Slashdot Mirror

Pieces of various weapons have apparently been found in junkyards around the Middle East (Jordan for one), some with UN tags and some without. A quick Google finds this but there's other information out there including some pictures if memory serves.

http://www.worldtribune.com/wo... A poor citation for sure but there have been others.

Here's a more recent article about weapons being found http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

Another http://cjonline.com/stories/09... Seems a few missles and chemical processing equipment were shipped out. the answer isn't so black and white it seems.

Worth noting is that Iraq DID use chem weapons during the first war, Desert Storm. I know someone who wrote a book about it after extensive research and the Govt. did all they could to shut him up. Look up "Gassed In The Gulf", it's pretty well referenced and many of the things he claimed were slowly proven in the years after.

You write, " I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised when you discover that the rocket caches that were found were not given to Hamas militants, but instead were handed off to the Palestinian Authority government, which promptly destroyed them."

But waitasec, didn't you say previously that Hamas is the governing body in Gaza? I know somebody said that. So you're saying that returning the rockets to Hamas wasn't giving them to Hamas? Or are you saying that the Hamas political entity won't pass Hamas ordinance on to the Hamas military entity?

And would you happen to have one of those shiny citations for the part where you say that Hamas "promptly destroyed them"? (Oh, I guess that may just be semantics though, because certainly firing them at Israel would lead to the ultimate destruction of the rockets, so I guess we're all good here.)

I'm a bit credulous when it comes to news reports, yes, so I "fell for that" as you say:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/chief-alarmed-rockets-put-gaza-site-24685070

UNITED NATIONS â" Jul 23, 2014, 9:02 PM ET Associated Press

The U.N. secretary-general on Wednesday said he was "alarmed" to hear that rockets were placed in a U.N.-run school in Gaza and now "have gone missing," and he demanded a full review of such incidents.

...
On Tuesday, UNRWA reported a second incident, saying it found rockets hidden at a vacant school during a regular inspection. "UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets," its statement said. "The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons."

...
"Even more alarming were reports that in the first case, officials with the United Nations returned these weapons to Hamas, a listed terrorist organization, once Israeli officials discovered their location," he said. ["he" being Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird]

And then I happened across this article:
http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/07/23/un-acknowledges-facilities-gaza-used-store-hamas-rockets

The UN Relief and Works Agency has reported at least two incidents in which its schools were used for the storage of rockets amid the war with Israel. In both cases, the UN refused to confiscate the rockets and instead asked Hamas to retrieve the weapons.

So what do you think? When the "UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets," who was it who took posession of those rockets? Why was UNRWA staff withdrawn?

And when a news report says, as it often does, that news media were barred (by Hamas) from the site of a blast, do you think it's because Hamas doesn't want them showing the Israeli shell that hit the location, or the Hamas rocket that went astray and hit a Gaza schoolhouse instead of an Israeli schoolhouse?

If this news is reliable (there have been other polls which show more support for Assad regime than for rebels), it is woth to notice that majority of Syrians seem to support Assad regime instead of the rebels, many of which are foreign islamists:

http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/05/31/nato-data-assad-winning-the-war-for-syrians-hearts-and-minds/

And it was Saddas regime which suggested solving the conflict by having elections, but the rebels refused this offer. I wonder why...

Germany was initially only limited to their own immediate neighborhood in Europe back in World War 2, right? How did that work out last time?

Germany had been a world power into World War 1, and had regained much of their might by World War 2, including a blue water navy. China is still working their way there for the first time.

China has a huge population that needs more resources. And this being a small planet, your resources are eventually on the menu, whether you acknowledge that fact or not.

Do tell.

I assure you, other countries have noticed China's rise, and its aspirations to hegemony, and are taking action.

Moscow plays on fears of China in global quest for naval bases

Russia is allying, informally, with other Asian countries that also worry about China’s ascendance. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India have seen Chinese ships assert sovereignty over contested areas in East and Southeast Asia.

Russian bases in Vietnam and the Seychelles will be welcomed by those countries along the Chinese periphery. Indeed, Russia’s moves probably come after quiet diplomacy by several of them to strengthen their hand against China – diplomacy certainly supported if not initiated by the U.S.

"They use the Republican Guard which are primarily non-Iranian Arabs ...."

Sorry, my Iranian friend calls them the Republican Guard, their Farsi name is the Basij.

Yes, because the government is devoutly shiite Muslim and Persians were very culturally diverse before 1980 and the Iran-Iraq war wiped out most of the youth the ranks of the Basij swell with non-Iranian Arabs most notably from Lebenon and Palestine, ironically two groups the Iranian govenment support and fund are Hezbollah and Hamas.

2+2 = ?

But in case that's not enough, give this a read.

I am a consultant to a US company. Our products are made by Chinese companies, to our specifications.

I write all of the code, and it is loaded after the products get to the US.

Well the fear is that it isn't just your code. I don my l33t coolie hacker-spy hat, and basically do this:

if ($data = "something interesting")
        do_something_nefarious($data);
execute_normal_code($data);

Can't be done? Sure it can. All you have to do is wrap the lowest level API.

Think this is paranoid? Not necessarily. I've worked at places that took security very VERY seriously, because they are honestly the target of spies. The only USB things allowed were keyboards and mice, and everyone one of those was dismantled and examined prior installation.

It's a driftnet approach. You put the malevolent code into every product, hoping that one of them will make its way to someplace interesting.

After all, the FBI's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2135473.stmadmitted to believing that bin laden was dead eight (8) years ago.

"Is (Bin Laden) alive or is he dead?" Mr Watson said. "I am not really sure of the answer... I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that."

Wait... and didn't Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/admit to believing the same thing 8 years ago?

"I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead," Karzai said on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday.

"But still, you never know. He might be alive. Five months ago, six months ago, I was thinking that he was alive.

Wait... and didn't Israeli Intelligence also http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_terrorism_10_16.htmladmit the same thing 8 years ago?

The Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported.

Oh, yes. The damning evidence is just piling up.

This whole article is odd in light of the fact that I'm pretty sure the FBI knows that bin Laden is dead. I mean the man was once releasing more videos each week than Tupac until he started toting that kidney dialysis machine through the mountains. Then... nothing.

After all, the FBI's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2135473.stmadmitted to believing that bin laden was dead eight (8) years ago.
Wait... and didn't Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/admit to believing the same thing 8 years ago?
Wait... and didn't Israeli Intelligence also http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_terrorism_10_16.htmladmit the same thing 8 years ago?

But I guess if you can keep the myth alive, then it becomes that much easier to keep support going for spending money on the current military action in Afghanistan.

FBI: China may use counterfeit Cisco routers to penetrate U.S. networks http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_china0141_05_15.asp

The only time many of the politicians, lobbyists and contractors seem to work together is to make as much money off China as they can while pretending to be concerned about security. Who can be surprised about all the Chinese spys when mysterious money men with Chinese connections always seem to turn up in campaigns? I just got done reading about China having penetrated US and Australian (UK too I think) databases:

"China has penetrated U.S. databases: 'They are already in and we have to find them'

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_china_02_08.asp

There was also the Chinese purchase of 3Com (maintains firewalls to the Pentagon) to a Chinese concern

"Congress members cite 'growing apprehension,' security risks in 3Com sale to Bain, China firm"
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/01/business/NA-FIN-US-3Com-Congressional-Review.php

It all seems sort of psychotic to spend to have national security and then let the the lobbyists, politicians and contractors sell them off out the backdoor to anyone ready to pay. So many things are broken (FDA, borders, transportation, US cities declaring "independence" from the government etc) but these issues hardly even get into the media when it focuses on the election.

The sad thing is I'm probably going to be modded funny for this.

Or maybe modded redundant. http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/me_israel_06_07.asp

Too many repetitions of "carbon dating said some rock was a trillion years old!" have soured me on this tactic, so if you want to bring in "the last oil field we found" as evidence, you're going to have to recognize that oil fields are found all the time and identify yours a little more precisely.

Your own anecdotes are more amusingly distorted than most, too. Usually creationists at least try to get the Bible right. Seven versus ten plagues isn't as big an error as years versus millions of years, but whereas the latter error is just sad, the former is kinda funny.

And just for the record....

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/tech_top. html

Read it completely. Later information pointed to the fact that Oracle employees assisted in the "correct licensing" for the state.

The audacity with which power is wielded is not so much the key to success as the finesse and scale to which it is exerted. Napoleon won power by getting the army completely on his side. Hitler won power by becoming popular with the masses and then turning them against the smaller groups. Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., and every president in the last 40 years has won power because of the money and power their party throws behind him, not his own personality.

But Bill O'Reilly is still a bastard.

There is a variant on this which uses polygraph-like testing with a hand sensor, also an Israeli company, but different from the one featured in the article here. This could be done at check-in time where the operator would normally be checking for ID and can ask the passenger to verbally verify their identification. This seems a bit less of an obnoxious approach to flagging follow-up for people who fail than challenging them with questions like, "do you intend to carry out a terrorist action!?"

Further, this could go a long way to identify false identities where certain known entities on a no-fly list wouldn't be able to board, yadda yadda.

Either way, I too am all for this if it means that we can move the lines through a little quicker at the airport.

Seriously, I think this will be used to go after those who steal technology and run back to China to put it on warships and so forth...

I'm betting this has nothing to do with movies or music, but with defense interests.

From

"Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a second "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

From a thrid "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (spoiler warning)

And finally a fourth "Illusion of Truth" plot summary (minor spoiler warning)

Ed Koch (democrat mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989) might agree there is a need for "Ethical Film Makers"

Disagreeing with America's foreign policy and seeking to change it, responsibly or irresponsibly, is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment.

Shaming those who do it irresponsibly [unethical Moore?] is our only lawful recourse and rightly so.

Senator John Kerry in criticizing United States' foreign policy and the incumbent president is acting responsibly, albeit I disagree with many of his views. On the other hand, Michael Moore, writer and director of the film "Fahrenheit 9/11," crosses that line regularly. The line is not set forth in the criminal statutes, but it is determined by Americans who know instinctively what actions and statements taken and uttered violate the obligations of responsibility and citizenship they deem applicable in time of war.

Franklin Roosevelt (president of usa during ww2) might agree there is a need for "Ethical Film Makers"

And, finally, there are a few among us who have deliberately and consciously closed their eyes because they were determined to be opposed to their government, its foreign policy and every other policy, to be partisan, and to believe that anything that the Government did was wholly wrong.

To those who have closed their eyes for any of these many reasons, to those who would not admit the possibility of the approaching storm--to all of them the past two weeks have meant the shattering of many illusions.

They have lost the illusion that we are remote and isolated and, therefore, secure against the dangers from which no other land is free.

In some quarters, with this rude awakening has come fear, bordering on panic. It is said that we are defenseless. It is whispered by some that only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we build our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors.

I did not share those illusions. I do not share these fears
[snip][snip][snip]
But there is an added technique for weakening a nation at its very roots, for disrupting the entire pattern of life of a people. It is important that we understand it.

The method is simple. It is, first, a dissemination of discord. A group--not too large- a group that may be sectional or racial or political--is encouraged to exploit its prejudices through false slogans and emotional appeals. The aim of those who deliberately egg on these groups is to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and, eventually, a state of panic.

Sound national policies come to be viewed with a new and unreasoning skepticism, not through the wholesome political debates of honest and free men, but through the clever schemes of foreign agents.

As a result of these new techniques, armament programs may be dangerously delayed. Singleness of national purpo

Gerald Ford at 90 reflects on his presidency, prays for Bush

When I'm that old, I'll probably do the same.

Propaganda of this type has been popular only in the US. Read radical right wing Scotty, my favorite Linux hate speech.

Torvalds posted his Unix rip-off dubbed "Linux" on the Internet in 1991 for free. True to his family's socialist radical politics, Torvalds released his OS under the non-standard General Public License (GPL) or "copyleft." Under the GPL, programmers had the ability to download Torvalds' Linux, fix the bugs in his program and give the improved program back to him to distribute to the Linux community. GPL programs are essentially community property with no real owners, but since Torvalds was the originator of the rip-off, it becomes his personal rip-off to control as he wishes. In other words, Torvalds became the dictatorial leader of the Linux cult with all decisions for the greater community good going through him first, then doled out at his convenience.

Let's all move Scott McCollum into our collective killfiles and move on, shall we? Furthermore, the key difference between Sun's donation and Microsoft's, besides the fact that Sun is not a monopoly, is that Sun has open sourced Star Office. To gloss over this little fact is typical for a professional troll like McCollum. While Star Office itself is not open, it's an open platform, and the differences between SO and OO are minor. So even if SO/OO were to become the standard, it would always be easy to move somewhere else if necessary (and you can bet someone will fork OO if Sun does something fishy).

.ad afgjk uba dooba doo DRUDGE REPORT 2002
Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers

WASH POST: Bush Admin Split over Iraq...

IRAQ 'CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB GOAL'

Passive smoking can kill your cat... TIMEWARNER to charge flood victims for cable boxes... Archerd: Democrats seeking Hollywood money... Republicans will tie ANWR to Iraq; Say threat in Baghdad necessitates oil drilling in Alaska... Ventura Goofs On God... AP WORLD
AP NATIONAL
AP WASHINGTON
AP BUSINESS
AP ENTERTAINMENT
AP ON THE HOUR
AP HEADLINES
AP BREAKING
SEARCH
Headline:
Date Range:
Within 14 Days Within 13 Days Within 12 Days Within 11 Days Within 10 Days Within 9 Days Within 8 Days Within 7 Days Within 6 Days Within 5 Days Within 4 Days Within 3 Days Within 2 Days Within 1 Day
Any word(s) in article:


ANANOVA
DOW JONES
BLOOMBERG
PAKISTAN WIRE
PAKISTAN BROADCASTING
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC WIRE
ITAR-TASS
KYODO WIRE
PR NEWSWIRE
[SHOWBIZ] PR WIRE
SCRIPPS HOWARD
US INFO WIRE
U.S. NEWSWIRE
WORLDWIRES
XINHUA ABC NEWS
AD AGE DEADLINE
BBC
BBC AUDIO
BILLBOARD
BOSTON GLOBE
BROADCASTING & CABLE
CBS NEWS
C-SPAN SCHEDULE
CHICAGO TRIB
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
CNN
CNN TRANSCRIPTS
DAILY VARIETY
D.C. DAYBOOK
E!
ELECTRONIC MEDIA
EMERGENCY NET
ENT WEEKLY
FINANCIAL TIMES
FORBES MAG
FOX NEWS
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIB
HILL
H'WOOD REPORTER
HUMAN EVENTS
INSIGHT MAG
INVEST BUS DAILY
JERUSALEM POST
JEWISH WORLD REVIEW
LA DAILY NEWS
LA TIMES
LUCIANNE.COM
MEDIA CHECK
MEDIA LIFE
MSNBC
MUCHMUSIC
NATION
NATIONAL ENQUIRER
NATIONAL REVIEW
NEW REPUBLIC
NY DAILY NEWS
NY OBSERVER
NY POST
NY TIMES
NEW YORKER
NEWSBYTES
NEWSWEEK
N. KOREAN NEWS
PEOPLE MAG
R & R
REASON MAG
ROLL CALL
SKY NEWS
SLATE: PAPERS
STAR
TIME MAG
TV SHOPTALK
[U.K.] DAILY MIRROR
DAILY RECORD
[U.K.] EVENING STANDARD
[U.K.] EXPRESS
[U.K.] GUARDIAN
[U.K.] INDEPENDENT
[U.K.] NEWS OF THE WORLD
[U.K.] PEOPLENEWS
[U.K.] STAR
[U.K.] SUN
U.K. TABLOIDS
[U.K.] TELEGRAPH
[U.K.] TIMES
US NEWS
USA TODAY
VILLAGE VOICE
WASH POST
WASH TIMES
WEEKLY STANDARD
WORLDNETDAILY
UPDATE: Mob Kills 2 in Ill. After Van Crash... US Senate Fails to Pass Medicare Drug Plan... Agents leaving Border Patrol in droves, union says... French spa to host next G8 summit... GLASSMAN/HASSETT: Dow 36000 Revisited... MATT DRUDGE
3 AM GIRLS
CINDY ADAMS
ARMY ARCHERD
DAVE BARRY
MICHAEL BARONE
PETER BART
BOB BARTLEY
STEPHEN BATTAGLIO
MARILYN BECK/SMITH
BLANKLEY
GLORIA BORGER
L. BRENT BOZELL
BRESLIN
DAVID BRODER
PAT BUCHANAN
BILL BUCKLEY
MONA CHAREN
ELEANOR CLIFT
RICHARD COHEN
PAUL COLFORD
JOE CONASON
ANN COULTER
STANLEY CROUCH
MICHAEL DALY
LOU DOBBS
MAUREEN DOWD
STEVE DUNLEAVY
ROGER EBERT
JOSEPH FARAH
SUZANNE FIELDS
ARI FLEISCHER
MICHAEL FLEMING
ROGER FRIEDMAN
JOHN FUND
LEAH GARCHIK
BILL GERTZ
GEORGIE GEYER
JONAH GOLDBERG
ELLEN GOODMAN
MARTIN GROVE
LLOYD GROVE
PETE HAMILL
CARL HIAASEN
NAT HENTOFF
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
H'WOOD REPORTER E-MAIL
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
INSIDE BELTWAY
INSIDE POLITICS
INSIDE THE RING
MOLLY IVINS
AL KAMEN
MICKEY KAUS
KEITH J. KELLY
MICHAEL KELLY
MICHAEL KINSLEY
HARRY KNOWLES
MORT KONDRACKE
KRAUTHAMMER
LARRY KUDLOW
HOWIE KURTZ
JOHN LEO
DAVID LIMBAUGH
RUSH LIMBAUGH
HAL LINDSEY
RICH LOWRY
MICHELLE MALKIN
CHRIS MATTHEWS
MARY MCGRORY
MICHAEL MEDVED
DICK MORRIS
PEGGY NOONAN
BOB NOVAK
OFF THE RECORD
KATE O'BEIRNE
MARVIN OLASKY
BILL O'REILLY
PAGE SIX
ANDREA PEYSER
JIM PINKERTON
JOHN PODHORETZ
TV PROGRAMMING INSIDER
WES PRUDEN
ANNA QUINDLEN
WILLIAM RASPBERRY
REX REED
RICHARD REEVES
J. MAX ROBINS
RICHARD ROEPER
RUSH/MOLLOY
BILL SAFIRE
SCHLAFLY
TOM SHALES
GAIL SHISTER
LIZ SMITH
MICHAEL SNEED
JOE SOBRAN
THOMAS SOWELL
ANDREW SULLIVAN
HELEN THOMAS
CAL THOMAS
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
NEAL TRAVIS
TV COLUMN
DEB WEISS
JEFFREY WELLS
GEORGE WILL
WALTER WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON WHISPERS
BILL ZWECKER
GERTH ZEROS IN ON CHENEY... AIRLINES TO TRIM FLIGHTS ON SEPT 11... Accounting controls on EU budget 'unreliable'... Man Accused of Raping Nine Women He Met Through Internet... Pentagon: Hamas experimenting with chemical weapons... AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
AFP INTERNATIONAL
AFP NEWS WRAP
AFX
UPI WIRE
UPI NATIONAL
UPI WORLD
AP/REUTERS PHOTO WIRE
REUTERS ROUNDUP
REUTERS SPOTLIGHT
REUTERS WORLD
REUTERS POLITICS
REUTERS ODD
SEARCH






*FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION
QUAKE SHEET x x x x x VISITS TO DRUDGE
07/31/02

004,776,309 IN PAST 24 HOURS
107,519,403 IN PAST 31 DAYS
895,224,122 IN PAST YEAR DRUDGE ARCHIVES DRUDGE REFERENCE DESK EMAIL: DRUDGE@DRUDGEREPORT.COM SUPER-POWERED BY ALLEGIANCE TELECOM... DRUDGE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

This ain't Star Trek where you create cups of Earl Grey tea out of thin air. Nothing is "free," kids.

CNET News quoted one member of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group as saying that his neighbors are very happy with using his Internet access free of charge. "Occasionally, they bring me pies and things like that." Yeah, I'd have no problem giving up the occasional pastry to my next-door neighbor if it meant I could save $50 a month on my cable modem bill. This is no different than bringing a cupcake over to your neighbor's house after you've hooked up your garden hose to his faucet so you could water your lawn everyday for the past month. Also, there are probably seventeen other neighbors and uncounted passers-by that have used this guy's water for the past month free of charge without giving him anything.

they use them to spy on women in changing rooms...

There are other factors to consider:

• Bin Laden repeatedly denies being involved- this is contrary to the SOP
• There was an earlier post on /. that pointed to the cheering in the streets of Baghdad,
  • Iraq shooting down recon planes in the no fly zone
  • US bombing Iraqi sites
  CNN.com - Allies hit Iraq with 'self-defense' strike - February 16, 2001

• And I'll do a disservice by passing on conjecture (from Internet news):

• The first link has some interesting info (with no links) that tell a compelling story: Iraq->WTC

• And also, with claims from Israeli intel (full text requires subscription): Iraq->WTC
• Another Iraq->WTC

This sort of offensive, confusing and strange-sounding to non-tech laypeople and those outside the military, will clearly rely heavily on security technology -- surveillance, wire-taps, electronic ID's from cards to voice and fingerprint scanning, biological warfare and defense, e-mail encryption and interception, satellite photographs, the digital tracing of money,

Second, we will not be attacking ("offensive"), we will be defending ourselves against terrorism - in a way that European countries already have for years.

Third, before asking for new toys, how about those in charge of this defense started by using the info they already had? See

Ramzi Yusef, architect of first World Trade Center bombing, carried plans for airliner suicide crashes

U.S. officials said the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon bear the imprint of Yusef, the 41-year-old Pakistani who was convicted for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Yusef was arrested and found with plans for a coordinated series of hijackings and suicide crashes of several U.S. commercial airliners.

The plan was never carried out, the officials said, because of the limitations of the poorly-trained squad.

Jeff, the terrorist who revealed the kamikaze plan to the Fbi (fish translation)

The truth that is emerging in these hours in New York, and that nobody as yet wants to say aloud, is bitter as a poison: the Fbi could have known if it had only believed what it already knew.(...)

The plan to train pilots, too slow in Africa, continued more rapidly in America. In the "memo" of the long depositions of Jeff to Attorney Mary Jo White, one can read: "The training of the men infiltrated in the United States through Canada involved training to the individual conflict in the paramilitary fields in Afghanistan, intelligence and techniques of flight in the United States. For instance Iab Ali, a.k.a. Nawawi, the right arm of Osama. He lived in Orlando, Florida. He was trained until the diploma in the school of flight of Norman, Oklahoma".

(According to La Repubblica, this "memo" dates from October 20, 2000. They don't say how they got it -- I couldn't find the complete text online, but another part is in "Jeff"'s guilty plea in "USA v. Ali Mohamed", dated the same day.)

Ramzi Yusef, architect of first World Trade Center bombing, carried plans for airliner suicide crashes

U.S. officials said the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon bear the imprint of Yusef, the 41-year-old Pakistani who was convicted for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Yusef was arrested and found with plans for a coordinated series of hijackings and suicide crashes of several U.S. commercial airliners.

The plan was never carried out, the officials said, because of the limitations of the poorly-trained squad.

Jeff, the terrorist who revealed the kamikaze plan to the Fbi (fish translation)

The truth that is emerging in these hours in New York, and that nobody as yet wants to say aloud, is bitter as a poison: the Fbi could have known if it had only believed to those that it already knew.(...)

The plan to train pilots, too slow in Africa, continued more rapidly in America. In the "memo" of the long depositions of Jeff to Attorney Mary Jo White, one can read: "The training of the men infiltrated in the United States through Canada involved training to the individual conflict in the paramilitary fields in Afghanistan, intelligence and techniques of flight in the United States. For instance Iab Ali, a.k.a. Nawawi, the right arm of Osama. He lived in Orlando, Florida. He was trained until the diploma in the school of flight of Norman, Oklahoma".

According to La Repubblica, this "memo" dates from October 20, 2000. They don't say how they got it -- I couldn't find the complete text online, but another part is in "Jeff"'s guilty plea in "USA v. Ali Mohamed", dated the same day.

I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think you used a very good example to back up your point. The article you cite is written by a completely anonymous journalist (no byline). The reporter of the article cites unnamed "Palestinian sources" who are in turn talking about unnamed "Fatah agents." And the article as a whole turns out to be entirely impossible to confirm: the camera crews who were allegedly threatend are never named, nor are the agencies they belong to. Indeed, it is stated that the journalists "refused to publicly acknowledge the pressure," so even if they had been identified there would be no easy way to back the story up.

All of this would be one thing if the reporting had come from the Wall Street Journal or a similarly well-known source, but "worldtribune.com?" It's an internet-only newspaper...

I agree that we ought to be extremely wary of what we read on anonymous internet websites. But nobody reads slashdot for factual reporting, they read it for opinions. We should expect a much higher standard of reporting in our news sources, and for me the article you cited doesn't cut it.

You know you keep complaining about the sanctions against Iraq.

I'd love to agree with you but here's my problem. Iraq is the home of many empires because of its own natural recources. Maybe you should just fess up that Saddam is a crappy leader if he can't feed his nation.

Sanctions *only* mean we don't do business with him. It does not mean that we steal food from children, poison food supplies, etc... In fact the if that were true than the US would be violating the sanctions! In fact it could be said that Russia holding up the shipment of supplies if anyone.

Oh yes, one more thing. The images of Palestinians celebrating in Israel you have seen on the news are most likely fake. In a manner of speaking, anyway. They are from 1991 and unrelated to anything going on currently.

... you imply the Palestinians are complaining about old footage. Funny, let's see ... Palestinian Authority threatens camera crews covering celebrations

Oh but wait, an anonymous internet website that offers no proof is more credible than our corporate eviiiiil media, no ? Please.

Well, what do you have to say about this link