Bernard Lewis: August 22

A lot of people are talking about the significance of August 22 in the “Hidden Imam” apocalyptic fantasy apparently believed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I’ve been reluctant to give too much credence to it, because the whole thing smacks of whacked out end times craziness, and Gog knows there’s already enough of that going around.

But here’s Islam scholar Bernard Lewis on the subject, just so we all know what’s under discussion. Because it isn’t completely crazy: August 22.

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HT The New Media Journal.US via Sam Pender

Sam Pender just emailed that he has a new article up at The New Media Journal re the Dems plagiarizing conservative thinking again.

RBT

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Progressives Try to Plagiarize National Security Strategy…Again
The Fifth Column Sam Pender
August 18, 2006

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is a more centrist element of today’s Democratic Party. After Sen. Lieberman’s primary defeat last week, I decided to go to the DLC website and see how the centrist Democrats were reacting to their defeat as well as the victory of the far left. There wasn’t a canned response at that time. I had hoped that the DLC would have prepared both win and lose positions in advance, but apparently the party just can’t figure out how to pander to their base of pacifists, appeasers, geo-political procrastinators, Bush-haters, socialists etc. while at the same time seeking support from that critical centrist and right side of the spectrum needed to win general elections.

At the DLC website I came across some articles describing the Democrats’ national security strategies. I thought they’d be interesting since I really don’t know where the party stands. Given that their recent “Real Security” publication was only 8 double-spaced pages with no details on anything, I was surprised to see that there’s a great deal of text on liberal national security strategies.

A further examination of the site showed that there’s an associated magazine called, Blueprint. Now, Blueprint magazine had a very intriguing cover story. It was called, “Fighting Smarter” By Will Marshall and Jeremy Rosner; Adapted from the book, With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty.

Oddly enough, the strategy seemed to make very good sense. There was the usual rhetoric that bashed conservatives, President Bush, and it sang the songs of praise for liberalism, progressive leaders, but once I saw past that I couldn’t escape the feeling that this national security strategy was a good plan. It was also a familiar plan.

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Does that seem like a good strategy to anyone? Try reading it again without the word “liberal.” Does it seem familiar? It should. It’s the same exact plan that the neoconservatives have been saying for 9 years.

Project for a New American Century
Statement of Principles
June 3, 1997

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The centrist Democratic Leadership Council just proposed a national security strategy identical to the PNAC's. The only thing they added was an item calling for bi-partisan unity (irony has no bounds to progressives apparently). What shocked me the most about this wasn’t the hypocrisy, audacity, or arrogance of using the PNAC principles as their own progressive national security strategy, and it wasn’t the irony of the deliberately divisive Democrats who had just cast aside Senator Lieberman; their last vestige of bi-partisanship. No…what shocked me the most was that they actually copied the 9 year old neoconservative principles in order!

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Since September 11th, 2001, I’ve been unable to find a national security strategy that is viable, reasonable, and liberal or progressive. In 2001-2002 Democrats supported President Bush’s national security strategies. In 2002-2004 the DNC party platform “Plan for America” attempted to take elements of President Bush’s strategy for the War on Terror, re-number them, and present them as their own. In 2005, Sen. Kerry “demanded” that 20,000 American troops be pulled from Iraq, but years earlier the Pentagon had published its plans to pull 20,000 troops from Iraq after the December election.

Arrogance, hypocrisy, irony, audacity, and deceit apparently have no bounds among progressives when it comes to national security plans.

Sam Pender is the author of several books on the Global War on Terror and the Iraq Wars in particular. His works include: Iraq's Smoking Gun, How Did It Come to This?, The Ignored War, America's War With Saddam, and Saddam's Ties to Al Qaeda.

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HT The Hashmonean

For those interested in what's really going on in Lebanon here's a series definitely worth following.

RBT

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Strategic Picture: Lebanon Under Fire (Comprehensive Analyses I)

Doing Analysis of the Middle East

I wasn't going to do a full analysis wrap up of the situation in Lebanon & the wider Middle East, frankly the war is not over and what we are in is a wobbly cease fire. It is far too early for this strategic wrap up but others are going for it and my own analysis is very different.

It is no wonder there are so many opinions (including mistaken ones at that) when it comes to the Middle East. This is a different place, it is not Kansas, or London and a very different rule set applies. Unless you understand the area, the Arab mentality, some Islamic history, and just as importantly Israel itself (which is radically different than Arabs States in the region) you will often draw blanks through no fault of your own trying to understand the region. This is not a shot at anyone, but a reflection of the reality that the talking heads in theatre for networks, and the guest speakers etc what have you are often off base. Listening to them put up opinion vs counter-opinion can make your head explode.

Analyzing this situation without understanding Lebanon & Israel's complicated history will immediately cause flaws from the get go in my own opinion. Studying Lebanon itself could lead to a full blown doctorate, that is how complicated a place it is. In a 4 part post, I hope to pull in the many missing factors shaping up in the Main Stream Media who are trying to get a head or tails of the situation.

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Who Won the War?

Part II - I am eager to post the second part of this post and will do so tomorrow, showing who REALLY won, tying in Iran, Syria, talking about the war losses, the overall strategic picture after the fighting and explaining the realities facing Israel. Equally, a war within Lebanon itself is being waged even now, the analysis I have seen is deeply flawed in my opinion, it doesn't even factor that internal war ongoing, I will touch on this! Also I'll be looking at the war of perceptions and the lack of reality in the Arab World historically and today, and how that false reality seeps into our collective visions due to media.

Part III - The war is not even over, this was a battle in an ongoing struggle. In part three I'll look at the political ramification of fighting for Israel's military, and political echelon - in both cases mistakes were made. Look at the key concepts within Israel as a democracy which questions deeply every military action it takes, just like the UK or America etc. Explain what to read into that & what not to read.. Why Israel did not gain an overwhelming victory and why such a result is interpreted the way it is.

Part IV - Next week I intend to look at the UN, and the last true opportunities for that body to assert itself as relevant this coming century.

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HT Regime of Terror

This just up at Regime of Terror about a minion of the Saddam Regime that found his way to Afhganistan. Seems as though the usual suspects are familiar with this guy too:

Who is Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi?

Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, listed by Iraqi officials as a native of Mosul, was recently named #29 on Iraq's "Most Wanted" list.

According told NEWSWEEK magazine's intelligence sources (and at least one of the journalists involved in the story was detained by Pakistani officials) and other reports, al-Iraqi is one of Osama bin Laden's top global deputies (challenging the notion that Iraqis have not held prominent positions in al-Qaeda), personally chosen by bin Laden to monitor al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. His duties have connected him to numerous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and found him shuttling information between al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq and remaining leadership in the Afghanistan/Pakistan borderland.

What is also noteworthy is al-Iraqi's background in Saddam Hussein's Army (pointed out to this site by Laurie Mylroie). During his military service over a decade ago, al-Iraqi worked his way up to the rank of Major before moving to Afghanistan to fight "jihad" against the occupying Soviet Union. This is not to assert that al-Iraqi maintained contact with Iraqi officials over the past decade (though many other Intelligence and Military officers from Saddam Hussein's regime, who were later found to be assisting al Qaeda, reportedly did) but his knowledge of the country and contacts within Iraq certainly played a role in al-Iraqi being Osama bin Laden's personal choice to monitor al Qaeda's operations in Iraq. al-Iraqi's military background likely was of great use in the terrorist training camp(s) he commanded in Afghanistan. Those camps were destroyed by U.S. forces in late 2001 around the same time that al-Iraqi's funds were beingfrozen by the United Nations.

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Live via FoxNews

United Airlines flight from Heathrow to Dulles declares inflight emergency. Flight diverted to Logan Int'l. Plane now on ground and plane being searched.

Female passenger creates disturbance. Had tube of vaselines, screwdriver, and note purportedly from AQ.

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UPDATE

[Comment I posted in thread at Ace of Spades]

Don't know how this will unravel. Don't know if the vasoline, screwdriver, and matches will be confirmed.

Invoke 24 hours Net rule. Wait to dust settles.

My gut level detective experience, this could be a probe to test defenses. Vaseline is similar in consistancy/density of homebrew explosives using hydrogen peroxide. These formulas as are similar what the suicide bomber belts contain [TATP and HTMP]. It's unstable so that's why you tackle potential bombers. You shoot this stuff of compress/move/disturb too much it will detonate.

One of your commentors had very good observation that this could have been diversion to draw action by air marshals to divert their attn from others on plane.

This could be nothing. Still think this could be potential probe to see if we're on our toes.

RBT

Update II:

HT Mythbusters

Thought this might be of interest with re bombs on airplanes. Mythbusters did an episode [Episode 10] on whether firing a gun on a pressurized aircraft cabin would cause a catastrophic failure.

The Mythbusters carried this further and tried various amounts of explosives to see what it would take. Their conclusion was it would take a "shaped charge" to blow out the cabin wall.

From Flit - Snapping Turtles

So if you wanted to calculate the odds, I have found 497 fatalities due to passenger compartment bombs (or molotov cocktails, in the last case) in the history of air travel, in ten separate attacks. In the four of those that were suicide attacks, each time the plane crashed: in total 222 died. In the six hide-the-bomb-under-the-seat-and-get-off-the-next-stop attacks, 275 people died, but three of the six planes landed safely. Which could give the answer to Colby's question, why did Al Qaeda go with a suicide plan instead of the hide-and-get-off Bojinka plan.

Also, based on the historical evidence, guaranteed immediate in-flight destruction by this kind of bomb in this location on the plane would seem to require something in excess of 1 pound (.45kg) of high explosive, depending on the type used... about the same as is generally considered deadly in a luggage compartment bomb. Which means even your largest contact lens cleaner container probably wouldn't be enough even if it was high-grade nitroglycerine (about .21kg by weight), and definitely not if it was a home-cooked TATP in a liquid suspension.

(Going back to Mythbusters, in their similar first-season experiment a 0.1kg shaped charge of high explosive against the interior passenger compartment wall proved sufficient to wreck a DC-9. But a bomb under a seat or in a luggage rack not specifically designed to blow a hole would have to multiply that weight by a significant factor.)

HT Big Lizard via Pajamas Media

RBT has said before that President Bush is one great Texas poker player. There is no doubt that IDF can and will destroy Hezbollah. On the otherhand because of political/demographical reasons, the Israelis did not have the where with all or political will to hold Southern Lebanon.

See this outstanding summary from Big Lizard of what we have just witnessed.

The ball is now clearly in the court of the Iranian nutcases of President MAD and Immam Yazdi.

The question is will they up the ante sometime before Aug 22nd in their megalomania driven religious fanatical quest to bring on the War of Armageddon to hasten the return of the 12th Immam.

RBT

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Paul & Carol & Ed & Alice

Hatched by Dafydd

Paul Mierengoff of Power Line and Captain Ed Morrissey of gee, guess where, are in the midst of a very polite and deferential public row over the American-brokered ceasefire agreement in Lebanon; and I'm torn. On the one hand, I've made no secret of the fact that Power Line is my all time favorite blog, the one that got me interested in blogging (reading and writing) in the first place. But Captain's Quarters is, along with Patterico's and Belmont Club, my second favorite blog.

And more to the point, Ed is completely right in this ruction and Paul is wrong... though I don't think Ed has deployed his best arguments yet.

But that's why I'm here! (And yes, the entire world does revolve around me, now that you ask....)

And In This Corner...

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. . . Paul makes the classic mistake of what Wall Street Journal science writer Sharon Begley calls (in a very, very different context) "the argument from personal incredulity."

Several specific points to note before turning to the general argument:

Had Israel made its way to the Litani River, as it had finally resolved to do, Hezbollah not only would have been further degraded, but would have lost its ability persuasively to claim that it successfully resisted the IDF.

Israel may still do so. They're under no obligation to leave until there is an international force capable of replacing them, which itself will take some time. If Hezbollah breaks the ceasefire during that time (very likely), Israel can resume its march to the Litani, as Ed noted.

Moreover, I think Paul isn't really internalizing how Moslems think: if Israel were to drive Hezbollah back across the Litani, but Hezbollah survived more or less intact (even if severely "degraded"), Hezbollah would still argue victory. And when Israel finally withdrew, as they must eventually (no matter how long that may take), and if Hezbollah were then to reoccupy the same territory Israel had just driven them out of, then the ummah would declare it the greatest victory since Saladin drove the crusaders out of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem 819 years ago.

It is impossible to win a game of Liar's Poker against Hezbollah.

To me, it seems reasonable to believe that the U.S. was bowing to pressure from those who wanted hostilities to stop. It is no secret that Secretary Rice was communicating with the Egytians and the Saudis and that we were working closely with the French....

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To Have and to Hold

The problem lay not in militarily defeating the terrorists; we had it all over them (as the Israelis do over Hezbollah now). The problem was what to do with Fallujah after we had pacified it... and at that time, that problem was insoluble. Our choices were:

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Thus, even after Zarqawi's death, al-Qaeda In Iraq fights on; the Shiite militias fight on, massacring Sunnis — and the Sunni militias fight on butchering Shia, world without end, amen. This will never cease; but under a native government with sufficient hegemony, it can be reduced to a manageable level.

Only an Iraqi government, not perceived as a sock puppet for America, would have such hegemony (see the next post for a discussion of hegemony, or "perceived fitness to rule"): hence the Bush Doctrine of destroying the old Baathist regime (done), removing its head (done), setting up an indigenous democracy (done), and giving that democracy the tools to enforce its hegemonic rule (still in progress)... whether instinctually or intellectually, President Bush recognized that only a democratic Iraqi government could eventually contain the extremists: a Hussein-style "strongman" government could not do it for long, and American cannot do it at all.

But by the same lemma, only an indigenous Lebanese government will have sufficient hegemony to hold the territory; but that does not mean that any old indigenous Lebanese government will do; alas, the one there now is not powerful enough.

Know When to Hold, Know When to Fold

It does mean, however, that Israel cannot do it... as they found out from 1982-2000, when the IDF occupied just a strip along the southern border of Lebanon: there were so many terrorist attacks and military assaults, escalating every year, that Israel was either going to have to get out or get extraordinarily brutal. They had not the stomach for the latter, so electoral revolution gave them a government that chose the former.

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Clearly, this will not work longterm. It may only last a year or even just a few months (or less — but then Israel would still be there, poised to continue its offensive). But a lot can happen in a year.
~

The Sufi sage Nasrudin languished in prison, having been captured, along with his disciple, Noggi, by his enemy, the Emir of Jubukuua. The emir, furious that Nasrudin had flirted with the emir's first wife, had just pronounced the death penalty against both Nasrudin and Noggi.

"What will become of us!" wailed Noggi; but Nasrudin shushed him and bellowed for the guard.

"Guard, will you please inform the emir, may Allah preserve him, that if he postpones our sentences for a year and a day, then I will teach his royal horse to fly."

The startled guard rushed off to deliver the magical message. "But Hodja," cried the disciple when they were alone again in the cell, "why did you promise such a ridiculous thing? All that it means is that we'll spend a year and a day in vile captivity... and then be executed anyway when you fail!"

But Nasrudin only smiled. "A lot can happen in a year, Noggi: the Emir might be deposed by his brother, or he may even be dead. He may forget his rage over a couple of innocent kisses. He may even get religion and pardon us as an offering to Allah, the most high.

"And who knows?" he continued; "if all else fails, maybe that damned horse can learn to fly after all!"

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Bush is one of the most patient men who ever sat at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He rarely cares about the polls and he never lunges at the brass ring until he is sure he can grasp it. He awaits his moment, then seizes it. (If only he could stand up and tell us about it, he would be the second-greatest president in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.)

We and the Israelis had a weak hand; it's not unreasonable to fold, minimize the losses, and draw a new one.

Read it All - A Must Read!

HT EU Referendum

EU is running an interesting experiment using the Blogos to debug MSM photos.

Also see Flopping Aces and The American Thinker on the MSM fake photos.

RBT

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The Corruption of the Media

Today, we are continuing today with what has become a unique blogosphere experiment in co-operative writing, with comments, new pics and information being built into the piece as it develops. Keep it coming and thanks.

Progress board

Act 1 - "Dead baby" - more or less complete (pics needed of post-scene 3)

Act 2 - "Red Cross workers" - more or less complete
"Stretcher Alley" - under construction

Act 3 - "The camera run" - not yet in place

Act 4 - "Caught in the act" - not yet in place

The piece, incomplete so far - the "blogosphere" response to the MSM - begins here...

It is apt that an organisation that has become a purveyor of lies should respond to that charge by producing yet more lies. And that is precisely what Associated Press have done today, in their faux eulogy of "Green Helmet", picked up by Little Green Footballs, amongst others

The picture produced with the story, itself is a lie. Divested of his trade-mark green helmet, and orange high-visibility waistcoat, Salam Daher, as we now know him, is shown with blue helmet and flack jacket. This, as any observer of the scene will know, is the garb adopted by media personnel in the field (and especially in Lebanon), which makes it highly probable that "Green Helmet" has been loaned the gear for yet another staged shot by an AP photographer.

At least, in this instance, the caption identifies the fact that the picture is posed, with the words "sits to be photographed", but the fact remains that this is obviously a calculated rejection by AP of the charge that its photographers were complicit in the staging of photographs at the Qana rescue scene on 30 July 2006.

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The Continuing Proof Of The Bias In The MSM
Posted by Curt on August 13, 2006 at 00:03

So the big story today appears to have been broken by a blogger once again. Mainly that a professional photographer who works in Lebanon is admitting that not only do the stringers pose bodies for shots but that they dig out bodies from graves to make a shot more "newsworthy".

I'm speaking about a post made by Brian Denton to a photography blog about the directing done by the Lebanese:

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MSM grappling with Reuters photo fraud

David Bernstein covers some of the MSM reaction to Reuters’ red-handed propagandizing exposed the Volokh Conspiracy. Tim Rutten of the LA Times sees the bigger picture:

That brings us to the most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It’s a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly. [Charles] Johnson [of LGF] and his colleagues have done the serious news media a service. Failure to follow up on it would be worse than churlish; it would be irresponsible.

Rutten deserves praise for what amounts to common sense, precisely because he is swimming against the media mainstream. I was appalled yesterday to see on Fox News Watch that Jane Hall, veteran reporter and now journalism professor, was obviously disturbed that the revelations came to light, and desperately searched for a counter-argument, such as that LGF has its own biases. Charles Johnson took satisfaction that Jim Pinkerton slapped down her pathetic response, but I doubt Hall is changing her mind. Hot Air has the video.

When news sources are caught lying, their credibility is lost. That is not a bad thing, despite Hall’s lamentations to the contrary.

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HT Atlas Shrugs

A must read from Atlas

RBT

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Five Minutes to Midnight

It is a small comfort to me that the world war is coming now when America is still the mightiest super power. Bringing on the global confrontation now is a tactical mistake by the international Jihadis and may be a result of their impatience, but better now than in say, seven years from now. It is unclear if America will have the strategic, military advantage in the mid term future. In other words, we may not be number one in the near future. Better now.
The following piece is from Tracinski over at The Intellectual Activist Daily. It is a must read. Seminal. TIA Daily is a paid subscription so I am running it all. It needs to be seen by as many people as possible.

Five Minutes to Midnight
The War Is Coming, No Matter How Hard We Try to Evade It

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HT Instapundit

SCROLL FOR UPDATE

This is the best case I've seen for trashing the liberal left's concept of disproportionate response when engaging an megalomanic enemy drivern by an ideology of hate and Evil.

History shows us time and time again that sometimes there is no moralistic relativistic response that will stop such an enemy hell bent on world domination.

RBT has noted before the LL and the MSM must have slept through history class in jurnior high or at least world history circa 1938. See this great thread over at the Winds of Change.

There is a simple answer. Sometimes we must realize there is no shades of gray when it comes to fundamental issues of what is right and what is wrong or good vs. Evil.
The enemy and it's ideology - Islamofascism - must be destroyed. This is a failed ideology that has no place in the modern world no matter how much we seek to find moral equivalence.

There is no common ground from which to reach compromises when dealing with fundamental rights of the free will of men and WOMEN!. To do otherwise soes the seeds of our own destruction.

RBT

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Historians: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Was Overreaction
By Red Square
8/7/2006, 1:47 pm

Europe 's view of the present Israeli offensive against Hezbollah as an "overreaction" and "disproportionate use of force" is rooted in relatively recent history, say progressive researchers. In 1943, Europe itself suffered from a similar Jewish overreaction to some controversial German policies, in an event known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Zionist radicals attacked the National Socialist German Workers Party that was loved by the German people for its far-reaching educational and social welfare services. In fact, many academics who teach Peace Studies at prestigious universities believe that it was the Zionists' "disproportionate use of force" that had ruined hopes for peace in Europe and caused a humanitarian crisis that could have easily be avoided if only Jews had shown restraint and tolerance towards the democratically elected German government.
~
In fact, the reaction of world's media to the current Middle Eastern crisis is almost identical to that during the 1943 Warsaw crisis when, as modern historians claim, militant Zionists jeopardized the fragile peace that European leaders and progressive intellectuals had been trying to achieve by civilized means - as evidenced by the following collection of quotes and headlines of the time.

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Read it All!

Update:

HT Ace of Spades

Ace has similar thoughts in this piece:

Had Enough?

Update II:

HT Kobayashi Maru

KBM just posted a related piece on the nature of Islam:

Studying Islam - Two Book Reviews and a Dire Conclusion

HT Ray Robison

This was just emailed to RBT from Ray Robison on a new post at his blog. Ray is a FoxNews contributor who is the lead person on Fox's translation project on the Saddam Regime Docs - Saddam Dossier.

RBT

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The trail of the Sky Bombers
By Ray Robison

Allah at Hot Air links to a Brian Ross piece at ABC's The Blotter with a most likely name for the high ranking al Qaeda terrorist ring-leader picked up in Pakistan.

There were several arrests also made in Pakistan today in connection with the case, but the suspected ringleader remains at large. Pakistani officials say this 29-year old al Qaeda commander, Matiur Rehman, was known to be planning a terror spectacular to mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/ll attacks. The London plot may well have been it.

I did a little research on this because it intersects with the IIS agents notebook Sammi translated for our Fox News column, The Saddam Dossier.

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Update:

HT Flopping Aces

Curt at Flopping Aces connects the dots expanding on Ray Robison's early post re the connection between the current plane bombing plot and Saddam Regime support of terrorists groups. Also see Curt's post of a link analysis chart showing the interconnections between these groups.

Saddam Supported Group Which Planned Sky Bombing
Posted by Curt on August 13, 2006 at 14:12
Print This Post | 34 Views

I had completely missed Ray Robisons excellent reporting on the high level Al-Qaeda leader captured in Pakistan. First here is an excerpt from ABC's blog:

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