation, said His Lordship, "would not be in the national interest."

It certainly wasn't in the interest of BAE Systems, the British arms merchant which has become one of the top 10 U.S. military firms as well, through its voracious acquisitions during the profitable War on Terror – including some juicy hook-ups with the Carlyle Group, the former corporate crib of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and still current home of the family fixer, James Baker. BAE director Phillip Carroll is also quite at home in the White House inner circle: a former chairman of Shell Oil, he was tapped by George II to be the first "Senior Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil" in those heady "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003. BAE has allegedly managed to "disappear" approximately $2 billion in shavings from one of the largest and longest-running arms deals in history – the UK-Saudi warplane program known as "al-Yamanah" (Arabic for "the dove"). Al-Yamanah has been flying for 18 years now, with periodic augmentations, pumping almost $80 billion into BAE's coffers, with negotiations for $12 billion in additional planes now nearing completion. SFO investigators had followed the missing money from the deal into a network of Swiss bank accounts and the usual Enronian web of offshore front companies.

From The Highjacking of a Nation, Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals by Sibel Edmonds, November 29, 2006:

The foreign influence, the lobbyists, the current highly positioned civil servants who are determined future 'wanna be' lobbyists, and the fat cats of the Military Industrial Complex, operate successfully under the radar, with unlimited reach and power, with no scrutiny, while selling your interests, benefiting from your tax money, and serving the highest bidders regardless of what or who they may be. This deep state seems to operate at all levels of our government; from the President's office to Congress, from the military quarters to the civil servants' offices.

Of course, instead of "Congress" say "Parliament", instead of "President" say "Prime Minister" -- you get the idea.

Returning to Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal:

Bandar Bush was instrumental in setting up the deal in the first place, the Guardian notes, wheeling and dealing with Maggie Thatcher from his Washington redoubt. The prince -- one of the leading figures in perhaps the most repressive and extremist Islamic state on earth -- has continued to be influential with the White House even after stepping down as ambassador in 2005. (He's now head of the repressive state's security organs.) He's also played a key role in L'il Bush's political career -- making a deal to cut oil prices before the 2004 vote and publicly endorsing his "brother" in the election. One cannot but speculate on how much of the dirty BAE money was used to grease the overt and covert ops of the Bush political machine. According to the Guardian, Bandar's BAE bribes were drawn from BAE's slush fund and deposited in Bandar's account in Washington's Riggs Bank -- the notorious money-laundering outfit used for decades by American and foreign elites to wash their filthy lucre. L'il Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, was a top executive at Riggs Bank when it was hit with a record $25 million fine in 2004 for skirting money-laundering laws, as David Sirota -- and then the Washington Post -- reported.

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SH: So let's get into some of that criminal activity then. The semi-legit organization that I think you are most often referring to is the American Turkish Council, which is headed by Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser of the United States, and is packed with the leaders of Raytheon, Motorola, Boeing, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, and some of the most powerful company names in the military-industrial complex.

SE: Correct.

SH: Is the ATC just one of many semi-legitimate organizations that you are referring to, or is most of this story focused on the ATC itself?

SE: There are many.

SH: And many organizations that you actually were overhearing?

SE: I cannot talk to you about what I was overhearing, but as I have pointed out there are several organizations.

Returning to Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal:

When questioned by the Guardian about the payments, BAE's defense was bold -- and probably accurate: "We have little doubt that among the reasons the attorney general considered the case was doomed was the fact that we acted in accordance with... the relevant contracts, with the approval of the government of Saudi Arabia, together with, where relevant, that of the UK [Ministry of Defence]." Goldsmith's office offered a similar assertion: "There were major legal difficulties [with the SFO investigation] given BAE's claim that the payments were made in accordance with the agreed contractual arrangements."

In other words, the bribes to Saudi royals were probably built into the contract from the beginning, in secret codicils that would have required the approval of UK government official for two decades, encompassing the years of Thatcher, John Major (who served as head of Carlyle's European operations from 2001 to 2004) and Tony Blair. Thus, even though such payments are illegal under UK law -- and have been outlawed in the United States since 1977, as the Guardian notes -- BAE can ultimately point to government sanction for its corruption... in the all-absolving name of "national security," of course.

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SH: Okay, and you mention when you talk about criminal activity, drug-running, money-laundering, weapons-smuggling...

SE: And these activities overlap. It's not like okay, you have certain criminal entities that are involved in nuclear black market, and then you have certain entities bringing narcotics from the East. You have the same players when you look into these activities at high-levels you come across the same players, they are the same people.

SH: Well, when we're talking about those kind of levels of liquid cash money we probably also have to include major banks too, right?

SE: Financial institutions, yes.

Returning to Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal:

In a real sense, however, this story is not even news: "Bush Crony Takes Bribes in Oil and Weapons Deal." What's so unusual about that? It is, in fact, the way the world is run, and has been run since time immemorial. The elite insiders grease each other up like swingers at an orgy, wriggling and wallowing in the blood that lubricates their fortunes. Then they step out into the light of day -- in thousand-dollar suits, in princely robes -- and mouth pieties for the rubes and suckers they despise. The conclusion of the December piece on the BAE bagmen still applies:

Lord knows – and Lords know – that unseemly accommodations sometimes have to be made in this world, especially in geopolitics. A wink here, a little baksheesh there between unsavoury characters are often better than, say, launching a war of aggression and murdering more than half a million innocent people to achieve your political and commercial ends. But in the BAE case, as in so much else in politics, it is the hypocrisy that rankles most. Western governments obviously believe they must give guns and bribes to extremist tyrants in order to obtain the oil that keeps their own nations in such disproportionate clover – but they lack the guts to say so in plain language, dressing up this ugly business with meaningless trumpery about freedom, peace and security.

Are they trying to mask their own cynicism – or protect the tender sensibilities of their electorates, who might prefer sugared lies to acknowledgements of the dirty deals that undergird their way of life?

This idea that they are giving "guns and bribes to extremist tyrants in order to obtain the oil" would be the fall-back position, if they suddenly got indicted.



From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

SE: Look, I think that that [the AIPAC investigation] ultimately involves more than just Israelis -- I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel.

CD: A monster, 600-pound catfish, huh? So the Turkish and Israeli investigations had some overlap?

SE: Essentially, there is only one investigation -- a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere --

SE: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

Do you see the connection to what we addressed in Part 3? How Ari Fleischer, on behalf of Bandar Bush's brother in the White House, can say all that nonsense about how the Saudis are such good allies in the War on Terror, even though their sorry kingdom is in fact not just the source of the extremist ideology that motivates the jihadists, but is also a source of money and even the holy warriors themselves?

The Bush Administration puts out that story, because it's all "the same nucleus of people." London, Washington, Riyadh, Dubai, Rawalpindi.... "There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us."

Taking Care of Business, Part 3

We continue from Part 2.



From a May 14th, 2003, Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer, in the wake of a May 12th terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia:

Q What about the comments this morning by Robert Jordan, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia? He said that the United States tried futilely to get the Saudis to provide more protection to those residential compounds.

MR. FLEISCHER: I think there are two things at play in what's happening now in Saudi Arabia. On the broad sense, we continue to be pleased with the cooperation we have had from Saudi Arabia in the ongoing war against terrorism and the actions they have taken, particularly since September 11th.

As with many countries around the world, the fact is that Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact that it has terrorists inside its own country. And their presence is as much a threat to Saudi Arabia as it is to Americans and others who live and work in Saudi Arabia. These bombings killed not just Americans, but Saudis, as well. So the Ambassador pointed out one of the items that is going to be investigated in terms of what took place, how it took place, what actions could have led up to this.

And you may want to note a statement that was made by the Saudi Foreign Minister at a news conference just a little while ago where he said -- and I quote him now -- "The fact that the terrorism happened is an indication of shortcomings, and we have to learn from our mistakes and seek to improve our performance in this respect." And that was a statement made by Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister today.

Q Is the United States reassessing its entire relationship with Saudi Arabia?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the United States continues to have strong relations with Saudi Arabia. The one thing the terrorists want more than anything else is to be able to attack the United States, to attack others in the region, and force us into changes in our policies. That will not happen.

What a charade!

Try passing out Bibles in the Kingdom, and see what happens to you. But, the Kingdom can't stop the terrorists.

Q The government of Saudi Arabia said it will go after these suspects, these terrorists. But at the same time, you've got three clerics who put out a fatwa, a religious warning urging believers to give them harbor. Is this a problem that the United States has to deal with, as we deal with the government of Saudi Arabia?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, that's why I say that the Saudi Arabians have to deal with the fact that there is terror found inside their country. These are important issues that Saudi Arabia has been addressing and must continue to address. And we want to work with them to address these.

Again, there is NO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM in Saudi Arabia. Those fatwas have to have the blessing of someone in the Royal family, or those clerics aren't going to be making them.

Q Ari, an FBI official says that the investigative team that the U.S. is sending to Saudi Arabia is held up now in Germany, that they haven't been given permission by the Saudi government to --

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, I just got a report on that. I don't know -- it's not a question of permission from the Saudis, this deals with clearance times, as well as flight crew requirements for the amount of time they're allowed to fly. This is the explanation I literally just got before I came here, from the FBI. And so we do expect that the plane will be there tomorrow.

Q So they have been given all necessary clearances --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm not aware of any problems on the clearance front. There was a window of clearance where they were allowed to come in. And then, as a result of the flight times, the amount of time a crew can actually operate an aircraft, it didn't coincide. That's the explanation I literally just received before I came here.

Q And the Associated Press was reporting also that the number of FBI investigators that were part of that team was scaled back because of Saudi concerns about a large American presence.

MR. FLEISCHER: I asked about that this morning, and I was told by the FBI that's not the case. There is an assessment team that is en route, and the assessment team includes bomb technicians, evidence response teams, intelligence officials from counterterrorism. Their purpose is to go in, work with Saudi authorities, work with the Americans there, and then the assessment team will make a fuller report about what next is required.

Q It sounds, by saying that Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact that there's terrorism in their own country, you're saying pretty loud and clear that they haven't done so.

Exactly. The facts are pretty self-explanatory, and the story they tell is not the one the Bush Administration wants told, so here we're getting spin.

MR. FLEISCHER: No. No, but around the world, nations are reacting to the threat of terrorism. And certainly, once a nation is victimized by terrorism, it does have the effect of making that nation reassess and reexamine everything it had done up to that point. Obviously, until they were hit, they thought what they were doing may have been at a sufficient level.

We're constantly working with nations around the world, including Saudi Arabia, to urge them to focus on the threat, to see what different things can be done. We're constantly working with nations around the world, for example, on the war on terrorism financing. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it's worth noting that it was in 1997 -- not until 1997, but the beginning of 1997 -- that the FBI was able to open up an office inside Saudi Arabia. That office is up and running. It's a liaison office. It works on evidence-sharing, on intelligence-sharing, on liaison and cooperation with Saudi officials. And that has grown in terms of our cooperation with the Saudis and their cooperation with us since 1997.

But, yes, we do make the point that it is important for Saudi Arabia to recognize that there is terrorism inside the country and it needs to be confronted. And we stand there as their allies to help them confront it.

No -- we stand there as their dupes, and suffer from it.

Sure, some Saudis die as victims of the attack -- Saudis also die as perpetrators of the attack.

And, I'm sure the royal family is really broken up about it all.

Q But Saudi Arabia is a special case because it is the home of so much extremism and the peddling of extremism and the funding of extremism by members of the government. There are a lot of analysts of this relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia who have been saying this is a devil's bargain that has gone on for too long. Is that the kind of thing the President wants to see, the end of funding and support for extremism in Saudi Arabia?

That's a nice way of putting it: "devil's bargain".

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think every nation faces its own individual or unique series of threats and circumstances from terrorists within. Since some nations, such as the United States, -- we work very hard, it appears to be minimal, but we had, of course, the indictments up in the Buffalo area recently. Other nations in the Middle East have much deeper internal problems that they need to confront. Yemen is a nation that is working very hard. They have difficult internal circumstances that they are working to confront.

And so I think you can go across the region -- Pakistan is another country that has a variety of problems that President Musharraf is facing. And so, from country to country, you will see different levels of activism from within that is terrorist in nature. What's important now is that Saudi Arabia continue its work with us -- which has been good work, which has been cooperative work -- to confront the threat from within Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are the target of it, as well. In addition to the Westerners who are there, the Saudis, themselves, are the targets of these terrorists.

Q All right. So the President is confident that the House of Saud, governing that country the way it has been, is capable of taking on this problem?

No calls for human rights, or for democratization -- we are happy with the status quo.

MR. FLEISCHER: We are. The President, particularly working with the Crown Prince, does have confidence that the Saudis will face this. But this is a matter of the utmost importance that Saudi Arabia is going to look at. And I draw your attention to the remarks by the Foreign Minister today. Those are important remarks to hear from a Saudi Foreign Minister at a news conference today where he publicly acknowledged these shortcomings -- he, the Foreign Minister, himself, in public.

You also look at what the Saudi Arabians did on May 6th, in terms of the seizure of the explosives that were found near one of these compounds. You also look at the actions they have taken on the financing front, where you see some successes. But, yes, we're going to continue to push Saudi Arabia to work with us to do more, and that's cooperative.

Q What more can they do -- devote more resources?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, on the financial front, we're always working with different nations. That's a very difficult challenge, particularly in areas where they don't have a banking system that is similar to ours, with all the prevalence of electronic banking, to do more work. We've been satisfied on the evidence and the information-sharing. But there are additional things that can be done and we'll continue to work with these nations. And typically, they involved the rounding up of people in various countries who we think are tied to terrorism.

Q Will the FBI be in charge of the investigation in Saudi Arabia?

MR. FLEISCHER: I have not heard who will be "in charge." Obviously, this took place in Saudi country, so I have not heard who is in charge.

But how is it that they have our government saying this, and us not crying bloody murder?

And, how is this tied to the UK's BAE scandal?





Stay tuned for Part 4!

The Sword of Allah, Part 7

In previous posts in this series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), we saw how opiate production is not being effectively dealt with in Afghanistan, despite the fact that narcotics trafficking helps arm our enemies in the "War on Terror". The major reason for this given in this series is corruption in Afghanistan, although any frequent reader of my blog knows that corruption in Washington, D.C., is a major factor, as well.

In a companion series, Taking Care of Business, we also take a look at another aspect of corruption in government, as major players in the arms industry are in bed with those who are in bed with terrorists.

While the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other mujahideen are battling American, British, Afghan and other allied troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere, high enough up the ladder leaders on both sides are making a great deal of money dealing in narcotics, arms, nuclear secrets, sex slaves, and a variety of other commodities.

But, what does all this mean for people on the streets of infidel countries?



In a short article that was published on March 7, 2008, entitled Afghan heroin surging into Australia: Customs, we begin to get an idea of the impact of the narcotics trafficking on Australia (notice the new label).

Authorities are again concerned about a surge in the amount of pure, cheap heroin coming into Australia.

A confidential Customs report seen by ABC TV's Lateline program shows concerns by Australian agencies about heroin from Afghanistan.

Victorian Police Drug Squad head Detective Inspector Steve Smith says traditional criminal syndicates are still heavily involved in the importation of heroin.

"I'm also aware of data that indicates the purity of heroin that's available on the streets of Melbourne at the moment has increased, and that the price of heroin that is available has decreased, which may be indicative of the fact that there's more around," he said.

Melbourne's chief ambulance officer Alan Eade backs the concerns of police.

He says fatal heroin overdoses had decreased, but that is changing now.

"Of late, [heroin overdoses are] slowly starting to creep back up," he said.

"Whether that's availability, or just the swinging trend in drug use, I'm not sure why."

As the price comes down, more heroin can be bought; also, as the purity increases, the bang for each dose of smack increases. These two trends combine to have a great impact on the street, as more people can get more of a fix for the same amount of money.

But, an unexpected rise in heroin quality also tends to produce a rise in deaths due to overdoses, as heroin users taking the same amount they always take suddenly find themselves shooting up more potency. According to the article, Australia was just beginning to see this early this spring, although according to this next article, dated only several days later, it sounds like the increase in deaths was already more noticeable; Afghan brown heroin hits Sydney streets by John Kidman, March 16, 2008:

BROWN heroin from the opium fields of Afghanistan has made its way onto Sydney's streets for the first time.

The director of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre Dr Ingrid van Beek said some use of brown heroin had been seen at the centre sporadically over the past nine months.

Inner-city heroin overdoses are also on the rise, with about one a day coming into the emergency department at St Vincent's Hospital. Experts are unclear why overdoses have increased.

Dr van Beek said there was sometimes confusion between acidic impure white heroin, which appeared brown in colour, and genuine Afghan heroin. But she said the limited demand for acidifiers to use with the drug indicated it was brown heroin.

Dr van Beek said the presence of Afghan heroin in Australia did not mean it was likely to "flood" the local market - the Australian market is simply too small and too far from the Middle East. And its arrival has not been linked to any surge in use, following a seven-year "drought" in which the common Asian strain of the deadly narcotic was superseded by ice.

The Medically Supervised Injecting Centre reports heroin use among its clients is generally at an all-time low. However, inner-city heroin overdoses are inexplicably on the rise, says Dr Gordian Fulde from St Vincent's Hospital's emergency department.

"Whereas we were seeing virtually none up until 18 months ago, we are now receiving about one overdose a day," Dr Fulde said. "It's not an 'Oh my God, it's the end of the world'-type thing at this stage. It's early days and the numbers are still small. I can't give you a trail of how or where or why but it's happening and it's not going away."

The spike is not matched in Sydney's south-west, where overdoses in and around Cabramatta were once common but are now "virtually unseen", said Liverpool Hospital's emergency director, Dr Richard Cracknell.

Australia-wide, the price of heroin is reportedly falling while customs and police seizures rose 30 per cent between 2006 and last year.

Perhaps not "flood" the market, but perhaps take market share from competitors, while encouraging new users through low prices?

In an article from February 8, 2008, AFGHANISTAN: Booming heroin crop finding its way to Australian streets, we get more information:

A big increase in Afghanistan's heroin crop is finding its way onto Australian streets. Afghan Brown heroin used to be rare in Australia, and local heroin users preferred the more highly refined product from south-east Asia. But a boom in opium production has made Afghanistan a major exporter and Australia a prime target.

Presenter: Michael Edwards

Speakers: Clive Williams, Terrorism and security analyst from the Australian National University; Gideon Warhaft from the New South Wales Users and AIDS Association; Annie Madden from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghan opium production is booming. It now accounts for 90 per cent of the world's supply. And much of this is produced in areas controlled by the Taliban.

Terrorism expert Clive Williams from Macquarie University says Afghanistan, opium and its eventual product heroin, are almost a natural fit.

CLIVE WILLIAMS: I think it's probably a lot to do with the difficulty of the environment there and there is no other crop that pays as well as growing opium.

And of course, there's always been a ready market both for exporting through Pakistan, and north through central Asia, which finds its way to Europe and Russia.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: And it appears some of this so-called Afghan Brown heroin is reaching Australia.

Traditionally, Australian heroin users preferred so-called China White heroin which is imported from south-east Asia. But now drug users' groups say there is an unprecedented shift towards Afghan Brown heroin in some parts of the country.

Annie Madden is from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League.

ANNIE MADDEN: The reports we have been getting have been coming out of western Sydney and some parts of Adelaide. One of the factors that has changed recently, if you like, is that there is certainly evidence that the production of Afghan heroin has hugely increased over the last 12 months, 18 months.

And obviously that massive increase in production of brown heroin is going to be finding its way, has been finding its way and will continue to find its way into the world markets. And Australia could well be a new market for that form of heroin.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Gideon Warhaft is from the New South Wales Users and Aids Association.

He says presently on the streets of Sydney, users are finding it easier to get brown heroin rather than China White.

GIDEON WARHAFT: It is certainly possible, given you know, the huge yields of opium and heroin in Afghanistan over the last couple of years that people have decided to take advantage of that and have started importing Afghan heroin.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: And there are more differences to Afghan Brown than just its country of origin. Compared to south-east Asian China White heroin, Afghan Brown is unrefined and in many parts of the world it is smoked rather than injected.

But Annie Madden says some users do inject it and this can lead to health problems.

ANNIE MADDEN: If you do inject, it does tend to lead to more vein damage and abscesses and those sorts of things, because it is a more complex process to mix it into a solution suitable for injecting.

A key point is made in the above passage, that perhaps the market is beginning to favor Afghan heroin over other varieties. Recall what we learned in The Heroin Lobby, Part 3:

Just to get an idea of what we are talking about, the following is from the UN World Drug Report 2007. Heroin seizures worldwide are going way up,



and the price of heroin has come way down!



How come that happens with heroin, and not with gasoline?

This is not just an adult problem; as this graph shows, there has been an increase in heroin use in American high schools, including a spike in 2000:



On average, heroin use in American high schools has roughly doubled since American foreign policy has become subservient to the heroin lobby.

And, as I document in Smuggler's Blues, Part 1 and Smuggler's Blues, Part 2, this heroin is unusually pure and high quality; its purity and quality are catching drug users off-guard, causing a rise in overdoses and deaths.

As this last quoted passage alludes to, it isn't just in Australia that this increased flow of high quality heroin is washing ashore; it's getting very popular among middle class American teenagers, too.

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as The Sword of Allah continues!