When two threads meet

It is not all that often that my reading in paper meets up with an interesting idea on the net and the two actually have a direct crossing point.  The posting was a link by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit to a look at SF movies by our friend and taser volunteer at Popular Mechanics, Eric Sofge, to see about the prophetic forecasts of SF.  This is a pretty much perennial late-night topic at SF conventions when there is nothing better to talk about, although most of that usually looks at the literary form, not the cinematic form.  Still, anyone who has been in a few of those knows the basic ground rules:  which film best depicts realistic science and science based extrapolation that could or has been done since its showing up?

Like all good sessions this one has a different form, however, as SF also looks at humanity, society and government, and how they respond to the changes in science.  Here the criticism of the 'utopian' form is a high art, and each casts their eyes to things like Orwell's 1984 (available at The Complete Works of George Orwell site) or Huxley's Brave New World (available at Huxley.net), and similar views on works that do not concentrate specifically on the outcomes of government and society, but use them as the gestalt of presentation, like Frank Herbert's DUNE or Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.  From great works to lesser ones (like William F. Nolan's Logan's Run) the ability of film to capture these views has been difficult.

Where this intersects with my current reading is the book by Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism.  The review of western and US history, in particular, is deeply disturbing as it shows that the 'memory hole' of 1984 is being married up with the 'do it for your own good' view of Brave New World, to give us something far worse than either:  a technocratically led society where the elite get to decide for the masses what is good for the masses and the State.  This set of views is the Americanized form of Fascism, and the details of the much over-glorified 'progressives' and current crop of 'Third Way' politicians (stretching the bipartisan envelope to include Bill Clinton, George W. Bush to the current nominal selectees of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain) each pressing for technocratic 'experts' and 'government control' over aspects of life in the US that would be chilling to anyone told of such in the 19th century.  The lauding of the 'good' of technology would then be criticized at separating out control of it from society and given to that institution least suited to controlling it: government.

This anti-individual form of 'progressive' views, where the State controlled by 'experts' wipes away the 'primitive common man' was actually presented before 1984 or Brave New World, in cinema.  That work was by the same man that coined the term 'Liberal Fascism' to describe the route that progressives during the 1930's  should take to head towards the future:  H. G. Wells.  The work that would embody this is The Shape of Things to Come (available as etext at Adelaide University) which Wells, himself, turned into the screenplay for the movie Things to Come.  The film version in particular, is highly prophetic, but the book version, also, has its shares of prophecy, including a Polish Corridor struggle leading to a World War. 

Concentrating on the film version, the next World War, like the first, would not end quickly and would be global in fighting and outcome: technology would allow for it to spread to all corners of the earth and then drag on for decades.  As the war continues the civilization would falter and then decline as natural resources and the productive capacity were either ravaged by war or lacking fuel.  The warm and friendly Everytown at the beginning of the film in the mid-1930's has turned into a rubble strewn husk of a town ruled by a local warlord.  In from the air would arrive a well dressed, sophisticated man in uniform who would be announcing that a new order was arriving from those who knew better on how to control technology and, thus, society.  This airman represented the very lofty group 'Wings Over The World' which would then drop non-lethal 'Gas of Peace' bombs to knock everyone out and allow a benign take-over of society.  After that, 'civilization' run by the technocrats would have returned, glorious new cities arise and a large broadcast system so that everyone could hear and see the State announcements invented to keep folks informed of the latest techno-marvel.

As prophetic SF it is one of the most chilling views of the future, the nature of Fascism and the concept of a 'good State' controlling everything and removing the 'unhealthy' views of 'primitive' man.  Things to Come is one of the clearest, most forceful of the Anglo views of Fascism of the mid-1930's and the greatest pronouncement of the 'good' that will come to mankind when the State is in control of everything.  It is also one of the smoothest bits of support for technocratic dictatorship ever produced outside of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or Stalin's USSR (which has a long and storied legacy of same dating back into the 1920's with The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, being a prime first example of the genre in the non-prophetic, propagandistic method).  The technology, itself, during the beginning and middle portions of the film are all well known, and it adheres to the SF view of 'invent as little as possible and then show how it changes society and culture'.  The war of tanks, aircraft, nerve gas, and then disease warfare gets out of hand and things collapse with the original war becoming a series of local survival conflicts as the basis for industrial society are lost.  Indeed, this would be one of the first 'post-apocalypse' films and The Road Warrior would fit right in to this view of the world.

While metal monocoque aircraft were not unknown during the filming of Things to Come, in 1935-36, the film sticks to the known 'fabric falcons' of biplanes for viewer familiarity.  Thus when 'Wings Over The World' delivers its benign bombs from huge mono-wing, metal skinned aircraft, they have a dramatic and cinematic flavor when compared to the older wood and fabric aircraft that mankind has been stuck with.  The aircraft used looks very much like a post-WWII heavy bomber, like the B-36, thus making it a harbinger of what technological change could look like.  Delivery of of various forms of 'knock-out' gas have been used to varying degrees of success, but conceptually remains a distinct possibility as a 'non-lethal agent' if destructive side-effects can be avoided which has been troubling to date as dosage cannot be precisely administered.

Hands down, for predicting technology, Things to Come tops just about everything else on the list because it did invent sparingly and along basically known lines of science.  The large generators and such are extrapolated from then known designs, and are more or less infeasible due to sizing constraints.  Likewise the super video system (and this hearkens over to Blade Runner) is outside the envelope of now current technology, but not beyond thin-film display technology now starting to come into the marketplace.  And in a greatly amusing twist for the modern viewer, the basing of 'Wings Over The World' is out of Basra.  Iraq. 

And set on eliminating all other Nation States to subsume humanity under one, single State.

Perhaps Saddam watched the movie?

It is in the societal realm that Things to Come is less than prophetic and trying to be visionary, but grasping propaganda, instead.  The film's view, from Wells, is one that sees man 'liberated' from his base needs and ending with this line to re-inforce *why* a global state is such a good idea:

"...if Man is merely an Animal then he must fight for every scrap of happiness he can, but if he is something more, then he must strive for more — the Universe or nothing - which shall it be?"

That is the harsh and diametric view that is the point of Fascism:  the way to the glorious State to rule everyone and everything, or nothing.  It is also a very Christian view of the divinity of man, and if we could just set ourselves free from base desires we could have the universe and eternal happiness right here on Earth.  And what better instrument to *supply* that eternal happiness than the State, and what better State to do that than the one that benignly eradicates all other States that do not fit with this pre-conception of man?

When I hear those saying that the UN is a 'first try' at a global state and that it is 'inevitable', please do watch Things to Come.  The implication of a global state is that we cannot come to agreement amongst ourselves and are foredoomed to self-annihilation without it.  And if we put the 'experts' in control of everything and homogenize humanity and get rid of different cultures to form a common one, then all will be sweetness and light with the State telling us what is good and bad for us as individuals.  And if 'multiculturalism' is pressed into service to 'raise all cultures to equality' then those that harbor concepts that murder of women for any acts of marital transgression are EQUAL to those where a court would step in to administer fair and even justice without regard to sex, race or ethnicity.  That, too, homogenizes culture and removes differences especially when done from the top-downwards as stoning from religious views becomes exactly as equal and uplifting as due process in a court of law for equal justice.  Discrimination becomes injustice, and allowing injustice to murder and not recriminate it become justice. 

If the idea of a technocratic elite led by 'the best principles' going in to bomb primitives and then removing 'unwanted views' is anathema to you, then why is it perfectly acceptable to press 'unwanted views' upon everyone else and claim that all these views are equal?  That *is* the 'Wings Over The World' view, save that they have decided one way and you another, but the concept being pressed is exactly the same: a given political view needs to be impressed upon everyone to eliminate all differences to get a homogenous humanity to control.

That *is* Fascism: State control over society from cradle to grave.  No exceptions allowed or permitted.

In the genre of resistance to Fascism and State control, SF does have some pretty dark novels like Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (which, ironically, had been deeply censored since its first printing and was only restored for its 50th Anniversary) and many films have given us those views from the previously mentioned film versions of 1984 and Brave New World, to such originals as Gattaca.  One would think that the individual fighting against the all-powerful State would be compelling cinema and gain some popularity as one can be looking at the future and yet still basing the premise of the individual's struggle to be superior to that of the State's need for control.  In cinema we do get films like the darkly conspiratorial Total Recall, in which who is trying to control the protagonist or if, indeed, there is even a 'reality' or a 'conspiracy' are all thrown up for grabs, to such light things as The Truman Show.  What we are served up, instead, are the 'resistance to the conspiracy du jour' like The Bourne Identity or The Manchurian Candidate, which both offer up villains that have become staples for films needing generic villains:  Corporations, Government Agencies, or the nefarious cross-mixture of Corporations and Government.  The flip side of these sorts of films are those where government by its size is benignly evil, so that 'doing good' means you end up getting targeted.  Here the list gets a bit more diverse with the very humorous Brazil being a top candidate to the more traditional Blue Thunder where the nefarious government/military/corporation conspiracy complex is trying to foist a super armed helicopter on the LAPD under the guise of 'protecting the Olympics', all the way back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, where robotics meant to keep the workers under control ends up overthrowing the existing order of things with much chaos ensuing.

The very last category is the one where the pressure to conform from government and society is arrayed against the individual.  While 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are part of this genre, actually getting past the immediate films to find similar works gets difficult.  Here the tools of government to make individuals conform is paramount, as once control over society is established, nothing is off-limits to the State to 'do good'.  When the rest of humanity is controlled by the State either via drugs, 'discipline', 'training', or pure removal from the population (either via imprisonment or killing) the totalitarian State has no limits to disallow any form of coercion.  Only if an individual is of interest to the State for reasons of the State are there limits, and the rare individual that has such value points out to where it will go to excess for those with lesser or diminished value to the State as individuals become replaceable elements in the entire working setup. 

Because most stories would end up in the end of the individual involved, this genre remains the darkest as the final extinguishing of human identity into group identity is not a pretty sight to behold.  When governments are given such free reign, as they have been under many authoritarian and totalitarian states, the horrors of torture rooms, rape rooms, and feeding individuals into plastic shredders and taking that on video tape to distribute in his neighborhood as a warning, makes this a very, very grim view of the world. From the Cold War era comes most of these as allegorical tales about the subversion of individuals into communal thinking, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which has a true alien life replacing people we know with ones that only seem like humans.  The 1978 version was, perhaps, the most chilling as the psychologist, who is seen as the quintessential 'expert', played by Leonard Nimoy, underwent no real change in personality at all.  While there are many 'invasion' themed films, actually seeing humanity having given itself willingly into this condition is rare and the fight against conformity even rarer.

That is why Fascism is so very compelling: to get from your current state to the 'desired' end-state, it should really happen instantaneously.  No fuss, no muss, no bother.

Modern 'progressives' want to get to that State, but find the intermediate steps to be temporarily good, but counter-productive in the longer term.  Still the supposed 'good' of coming to depend on the State for everything is worth the 'ills' and 'problems' which can then be raised to heights and pontificated about to bring about more State controls that never, truly, address the ills and make the problems, themselves, more intractable and insoluble.  Giving racial 'preferences' instead of 'righting past wrongs' continues on a set of race-based agendas far past righting a wrong.  Encouraging welfare and then having children out of wedlock makes those women doing so perpetually dependent upon the State and destroys family life by not holding men accountable as fathers.  That ill brings up 'youth pregnancy' as culture collapses without stability of male and female views in a family, and in no time at all you get a child brought up believing they are entitled to having the basics of life provided for them ad infinitum.  Soon a once vibrant culture deteriorates into crime and disorder as the order provided by the family and teaching the necessity of law disappear.  Each 'crisis' to handle the problem with a State funded handout makes the entire cycle worse and destroys individuality in an attempt to create a true nameless, faceless class of identical individuals with identical beliefs.  Attempt to instill 'pride' fall flat as there is nothing to be prideful *of* if one does not have a basis for having a self-perception beyond race and class.  Soon race and class identity are pushed which makes the entire suite of problems 'intractable' and 'needing more money from government' for an ill that was best solved by the people involved getting a hand-up via self-responsibility and self-reliability.  Remove the latter and the ability of an individual to *be* individual falls.

Those that sign up to this are seeking a 'Third Way' that is not 'Right' or 'Left' but is wholly totalitarian in outlook and schema.  If these 'experts' are so smart, how come they cannot run a government agency efficiently?  And if so wise, why do they fail to give prudent advice when raised to positions of even trivial power and, in business, government and industry, become petty and controlling over such small amounts of responsibility handed to them?  To correct *that* comes 'oversight' which then requires more 'experts' and, incidentally, more cost and overhead that is non-productive.  But never fear, government will step in with *more money* to 'fix' the problem and put more people into that system... which we call 'health insurance' but is, in fact, a subsidy given to a paperwork management system that sometimes delivers 'health care'.  After inflation the cost difference between what your grandparents, who used 'health care' sparingly and took care of themselves, and your cost is that not of greed but of paperwork, overhead and 'management' between what goes on between you and a doctor.  Never fear, however, the State will 'help' by adding more 'oversight' and putting more people into the system.

Between point A and point B there is a treadmill running ever faster and elevating as you work harder to stay in place.  Point B looks so great to get to!  Until you realize that no matter how fast you run, how hard you try, you will soon be giving up everything to stay in place... until you are exhausted and give up to those who have been egging you on for the 'greater good' and 'benefits' to be provided at point B.  All those lovely things are, like in Stalin's USSR, only cardboard cutouts filled with nothing although they look like such pretty things on the outside.  And every time a goody is added, you are told to give more and more effort as it really is worth the cost... isn't it?  That is what we are told when government is supposed to do more and more and more, while being less and less and less capable and efficient of doing anything.  That may start off sounding like a lovely 'Wings Over The World' ideal, to push more to government until it is everything... but, if you are lucky, you end up with Brazil and NOT 1984.

What Things to Come left out between A and B was the unfortunate part of what happened to the diverse peoples of the world once the ever benevolent technocrats got to them.  If a society did not want or, by their own view, *need* rescue... that is too bad, they GOT IT ANYWAYS.  All to that 'greater good' of 'progress'.  What is forgotten is that 'change' is NOT progress.  I am sure that 'Wings Over The World' changed a *lot* of things... but I wouldn't call it progress by any extent of the imagination.

Sphere: Related Content

Fitna - Clear and Simple

When we hear that we must understand that the 'moderate Muslim' is not for the radicalist ways of jihad, then we, as a society collected of individuals, come to the point where all the excuses given for wanton murder and Private War waged across the globe in the name of Islam and jihad must come down to one very clear and basic view.

Part of why that view is necessary is given a first and strongest view in Geert Wilders' short film Fitna. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Fitna, we see the following:

Fitna is an Arabic word, generally regarded as very difficult to translate but at the same time is considered to be an all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy at once. It is often used to refer to civil war, disagreement and division within Islam and specifically alludes to a time involving trials of faith, similar to the Tribulation in Christian eschatology. The term originally referred to the refining of metal to remove dross [1], but became common in apocalyptic writings and is often used to refer to the First Islamic civil war, in 656–661 CE, a prolonged struggle for the caliphate after the 656 assassination of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan. The Second Fitna, or Second Islamic civil war, is usually identified as the 683–685 CE conflict among the Umayyads for control of the caliphate. The third one refers to the taifas in the end of the Caliph of Córdoba's rule.

This is a meaning beyond simple trial or test, and hits straight to the heart of the problem in trying to apologize or veer off from confronting a religion that puts violent ideas and ideals into action. Within Islam, then, those that utilize violent ways and means are practicing something beyond jihad: they are practicing Fitna upon their fellow Muslims.

They do so by radicalizing their views and holding ahistoric views of their religious past in order to glorify it beyond all bounds of reason. When brought to an unreasoning and unreasonable height, one that cannot be touched by reason but only by passion, those seeking to cleans Islam of those who are considered 'moderates' is done by instilling fear and hatred of all of Islam. Their aim is global domination, but to get the foot soldiers to accomplish this they need to go beyond simple disdain or verbal neutrality of their fellow believers. To do that they attack those outside the religion and proclaim them all as the enemy of Islam if they will not come to it.

Every time we hear an excuse to act in a barbaric fashion and it is put into terms of someone else's fault, be it Israel, Arab Nations hosting Western groups, or even some ancient grievance against the Crusades we see Fitna at work. By not denouncing these things as unreasonable, by giving cover to acts of inhuman carnage Islam is not only speaking to those outside of it but is holding up a mirror to itself and letting those who do NOT actively support the violence and destruction: "This is your fate if you do not join us."

Those threats are made clear time and time again in a Nation called Iraq. Today, and for years, the radicals of Islam have not been solely targeting those from the west, from Nations with liberal and democratic views, from Nations that have thrown off the shackles of tyranny and point to a better and brighter future through peace and cooperation of Nation with Nation. No these seeking to help OTHERS rebuild their Nation and society from the outside are not the only target. Those radical elements now target the common man and woman and child in Iraq, be they Sunni or Shia, Arab or Kurd or Yezidi, they are all targets now and open to the vile hatred and disgust of those siding with radical and totalitarian views about Islam.

These radicals not only strike in New York City, Madrid, London, Israel, India, Australia and even into China. No, these radicals kill their own in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, and Morocco. The gun they turn on others and the bombs they detonate, the havoc they cultivate is against all of those that will not see the world in their way and the goal of these bloody butchers is anyone who does not agree with them. Their hatred, their disgust and their cruelty knows no bounds of religion or culture or ethnicity: they have declared themselves the enemy of ANY who will not agree with them.

The short film of Fitna, while localized to the Netherlands, is global in its voice: those practicing these evil ways hold to a singular belief that is their OWN and they use Islam as the cover for it. Many sects of Islam have different views of those exact, same pages that are read, and have shifted from the external struggle to the internal and seeking to show that such struggles are universal. Those quiet voices are drowned out by the bomb blasts, the screams, the rain of blood from shockwaves visited upon everyday men and women of all beliefs, all classes and all ethnicities if they do not bow down to those seeking pure and absolute power over everyone.

Hearing of this film and its release on the 'net I utilized tools I had found for downloading such things as I knew it would not be up long and if others could not keep it and protect it, I would have my copy for the coming times of cowardice.

One tool is Orbit downloader, which has the ability via its Grab function to analyze a web page as it is loaded and identify the sources of rich media and allow you to download them for yourself straight from that source.

Another tool available for taking many different formats of video and audio and quickly compiling them to something that can be played on a stand-alone video player is DVD Flick. While it does not have the rich media editing capability of some other tools, it offers the 'quick down and dirty just get it to something easy to use' concept for those things you want to share with others via physical media.

A good alternative video/audio player for one's computer is VLC media player by the folks at Video LAN. It also has some functionality on sharing media across a network.

Another good tool for sharing rich media over a network is TVersity, which is relatively simple and straightforward.

These all have the benefit of being absolutely FREE for download.

To protect speech that others wish to stop, that those willing to use violence and destroy not only civility but civilization are willing to kill to end, to ensure the basic freedom to express yourself and have it heard and remembered these are simple and yet vital tools for capturing and distributing media that is in danger because it not about conspiracies... it is about truths others are willing to kill to suppress. Somehow the conspiracy theorists get plenty of airtime and very few assassinations visited upon them, while those wishing to say 'this is wrong and here is why' get targeted by those who can and will kill them if they do not recant the 'evil' of speaking their mind.

When corporations and cowards in the media will not even support their OWN, then you know that they are willing to submit to any power able to threaten them.

They are half-way to surrender already, and no longer having freedom.

For temporary security, like 'moderate Muslims', they live in silence.

And if they will not believe in what the radicals want, they, too, will end up like the common men, women and children around them who have been slaughtered.

Dead.

Sphere: Related Content

The quick analysis of the Iraqi attack on the militias

This will be based on the Iraqi Forces Order of Battle as seen at Long War Journal's posting of 25 FEB 2008 by DJ Elliot.  He has also posted material at the Wikipedia site, and some of that will come into play, too.  As one cannot analyze the situation without the background, I will take a look at the background and offer some free-form, back of the envelope ideas.  I am no expert, just an interested individual in affairs military.

Read at your own risk.

I will start with the immediate sector(s) involved and work outwards and upwards.

IGCF Basrah Sector.

As Basra is where things are starting off, that is where the analysis starts and here we find the 10th Infantry Division (IA 10ID) and the 14th (Mustafa) Motorized Division (IA 14ID) there.  Using the ID moniker for the 14th, even as it is motorized, it does not have the Mech designation for heavier combat transport, thus indicating a highly mobile Infantry Group, but more on the delivery to combat than within combat.

The obvious thing to look at is the actual disposition of the IA 10ID is stretched from the southern neighborhoods of Baghdad (Doura and Bayaa) all the way down to Nasiriyah.  A Division is typically made up of smaller functional units broken down first into Brigades (Bde) and then into Battalions (Btn) beneath the Brigade level.  Regiments are also included in Divisions as separate operational groups that often act at the Brigade level while being Battalion strength.  Typically these are 'special purpose' groups whose tasks are important enough to require the higher level designation for the lower strength level.  And yes that is an Army view, not a Marine Corps one.  Divisions, then, are in a state of flux due to sizing with variations on types of tasks to perform, logistics groups to support those tasks, and interior unit types and the need for personnel for things like manning vehicles separate from combat. 

Historically Divisions represent a total of 10,000 to 20,000 individuals, with a percentage of those being actual direct combatants.  Note that in organizations like the US Marine Corps the concept is 'every soldier is a Rifleman' means that there is an expectation that the support duties are secondary to combat, and as the USMC tends to go places where everything is in flux, everyone is expected to fight.  Similarly in the modern 'frontless war' the US Army has increased its combat training at all levels.  The Iraqi Army must do something similar as there is no 'front' to man and insurgent/terror attacks can happen to anyone at any time.

Thus the IA 10ID has two Special Troops and one Recon Battalion, plus the 3-10 Motorize Bde and two support Regiments at Nasariyah and is the DhiQar Operations Command.  This is for airbase defense of the upgraded airbase there (Tallil) and for the construction of the training/base Camp Mittica.  As Nasariyah is to be one of the major Iraqi bases and logistics points for their armed forces, getting that put in shape is a major task.

The 10ID 4-10 Motorized Bde has been placed near the Iraq/Iran border area in Al Amarah, not only to keep things quiet there, but to keep an eye on border activity and insurgent supply routes that may be heading through the area.

The 1-10 Motorized Bde has been split up from the southern Baghdad neighborhoods (2-1-10 Btn, 3-1-10 Btn) to Kut (1-1-10 Btn) with the 1-10 Special Troops Btn co-located with the 4-10 Bde at Al Amarah.

Augmenting the 1-10 in Baghdad is the 2-10 Infantry Bde 1-2-10 Btn.  The rest of the 2-10 Bde is in between Nasariyah and Baghdad at Samawah as reinforcement for the Provincial government there and to supply COIN capability between Nasariyah and Baghdad.

Missing from IA 10ID are 9 Btns which would represent artillery and Brigade level support units, which puts the entire Division at an 80% strength and requiring aerial support and other logistics support from other forces, presumably US and MNF.

The IA 14ID (Mustafa) is based in the Basrah area and is the Basrah Operations Command.  At Basrah, itself, are two Motorized Brigades (1-14, 2-14), one support Regiment, and the Division level command Battalion.  One Motorized Brigade (3-14) is cited in transition from Besmaya to Az Zubayr about 15 miles South of Basrah.  One Motorized Brigade remains 'unassigned' (4-14) presumably as a reserve or reaction force.

As with the 10ID, the 14ID is at 80% strength for the same reasons: units have not formed up or are in planning stages only.

For the immediate Basrah Sector, then, there are two IA Infantry Divisions that are Motorized, but understrength for logistics and artillery support which is spread across all the Brigades in each Division.  These are not, perhaps, optimal conditions to send Divisions into an offensive operation and there can be some questions about the wisdom of doing so.  But Basrah is not the entire operation and looking further north may reveal an operational concept to explain why starting off with two understrength Divisions in this way may be of benefit to the Iraqis.  Even if one pre-disposes a sectarian reason to go after the militias (which many do) the battle plan has been drafted by the Army which must represent all of Iraq and is an integrated system both ethnically, in sectarian views and culturally.

I will put off looking at the Police units in this force, for a bit, to look at the military capacity in and around Baghdad itself and then see what the more specialized forces for the Police add to the overall plan.  I will be leaving out analysis of Mosul and Baqubah as things there, while still 'hot' are in the expected category of COIN against al Qaeda groups.  Short of al Qaeda showing up with WMDs, there is not much strategic effectiveness left to it and even its tactical capabilities have been drained as witness al Qaeda leadership leaving Iraq.

Baghdad has three Division level elements present:  IA 6ID, 11ID and 9th Armored Division (AD).  Looking at the Divisions, as a whole, they are understrength, but much heavier units, particularly 9AD.  Thus while these units may have the same set of lacks in artillery and support Battalions, they do not suffer from lack of mobility nor firepower.

IA 6ID looks to be holding the western to southern portion of Baghdad, overlapping in Arab Jabour with the 10ID elements.  Similarly the 11ID holding the eastern to southern portion of Baghdad supports the 6ID in Bayaa and then has significant deployment in and around Sadr City.  The 9AD has been split up with 2-9 Armored Brigade and 4-9 Cavalry Brigade headed northwards to Mosul.  Out of the 9AD four Battalions from the 3-9Bde are in Basrah (3-9, 1-3-9, 3-3-9 and 4-3-9).  Additionally, outside of defense of Taji airbase, the 9AD has shifted the 1-9 Mech Bde around Baghdad, most likely as fire support for infantry groups.

At Division level there are mixed IA/NP/IP units integrated for COIN work.  Thus the better part of two Infantry Divisions with significant fire-support from the 1-9 Mech Bde are the regular IA support of this operation, with overlaps between other commands to allow for better comms and responses across commands.  The Mid-Euphrates 8ID operating out of Karbala ranges to the west of Baghdad and out as far as Kut to the east and Diwaniyah to the south, overlapping the Baghdad and Dhi Qar Commands.  This is relatively understrength as the 15ID is only in basic planning and implementation, which explains why the other Commands have lent units to overlap it.

That leaves the Iraqi National Command.  While its Counter-Terrorism Bureau (CTB) and Iraqi Special Operations Force (ISOF) are mainly in and around Baghdad, with the 2nd ISOF Brigade planned for a dispersal north to south from Mosul to Basrah, with the 1ISOF in Baghdad.  The ISOF are the equivalent of US Special Forces and have been working with them and other Special Ops groups for a couple of years and have gained great respect for their capability.  Their presence in Baghdad along with the Baghdad Command units seem to be a good initial set-up for a spectrum force to clear out Sadr City.

The Iraqi Air Force (IZAF) is still standing up, but its initial Recon Wings are properly situated in Kirkuk and Basrah with its Helicopter wing in Taji situated between Baghdad, Baqubah and Balad (about 30 miles equidistant).

The Iraqi Navy (IZN) is stationed at Umm Qasr and has a Tactical Operation Center on an oil platform.  The two squadrons assigned to them (1st Patrol Boat and 2nd Assault Boat) plus the Marine Commando Battalion are tied up in mostly local duties, although the possibility of a small riverine raid or interdiction is not beyond the realm of the possible.

The Iraqi National Police can be considered to be more SWAT style units than FBI sorts of units.  Running down the listing, the 1 INP Mech Brigade is stationed to the south west of Baghdad in Karbala, Al-Askarian INP Motorized Bde is in Samarra north of Baghdad and a bit far for immediate support and looking more to support COIN ops in north-central Iraq.  The 1st INP Division (Motorized) is situated in and around Iraq with its four full strength Brigades.  The 2INP Division (Motorized) generally covers the south of Baghdad and all the way up to Sadr City.

Then there is the Iraqi Border Police which one wouldn't expect to have a large role to play in direct combat, but more on surveillance and interdiction.  Trimming down the list those of interest are 2/III Wasit Bde and the 3/III Brigade out of Kut, and the IV Border Police region's 1/IV Maysan Bde and 2/IV Basrah Bde covering the tri-border area.  The V Border Police Region to the west and north operate from Samawah and Najaf, with a Brigade each.

And as DJ Elliot was so good as to map it all out, you can get to see how this looks when someone who knows what they are doing gets at this sort of info:

Courtesy DJ Elliot at Long War Journal

So time for the analysis, some of which I went through as I went along.

Staging into Basra is a difficult affair with only a single understrength but highly mobile infantry division to do the work along with an armored battalion.  As this was a pre-planned attack, it is unlikely that the planners would do this without very good rationale behind it.  As a battle plan, then, what are the comparative strengths of this arrangement and their weaknesses?

The major combat and COIN strength is in Baghdad, not only as a result of the forces needed there in late 2007 to start putting the insurgency to rest, but also to do sustainment operations.  From the Iraqi point of view, any expected move by militias and insurgents would be directed first at the point of assault and, second, at the government itself.  This has to be a major worry given how the forces are deployed, and the security of Baghdad is strongly reinforced.  For a relatively young force (by and large excluding the long serving divisions further north) this is a paramount need, especially after the hard won gains there.

Attacking first in Basra may seem foolhardy with understrength forces, but there is a UK Mechanized Brigade there and the more static IZN and Border Patrol units to the south.  If one considers that south to be secured (and not knowing the disposition of MNF forces in Kuwait), then attacking in Basra with the British unit there comes a bit clearer.  Although there is a relatively heavy motorized 14ID there and *if* it can get logistical support either via port or through secured transport, then the question must be asked: what is the size of the militias (total or in-detail) that they are facing?

That comes as the main question then, with an assortment of Sadrist JaM (both those he can control and those he can't) and what Iranian/Hezbollah Qods/IRGC forces have been infiltrated in.  Even more pertinent is the question of what will happen with the bridges and transport across the Shatt Al Arab waterway?  If it can be reliably sealed on either side, then the ability of insurgents to get resupply must come from the south and via the waterway (either in crossing to those in support of the insurgents or some direct crossing going upstream to Basra).  The IZN and IBP both play a role there if the Iraqi government is serious about cutting off the insurgency as only Iran has anything equivalent to counter such forces.

Most popular estimates of the Sadr Militia range as high as 60,000, but his support is not what it was in 2003-04 and has declined markedly since the poor turnout for a speech given in 2007.  His estimate for that rally was to be 300,000 and only about 100,000 showed up, showing that his high water mark in support had not only been reached but was now quite distant.  If that 60,000 represents a 1 out of 5 ratio for his support base, the expected remainder of JaM can be expected to be 20,000.  The others have either splintered off, quit the militia game or shifted to a new allegiance (most likely directly with Iran and the Qods forces).  Further, that support is divided between Sadr City and Basra, although not evenly but with a preponderance in Sadr City.  He has had time to move forces south over the last year or so, to stage an undermining of Basra and get his own militias put into power there.  So a rough estimate may be as low as 8,000 and as high as 15,000, if he has almost completely stripped out Sadr City of everything except thuggish enforcer types.

Those are not his only worries, however, as the dwindling in support also puts his ability to supply those insurgents into question.  The preliminary, pre-'surge' work to take out the criminal Kazali network and other related organized crime networks has put a serious crimp in the JaM resupply capability.  By being unable to protect the Kazali brothers and their followers, he has lost 'cred' in that community and may no longer have a ready supply system and depends on secondary sources for such things.  As Sadr has not operated JaM as a typical terrorist organization of the 'predator taking anything to kill' but more along the Hezbollah lines of 'prepare before you attack' he must then devote some portion of his armed followers to protecting supply lines.  Perhaps as high as 10%, which further erodes his easily available end-strength from 20,000 to 18,000, and the possible shifting from Sadr City to Basra in proportion (6,400 to 12,000).

So, counting the the IA 14ID and the full strength UK Bde one starts to see an equivalence in force sizes.

Insurgents always have the benefit of being on the defensive when attacked on their own territory.  The vicious mining of roads and complete houses by al Qaeda elsewhere has shown just how effective and difficult it can be to go after an entrenched enemy.  What the attackers have on their side, however, is speed and direct firepower, which had proven a trump card in Baqubah catching AQI that had thought they could escape as Baqubah fell.  Also there is air power in the form of the MNF and anything that happens to be off-shore or pre-positioned elsewhere.  This leads to the description of what is going on: house to house combat.

In history there has been no nastier type of combat, save for the sniper zones of Stalingrad, and fighting this way usually takes a high toll on the attacker.  The UK Bde should acquit itself well when it is needed for that, but the question is on the experience of the 14ID which is a huge unknown.  That being said, any organized combat training usually trumps *none* and those defending in house to house work have to have a good network of pre-dug tunnels, weapons and ammo caches, and sufficient booby-traps to stop up an enemy.  AQI did this very well, and still lost time and again to extremely experienced US and MNF troops, along with the IA units they were associated with.  It is possible that Basra has been made into something like Baqubah, but unlikely due to the working nature of the city and its necessary imperative on trade and transport.  Baqubah had been, basically, shut down with its flour mills and people tended not to hang around too long as things went downhill.  So a systemic mining of the city is extremely unlikely because folks normally don't like to live with pre-rigged high explosives in their homes.

To date this has been a 'feeling out' exercise to determine type, quantity and skill level of the insurgents.

That *is* the point of Basra: to get a final first-hand knowledge of the disposition of JaM and other Shia militias and Iranian Qods 'secret cells'.

After Baghdad comes Nasiriyah in force size, and while it is mostly base support and building units, there are a number of combat elements available there.  They are too far from Basra to offer readily available support, but a few hours would get them there.  Of course that same travel time gets them to the Iranian border throughout Maysan to the north and even up to Kut.  So while they are not primarily aimed at combat, the 10ID elements there are a form of 'ready reserve', although a slim one.  The forces at Samawah are likewise positioned for that and the entirety of 10ID is well positioned for any interdiction of supplies or fighters that appear in their area.  If things went horribly wrong in Basra, there would be support there and the Polish motorized infantry would then be suited to move into base protection/support.

Moving up we are back to the question of the preponderance of forces in Baghdad and what will happen to Sadr City?  JaM has slowly seen neighborhood after neighborhood around it shift from insurgency to government control, and with that goes easy resupply and followers.  If Sadr has left a thin force of JaM to screen Sadr City so he can try and keep Basra, then the fighting in Basra will show that with limited militia size.  If he has left a thin force in Basra, then the rest of it must be elsewhere and without an indication of even slow movement of JaM forces to Iran that places them as most likely in Sadr City.  There are lots of 'ifs' in the analysis, but this puts the equivalent force size as roughly the inverse of the overall remainder from Basra:  8,000 to 11,600.  Even taking out half the available Iraqi forces to hold the gains in Baghdad, that leaves those JaM forces outnumbered by 2:1 at best and almost 5:1 at worse.  As no visible mountains are seen in Sadr City and it is not a rubble pile like Stalingrad, this puts Sadr's JaM in a very poor place to stage any kind of fight.

Politically there is not much that Sadr can do- if he fights in Basra and even succeeds to a limited extent, then Sadr City may well disappear from his support column in short order. 

If he concentrated his most skilled forces in Basra and joined them with the Qods/Hezbollah organized forces, then that will show him in league with Iran directly and willing to give control over Iraqi territory to Iranians, which will make him very unpopular across Iraq, which will encourage the government to take out Sadr City. 

If it is light forces (but highly skilled) in Basra, the bulk of his forces are in Sadr City and on the wrong side of a 2:1 ratio, not counting MNF forces.

Shifting to the political sphere, Sadr's leaving Parliament and going to Iran has not helped his overall stature.  Even going on the 'fast track' to 'elder cleric' by taking the 'two year track' instead of the ten or so years usually necessary to get such status, puts the place he is getting it from into light: Iran.  For a 'nationalist' who has always portrayed himself as such, doing that is not only a snub at one's own country but to the native traditions in Iraq.  He went that route in a grab for legitimacy, but his absence with those who had supported him made his cause erode into disarray.  Having Qods/Hezbollah groups going after various parts of JaM didn't help things much, either, but that was probably out of his control... which wouldn't have been the case if he stayed in Iraq.

For those pointing to Maliki as seeking political gain: what of it?  If you see him as a 'puppet of Iran' then you also have to see the IA taking down large Iranian backed Qods 'secret cells' as not endearing him to his supposed paymasters.

If you see him aligned with the Badr Brigades, do realize that they were getting weeded out of the IA in 2005-06 by US COINTEL.  Their haven has been the INP and IP, but even there they have been facing problems continuing support and still getting their jobs done... and if they don't get their jobs done and actually cause problems they face the IA.  The Badrists may have danced with glee over the taking down of AQI, but the removal of the Qods 'secret cells', the criminal networks beyond the Kazali and the erosion of JaM is sobering as these are both Shia organizations.  And if you turn on the IA in combat you get known as a 'traitor' and can be taken down very quickly to anyone who wants to do so, such has been the problems of turncoats throughout history. Plus one of their 'own' is directing that, if you believe in this line of thought.  And most folks forget that the Badr Brigades were fully funded by Iran for years and all the way up to the invasion and for a bit afterwards, too.

Of course Maliki could just be doing the obvious: ridding his country of killers and getting the place stable.  I know, a dangerous thought that someone might actually do something for stated reasons.  I tend to shy away from conspiracies as they tend to be: too complex, too untrustworth, too leaky past two people, and liable have falling outs way before they achieve much of anything.  Consortiums and oligarchies are one thing, conspiracies quite another: if OPEC is a conspiracy it is poorly hidden, and the Red Mafia oligarchies were only able to survive by making their trails so complex that no one could piece them all together.  The former never tried to be a secret and the second one operated as a trust network that would fall apart gracefully, to allow sections of it to remain intact while the rest fell.  So for demonstrable proof of a conspiracy, one needs to demonstrate that the activities are going far and away beyond stated goals... which I haven't heard from anyone to-date.

Thus preferring simple complexity to complex simplicity, looking at the actions arrives one at a multi-week to 3-4 month operation to feel-out the militias, probe for responses, and then once those are seen and traced, to start pulling them out.  Sort of like the pre-prep to Baqubah, but done on a larger scale.  That would wind things up by mid-JUL 2008 at worse and by early MAY 2008 if everything goes as planned.  Wildcards remain Iranian responses, quality of personnel and logistics, not necessarily in that order.

Basra is the end of the beginning and not a deal-breaker for Maliki by any stretch of the imagination.

Sphere: Related Content

Transparency and mirrors in terrorism causing moral blindness

Reading about some of the information released in the Canadian terror trial that recently started, I ran across the name of the informant in the case, Mr. Mubin Shaikh.  Born and raised in Canada, he has a cultural affinity for it even after spending a couple of years living in Syria.  After returning from that time in Syria during 2002-2004, one of his friends was picked up on terrorism charges and the CSIS folks wanted to talk with him.  Here is how he approached it as seen in a CBC Interview with him by Linden McIntyre, 15 JUL 2006:

Mubin Shaikh: So what happened was I go to Syria 2002 to 2004. I come back in March 2004, and I read in the paper Mohammad Momin Khawaja is arrested on terrorism charges. I know the family very well. We grew up together. His father taught us when we were younger. And so we have a good connection with the family.

So what happened was I contacted CSIS. I phoned them and I said, "Listen, I know the family, I know this guy, Momin, is there some way that I can help, you know, give some information in that, look, I've grown up with him, you know, I don't know him to be like this or his brother, definitely not his family, like his parents are not extremists."

So they're like, "Oh, Momin Khawaja, first terrorism case, sure, we'll talk to you." The guy comes down, he was head of the unit supposedly. We met at Timmy's, and, you know, I'm wearing my pin, the Canadian flag and the Metro police pin, because I was also doing I guess you can call it ethno-cultural religious awareness with the Toronto police, and just to let them know, you know, different things that could be of use to them, and so I met with the CSIS guys, and they were very interested in me now. So basically, you know, they put to me the prospect of working with them, giving information on people, certain groups, getting to leaders of certain groups, talking to them, seeing what kind of views they had and reporting on those views because I am convinced that I'm the best guy for them to have to comment on the different groups, because I have a solid foundation in Islam, you know, I'm born and raised here.

I mean, Toronto's home. So I understand what concerns they have, but at the same time as a Muslim, I understand what concerns Muslims have. So I felt that I could be a link between the two sides.

Beyond the understanding that he has and his ability to put the need to stop radicalism, he demonstrates one of the most extremely sophisticated views on how to put people at ease who might otherwise not be so.  First is his outreach to CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service), which itself marks him as something a bit different than those muslim communities that harbor radicals and something much closer to the Anbari's in Iraq who have realized that the evil represented by violence soon comes home to roost in one's own house.  Next he gave the proper signals by wearing the flag/police pin and meeting with the CSIS in a haunt that many would know:  Tim Horton's donut shop.  That Canadian chain of donut shops, which had spread down to my native Western New York, is not a Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, though in the same ballpark as them.  Only in the well-worn donut shops from the area does one get a similar sense of familiarity that a brand-new Tim Horton's gives you.  Thus he had chosen not only neutral ground, but seemingly positive ground for the police.  He calls that 'ethno-cultural religious awareness' but to actively realize it and utilize it requires something a bit out of the ordinary.

That sort of outlook was similar to that used by al Qaeda in the 9/11 and other attacks:  blend into the culture, be non-threatening and be seemingly 'normal'.  Here it is clearly explained as something that can be known and utilized to set others at ease and quickly, although being Canadian born, Mr. Shaikh also has that affinity as part of his personal experience.  As he points out, however, there is also a personal part of this that is, at heart, untrainable: you either have the ability to say the right things at the right time or you do not.  That is how he went from being on the outside of the group planning a terrorist plot to being on the inside, as he relates further down:

Linden McIntyre: How do you do that without making yourself a little bit too conspicuous?

Mubin Shaikh: It's hard to say. There is a part of me that is like that. You know, right, like I have that in me so that they can see. It's very easy for me to do it. I don't really need to act. It's just the way that I am. You know, I like — I'm sociable, I like talking to people, I'm extroverted, you know, so with these guys, what happened was, I'm telling you, the divine hand is behind all of this. I go to this — there was a program that was going on, and I go to the banquet hall and I'm sitting at the table. There was nobody there, and a guy comes across, and of all the tables to sit next to, he sits next to me. So he asks me a question, is jihad... [speaking foreign language] What he's asking me is, is jihad a communal obligation or an individual obligation? If I say it's a communal obligation, I'm implicitly saying I don't need to be a jihadi. But if I say it's an individual obligation, then I'm saying I can be a jihadi.

Linden McIntyre: You should be a jihadi.

Mubin Shaikh: Yes, right, because otherwise you're not anything proper, really. So I told him exactly what he wanted to hear. I said, no, it's... [speaking foreign language] and that did it. I got pulled over to the side. They gave me the lines, what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, they're raping our women, killing our children, and that's the thing, the emotional thing they use. So you feel angry, you want to do something about it. Your mind is clouded. Now, you're young, physically, you're fit. You can physically do something. You need somebody to push you, to motivate you. You got that anger, the emotion, the desire to protect the honour of women, right. And the way this guy was talking, I had really my comment to my CSIS handler at that time afterwards was, "This guy is an effing time bomb waiting to go off."

Linden McIntyre: When did you know that this fertilizer or the ammonium nitrate was in the equation?

Mubin Shaikh: Just before it was made public.

That is, perhaps, one of the most amazing bits of insight into how the recruitment of individuals goes: it seeks those who have some affinity and then offers a line that pushes emotional buttons to make them receptive to recruitment.  That Mr. Shaikh could actually stand above that and distance himself from it, and then analyze it is amazing.  As he points out you cannot 'act' your way through that, but neither can you buy into the line being given.  The police were very lucky to have an individual so capable of that work come to them.  And yet the organization, itself, has built-in 'firewalls' as he was not trusted easily nor readily as that last bit shows.  He did not know of the plot or its moving into an active phase as he had not demonstrated himself as reliable.  Perhaps as an unwitting bomber, yes, but not as someone trusted with actual plans and logistics.

While he was, and possibly *is*, still supporting radical groups, at least vocally, Mr. Shaikh has also come to some realization that what the end result of that radicalism gets is not very good at all.  Basically it is a man with a conflicted spirit and view of the world, plus having a past drug habit that has included LSD and cocaine (Source: Macleans 10 SEP 2007), but who can see his way, at minim, to self-preservation and love of country to do the right thing.  One can only act like a jihadi in such a convincing way if the leanings are there, but kept under some restraint, which is how those who seek to do terror acts must lead to in the opposite direction so as to mask their inner feelings and keep actions at bay until the appointed time for them.  For Mr. Shaikh the idea of supporting Sharia in Canada and yet supporting the current system of law and order are not in conflict, no matter how much those around him may see them as being so.

His friend, Mohammad Khawaja was picked up due to leads in the UK that led to the discovery of a bomb plot there which had progressed to the point of having a half-ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer intended for bomb making (Source: CBC 08 APR 2004).  That plot was linked to men having Pakistani background and Mr. Khawaja had just arrived back from London after visiting those picked up in the plot there.  Prior to that Mr. Khawaja had met up with Mohammed Junaid Babar in Pakistan, who would later be picked up in the bomb plot and would admit to having been part of plots to assassinate Pakistani President Musharraf and having ties to Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Omar Bakri Mohammed had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood by attending schools run by them from age 5 and cementing his ties with them at age 15 (Source: Jamestown Foundation interview 23 MAR 2004).  Omar Bakri Mohammed has been involved in more than one uprising, not only wanted by Syria for his participation in the Hama revolt, but also found guilty in Saudi Arabia of arranging similar there.  Also he was part of Hizb ut-Tahrir when it sent a proposal to Ayatollah Khomeini that they would recognize him as head of the Caliphate, which Khomeini turned down having different theological views from HT.  His support for HAMAS and Hezbollah in the areas of funding and activism continue, and his son was caught trying to smuggle cash out of the UK to him in Lebanon for that purpose in 2006. 

Abu Hamza, on the other hand, was the #3 man in al Qaeda when he was killed on 30 NOV 2005 by an explosion in North Waziristan due to a US missile strike (Source: South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, 12 DEC 2005).

Thus the idea of Mohammad Khawaja helping from Canada has support both from the infrastructure and logistics end (Omar Bakri Mohammed) and from the operational end with Abu Hamza (from al Qaeda).  As Bakri himself would point out in the Jamestown Foundation article:

Q: How come we have not seen a dramatic attack in the West since 9/11?[5]

A: Al-Qaeda is not interested in small attacks. Of course al-Qaeda freelance supporters carry out such attacks in places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, but the real al-Qaeda is not interested in these minor attacks, they go for massive operations. When they want to strike they will strike. Also bear in mind that the Americans are not holding any al-Qaeda people in Guantanamo Bay.

Of course he then discounts KSM, Abu Zubaida and Ramzi bin al-Shibi as either not part of al Qaeda, actually killed in Pakistan or that an imposter is the one taken in by the Pakistani ISI.  Still, the basic concept of al Qaeda being centered on the sophisticated and larger attacks was essentially correct for the pre-Iraqi version of al Qaeda.  Since then al Qaeda has had to change direction and severely, to counter its losses in the 'little attacks' arena in Iraq and Pakistan.  It is not that they don't carry them out, which they do, but that they are getting an unexpected backlash from them. 

That pre-9/11 al Qaeda would, indeed, spend months or years establishing camps, agents, casing targets, and slowly using a multi-cell operation with mutual deniability between cells to attempt very sophisticated attacks.  Mohammad Khawaja's work, then, meets up with that older system of work even as al Qaeda was coming to realize that all of the skills and tactics it had to deploy against the USSR were not only not serving it well against the US, but is counter-productive when deployed with savagery.  That he was approached is indicated by the first meeting with Bakri and Hamza, and then his meeting up with the London group thereafter.  His role may not have been determined at that point, but that he was part of the group is without question.  While Mr. Shaikh's connection to him is incidental, it is enough to put him in the spot of 'someone who knew someone' and worth being approached thereafter.

One of the individuals who best put this into context is Mark Steyn with a quick posting at The Corner on NRO, on 27 MAR 2008,(h/t: Instapundit) in which he looks at his previous article of 26 JAN 2008 on the group rounded up in Toronto due to Mr. Shaikh's work and the revelations given out by the court in Canada where their trial is taking place.  In that he points to an article in The Star (Toronto) of 26 MAR 2008 and what this group was doing in Canada:

According to the allegations, the so-called Toronto 18 were attempting to secure a safe house to store weapons and practise military drills, and embarking on a mission to destroy the West – one they should be willing to die for.

Details of the alleged plot, which also included storming Parliament Hill and beheading politicians, emerged in a factum filed by the Crown that described the case against the accused as "shocking and sensational."

The document contains transcripts of wiretaps and videotapes that include one conversation in which one of the accused speaks of the group's ambitions.

This is not your normal, run-of-the-mill terrorist wannabe that so many complain about as 'not being real terrorists'.  I have looked at that in the past in connection with a group in Florida, and looked at the sorts of things going on with terrorism in general and Florida in particular.  With just a bit of digging connections to the late Zarqawi's european terror group could be found in London, which the plotters in Florida were in contact with.  Further a more localized organization in Trinidad, Jamaat al-Muslimeen, had ties to Florida to stage its 1990 Islamic coup with guns purchased and shipped via Florida.  Additionally ties to Pakistan showed up in the trial of Shueub Mossa Jokhan and Imran Mandhai, who were plotting to attack power infrastructure in the US along with Jewish businesses.  Beyond that, the basing of a black market arms dealer in the area by the name of Jean-Bernard Lasnaud (Source: NISAT transcript of a Frontline documentary) gives a ready resource to any who could were in contact with him.

Thus the problem with trying to discount individuals as 'not being professional terrorists' points to the problem that it is very, very easy to get in contact with professional terrorists and start doing their work.  The connections Canada has with transnational terrorist groups is clearly seen in testimony given to Congress on 13 DEC 2000.  The first of these is by Frank J. Cilluffo, Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime Program, Director, Counterterrorism Task Force, Center for Strategic & International Studies (Source: Globalsecurity document cache) looking at the problem of organized crime and terrorism:

The overlapping of terrorism and the narcotics trade is not new either. Many groups have always been involved in the drug industry. But many ideologically bankrupt terrorist groups shed their moral righteousness and turned towards the drug trade to further their tainted causes. Whether the terrorists actively cultivated and trafficked the drugs or "taxed" those who did, the financial windfall that the narcotics industry guarantees has filled the void left by state sponsors.

Organized crime and terrorism have two differing goals. Organized crime’s business is business. The less attention brought to their organization, the easier their job is. The goal of terrorism is quite the opposite. A wide-ranging public profile is the desired effect. Despite this, the links between organized crime and terrorism are becoming stronger in regards to the drug trade. Organized crime groups often run the trafficking organizations while the terrorists and insurgent groups often control the territory where the drugs are cultivated and transported. The relationship is mutually beneficial. Both groups use funds garnered from the drug trade to finance their organizations.

Funds from states that support terrorism are dwindling, but by no means depleted entirely. The fall of the Soviet Union ended the stream of money that funded terrorists. As a result, terrorist organizations had to search for new sources of funding for their wars. Some organizations such as the Shining Path have always look towards indigenous forms of funding. Others like FARC cooperate with overseas criminal enterprises. Nevertheless, it is evident that the distinction between terrorist groups fighting an ideological enemy and criminal organizations’ pragmatic pursuit of profit is quickly becoming blurred.

Involvement in the drug business is almost a guarantee of financial independence from a state sponsor. Groups are no longer beholden to outsiders. That brings the realization that whatever restraint those state sponsors could impose, has now vanished. Likewise, traditional diplomatic or military measures that the United States could subject state sponsors to curb terrorist actions is diminished.

The blurring of these lines pose new challenges to the United States. The traditional organization of the US national security apparatus used to combat the troika of the terrorist, organized crime, and narcotics trafficking threat is no longer applicable. In order to work towards a solution to the problem of narco-terrorism, it is important to identify its implications to US policymaking and its implementation.

On many levels this is what we have seen in Pakistan, Iran, and the extension of terror groups throughout South and South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas.  It is quite telling that the one set of contacts not mentioned about Mr. Shaikh are *not* the terror ones but the drug ones.  While his addiction is brought up as a 'social ill' and he goes into rehab, he only does so AFTER the group he has infiltrated has been brought down.  That leaves a high and distinct possibility that not only was he recruited by terrorists but that he helped make vital connections between them and the trafficking side of the equation, too.

The second man to address the House Congressional Judiciary sub-committee on 13 DEC 2000 (Source: Globalsecurity document cache)was Ralf Mutschke, Interpol's Assistant Director, Criminal Intelligence Directorate, and it is that testimony that is the most chilling to anyone trying to discount a difference between 'professional terrorists' and mere drug traffickers.  Soon after introducing himself he presents this as an example of transnational terrorism melding with organized crime:

I would like to draw the particular attention of the Committee to the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), considering the events of December last year. On 14 December 1999, Ahmed Ressam, was arrested near Port Angeles, Washington State, while trying to enter the United States from Canada. He was in possession of a timing device, explosive materials and false identification documents. Ahmed Ressam is known to have shared a Montreal (Canada) apartment with Said Atmani, a known document forger for the GIA. It has been established that before Ressam attempted to enter the US, he was in the company of Abdelmajid Dahoumane in Vancouver (Canada) for a 3 to 4 week period. An Interpol Red Notice was issued regarding the latter. The investigation has revealed links between terrorists of Algerian origin and a criminal network established in Montreal and specializing in the theft of portable computers and mobile telephones. The group in Montreal was in contact with individuals involved in terrorist support activity in France, and with several Moudjahidin groups who are active in Bosnia.

Subsequent to the arrest of Ressam, the Montreal police arrested twelve persons who were committing theft of valuable goods in cars in the Montreal downtown area. The proceeds of these criminal activities were sent to an international network with links to France, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, Australia and Bosnia.

The events in Canada and the United States should be seen in a wider perspective. Indeed, intelligence shows that several Algerian terrorist leaders were present at a meeting in Albania, which could also have been attended by Usama bin Laden, who was believed to be in Albania at that time. It was during this meeting that many structures and networks were established for propaganda and fund raising activities, and for providing Algerian armed groups with logistical support. The arrest at the Canada-US border in December 1999 may indicate that the Algerian terrorists are prepared to take their terrorism campaign to North America.

The GIA is a very active and deadly terrorist organization operating mainly in Algeria but which has also mounted several terrorist attacks in France, including the hijacking of an Air France jetliner in 1994 and a bombing campaign in 1995. Their aim is the overthrow of the Algerian Secular Government and its replacement with an Islamic state. They have developed large scale support and financing activities in Europe and other parts of the world. An analysis recently conducted at the Interpol General Secretariat has revealed GIA involvement in a number of criminal activities in several European countries. Although the information received is fragmented, it has been established that GIA support networks are involved in extortion, currency counterfeiting, fraud, and money laundering.

This is not what one expects of the GIA: to operate a highly sophisticated criminal organization in support of terrorism.  The interconnects of the GIA via Albania take root in the concerns of the region, especially Kosovo.  In listing the problems engendered in Albania that permit groups like the GIA to join up with organized crime, he looks at the following:

1. Concerning Albanian organized crime in the United States, the 1986 break-up of the "Pizza connection" made it possible for other ethnic crime groups to "occupy" the terrain which had until then been dominated by the Italians. For Albanians this was especially easy since they had already been working with, or mainly for, Italian organized crime.

2. Due to a highly developed ethnic conscience - fortified by a Serb anti- Albanian politics in the 80’s and 90’s, Albanians, particularly Kosovars, have developed a sense of collective identity necessary to engage in organized crime. It is this element, based on the affiliation to a certain group, which links organized Albanian crime to Panalbanian ideals, politics, military activities and terrorism. Albanian drug lords established elsewhere in Europe began contributing funds to the "national cause" in the 80’s. From 1993 on, these funds were to a large extent invested in arms and military equipment for the KLA (UÇK) which made its first appearance in 1993.

3. From 1990 on, the process of democratization in Albania has resulted in a loss of state control in a country that had been totally dominated by the communist party and a system of repression. Many Albanians lacked respect for the law since, to them, they represented the tools of repression during the old regime. Loss of state structures resulted in the birth of criminal activities, which further contributed to the loss of state structures and control.

4. Alternative routing for about 60% of European heroin became necessary in 1991 with the outbreak of the war in Yugoslavia and the blocking of the traditional Balkan route. Heroin was thus to a large extent smuggled through Albania, over the Adriatic into Italy and from there on to Northern and Western Europe. The war also enabled organized criminal elements to start dealing arms on a large scale.

5. Another factor which contributed to the development of criminal activities, is the embargos imposed on Yugoslavia by the international community and on the F.Y.RO.M. by Greece (1993-1994) in the early 90’s. Very quickly, an illegal triangular trade in oil, arms and narcotics developed in the region with Albania being the only state not hit by international sanctions.

6. In 1997, the so-called pyramid savings schemes in the Albanian republic collapsed. This caused nation-wide unrest between January and March 1997, during which incredible amounts of military equipment disappeared (and partly reappeared during the Kosovo conflict): 38,000 hand-guns, 226,000 Kalashnikovs, 25,000 machine-guns, 2,400 anti-tank rocket launchers, 3,500,000 hand grenades, 3,600 tons of explosives. Even though organized crime groups were probably unable to "control" the situation, it seems clear that they did profit from the chaos by acquiring a great number of weapons. Albanian organized crime also profited from the financial pyramids which they seem to have used to launder money on a large scale. Before the crash, an estimated 500 to 800 million USD seem to have been transferred to accounts of Italian criminal organizations and Albanian partners. This money was then reinvested in Western countries.

7. The Kosovo conflict and the refugee problem in Albania resulted in a remarkable influx of financial aid. Albanian organized crime with links to Albanian state authorities seems to have highly profited from these funds. The financial volume of this aid was an estimated $163 million. The financial assets of Albanian organized crime were definitely augmented due to this situation.

I have looked at this previously in special regards to Kosovo and its environs, and the amount being made in the drug trade is astronomical due to the percentage of Europe that is supplied via the Albanian Mafia Families.  Even with things simmering down in the Balkans, Albanian organized crime and its affiliates were the ones who were armed and connected enough to profit by any relaxation of border security.  Looking later on, Mr. Mutschke points to links with cocaine, heroin, forced prostitution and human trafficking, beyond arms trafficking and money laundering.  Further on he looks at the transnational alliances between various narcotics cartels and syndicates spanning the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia, which, when combined with terrorist support, gives terror organizations a distributed web for logistical supply and support.

These gangs do not just stay in those venues, however, and branch off into the lucrative field of tax dodging of import duties and sales taxes.  One of these areas is cigarette smuggling, that not only seeks to avoid international controls, but controls within Nations.  On 19 JUL 2006 Andrew Cochran at Counterterrorism Blog looks at some of the cases then in the works relating to terrorism:

Racketeering, Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing:

* U.S.A. v. Mohamad Youssef Hammoud et al., Charlotte, North Carolina: 25 individuals charged in connection with cigarette smuggling, money laundering, credit card fraud, marriage fraud and immigration violations. Four individuals were charged with providing “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” Hizballah, specifically providing “currency, financial services, training, false documentation and identification, communications equipment, explosives, and other physical assets to Hizballah, in order to facilitate its violent attacks.” In 2003, Mohamad Hammoud was sentenced to 155 years in prison, while his brother, Chawki, was sentenced to 51 months.

* U.S.A. v. Elias Mohamad Akhdar et al. (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: 11 co-defendants charged with racketeering related to the Charlotte, North Carolina scheme. In January, 2004, Akhdar was sentenced to 70 months in prison and was fined over $2,000,000 after having pled guilty in July, 2003.

* U.S.A. v. Imam Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, et al., Michigan, Canada (Ontario, Quebec), Lebanon: In March, 2006, 19 co-defendants charged with a racketeering scheme involving contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra, counterfeit cigarette tax stamps, transporting stolen property, and money laundering. A percentage of the profits derived from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah. On July 7, two of the defendants, Imad Majed Hamadeh and Theodore Schenk, 73 pled guilty (pdf). Hamadeh and Schenk face a maximum possible penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

This is *not* your father's Hezbollah, that's for damned sure.  This set of rings were set up by the Exterior Security Organization of Hezbollah run by the late Imad Mugniyah, and yet it follows the classical lines of organized crime groups.  As another case points out, this goes far beyond cocaine, heroin, cigarettes and such:

Drug Running:

* U.S.A. v. Mohammad Shabib, Cleveland, Ohio: Federal prosecutors charged Mohammad Shabib with hiding his role in a drug ring which profits were funneled to Hizballah. Shabib, a gas station owner, had $8,000,000 in a Chicago bank account, which authorities say Shabib amassed by shipping roughly 3 tons of pseudoephedrine from Canada to California, which he would sell to Mexican gangs who would use the drugs to produce methamphetamine. (See: Amanda Garrett, “Terrorists’ Money Takes Convoluted Path in U.S.,” The Cleveland Dealer, January 18, 2004).

Yes, purchase the sudafed from Canada, ship it to California with its lax controls over just about everything save taxes, sell it to Mexican drug gangs a mark-up and pocket the profits.  When you are caught with having shipped 3 tons of sudafed illegally and netting $8 million in profit, you are no longer talking about minor crime or support of it.  Even the 'supporters' of Hezbollah are getting into the act:

* Hizballah-linked Counterfeit Goods Ring in Los Angeles (pdf), Los Angeles, CA: Testimony of Lieutenant John C. Stedman, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, May 25, 2005: “There are also indicators that some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in (Intellectual Property Right/)IPR crime. During the course of our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership. The following are just two examples: during the search of a residence pursuant to an IPR related search warrant, I saw small Hezbollah flags displayed in the suspect’s bedroom. Next to the flags was a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah whom I recognized as the leader of Hezbollah. The suspect’s wife asked me if I knew the subject of the photograph. I identified Nasrallah and the wife said, ‘We love him because he protects us from the Jews’. Also in the home were dozens of audio tapes of Nasrallah’s speeches. During the search, one of my detectives also found a locket which contained a picture of the male suspect on one side and Sheik Nasrallah on the other. In 2004, detectives served an IPR search warrant at a clothing store in Los Angeles County. During the course of the search, thousands of dollars in counterfeit clothing was recovered as were two unregistered firearms. During the booking process, the suspect was found to have a tattoo of the Hezbollah flag on his arm.”

So, how can a terrorist organization that wants to spin up a camp quickly do so?  Contact your local pushers until you find someone associated with one of the gangs related to Hezbollah or GIA and, soon enough, you can get a nice pipeline of work going and with a bit of extra work via GIA, you will be in contact with al Qaeda agents or they with you.  Getting money and support to individuals is not much of a problem, as the multiple penetrations of the 'secure' banking networks has demonstrated, and have indicated a secondary set of networks of funds transfers between financial institutions that aren't banks being near autonomous in their ability to do similar.  What is worse is the inherently person-to-person fund transfer networks that I looked at concerning the Middle Eastern hawala system and the Black Market Peso Exchange Systems.  These networks are more difficult to stop as they are ethnic based and trust networks: based on p2p trust.  Worse is that funds, themselves, do not actually exchange hands across the networks, but white market goods can and do.  In one of the most ingenious and nearly impossible to detect and stop ways of doing business, by separating out cash and goods and only transferring goods, cash is exchanged across the network.  Throw in a bit of smuggling to move white market goods to restricted markets and you get an added profit from the transaction.

Back to Mr. Shaikh and what was going on in Canada, then, with the group that was forming up a conspiracy to commit terror attacks:

While some of the allegations have already surfaced in public reports, a great deal in the factum had never been published. Some of that expected evidence includes:

• Videos of terrorist indoctrination, in which the accused are exhorted to wage battle in the new empire of "Rome" in North America, "whether we get arrested, whether we get killed."

• Wiretap surveillance in which they discuss their desire to "establish the religion of Allah and to get rid of the oppressors" and the need for funds to finance their goals of building a "team" to "go make an attack."

• The construction of a "radio frequency remote-control detonator" that needed to be improved because its range was nine metres.

• Allegations the accused attended two training camps. One was a 12-day camp near the town of Washago, Ont., where they practised military-style exercises in camouflage gear and undertook firearms training with a 9-mm firearm. The second was a two-day camp at the Rockwood Conservation Area, where they donned camouflage clothing and made a propaganda-style video of their military drills.

According to the Crown's factum, the alleged terrorists first popped onto the radar of police in August 2005, when two of the adults were stopped at the Canada-U.S. border in a rented vehicle while attempting to smuggle firearms and ammunition into the country.

Based on the rental agreement, weapons history and intercepted telephone conversations the duo had while in jail, police expanded their investigation. They homed in on a few individuals and contacted Mubin Shaikh to act as a police agent.

This group would then case various areas to see if it was feasible to set up a 'safe house' for storage of arms and explosives in a planned called 'Operation Badr':

On the way back to Toronto they discussed Operation Badr, a plot to storm Parliament Hill, take politicians hostage and demand the removal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan and the release of Muslim prisoners in federal institutions, police allege. If their demands weren't met, they'd "kill everybody," said an adult, who also reminded the others that the prime minister wasn't "Paul Loser" or "Paul Martin" – as they suggested – but was in fact "the other guy, Harper."

After their return, an adult reported he had built the "first radio frequency remote-control detonator," but pointed out it only had a range of 30 feet (nine metres), "which is not good." In response, another man pointed out "30 feet away? So you have to get blown up? Might as well sit in the car." He explained that if they could get the detonator to work from 300 metres, "then we'll do it." He then said that when the bomb went off on Front St., innocent people would be killed, which would be "too bad for them," according to the Crown's factum.

To those who miss the point: they don't care about politics and being nice to anyone based on political alignment.  The nature of terrorism is to exploit weaknesses and demonstrate strength, not to take a political 'side' as their side is 'above politics'.  To these individuals the actual 'victory' is the action itself, even if they get killed:

SUSPECTED TERRORISTS, IN THEIR OWN WORDS

In a video, Person 1, shown sitting in the dark under what appears to be a tent, speaks to the group:

"We're here to kick it off man. We're here to get the rewards of everybody that's gonna come after us, God willing, if we don't (get) a victory, God willing, our kids will get it. If not them, their kids will get it, if not them, the(n) five generations down somebody will get it, God willing. This is the promise of Allah. . . .

These are not 'militants', they are cold blooded killers looking to kill their way to power for their cause even if it consumes them in that doing.  This is 'killing your way to promised rewards' which, in case anyone has missed it, is the exact reason Aum Shinrikyo decided on methodical mass killing: to bring about the promised end by just helping it along.  The causes and verbalizations are starkly different, but the end result is unrepentant slaughter of innocents.

Beyond the obvious with individuals educated beyond the basics, these people have knowledge of technology, a rudimentary concept of terrorist combat and were getting up to speed on logistics and funding.  They were not 'poor and uneducated' and are, very likely, middle class and possibly even college students or graduates.  Terrorism is only for the 'poor and uneducated' as 'muscle', which is why al Qaeda recruits amongst slums and such: they need individuals to actually protect their operations while the operations, themselves, are carried out by skilled individuals. 
Which makes yet another small piece by Mark Steyn, just prior to the others (Corner NRO) , even more troubling, as the western idea behind the causes of terrorism, not just the Islamic Fascistic sort but all terrorism, is severely myopic:

Yesterday, round about the time Andy and Derb raised this, I was giving a talk to the Hudson Institute gang and Monica Crowley asked me a question about the presidential candidates and radical Islam. I replied that I had no doubt that John McCain was fully committed to the military campaign - if only for personal reasons and tribal loyalty, he's not going to let this generation of American warriors get stuck with a losing hand from Washington. But I added I was unsure the Senator grasped the scale of the broader ideological struggle. His words yesterday confirmed as much:

McCain said the United States' goal in fighting Islamic extremists should be "to win the hearts and minds of the vast majority of moderate Muslims who do not want their future controlled by a minority of violent extremists.

"In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs."

Really? Even as a theoretical proposition, trusting the average American college education (even if one does not draw Sami el-Arian or Ward Churchill as one's mentor) to woo young Muslims to the virtues of the Great Satan would be something of a long shot. But it isn't even theoretical anymore.

There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme "extremists" are those who've been most exposed to the west - and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous - and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.

Indeed, nearly every leader of terror groups has been educated in western universities, be they Ivy League or purely technical academies, the 'muscle' of a couple of men per plane on 9/11 points out the other 'technical' individuals that actually carried out the hijackings and flew the aircraft.  Some of them had come with visas in their pockets to study at US flight schools in the 1990's, at the invitation of the US government.  When radicals come to speak in the US, they do not go down to poor neighborhoods or run down storefront mosques, then go upscale and talk to the middle class muslims.  As seen in testimony given to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims on 25 JUN 2000 (Source: Globalsecurity document cache), are some descriptions of the individuals actually let in or invited to the US and what they did when they got here [all spelling errors in the original]:

Islamic militants on the lecture circuit in the United States:

"The Jews distort words from their meanings…they killed the prophets and worshipped idols…Allah says he who equips a warrior of Jihad is like the one who makes Jihad himself." In Arabic, Wagdi Ghuniem, a militant Islamic cleric from Egypt, mesmerized his audience, with his relentless tirade against the Jews, reminding them of the Jews' "infidelity," "stealth" and "deceit." Known for his folksy deliveries and exhortations to commit violence against the Jews, Ghuniem did not disappoint his crowd, several of whom had come just to hear him. The conflict with the Jews, he said, was not over land but one of religion. "The problem of Palestine is not a problem of belief… suppose the Jews said 'Palestine--you [Muslims] can take it.' Would it then be ok? What would we tell them? No! The problem is belief, it is not a problem of land."

Ghuniem then led his rapt audience, which numbered as many as 500, in a special song, the audience responsively repeating each refrain:

No to the Jews
Descendants of the Apes
We Vow to Return
Despite the Obstacles

The administrators of Brooklyn College would probably have been surprised to learn thattheir campus was the site of an incendiary rally more similar to those held in Gaza than those held in the United States. On May 24, 1998, a special all-day program was held in the Walt Whitman Auditorium of Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York. Organized by the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), an American-headquartered front group for Hamas, the program was entitled "Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation." Eleven Islamic organizations co-sponsored the event, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Circle of North America. To the outside world, this conference probably seemed like one of the many seminars held on campus. Conducted almost entirely in Arabic, the conference featured Islamic speakers from the United States and abroad.

Ghuniem has traveled to the US on a regular basis, giving lectures in large and small venues. In 1997 and 1998, Ghuniem appeared at the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) (an Islamic group that supports the positions of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in the United States) and IAP conferences, as well as at smaller events in local mosques and Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Part of his popularity may stem from the fact that he speaks in a local rural Egyptian dialect and peppers his talks with humorous anecdotes. His rhetoric espouses a deep hatred for Jews. He often praises terrorists and terrorist attacks.

Interestingly, Sheik Ghuniem was denied entry to Canada in early January 1998 and detained as he tried to enter Windsor from Detroit. Ghuniem was on a whirlwind US-Canada lecture circuit, with scheduled stops in Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, San Diego, D.C., Toronto and Montreal. But the trip was rudely interrupted, if only temporarily, at the Canadian border. The reason he was barred? "Our (computerized information) system indicated he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas," said Gerald Belanger, a Canadian immigration official as he was quoted in the Ottawa Citizen. Leaders of the Muslim communities in Detroit, Toronto and Windsor bitterly protested Ghuniem's detention, as evidence of an anti-Muslim bias, claiming that Ghuniem was a "man of peace." "He's a very reasonable man" declared Hussein El-Hennawy, a MAYA official quoted in the Ottawa Citizen, "He teaches people to be peaceful." MAYA has established the "Scholars Defense Fund," to pursue legal action against the Canadian Government for its perceived "humiliation" of Ghuniem.

Canadian authorities released Ghuniem back to the United States and he returned to his lecture tour on behalf of militant Islamic groups in helping them recruit new members, raise funds and coordinate strategies with other militant Islamic leaders crisscrossing the United States. US officials say they are virtually powerless to stop the influx of known militants into the United States for reasons ranging from lack of adequate intelligence to easy circumvention of the watch list to legal restrictions in stopping self-described religious clerics from entering the United States.
Still, the question raised by Ghuniem's numerous appearances in the United States is how do terrorists manage to enter the country?

One method has been those who deliberately overstay their student visas, some op who are dispatched from terrorist-supporting regimes. Some of these "students" have acquired visas for the purpose of attaining cover for their illicit activities as activists for terrorist organizations. Others receive advanced degrees in the US and return to their countries where some might work in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs. Although there is no official compilation of the number of student visas granted to would-be terrorists and agents of terrorist supporting regimes, one study currently in preparation shows that there are at least 200 terrorists or agents of terrorist regimes and organizations who have received student visas in the past decade to pursue undergraduate or graduate training.

[..]

Beyond the issue of how terrorists have been able to exploit student visas to stay in the United States for long periods of time, another major, even more frustrating, counter-terrorist problem is the ease in which terrorists and militants freely enter the US for shorter periods of time. The official purpose of such short visits is generally linked to invitations to appear at religious-based conferences and meetings at Islamic organizations in the United States attended primarily by American Muslims. The real purposes of these visits are to recruit new members of militant organizations; facilitate fundraising for militant activities, both in the U.S. and abroad; coordinate political and even military strategies with other militants leaders; indoctrinate new "foot soldiers;" and even participate in terrorist training sessions.

Every year, according to law enforcement officials and information obtained at Islamic conferences, dozens of militant Islamic clerics, officials, representatives and leaders of various terrorist organizations and movements come to the United States. These include Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Gamat Al Islamiya, Sudanese National Islamic Front, Jordan's Islamic Action Front, and Hezbollah. Visits by Islamic militants to the US are not a new phenomenon.

Some get into the United States using false identification, while others simply get in because they are not on any watch list. During these conferences, it is not uncommon to hear Islamic militants praise terrorists and terrorist attacks, attack the United States and the West, or call for the death of Jews and the destruction of the United States. For the most part, these incendiary lectures, almost invariably in Arabic, are not illegal insofar as the content, unless a specific act of violence is advocated, and fall under protected speech. Federal law enforcement is largely prohibited from attending the conferences at which these militants appear, because of the restrictions imposed by the Attorney General Guidelines against any surveillance of religious groups, unless there is ironclad evidence ahead of time that a crime or a conspiracy to commit a crime will take place. Of course, absent direct surveillance, it is almost impossible to obtain such evidence--which creates a Catch-22 conundrum. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the Attorney General Guidelines were issued in response to abuses by intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Even if the FBI were involved in greater surveillance, chances are that it would not witness the events going on behind the scenes--the most likely venue of any illegal activities--even though witnessing center stage activities would be considered shocking in and of itself. For example, the Islamic Association for Palestine held annual meetings in 1989 and 1990 in Kansas City where off stage, secret meetings were held with a pre-selected "class" of future Hamas terrorists who were taught car-bombings and other terrorist warfare. Meanwhile, at IAP's "plenary" sessions--held in the Kansas City Convention center-- several notorious militants and leaders of Hamas gave fiery speeches praising attacks by Hamas and other Islamic fundamentalist groups in language and rhetoric more familiar to Hamas rallies in the Middle East than to Kansas City.One of the most electrifying moments came when a keffiyeh-draped leader of the Izzadin Al-Qassem death squads--the military arm of Hamas--delivered a rousing account of the specific violent terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas.

The conferences mentioned above are but a few of the literally dozens of radical Islamic events held prior to the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. Following the bombing and the subsequent investigations into the militant Islamic networks in the US and their ties to terrorist organizations abroad, it seemed likely that the US would seek to curtail the entrance of Islamic militants into the US.Yet conferences featuring prominent terrorist sympathizers and spokesmen for Islamic militancy have continued unabated.

Believe it or not that is a very *short* portion of the testimony given.

Yes, declare yourself to be a 'cleric' and you can preach all the hatred you want and couple it directly with appeals for military funding and action... illegally.  The reason they could, as mentioned, was that 'wall' set up by the Clinton administration between INTEL and just about everyone else, including the State Dept.  Somehow the Leftist claim that 'overstaying your visa is no big deal' suddenly doesn't look like such a good deal due to those that abuse this concept with intent to kill and undermine the US and its allies.  Even after the 1993 WTC bombing, the Clinton administration did nothing to stop this and, indeed, allowed such practices to get worse.

In case Sen. McCain has missed this: allowing terrorists in to train in western schools just makes them skilled terrorists, not western sympathizers.

This is not a visa problem, at heart, but one of actually making sure that the people applying for them are screened and vetted, and that they are held to their visa stays.  It is not that all of those coming on visas are bad, it is the few bad ones that can create disaster that need to be screened out.  Judicial Watch asked ICE to outline how many people are here on student visas and published their results on 16 FEB 2007:

Judicial Watch began investigating the student visa program following a Bush administration joint statement with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in April 2005 increasing the number of Saudi students permitted to travel to and study in the United States. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 24, 2006. According to records recently obtained by Judicial Watch, 9,952 “active Saudi Arabian students” were in the United States, on three different types of visas as of January 25, 2007.

The ICE documents obtained by Judicial Watch contain the following breakdown of the student visa program: 9,787 students possess “F-1” visas, which are designated for foreign students pursuing a full course of academic study. Nine students possess visa type “M-1”, which are designated for foreign students pursuing a full course of vocational or recognized non-academic program.  The remaining 156 possess visa type “J-1,” intended for foreign nationals who are selected by a sponsor to participate in an exchange visitor program.

According to other ICE official records dated September 6, 2005, at the time, there were a total of 611,581 active foreign students in the United States eligible for “F-1” and “M-1” student and vocational visas.  The same records indicated that there are 154,471 exchange visitors eligible for “J-1” exchange visas.

On September 11, 2001, 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers carrying out the attacks were Saudi nationals. According to a CNN News Report, six months after the attacks, Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) issued visa approval/verification letters for two of the hijackers to the flight schools at which they were registered. Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi were approved for “M-1” vocational/non-academic visas by INS in 2000.

Yes, Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi had not only visas, but ones that indicated they were here for a vocation or trade, and by the numbers it is one of the hardest set of visas to *get* from KSA.  I doubt that they listed al Qaeda as their sponsor and 'flying aircraft into buildings' as their trade, although it was so good of ICE to issue them visas posthumously.  That's 'Compassionate Conservatism' for you!

What this points to is that the problem with terrorists in Canada is that they are a local manifestation of a much larger, global phenomena.  Transnational terrorism and organized crime are not things that make themselves suddenly apparent as an immediate problem.  Due to the nature of these organizations and how they work, their very intent is to remain in the interstices of international law and convince the law abiding peoples *not* to hunt them down as Nations should do.  When captured by civil means then, of course, demonstrate the inability of individuals to distinguish between what is and is not lawful and put them away for a good long time, perhaps a lifetime.  But do not blind yourself to the encouragement that can be given to it by just saying 'well they aren't *professional* terrorists/gangsters, so no harm done':  the dividing line between the 'professional' and 'amateur' has become damned thin and the intent and lawlessness are the SAME no matter the level of 'professionalism' involved.

The wheels of justice will grind slow, but fine, in the case of those in Canada and their associates in Georgia in the US.  Stopping them is all to the well and good, but that is not even the beginning of trying to tame this mess left to us by generations of self-deceit that these are organizations that we 'just can't deal with'.

We haven't even *tried* to properly formulate a response to them.

And inviting them to do worse by training them, is not only not helping, it is getting people killed.

It is a very Christian and highly moral thing to 'turn the other cheek' and seek that your attacker learn the error of his ways.... when he hits that one, what will you do?  Bend over to give him two more to beat?

Sphere: Related Content

Sen. Obama and the people around him

As Pamela, over at Atlas Shrugs, takes a look at the connections be between Prof. Rhashid Khalidi, University of Chicago, and Sen. Obama, I will take a look at some of his past views on things and see if there is any coherent view to his outlook on the Middle East.

One of the earliest references that pops up is that from Charles Krauthammer writing for the WaPo on 07 APR 1989 (via Globalsecurity document cache), on the possibility of a Palestinian State. In it we get this from the central part of the article:

A PLO state, an idea now as fashionable as the checkered kafiyeh, is a trap. What is the alternative? The alternative, outlined by Israeli Prime Minister Shamir on his visit this week in Washington, is a peace process that rests on two principles: a transitional period and elections.

Whatever arrangements Israel and the Palestinians make, no ultimate solution is attainable now. There has to be a transition period during which each side can demonstrate to the other its bona fides. An Israeli poll taken last week shows that two-thirds of Israelis believe that the Palestinians will not be satisfied with a West bank state. They have reason so to believe. Only two weeks ago, Arafat said that `the Declaration of Palestinian Independence constitutes a beginning of the real confrontation of the Zionist project on the land of Palestine itself.' Leila Khalid puts it more bluntly: `We will return to Nablus and then move on to Tel Aviv.' Only time will permit a demonstration that the Palestinians do not truly intend what they now say they intend for Israel.

The second idea is elections on the West Bank to produce an indigenous Palestinian negotiating authority. The ferocity with which this idea has been attacked by non-West Bank Palestinians makes one wonder what they are so afraid of. Prof. Rashid Khalidi, writing from Chicago, says there could be no real election under the harsh conditions of Israeli occupation.

The idea that a secret ballot cannot be conducted honestly by the Israelis is simply false. No one disputes the honesty of the West Bank municipal elections conducted in 1976. (In fact, they were so honest in expressing Palestinian discontent that the Israeli government eventually fired the elected mayors.)

Moreover, Palestinian propagandists never hesitate to use polling data from the West Bank to prove the fealty of the West Bankers to the PLO. An opinion poll is an open ballot. Polls require conditions of far more political freedom than do secret ballots. Khalidi and other PLO propagandists freely invoke West Bank polls, yet now pretend that a secret ballot is not to be trusted. The argument is bogus. It reflects a deep fear by Palestinian exiles--most of whom come from (and thus want to take over) not the West Bank but Israel--that with elections they are going to lose the initiative to West Bankers, who might ultimately be more prepared for compromise.

Apparently Prof. Khalidi is something of an apologist for Palestinian violence. I mean, if he truthfully meant what he said, then when Israel fully *left* the West Bank, all should be sweetness and light there, no?

On 07 NOV 2000 Prof. Khalidi was asked about recent sentiment on 'the arab street' about recent events that caused a rise in violence due to a clash between Israel and Palestinians, with the parts between acts being the VOA announcer in the report, Ed Warner (via Globalsecurity document cache):

Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, Mr. Khalidi has recently returned from an overseas trip where he witnessed an outpouring of sympathy for the Palestinians that he believes is not reflected in the U-S media.

// Khalidi act //

There is a lot not reported about the campuses in Egypt, in the streets in Morocco, in cafes in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It is below the radar screen because there is not large-scale unrest, but there is incredible dissatisfaction. So I think we will see very unexpected things happening, some of them apparently minor. Syria and Iraq are having a rapprochement, for example. But if the killing of Palestinians continues at this rate, you will see even more visible effects.

// end act //

The violence has helped weaken the already faltering economic sanctions on Iraq and even give a boost to Saddam Hussein. Government officials and businessmen from Arab and European countries are ignoring sanctions to fly to Baghdad.

[..]

Mr. Khalidi says reaction to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle will vary by country:

// Khalidi act //

What happens in each country will very much depend on the internal dynamics of that country. I am not sure that it will necessarily strengthen Islamists. It will strengthen anybody who argues for that country's independence of the United States, given the fact that the United States seems to be acting in a way contrary to the interests of Arabs and Muslims. So in different countries, it will work itself out in different ways.

// end act //

Yes, apparently the US support for Israel is enough to justify hard feelings, while helping Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia really just don't get you any credit. But then those are Muslims from a different ethnic region, and can't be expected to sympathize with Arab and Muslim feelings about Palestine.

Now most of Prof. Kahlidi's views on public display are rather bland, like his look at the Geneva Accords, which he saw as problematical in 2003, and that the US invasion of Iraq would be judged on post-war happenings more than those of the actual conflict, also seen in 2003.

What makes this sort of thing interesting is that when free elections, or as free as they can get under repressive terrorist organizations can be, were held for Palestinians, violence erupted and Prof. Kahlidi would be quoted in this CFR report of 04 OCT 2006:

Though Abbas has declared the unity talks dead, he has accepted a Qatari plan (Haaretz) to end the fighting, form a unity government, and ensure the release of an Israeli soldier held captive since June. Forming a unity government is particularly important, as it is seen as the key to unlocking Western aid that the stricken Palestinian economy (Palestine Chronicle) desperately needs. In September, Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh raised hopes when they announced they were negotiating the details of a ruling coalition between Hamas and Fatah. As analyst Rashid Khalidi told CFR.org’s Bernard Gwertzman, such an arrangement would have helped relieve the PA’s economic crisis and could have set the stage for substantive negotiations with Israel. But negotiations floundered so quickly that, even before the outbreak of violence, prospects for a unity government were “fading fast” ( Al-Ahram).

Well, so much for the ease and sweetness of open elections on restoring peace. Mr. Khalidi has had a problem with his views on the Palestinians seemingly toeing the line of the PLO in such a way as to offer terrorists legitimacy. When he was offered a Chair at Columbia University in NY in 2002, Jacob Gersham wrote an article about that in the NY Sun on 05 NOV 2002 (via Campus Watch, h/t Solomonia and Winds of Change.NET):

Columbia's effort to snatch Mr. Khalidi away from Chicago may also signal where its political sympathies lie at a time when debate over the Middle East conflict is polarizing the campus. Supporters of a petition calling for Columbia to divest from companies that sell military equipment and hardware to Israel and of a counter-petition in support of Israel have been battling for faculty signatures for the past week. Mr. Said has signed the divestment petition and has been a leading advocate for that movement.

While Mr. Khalidi is respected among his fellow Middle East scholars, many of whom share his hostility toward Israel, he has also come under attack from other Middle East experts who say he is soft on militant Islam and excuses terrorism.

In an article published in June by the American Committee on Jerusalem, an Arab-American group, Mr. Khalidi compared Israeli treatment of Palestinian Arabs to the Holocaust. He wrote, "We all feel intensely a sense of urgency about what is happening to our communities in the Middle East and to our communities here, on par with what Jews in America felt in the 1940s…"

In the same article, he suggests that Arab-Americans build a memorial to the "Palestinian Nakba [catastrophe] of 1948" modeled after the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. In his writings, Mr. Khalidi has also likened the creation of the Israeli state to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which killed more than 2,000 Americans.

In his 1985 book, "Under Siege: P.L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War," Mr. Khalidi thanked Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, for giving him access to PLO archives. Writing in the acknowledgments, he said, "To him [Mr. Arafat] and to the dedicated individuals working in the office of the Chairman, the P.L.O. archive and the Palestine News Agency (WAFA), who extended every possible assistance to me on three trips to Tunis, I owe deep thanks." In 1985 Mr. Arafat had not yet accepted Israel's right to exist and was considered a terrorist by the American government.

This was also covered by Alyssa A. Lappan and Jonathan Calt Harris at Frontpagemag on 18 MAR 2003. Another thing that has come up during Prof. Khalidi's career is the charge of plagiarism, which is looked at, extensively, at the Solomonia site on 08 JUN 2005.

Also mentioned in passing at Solomonia is the attempt by the NY City public school system to have Prof. Khalidi come in and lecture teachers on 'how to teach Mideast politics to schoolchildren' which is further covered in a post at Democracy Project on 25 FEB 2005 by Winfield Myers.

Be that as it may, there is an interesting intersection between Columbia and another of the persons in the Sen. Obama circle of friends and associates with a shady past, and that is seen here, at the Alliance Program site for Columbia University Scholarships from 2007:

ALLIANCE- BNP PARIBAS NORTH AMERICA SCHOLARSHIPS

The Alliance Program-BNP Paribas scholarships ($ 4 375) are dedicated to support students from Columbia University, Sciences Po and the Ecole Polytechnique pursuing the following master degree programs in finance:

- Sciences Po-SIPA Master in International Affairs
- The Ecole Polytechnique-Columbia University Master in Mathematics of Finance.

I am sure this is just one of those 'happy coincidences' that happen when you have such high flying folks around you tossing academia and cash around in a way that just happens to come together at random. Also note, a bit further up on the page, the Laurence Louër book announcement being hosted by Mr. Khalidi.

Another interesting look at how Prof. Khalidi sees the PLO and Palestine turns up in the case of Boim vs. Quaranic Lieracy et. al. filing at the US District Court, Northern District of Illinois on 10 NOV 2004 (Source: The Investigative Project on Terrorism files). This is a case looking at the death of David Boim by a HAMAS suicide bomber:

The record also contains a declaration from Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Middle Eastern History and the Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago; Professor Khalidi served as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations of 1991- 1993 in Madrid and Washington, D.C. See Declaration of Rashid Khalidi (attached as Exhibit 6 to IAP and AMS' Rule 56.1 Statement). Professor Khalidirs aim is to make clear that opposition to the Israeli occupation is not the same as support for Hamas; the Court did not for one moment equate the two. But expressing that opposition via suicide bombings and terrorist attacks such as the one that killed David Boim would seem, to this Court, to be precisely what Hamas is about. And the Seventh Circuit has instructed that those who provide material support to terrorists, who help to fund - directly or indirectly - Hamas' terrorist activities are liable, under 18 U.S.C. 92333 to the same extent as those who actually commit the terrorist acts.

Which is how aiding and abetting terrorist groups seeking to get funds for them can wind you up in jail. And part of that aiding and abetting is meeting with radical 'activists' for the Palestinian 'cause'. As seen in a WorldNetDaily report by Aaron Klein of 25 FEB 2008, one figure ties together both Rashid Khalidi and Barack Obama: Ali Abunimah. Here is part of the work done by Obama on behalf of Palestinians:

Abunimah previously described meeting with Obama at a fundraiser at the home of Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, reportedly a former PLO activist.

"[Obama]came with his wife. That's where I had a chance to really talk to him," Abunimah recalled. "It was an intimate setting. He convinced me he was very aware of the issues [and] critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs. ... He was very supportive of U.S. pressure on Israel.

According to quotes obtained by Gulf News, Abunimah recalled a 2004 meeting in a Chicago neighborhood while Obama was running for his Senate seat. Abunimah quoted Obama telling him "warmly" he was sorry that "I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race."

"I'm hoping when things calm down, I can be more up front," Abunimah reportedly quoted the senator as saying.

Abunimah said Obama urged him to "keep up the good work" at the Chicago Tribune, where Abunimah contributed guest columns that were highly critical of Israel.

Obama's campaign headquarters did not reply to an e-mail request seeking comment on his fundraising activities for Palestinians.

Abunimah serves on the board of the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing driver's licenses and education to illegal aliens.

WND reported yesterday the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit on which Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist, provided $75,000 in grants to the AAAN.

[..]

Obama's advocacy on behalf of Palestinians comes after WND reported yesterday the presidential candidate served on the board of the Woods Fund alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombings against government buildings.

Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Ayers has boasted of his involvement with the Weathermen terror group's bombings of the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.

"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001

"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoirs, titled "Fugitive Days." He continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs, but his group set the explosives and planned the attack.

A $200 campaign contribution is listed April 2, 2001, by the "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund. The two appeared as speakers together at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002, entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?"

The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.

Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn, who also has served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead.

Amazing where a bit of looking at Rashid Khalidi will get you, isn't it?

Taking a quick look at some of the folks who utilize Ali Abunimah's 'news' from Electronic Intifada, we come to an article by Alyssa A. Lappen on the International Solidarity Movement, at FrontPage Magazine on 02 SEP 2003:

Nominally, at least, ISM was co-founded in December 2000 by former Brooklyn radical Adam Shapiro, his Arab Palestinian-American wife Huwaida Arraf; [1] and Ghassan Andoni and George Rishmawi, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement’s respective executive director and coordinator. Andoni, a Bir Zeit University physics instructor, also heads Beit Sahur-based Alternative Tourism, which made arrangements for two British perpetrators of an April 30 suicide bombing, the 89^th in the Oslo War’s 33 months. Arafat’s Al Aksa Martyr’s Brigades and Hamas jointly claimed responsibility for the blast that killed two musicians and a waitress and gravely wounded 16 at Tel Aviv’s packed Mike’s Place music bar.

[..]

Like ISM, the Islamic Association for Palestine—which ISM’s parent group lists as a “religious organization”—parades as a social action group, a "not-for-profit, public awareness, educational, political, social, and civic, national grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a just, comprehensive, and eternal solution to the cause of Palestine and suffrages of the Palestinians." But the IAP in 1994 spun off the Council on American Islamic Relations, which joined with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, American Muslim Alliance, Islamic Circle of North America, Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim American Society, among others, in sending representatives to the Jerusalem Conference. [12] Not surprisingly, ISM’s Rapprochement parent also links to CAIR, which it likewise deceptively describes as “religious.”

Concurrent to its “peace” activities, ISM runs campaigns to release Marwan Barghouti—accused of masterminding several dozen terrorist attacks that ended the lives of equally many Israeli civilians and raise funds for questionable charities such as Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. (PCRF founder Stephen Sosebee, according to Joe Kaufman, espouses the lunatic theories of the Zayed International Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, Holocaust deniers David Irving and Roger Garaudy and Saudi professor Umayma Jalahma, who last year claimed Jews use non-Jewish blood to prepare their Purim pastries.)

ISM’s parent, Andoni’s Rapprochement Center, lists among “political parties” the Hamas and Hizb-ut-Tahrir terrorist groups. The latter, founded in Jordan, now sponsors much of the terrorism in Central Asia.

Rapprochement likewise considers Ali Abunimah—American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee acolyte, Electronic Intifada founder and Al Awda devotee—a legitimate source of news. It links to a rabid conspiracy site purporting to prove that Israel purposefully bombed the USS Liberty during the Six Day War, despite recent disclosures—and U.S. documents—proving the attack a grievous accident of war. Rapprochement links to several many other groups coyly claiming to support peace and justice that in fact seek only to delegitimize Israel.

The ISM, itself, has been responsible for shifting 'peace activists' to Palestinian 'protests' and doing a bit of recruiting for attacks and bombings, too. One of the other news organizations that sees Ali Abunimah as a source of material is the local radio station WVON, or Radio Islam. Joe Kaufman, reporting for FrontPageMagazine on 03 FEB 2006 would look at CAIR and its Chicago director Ahmed Rehab. Mr. Rehab hosted a radio program on WVON as the IAP, noted above, was starting to falter:

On January 8, 2005, Rehab’s WVON Radio Islam show featured three guests: Ali Abunimah (co-founder of Electronic Intifada), Fadi Farhan (Government Affairs Director for CAIR-Chicago), and Rafiq Jaber. The topic was the upcoming Palestinian elections.

During the show, Jaber’s extremist opinions came through loud and clear. He called Mahmood Abbas “a failure,” and in a foreboding move that has only been realized today, he stated, “The only opposition that could give [Abbas] a run for his money… the only ones that could do that are the Islamist movement there, which is Hamas and Jihad.”

When asked about whether he was for a one state solution or two states (Israel and Palestine), Jaber made his true intentions known to all. He said, “Well, I think the two state solution… is really just a farce…” [CAIR’s Fadhi Farhan also chimed in, “One state solution is actually, in the long term, the only way it’s going to work, whether it be through war, whether it be through some sort of peaceful resolution of this particular conflict.”]

And Jaber raised anti-Semitic canards of old – ‘Jewish control over the media and government.’ He stated, “…the Zionists and the Jewish people, here in this country, they are [sic] big businesses and the advertisers, and so that’s one factor of it… The second part of it, of course, there is distortion of all the facts, that about Palestine, from not just the media, also from the government. The government here, which is the political leaders of our country here, [sic] that they lean also toward who is giving them the money and who is voting for them. Again, we see the Jewish people and the Jewish money and the Jewish lobby here.”

Rehab agreed: “It’s been made politically incorrect to make such statements, but I think, if you’re putting it in the context of the question (‘Why is it that you think that this media is very skewed to the Israeli side of the conflict?’), which I think is a very valid question, I think it definitely has to be made.”

That is where some of the Woods Fund money went: to Ali Abunimah and his 'news' and views. Even more interesting is the other folks who got money via Obama's association with Woods Fund to help shift money to a backer and his former boss, Allison S. Davis, seen at Chicago Sun-Times report by Tim Novak on 20 NOV 2007:

Seven years ago, Sen. Barack Obama was on the board of a Chicago charity when his former boss, Allison S. Davis, came looking for money.

At the time, Davis was a developer represented by the law firm where Obama worked, as well as a small contributor to Obama's political campaign funds. He wanted the charity to help fund his plans to build housing for low-income Chicagoans.

Obama agreed. He voted with other directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates.

It's not clear whether Obama told other board members of his ties to Davis, whose family would go on to donate more than $25,000 to Obama's political campaigns, including his bid to be president of the United States.

"Let me get back to you on that," Obama presidential campaign spokesman Bill Burton said when asked about that two weeks ago. He never did.

[..]

As a developer, Davis' partners have included Tony Rezko, the now-indicted political fund-raiser who has been among Obama's biggest political supporters.

A few months after Davis left the law firm, Obama won his first political office -- a seat in the Illinois Senate. His campaign contributors included Rezko and Davis.

Two years later, Obama wrote to city and state officials, urging them to give money to New Kenwood LLC, a company that Davis and Rezko formed to build an apartment building for low-income seniors at 48th and Cottage Grove.

Davis and Rezko were building that project in 2000 when Davis approached the Woods Fund, seeking its investment in future projects. Besides Obama, Davis also had ties to another of the not-for-profit organization's seven board members -- Howard Stanback, a former city aviation commissioner who worked for Davis at New Kenwood.

You, too, with just a few good political and mob connections can be in the world of high finance development in downtown Chicago! So the Woods Fund not only has the distinction of having ties to Ali Abunimah (via AAAN), but to 'Tony' Rezko and Allison Davis via Barack Obama. Plus Mr. Ayers sitting on the board of the Woods Fund at the same time as Obama, thus both having a say on where the funds went to.

Just so many ways to go with this, still that basic inner circle still needs just a bit more fleshing out. I'm leaving Rev. Jeremiah Wright to others, who seem a bit hotter on that, while I go after the rest of the groupings... what does that bring us to so far? A quick rundown:

1. Raila Odinga - Working with Dick Morris to bring the 'politics of change' to Kenya which has looked like ethnic cleansing and intimidation to get his dream of fulfilling his father's destiny of leading Kenya. Lots of connections there to the al-Bakri group, and the sudden appearance of Red Mafia types after the discovery of oil reserves under the Lamu Peninsula.
2. Antoin 'Tony' Rezko - Syrian-American mobster with ties to quite a few people in local business, real estate and politics. The local 'fixer' sort of deal maker associated with the mob in Chicago.
3. Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Practicing 'Black Liberation Theology' which has whites as some sort of harbinger of the Anti-Christ. Plus a view that government could get millions addicted to illegal drugs and develop AIDS to target black folks... which doesn't explain why it hit gays first... really if the government had this sort of power, Rev. Wright wouldn't be around now, would he? And why is he supporting someone going into that ultimate corrupter and hater of blacks, the US Government? If it is so evil, its a death sentence, now, isn't it?
4. Nadhmi Auchi - Cousin of Saddam Hussein, international financier that has worked with al Qaeda and HAMAS, has deep ties to the Red Mafia, major funneler of kickbacks via the OFF scandal, utilized the corrupted Clearstream organization for money laundering, and one of the richest men in the UK. Seemingly has one-degree separation from anyone who is anyone in diplomacy, government, and the underworld... and often not even at one-degree.
5. Rashid Khalidi - Ex-spokesman for the PLO, Palestinian apologist par excellence, and tried to give HAMAS cover for its execution of a US citizen.
6. Ali Abunimah - Understudy of Khalidi, continued Palestinian apologist, and wonderful source for radicals to point to when they need reliable news that fits their views... if not the facts involved.
7. William C. Ayers - Weatherman, let off because of tainted evidence and unrepentant about his bombings. Radical to say the least and associated with Obama, Abunimah and Khalidi. Also sat on the Woods Fund with Obama.
8. Allison S. Davis - Former boss of Obama at the Woods Fund, recipient of funds for it to do some 'development' in Chicago, and involved with 'Tony' Rezko and Robert Vanecko, nephew of Mayor Daley. Together they have been involved not only in development scandals, but also a sewer development scandal that depleted the city's pension funds.

What 'politics of change'! All sorts of names involved with crime and corruption I hadn't read about until Barack Obama hit the scene.

Who else is there? Hmmmm....

How about Michael Pfleger? Heard of him? I certainly hadn't before I ran across his name looking at this web of ties. When I went to look up his history, well, its not as major as, say, Jeremiah Wright, but still the man has some 'issues' about things. Take this earliest article I could come up with from the NYT on 27 JUL 1989 about a white priest embracing black 'spiritual roots':

Michael Pfleger, blond and blue-eyed, wraps himself in the multicolored vestments of an African prince and celebrates Mass with the fire and fury of a down-home Baptist minister.

Over and over, his parishioners, almost all of whom are black, break into his sermon to say ''Amen'' and ''Tell it, Father Mike!'' as he shouts and preaches and jumps about an altar shaped like an African drum. Soon all the members of the congregation at St. Sabina Catholic Church are on their feet, clapping and swaying to the beat of the gospel band.

Father Pfleger is among a small but growing group of Roman Catholic pastors, several of them white, who are trying to stretch the image of Catholicism, to superimpose black and African traditions onto the basic Catholic rite. In Los Angeles, for example, people come from as far as 100 miles away for the gospel music and African dancing at Mass at St. Brigid's. The priest there, the Rev. Paul Banet, said he would now like to develop a salsa Mass with mariachi music for Hispanic parishes.

[..]

Father Pfleger said he noticed that many black Catholics would attend Mass, then go to black Protestant churches or listen on the radio for ''real church.'' He figured, ''Why can't we have church at church?''

He insists that the black and African elements he added to the liturgy transcend denominational lines. ''It's not Baptist to clap one's hands or have gospel music or speak in tongues and get filled with the holy spirit,'' he said. ''It's human and spiritual. No church owns that.''

The Rev. Ronald Krisman, executive director of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy in Washington, said many of the new practices were within acceptable bounds, as liturgical styles have been liberalized by the church in the past two decades.

''What a normal American black parish does on Sunday is perfectly within the norm of Catholic liturgy,'' Father Krisman said. ''It's not a far-reaching adaptation. There has been more indigenization of the liturgy. It reflects the development and renewal or our liturgical life.''

But St. Sabina on Chicago's South Side is not the typical black Catholic church. Ebony wood carvings, Ashanti foot stools and kinte cloths make the altar area look more like an African art gallery. Banners of red, black and green, the colors of African liberation, hang from the rafters, along with excerpts from the Black National Anthem. A 20-foot mural of a black Jesus looms over the altar.

Apparently one does not need to be black to preach 'black liberation theology'. And just why is it that this stuff is alien to white folks, like we've been fed the past few weeks? Yes, I've certainly heard about such things in my life, going to the 'hotbed of apathy' at SUNY Buffalo with a nearly arthritic band of radical social oriented professors... which is one reason I went into the sciences. Still, I can see where Barack Obama, would have found a kindred soul. From a NYT article on 09 SEP 2007 which recounts his problems breaking into politics where Bobby L. Rush, a Black Panther, held the local seat and he was challenging in the primary and note who would stick by him:

In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama wrote: “Less than halfway into the campaign, I knew in my bones that I was going to lose. Each morning from that point forward I awoke with a vague sense of dread, realizing that I would have to spend the day smiling and shaking hands and pretending that everything was going according to plan.”

Billboards in the district read: “I’m sticking with Bobby.” A few black elected officials endorsed Mr. Obama but most fell in line behind the incumbent. Ministers closed ranks. The Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of the St. Sabina Catholic Church, said other ministers and congregation members called to complain when he endorsed Mr. Obama.

There you have it the 'politics of change' in action: moving from a Black Panther radical to a more mainstream radical! So when Barack Obama would come out against the war in Iraq he would have a reliable ally who was always against the war in Iraq:

A Catholic priest, Michael Pfleger, whose parish is located in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, declared, "If George Bush wants to set deadlines, he could set deadlines on unemployment, apartheid, homelessness. He has been hell-bound for months on war. I have never heard a President talk so much war talk in my lifetime." During Vietnam, American labor unions and blue-collar workers tended to support the war. This time, the presidents of * nine major unions argued for a peaceful solution.

Ah, yes, that was from Time article Anxiety Before the Storm... AP story 06 MAY 1998 at ardmoreite:

CHICAGO (AP) -- One calls himself an ''errand boy for Jesus,'' the other appears as the devil on the current cover of ''Rolling Stone.''

The battle of personalities between the Rev. Michael Pfleger and talk-show host Jerry Springer may have been inevitable, but the outcome seems to have surprised Springer himself.

Calling Springer's fists-flying show immoral, Pfleger urged an end to the fights and organized an advertising boycott that prompted several companies to drop their ads on the highly rated program.

Yes! Change! Those all-powerful talk show hosts just need to be stood up to. Beyond that he did get a minor scandal when he was re-appointed to another term in his position outside of that traditionally expected, and some were wondering if it wasn't time for him to 'move on' in 2002. Andwhen Frrakhan fell sick back in 2006 (via Biafra Nigeria World News archives), well:

According to Farrakhan, he is at present under treatment, guided by Howard University doctors. He disclosed this in a letter dated September 11, posted on the website of the group's newspaper, The Final Call.

"I am forced to do what is necessary to restore myself nutritionally. Otherwise, my present condition could be life-threatening", he wrote.

Michael Pfleger , Pastor of St. Sabina who visited Farrakhan at his Michigan home a few weeks ago, said that the recuperating Farrakhan is "in great spirit"

Pfleger said: "He is not a man on his death bed. He wants to step back from decision-making and let others step up.

From that and a minor dust-up against Wal-Mart, Father Pfleger would come out to support Sen. Obama for President, as seen by Matt C. Abbot at Renewamerica, 17 JAN 2007. Apparently Mr. Abbot went a bit too easy on Father Pfleger as Cassidy Bugos at Lifesitenews would light into him on 18 JAN 2008:

CHICAGO, January 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger of the Archdiocese of Chicago wants people to know that pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage Senator Barack Obama “is the best thing to come across the political scene since Bobby Kennedy.”

Father Pfleger says he has known Obama for 20 years. “I think Barack Obama is in a class of his own,” he said.

As an Illinois Senator Obama had the unstinting approval of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his dependable support of pro-abortion legislation. Now, after a short two years in the U.S. Senate, Obama has earned 100% ratings from pro-abortion groups across the board, including NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women.

In 2002 he voted against a bill to protect or offer medical care to babies that survive botched abortions. Prior to that he opposed an Illinois State ban on partial-birth abortion, and refused his vote to a bill mandating internet pornography filters in schools.

There, that should be a good round-up of the Catholic feeling about Father Pfleger.

Now some folks have been wondering what sort of folks back Sen. Obama in the way of gun control, and for that we will drop by The Volokh Conspiracy with Eugene Volokh looking at how things went with Father Pfleger on 29 MAY 2007:

Jesse Jackson Ally Calls for "Snuffing Out" Gun Store Owner:

The Second Amendment Foundation is complaining about this incident:

Chuck's Gun Shop, 14310 S. Indiana Ave., was the target of the protest [march led by Jesse Jackson]. The protesters blamed Chuck's, which is just across the border from Chicago, for many of the guns on the city's streets....

Jackson and Revs. James Meeks and Michael Pfleger encouraged the crowd to push for stricter gun laws. They vowed that the rally was just the beginning and that civil disobedience was possible....

The SAF reports,

In a stunning audio recording of Pfleger’s remarks, the pastor of St. Sabina’s Church can clearly be heard stating, “John Riggio ... we’re going to find you and snuff you out.” Moments later, Pfleger added, “We’re going to snuff out John Riggio, we’re going to snuff out legislators that are voting ... against our gun laws and we’re coming for you because we are not going to sit idly.”

The SAF argues that this is a death threat, and demands that the Justice Department investigate Pfleger for this.

Yes, 'snuffing out' gun store owners heard from a Catholic Priest. One wonders how this advances the cause of the 'Prince of Peace'. Still I am sure the good Father Pfleger does good work, like that with senior centers, as seen in this Chicago Tribune story of 31 DEC 2006:

Senior Suites is the brand name of the affordable buildings developed by Chicago-based Senior Lifestyle Corp. The company, in a joint-venture with the Beloved Community, a neighborhood group affiliated with St. Sabina Church and community activist Rev. Michael Pfleger, is developing the Auburn Gresham building.

Bob Gawronski, vice president of development at Senior Lifestyle, expects the Auburn Gresham building to open around Thanksgiving. (Names are being taken for a waiting list. Call 312-673-4333.) Residents must have an annual income of less than $31,680 for a single person and $36,180 for a couple. Also, five apartments are available for those with higher incomes. Rents for those range from $640 to $750.

One of the men tied up in the recent Rezko deals is Alderman Edward M. Burke, who had voted to approve Rezko's plans for the South Loop deal, as seen in this Chicago Sun-Times article of 04 OCT 2007. And on the list of folks doing business with him that are also of interest is this little company tucked away far down the list:

29. Senior Lifestyle Corp.

Apparently the folks running Senior Lifestyle Corp. will have to give at least a few answers as to the business relationship they had with Ald. Burke and Rezmar. Newsalert blog of FEB 2008 has a bit more on Ald. Burke, but this is really a bit too precious to leave out:

Alderman Burke has been accused of fixing a murder trial for the Chicago Mob and strangely hasn't sued the publishers of the book(go to pages 160,161,and 162).

Perhaps he just forgot? Still, its interesting to see just the sort of respectable politico that Ald. Burke is or is not, and that is an awfully long client list to go through.

Sphere: Related Content

Free Land: Olaf's Tale

From those who remember, Free Land, the Saga of Olaf the Navigator transcribed:

From that first winter to first spring had seen hard work for all, of felling trees and hunting game and using winter fodder.  Such that was brought of kept animals, of pig and sheep and goat, proved capable of pulling provender from snow covered fields.  With that spring Eric who came to be known of Three Lands, made right and sure that beyond the landing a second place was found to espy the seas of north and south beyond great spit of land.  Thus it was in spring when Eric, chosen Lawgiver for the year, gave Olaf two ships and scant crew to send back to leave the word.

That winter had seen much work by all, and the hunting of prizes brought much pride, but it was those of the bear of black, found in winter den that made Eric alight and begin simple tanning work.  The smell of forge and tanning and other needful things brought them fair reminder of homelands and showed them what was needed.  So Eric would come to Olaf and his chosen crew and speak of needful things.

'Olaf you are most trustworthy to find fair way back, and I know you thought as you espied the coast during our travels here.  For those not as good as you for finding seaward ways, coastal markers are needed for those lesser ones who may become disguided.  Choose carefully and quickly for we both know the seas will turn and in the shift of early spring, the currents are not easy to discern.  If one is storm-tossed and finds bleak days of travel, ensure that they can find a marker and get their wits about them.  Make it quick and fast, my friend as you have a long year's worth of trips ahead.'

Olaf smiled from face that had been from ice to  balmy clime, and eyes twinkled of a man who would make best time of any and knew the fair weeks of time between the lands of old. 'Not as slow as that, my Eric, not not that slow at all.  For coastal navigators see the fall of tree and cast of rock and know if it is nature or man that made it.  You, yourself, from North clime had seen that in fjords and then again to Iceland and yourself made them in Greenland.  The obvious are easy and the subtle faster, too, so bare two weeks to get it done with landing for single days to mark.  Those that follow with any wit of the sea and land will know whereof they find, and follow markings to know their way north to south inclined.'

Eric nodded to Olaf and looked to his fair crews, for two ships were taken one for trading and long ship for the work. 'And you that go with him, know that you will return with trading ship.  From Greenland old home do trade with what you're given for those things you need.  Olaf has further mission beyond that land of green and ice, and will be most of year doing so, and your return will be self-guided.  Learn well from Olaf Navigator, he has plied many of the seas and no truer Viking is there in one who knows its ways.'

With that Eric and others helped load the ships that were to go, and gave special bundles to Olaf for his further needs.  From there Olaf guided well and each three days alighted with his crews.  Asqe of his people, now Viking in the full, helped Olaf to mark those places that his people would likewise know.  Even with such help a few places went beyond a day, but beyond the rocky cairns Olaf inscribed the way.  Upon sheer cliff and boulders strewn, the markers subtle made, have kept the way clear-marked for generations later until better could be had.  And still, all this time after, a storm tossed crew can find, those subtle waypath markers that lead them to fair clime.

To the second land Olaf gave it scant attention, although Asqe ensured that his people with simple yet sturdy craft could find a proper way.  Olaf who had seen such markings asked Asqe of their lore, and Asqe gave look and then nodded to explain the craft. 'This marking of curving and the three lines up, is the great beasts of the deep making for air and upwelling.  So when seen a man knows that such danger does lie near, and will shift away from it to make safer passage.  This of curving line down with rays down upon it, show the opposite for warning, where ocean plunges deep like the sounding beast.  Then the three up under three down shows the hunter rocks, the place that will suck you in to fair and ugly death upon them.  We have many others and no man or clan has set store, but these I make and use and are easy to know their marking way if you know the man and clan.'

Olaf laughed heartily, on shore as they were, and clearly enjoyed such knowledge from such man and his clan.  'Mark well, all of you, the simple nature of the Navigator!  All you need is eye and knowledge, clear Thought and Memory and such things will guide you well.  From those things I can see how hunting grounds are marked for sea, and know the dangers of these people and to you and me.  If ever storm tossed beyond our normal trade, seek the waypath guides and puzzle them until their meaning is in the clear.  For they are to be read by those with dim light and rain upon them, they are to save your life when all else has turned against you.'

They did meet at the near tip of second land to Greenland, peoples who spend the spring and summer and the fare elsewhere for the winter.  Aqse knew of them and talked with them, and Olaf made such gifts as meager store provided, and then the Viking markers put down, five great boulders upon the shore.  While many of the smaller ones are gone or since moved, those five to show the waypath remain to show the way.  From there scant markings on the first land as it was well known, and only simple guide to show the new lands path were needed there.

In fair Greenland winter had just given up its breath, but Spring had not renewed the land as the melt water still did flow.  Olaf sought out young Lief, the son of Eric to the Three Lands, and bade him and his mother well to let them know their fate. 'Eric bids you no ill-will, but to know his decision he abides.  To both of you his caring and hopes for gentle guides.  He says new home will welcome you, so long as peace is kept, and ask him not to change to ways he did not seek.  Young Lief you are to know that half his inheritance is yours for you and the clan to live.  That other half as he has given, now you are to read the bundle that is mine to give.'

With that to Lief he handed small pouch secured with Eric's hair, and simple knife to open it brought out few but needful things.  Lief looked at it and gasped at the simple clan ensign made upon hide necklace. 'Eric entrusts family's well being to me, then, and I am to ensure the right.  With half his wealth more than enough is done to ensure that this be carried out.'

Olaf nodded, 'That is for the true, you are now to hold fast and best for your family entire.'

Next Lief looked at simple grooved planks, tiny and bound together. Nodding Lief, who had shown ability as a stripling mad the simple match. 'His few ships are to be divided one set old and one to new with Greenland between them both.'

Smiling deeply, Olaf said, 'You have spent fair time in repairing with Eric and Me on voyages back along the way, and by fair mark you would trade my boots from me for snail shells if given half a chance.'

The final piece was keen metal shard and simple smoothed wooden peg, bound at the center with hair that Lief looked closely at.  Then back to pouch and to Olaf, then to the entwined pieces.  'He has bound you as messenger and entrusted you with Nornish path.  And in that binding I am to help as you speak for him before me.'

Olaf's face went calm, and closed eyes for a bit, then opened them and steady, as if gazing to calm horizon. 'Lief the time has come for Vikings to announce their chosen path, and as you see I'm messenger for those that have already left.  To each of those sigils mark a way to go so that rulers know what it is they face.  From Greenland to Iceland goes the way of trade.  I will tell you now that fair sea journey direct will cut off Greenland in some time as I can see how the oceans shift and direct way though longer can be navigated.  As clan head you must know this in the first of my stops from here.'

Lief laid down the bound pieces, 'Such binding is needful to know.  As head of family and of clan spread to here, this is not easy news to take.'

'Yes, and too much so, Lief, and yet that is the way of it.  Next is the grooved wood which represents the Isles and second destination.'

'You go to Eire and then to Angles then... ah, and after that to Danemark.'

With a snort and short laugh, Olaf did reply, 'Oh, yes I do and like in Iceland of the Norse I will let the Danes come to know the message Eric has given to me for them.  But not before delivering word port to port until I get there of this new and fine fair land.'

'To let it be known?'

'Aye, Lief you are seeing know what Eric does intend.  Tick off in your mind the clans aggrieved in each of these lands, disinherited by poorly given Law and outcast for simple clan disputes.  Eric was but one of many, as we both well full know.  This message will get to them by those that travel near and far, and hear of Viking making fair land and Law for those willing to settle grievances.'

Lief sat back, and let out a long whistle. 'I had not thought... but yes it is the score that we go aviking on the trade and even now there is final bounds.  Many are the dispossessed and they will hear the whisper of the Blood Red made good to new and open realm.  That will take time, Olaf.'

'Oh time enough, for sure.  But the immediate need as you can see is to find those who are skilled in making.  We have those things in abundance and we lack skilled hands to go around, and so when family and clan do shift will come those who know of iron, wood, grain and creatures.  Yet not for faint-hearted roustabouts who think first with sword and then with head, for that will get you killed in crossing and in making a new home.  While the people of this new land are not so skilled in those things, they are skilled enough to draw high and dear cost when confronted.  By numbers and sudden appearance did we shock them enough to listen, else we would all be dead, throats slit in deep night.  But Eric was not the Red for nothing, as you well know, and vigil was our answer until peace could be talked.'

Thus Lief nodded and looked at two and then realized the co-joining, before the third. 'Not only Dane but Norse, joined Kings they are for sure so to both you must go.'

'Well and fairly said, that, and from Iron south to Wooden north one message will both get.'

'That leaves... oh, to Swedes!'

Olaf grimaced as he saw the look of Lief in realizing. 'Yes, a final tangle to unskein needs be done to set great things aright.  Yet, as strange as it may seem the message will be exactly the same to there as to the other Kings as told.  Yet past Jutes to Swedes and even Finns and Lapp and deep beyond, a message will be whispered by the presences in far Kingdom where Thing also rules the people.  None will be forgotten in the north and from there it will trickle to the south, although in places it will be more than just a trickle in return.'

Leaning forward Lief gazed at Olaf and soon it was calm sea to calm sea in their gazes. 'Eric is doing the hard thing, Olaf.  What is the message he bids you to bring?'

A frown and sigh from Olaf, 'That is for those leaders to know and clan leaders to hear after it is fairly given.  I can say, though, Lief that for at least a generation Greenland will prosper before the shorter route is fully plied.  I have not done it myself as of yet, but there is knowledge in deep, unknown seas and those who know them.'

Nodding softly, Lief came to understand. 'My way is set even though I am free, for no other can be done.  I think I understand now, for first time its true, just how my father felt being free and yet so confined by fates as to rail once and forever to break them.  While its a harsh task I cannot shirk the justice in it and the opportunities for me and clan.  I can stay in town that will prosper for short time and then slowly feel lack of trade, or build something new by exploring.  By Viking way.'

'That is the way of it, Lief: stay at home like those south of the Alps these days or take up satchel and sword and net and make new ways to go.  I am Navigator and that is the life for me, but for you it must be decided how you handle what the Norns have given,' holding up hand, 'I know that is not your line of thought or belief but that is what spurred Eric onwards.  And surely in your way of looking there is room for understanding that while things may be out of your control, yourself you never are.'

Lief nodded, 'That is ever the way of it, Olaf, and I will pray for guidance to dear Christ, but I will not let these events move me from doing what needs be done.  Eric has damned us to live in exciting times to prosper and that will keep us busy for the rest of our lives, is true.'

'Very busy Lief, now let us go over the listing of those bare things that are needed for new land, so that you can find a way to prosper and ensure your position by scant foreknowledge so as to make new knowledge with each and every trip. For me the bare morn tide awaits and messages to spread and give.'

 

Thus the Saga fragment ends picked up in other tales and lands, and better known in them for what it is they are.

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Sen. Obama, missing the mark

After reading speeches by Sen. Obama I have come to understand the wide differences between the spoken word, which moves to passion and emotion, and the written word, which requires precision and rigorousness of thought to produce a cogent observation. Sen. Obama is extremely good with oratory and is able to take rather mundane and quite vaporous ideas and make them sound new and wonderful, while they are old and re-vamped. When a politician reaches for my emotions, I smell 'deceit' as this is a Nation founded on Reason and Discourse to create democracy amongst the public. With that said, I was quite prepared to actually get something different from Sen. Obama as he had, apparently, the first real chance in his campaign to seriously switch gears, derail both opponents left (Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain) and perform a serious piece of jujitsu on the Left and Right in America to so befuddle them that the Center would fall to him in the election.

From his speech transcript (via RealClearPolitics) he would have had to change the basic thematic structure of it and jettison those parts supporting Rev. Wright starting at the paragraph that begins "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." all the way to this sentence starting "This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up." After that remove the next two paragraphs and the first sentence that follows, "In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community." and then continue on with the one following so that things look like this:

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

By removing the language of hatred, black community and trying to excuse those who have had two generations to work things out, this would be the point where he draws things together, he has spanned the generation that originally fought and is now addressing the resentment caused by the 'solutions' put in place.

At this point there is one thing that he could do that no other candidate in the United States could do, and that is to call for the ending of all racial quotas, set-asides and anything else, and dedicate him to the full equality, under law, of all citizens of the US. The rhetoric would sound something like this:

"Thus, I have come to realize by listening to the problems of blacks and whites together that the solutions that have been put in place by the intervening generations have not worked and need to be abolished as they are causing more divisiveness than Unity in Our Nation.

I pledge to you here, today, before all of the members of the American Community that for the rest of my life in public service I will work to end all enforcement of all racial, ethnic or any other quota that divides America. Two Generations is enough and more than enough for us to join together and examine the problems of the poor, black and white, and address them together as one Nation. While I am young in this world, I promise you that I will work unstintingly to confront demagogues and repudiate any who would divide America by race, class, ethnicity, gender or mere skin color.

That has no place in America today.

For all these things that were seen as 'good', in the way of handouts and set-asides, have caused tremendous harm to America and must end, along with a culture that has come to depend on our government for mere cash while it is their bodies and souls that we must come together on saving as good Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and people of all religious faith and background. That is what we are enjoined to do by our Forefathers by that great document created so long ago and yet is as fresh as yesterday.

If elected President I will not enforce any law that divides this Nation in that way and will take any that wish to dispute this to the Supreme Court and I will work hard, with Congress, to end these things forevermore in America so that we are One People striving to perform the perfection of ourselves with our fellow man. I will also have investigated and prosecuted any and all discrimination suits that have founding and that go against the basic civil rights of the citizenry without respect to the race, class, religion, ethnicity or gender of those bringing the suit. Congress can impeach me on this, if they dare, but I will never bow down to those wishing to divide America."

Yes, he could have gone for the 'content of their characters, not color of their skin' route! Pure and equal enforcement of the laws, no special privileges for anyone, and anyone who crosses that line towards division in the area of civil rights gets the boom lowered on them.

Sen. Clinton would see her white support evaporate as Sen. Obama would be seen as 'delivering on the post-racial goods' while she practiced the 'old and tired ways of division'. She could not say nor do these things as Bill had taken it as far as he could possibly go within the Party by a white President.

Sen. McCain would see someone who would be outdoing Ronald Reagan and who had stolen this social issues from the *right* and gotten support from it in the *center*. All of his work at 'bipartisanship' would be seen as mere verbiage as he would be faced with someone who had just pointed out that 'bipartisanship' is the problem, not the cure, in the way it has been practiced since the mid-1960's. For the man who had spent his years in office putting quotas, set-asides and other such race based goodies into laws, he would now be slapped and slapped hard with them as failures.

What would the Left do? They would have *no one* to turn to: Sen. Clinton has already demonstrated that she garners more division and hatred than acceptance and support. They could not demagogue it as they would be pointed out as doing so and 'part of the problem'. And if they shift to accept it, then they are taking a 'conservative' position, which they have decried for decades... which is part of the problem, of course.

And the Right? Dumbfounded if this speech had been done like that: lead in, acceptance of what Rev. Wright has done, and then the ultimate repudiation of all the words and ideas that Wright is espousing. Yes, problems with the sudden shift, but they also have a huge video clip of promises to hold Sen. Obama to and decry any actions taken contrary to those views. Really, once people started to examine the record on Sen. McCain, what could the Right do? Say that racial quotas and set-asides are *good* when a black man is running saying they are bad and hurtful... to whites?

Heh.

He could have topped it off naming Bill Cosby as VP!

Yup, backhand and forehand, against race, culture and, really, all stereotypes.

Now that would have been a neat piece of work by an astute politician able to realize the multiple errors in the politicians going after him and tie them all in knots. By the time anyone could craft a half-way decent response, PA would be over, the super-delegates would have been swayed and hard by this speech, and Sen. McCain would be facing someone trumping his 'civility' campaign from the Right and the Left to pull in the Center. The far Left would go nuts, of course, but they wouldn't matter due to their small size and lack of sway outside of the Primaries, and this sort of speech would have galvanized a wide spectrum around Sen. Obama.

Of course Sen. Obama has not the insight, guts, nor courage to say these things... he goes on talking about separate communities, but he does not address the concrete things that have been done which have not healed that divide.

Nor does he taken any firm stance on the actual things that these 'communities' can do to become fully at one with each other and set the reverberations of the past on *mute*.

Unfortunately Sen. Obama is not the man to do this... he is a Democratic politician from the corrupt political machine tied into racial division and organized crime. America will have to wait for a better man to say what needs to be said.

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DIME, COIN and the National toolkit: Global COIN - pt. 3

The following is considered a 'rough draft' or 'working paper'.

From the Field Manual FM3-24 Counterinsurgency manual:

1-1. Insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) are complex subsets of warfare. Globalization, technological advancement, urbanization, and extremists who conduct suicide attacks for their cause have certainly influenced contemporary conflict; however, warfare in the 21st century retains many of the characteristics it has exhibited since ancient times. Warfare remains a violent clash of interests between organized groups characterized by the use of force. Achieving victory still depends on a group’s ability to mobilize support for its political interests (often religiously or ethnically based) and to generate enough violence to achieve political consequences. Means to achieve these goals are not limited to conventional forces employed by nation-states.

1-2. Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself. Joint doctrine defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict (JP 1-02). Stated another way, an insurgency is an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control. Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1- 02). These definitions are a good starting point, but they do not properly highlight a key paradox: though insurgency and COIN are two sides of a phenomenon that has been called revolutionary war or internal war, they are distinctly different types of operations. In addition, insurgency and COIN are included within a broad category of conflict known as irregular warfare.

These outlooks give us a context for local insurgency on a localized scale, but does it offer a paradigm for translating modern events into a global scale?

To examine and define this the concept of 'constituted government' is a main stumbling block as there is no constituted global government at the global scale with anything like a constitution. What there is, however, is a set of systems that arise from having States, be they City States or Nation States, especially when there is contact between States. If 'constituted government' is the idea of government formed to meet a set of needs by those under it, then that constitution (be it written or unwritten) is the description of the means of how such government is allowed to act. Thus 'constituted government' is a description of that process of running affairs at that higher level of the State as opposed to purely local or municipal government interested in sub-State affairs. This is not only not unknown, but has been regularized in the 9th through 18th centuries via a concept known as the law of nations. What is the law of nations?

By having States and having to address both sub-State and State-to-State concerns there arises a need for functions to address these concerns. We are typically used to the form of State government that addresses us, as individuals, on the internal side of things as the State represents those within it, no matter what form of government it has. Thus from absolute dictatorship or totalitarian government all the way to representative democracy or direct democracy are the internal limits for how States may run their internal affairs. Externally, however, things are not as wide ranging as attempts to shift ruling government beyond the borders of a State bring that State into contact with other States who are often hostile to such changes. By the very act of having such a State and having contact the law of nations arises as the means to create such contact and regularize it. While the law of nations is 'voluntary law' on the actual citation of it as a ruling internal concept or for creating civil law, it is less than voluntary on the external side as other States are working to ensure that any any other State adheres to its agreements.

With that understanding it is very possible to instantiate that there is 'constituted government' at an international scale, and that it is a flat or non-hierarchical form of government: there is no higher law to appeal to than the law of nations. One could, in theory, have a State in absolute isolation and never need the law of nations as a concept, but the moment a State meets up with another State the law of nations appears. A State may not like nor want such a law of nations, but by being a State that is what it gets as part of its make-up. Just as individuals are born with inalienable rights, so are States and the work to define that took centuries and was instituted via a series of views and reviews of philosophy that slowly moved into legal and diplomatic context until a well established law of nations was finally written down and discussed deeply for decades thereafter.

The actual book Law of Nations, by Emmerich de Vattel, is a deeply interesting text as it precedes the formation of the US and was utilized by William Blackstone to examine the English Common Law in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. I have examined the import of these texts in overview previously (here for a look at those plus the Black Book of the Admiralty) and how they influenced the creation of the US (article here), and were discussed by Federalists and the so-called 'Anti-Federalists' during the 1787-89 period. Emmerich de Vattel was, himself, working on the views of others, particularly Hugo Grotius, who had done On the Laws of War and Peace with the then understood law of nations. From these we can then look at Law of Nations and examine just what a Sovereign State is:

§ 1. Of the state, and of sovereignty

A NATION or a state is, as has been said at the beginning of this work, a body politic, or a society of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by their combined strength.

From the very design that induces a number of men to form a society which has its common interests, and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there should be established a Public Authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the Sovereignty; and he or they who are invested with it are the Sovereign. (10)

§ 2. Authority of the body politic over the members.

It is evident, that, by the very act of the civil or political association, each citizen subjects himself to the authority of the entire body, in every thing that relates to the common welfare. The authority of all over each member, therefore, essentially belongs to the body politic, or state; but the exercise of that authority may be placed in different hands, according as the society may have ordained.

That re-cap is necessary to remind individuals that a State is created by society and the people within it, and not the other way around. States do not suddenly form and gather people to them, and are, instead, an organic arising of creating a society in need of self-defense and mutual support. Any necessarily large society, and this has differed in history from few thousands to multiple millions, that seeks mutual support, accord and safety will then form a State to help direct that larger set of needs. Indeed, the system of Nations is the most liberal ever devised as it allows each and every society to give rise to its defense and self-government to its greater ends, something which no larger government than that society, commonly known as Empire, can do.

What is exemplary about Law of Nations is that it spends its time defining just what Sovereignty is, what government is, and what it should set about doing in a general way for its Nation. Almost the entirety of the first book is spent on this *alone* including the duty and obligations of the government to its people and the people to its government and the necessity of piety. Not left out are federal states or elective states, each of which are seen as legitimate though each having differing ways to mete out Sovereign powers that are in accord with the society under it. It is rigorous in this view because the basic and understood internal mechanisms of States were quite visible by that time, and the necessity of stating them so that governments could have understanding of what other governments (and their own) were doing and why gave insight into exactly how interactions could take place between States.

In that way Law of Nations, both in the written form and in the lower case form of common understanding of State to State contact, is 'voluntary' but the necessities of having a State make it descriptive of all States and how they work. If a State does not do these things then it is on its way to not being a State any longer. Thus, when looking at globalized insurgency against the Nation State concept, the key things it will attack are those systems of understanding both inside and amongst Nation States. To break down States any insurgency must attack the Law of Nations so as to remove its understanding from the body politic of Nations and from individuals. When that understanding is undermined, then States will begin to falter without internal knowledge and accountability for their actions. And those actions may be internal or external to the State, and the lack of accountability may likewise be internal, external or both, simultaneously.

From this attacking the Nation State system via COIN, as seen in FM3-24 can be seen in as a politico-military struggle consists of a set of political and military views that work in concert, they fall into categories of political, military, and fused politico-military. These are, in actuality, three separate axes that intersect at the common insurgency point of weakening or destabilizing the current ruling system. Each of these axes can work independently, as in political views that do not coincide with direct action military views, and yet aim at the same end, or together so that there is outright coordination between military and political activities, as in the various 'armed wings' of insurgent organizations.

When taken in the military realm, the original view of law of nations was to differentiate between Public War and Private War. Here Law of Nations is a touchstone for the international system of treaties, as it properly defines these two things as separate spheres of warfare in Book III:

§ 1. Definition of war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

WAR is that state in which we prosecute our right by force. We also understand, by this term, the act itself, or the manner of prosecuting our right by force: but it is more conformable to general usage, and more proper in a treatise on the law of war, to understand this term in the sense we have annexed to it.

§ 2. Public war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

Public war is that which takes place between nations or sovereigns, and which is carried on in the name of the public power, and by its order. This is the war we are here to consider: — private war, or that which is carried on between private individuals, belongs to the law of nature properly so called.

§ 3. Right of making war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

In treating of the right to security (Book II. Chap. IV.), we have shown that nature gives men a right to employ force, when it is necessary for their defence, and for the preservation of their rights. This principle is generally acknowledged: reason demonstrates it; and nature herself has engraved it on the heart of man. Some fanatics indeed, taking in a literal sense the moderation recommended in the gospel, have adopted the strange fancy of suffering themselves to be massacred or plundered, rather than oppose force to violence. But we need not fear that this error will make any great progress. The generality of mankind will, of themselves, guard against its contagion — happy, if they as well knew how to keep within the just bounds which nature has set to a right that is granted only through necessity! To mark those just bounds, — and, by the rules of justice, equity, and humanity, to moderate the exercise of that harsh, though too often necessary right — is the intention of this third book.

§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.⁽¹³⁷⁾

As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).

Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.¹ Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.

A lengthy piece, but necessary, as it sets the bounds and limits for who can and cannot make war. Do note the relegation of those making Private War to the law of nature, which is a much rougher play of liberty that is only given when one is attacked. Those that operate outside of the Public sphere of State to State intercourse and diplomacy in this area are practicing Private War, not Public War, as they consider themselves to be beholden to no one in their assaults on Nations. No matter what the perceived foul, the perceived transgression, the perceived slight by an individual or people, waging war outside the Public sphere is Private War. Self-defense of communities is one, thing, but proceeding, from there, to counter-attack, unless all other forms of civilized protection are no longer available, is something that cannot be done.

This high right of a State is, actually, allowed to the States of the United States if the federal government cannot or will not respond to invasion or threat that will not brook delay as seen in Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

This language is a basic restatement of the autonomy of the States within the Union having given to the National government those things to protect the whole of the Union, but still giving those States the right to protect themselves during times of duress or federal neglect. At that point, when National government cannot or will not do its duty, that duty then devolves to the State(s) involved to defend themselves.

In the US system of government, the ability to distinguish between those making Public War and Private War has devolved upon the Commander in Chief with the input of the Congress on the treatment of those waging Public War. In Private War, however, the Laws of War break down as those waging it have no right to do so and are, thusly, outside of the framework of the Nation State system of interaction. This, too, is part of the law of nations view, again from Book III, here distinguishing lawful from unlawful war:

§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.

Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.⁵ Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.

§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.

In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.⁶ Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,^(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,⁷ caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.

This, one would think, is obvious about Nation State conduct and those individuals who move outside of the protection of the law of nations and into the law of nature: they have brought their ends upon themselves willingly. On the battlefield no Congress can or should attempt to break with this view, that those fighting, actively in combat or otherwise attempting to do so and then pass themselves off as mere civilians, are due to any recompense on the battlefield. Their ends are left up to the Commander of the Armies and the Navies, that being the Commander in Chief of the US forces. That singular individual is given play, here, as the Sovereign right of a Nation to deal with such outlaws is paramount for the protection of those soldiers operating by the formal rules of war. This is not only the view of the law of nations but has precedent in the United States. The following is exactly how Abraham Lincoln authorized the US Army to deal with things in the Field Manual - 100, of 1863-81, last reprinted in 1898:

Art. 82.

Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

Do note the language used to distinguish between normal soldiers, due the full treatment of lawful war, and those committing unlawful war. As President Lincoln established this as the law of nations instantiation by his powers of the Admiralty (to distinguish piracy from normal lawful raiders) and that of the Army, he is given the full panoply of determination on land and sea just who is and who is not legitimately waging war against the US. And the summary treatment of highway robbers or pirates, in those days, was no different than the Genevese visited upon those that attacked them unlawfully.

Also note that it is a perfect description of 'terrorist'.

With this we can now form the distinction between those who are 'Revolutionaries' and put on uniform, create government, and are accountable to their activities, from those that are mere insurgents who feel no compunction to be held accountable for anything they do and see themselves as above and beyond all law of man. Congress can create civil law to deal with these individuals, if they are caught outside of the battlefield after joining an organization actively waging Private War on the US. This hard and fast distinction between civil and military law has lasted for centuries and with good reason: it is needed to remove human predators from endangering society.

These definitions now help to define global insurgency as to what its activities will be:

1. The attacking of any State via means of Private War.
2. The attempt to remove the distinction between Public and Private War so as to return mankind to the Law of Nature.
3. Aid given by donation, acquiescence, harboring, aiding, trading or in any way supporting in a physical or monetary way those waging Private War.

This covers immediate military concerns, in point 1, political concerns, in point 2, and their fusion in point 3. These are immediate insurgent views necessary for direct assault on the State system as described by law of nations views. There are also, however, the indirect assaults to weaken or delegitimize the State, and those are usually not just or only military in nature. Also the sorts of attacks are not limited to just externals of States but to the internal workings of them, as in classical insurgency against a State, but carried out as a systemic attack on the law of nations system.

Here the useful paradigm to think about is that promulgated by the 'Greens' groups and parties: "Think Global - Act Local".

The shift to push political systems to direct action is one that is militaristic in bent, if not in direct military support. Indeed, the actual push of 'agendas' may be to weaken or delegitimize State based military groups so as to weaken the defenses of the State for its people. Internally to Nation States, this is a process that seeks to polarize, delegitimize and then shift the power of the State from its normal, accountable, State based system to one that is amenable to the 'action' sought. Normal political based attacks against traditional State military systems then serves the wider purpose of State-to-State intercourse becoming less accountable by the weakening of States, themselves. That shift away from classically described State based systems to one that is pushed to direct action and control by those who have caused the polarization is then one of authoritarianism: by utilizing the push to action to circumvent normal accountability within the State, those seeking to undermine the Nation State system under the law of nations are furthering a non-State, authoritarian system as their outcome.

Classically, these are described as Empires in which a ruling individual or body has direct control over the lives of those within the State and allow only minor and usually ineffective means of feedback. That said, Empires are usually not alone in the world and have other States that they need to act with, thus the basic structure of law of nations re-asserts itself unless that Empire has overwhelming power or capability to over-run or absorb surrounding States. Those forces that seek to delegitimize internal order and accountability to create such an Empire often do not realize that this outcome, in which they will be forced by circumstances to either over-reach or recreate those structures, then puts in charge those least able or capable of shifting that chaos in the position of having to do so.

Classical Empires of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Babylon, and the multiple ones of China, all found that to keep the Empire stable amongst surrounding States (even barbaric ones with rudimentary State concepts) required the creation of internal systems to sustain the Empire, that tended towards direct action and cruelty. No matter how benign the group causing the problems may consider themselves to be, the actual need for a State is to utilize common power to restrict the excesses of society. Those in charge of Empires tend to see even modest dissent as an 'excess' and thus punishable by the State. To create a 'perfect Empire' requires near perfect isolation and no other meaningful State based contacts.

This has only been achieved in a meaningful way in the instances of the Greek Empire under Alexander, multiple instances in China, and Japan during its withdrawal from the world until the arrival of Perry. China, due to its geography, has been able to stage different forms of isolation and create long-lived bureaucracies that then become the true source of sustainment, no matter how much the Sun Emperor is worshipped. After the successful insurgency of post-WWII, China supplanted its traditional, Imperial based system with one that was Communist in name, but Fascistic in design. That traditional bureaucratic State re-asserted itself near instantaneously, and even with the charismatic Mao, it was the bureaucracy that continued on and is now the controlling organization of the State, no matter what the Party itself does. While China has had multiple internal revolts, it has normally taken exterior forces to remove one ruling elite and install another, and no matter who that elite *is* the bureaucratic necessities of the State shift the power from the Elite to the bureaucrat.

The Greek Empire lasted fleetingly under Alexander and, with his death, quickly decayed back to its constituent States. Here the military commanders quickly found themselves overwhelmed by culture and personal power, and those diplomats who had been put aside under Alexander (when not just eliminated) soon found their roles re-instated after his death. The Nations re-arose even if they all did speak Greek for a time, as their ethnic outlooks caused the welds formed by successful military campaigns to fracture under competition between the inheritors of the Empire. Alexander did not have the time nor foresight to create the bureaucracy that China found as necessary to establish internal control and cohesion over varying ethnic groups, so the actual time that the Greek Empire lasted was measured in years, not decades or centuries.

Japan, being an island State, found that its aristocratic class formed a powerful minority far larger in proportion to the peasant population than in Europe. While that class may only have been 1% or so in Europe, in Japan it was approximately 10% and swung that weight around heavily as the aristocracy was greatly militarized to start with. Japan's problem was in the adoption of gunpowder based weapons, and the democratizing effect of them as it takes far less skill to load, aim, shoot, clean and reload a firearm of that era than it did to wield a sword. When the commander of a military expedition in Korea called for more peasantry armed with muskets and no more Bushido, the campaign, itself, was brought back and Japan outlawed firearms as they were far too dangerous to the ruling class to have around. When a barely trained youngster can take down a veteran Bushido with one shot, the power shift had gone unpleasantly against the aristocracy and they would not, as in Europe, accede to this new reality. The centuries of isolation that followed could only happen with an island State able to enforce that isolation and ban trade.

None of these offer useful goals for the modern insurgent, anti-law of nations view, as they each are demonstrably delimiting by events (Alexander's unpreparedness and Geography in the cases of China and Japan) to allow useful replication in an outright form. Thus the modern insurgent must aim to create a global Empire with the necessity of a hard and powerful bureaucracy that, again, shifts control from the hands of the Elite that comes to power to the actual daily functionaries that wield this power. The pathways of computers, robotics and automation do not offer easy solutions to those seeking insurgent ends as these are all labor savings devices in a situation where having too much labor available is a problem. They may try to rely on the Orwellian concept of continual warfare, but they have so delegitimized that in their rise to power, that the actual functioning of the military, itself, comes into question. A shifting to the need of military force during their rise would obviate that, but would also destroy the facade of 'peaceful' and anti-military stances taken during that rise and cause a backlash. The last thing an insurgency wants when it is rising is a new insurgency against *it*, while battling against the COIN of the State(s) involved in trying to retain power.

State based backers of political insurgency against the law of nations and States, then, will garner the following characteristics:

1. They will attack the legitimate use of arms and traditional military systems of the State. In doing this they will utilize any means necessary to counter support for States and claim that support, itself, to be Fascistic in nature even when it is adhering to classical, liberal State based needs.
2. They will attack the legitimate functions of the State in areas relegated to the State at the National level. This will include such things as: diplomacy, commerce, immigration, and defense of the Nation.
3. They will create a 'crisis atmosphere' about problems that cannot be solved, and yet they will call for them to be solved by the State. Thus, in any economic system which has any competition, the outcome is that there will be poor. To end that competition must be ended in the name of 'fairness' and 'equality'. As was done in Soviet Russia and modern China, so, too, will these insurgents call for the increase in State control to meet the exigencies of these 'crises' until the State, itself, becomes the only power allowed to deal with anything, and personal choice and accountability of the State is removed.
4. On State-to-State functions of diplomacy, these insurgents will demand that treaties be seen either as 'worthless' or 'unequal' or that they must be adhered to when they go against the survival of the State. By changing views on the utility of diplomacy to fit immediate needs and 'crises' created by political views, these insurgents wish to demean and eliminate all normal State-to-State means of diplomatic recourse and normalization.
5. On any military attempts to reign in other States, this will be depicted as 'imperialistic', 'fascistic', or 'totalitarian', even when all necessary law of nation safeguards have been satisfied. Because the organizing capacity of the military is both admired and feared, it must be destroyed by these insurgent views so as to remove the only effective organ of State-to-State accountability and engender more 'crises' and then claim that either military solutions are always in need, for those things that cannot be solved by military means, or openly attack those instances where all law of nations views are actually performed and to undermine them at every turn.
6. In matters of trade, no ability of the State to leverage control over trade is supported and all attempts to make trade 'free' of any burdens of the State is supported. In this manner the normal classical liberal means of the State to express societal displeasure or gratitude is ended or undermined, so that trade will no longer serve as a function of State-to-State reciprocity and will always be open to any State no matter how bad or destructive it is.
7. Insurgents will utilize ethnicity as trumping society and Nation, so that the needs of ethnic enclaves, even within States, are seen as 'more legitimate' than the States they are in. This is generally known as 'Balkanization' to fracture and remove traditional State means for societal adherence to a common ethos. By claiming this both within and amongst States, ethnicity is given as the only deciding factor, unless that actually supports a State or set of States, in which case it is decried as 'isolationism' or 'segregationist'.
8. Immigration as the function of States is decried as 'discriminatory' and undermined by both State and international groups seeking to delegitimize the classical, western concepts of the State having power to enforce societal views on who can be naturalized into society and who cannot be accepted. By removing that legitimacy and forcing acceptance, the State is further weakened as a concept, until it can no longer control these things and is seen as illegitimate due to that lack of control.
9. Religion, which as part of the Westphalian view is not to be controlled by the State, is then made into either a controlling State-based view. This is done either by trying to fuse religion with the State or supplanting traditional religions with the State, so that any religious view is automatically a political view. With this no aspect of religious life is outside the purview of the State to control.
10. In all cases where the State is not given control over society, the political view is that the State must have this for general, nebulous 'good reasons' that fit certain 'crises' that are generated ad nauseam so as to justify the authoritarian views of those involved with promoting such 'crises' and views. Thus the 'ends' become the 'means' so that the activity, itself, is the justification for action and nothing higher is seen as legitimate for justifying action.

This listing is not and cannot be exhaustive, as any insurgency is to take up any means necessary to de-legitimize the State based system and the law of nations itself. Treaties are then put as something 'above the State' instead of merely being the contractual acceptance between States that can be broken by any State for classical, western law of nations reasons. In doing this the claim will be that such views are *supporting* these classical views, but then no actual tracing to such things as the law of nation, the laws of war or other such documents will be done and, instead, mere treaties or doctrinal works secondary to these founding works will be seen as primary.

A long-term insurgent campaign must remove these very works from normal public reading and understanding so that the public has little or no understanding of what classical western culture actually is, and can thus be swayed by rhetoric or hyperbole. By only being able to utilize secondary sources or claiming that there is some 'universal' set of rights that is not founded in the law of nature, laws of war and peace, laws of the admiralty, or the law of nations, can an insurgent campaign hope to be successful in the long run.

Further, science is seen as a tool to create society instead as a system of inquiry into the workings of nature. By trying to misplace the tools of physics, biology, chemistry and geology and fitting them into the non-scientific areas of sociology, psychology and politics, can these basic tools of creating a better world be corrupted and seen, then, as a source of ill instead of the creations of man able to ameliorate the problems of nature. Technology, then, becomes something to be decried as harming 'nature' even when the data will show otherwise. By using pseudo-scientific views of 'nature' and society that have no foundation in science but that have the trappings of science, can the insurgency have any hope of removing the few tools of technology and science available to the State for the betterment of its citizens. Here energy generation, in all cases save those supplied by nature directly, be seen as antithetical to the common use of ordinary citizens and any and all attempts to end such utilization must be pushed as ongoing 'crises'. Actual science, itself, is only used as trappings where it supports such views and then politically attacked when it does not do so.

These, then, are the forms of modern insurgency being waged against the classical, law of nations, Nation State system. It contains military parts (Private War going by the concepts of terrorism and piracy), political parts in support of removal of the legitimate State uses to uphold society (via political views such as Communism, Fascism, Progressivism, or anything which generally supports ideology over discourse and action over accountability), and the fusion of the two via 'political wings' of terror groups and 'action wings' of political groups.

This insurgency against the classical, western law of nations system has been brewing in forms of nihilism and totalitarianism for over a century and are now reaching fruition across the board to delegitimize the entirety of the Nation State system and call for global Empire. Those doing such calling have many voices: IslamoFascists, Progressivists of all stripes, those that promote economics as the only end to liberty, and those seeking to push ethnicity and its fusion with identity politics above the commonality of society to have a State. Be it Caliphate, Transnationalist, or Globalist in views, the concept of these being insurgents to the law of nations State based system are just the same. They will distort any text, any idea to reach their goal of a global Empire that will destroy individuality and put a single, ruling view in place of individual views and common accord amongst individuals.

To counter this requires a COIN campaign that counters it in particulars and changes the outlook of society to one that supports accountability and individualism along with the regularity of Nations as upholding the true diversity of societies on the planet.

That will be upcoming in future works.

Sphere: Related Content

Connecting some dots between the candidates

[UPDATE]

This article has received the attention of the subject of the article and his solicitors in the UK. As they have asked for the email to be kept private, and very strange that I get a pdf and not even a polite asking to speak with me, I will address some of the generalities they bring up. That is to keep in the spirit of the correspondence and yet address their concerns as much as possible.

First off, let me say that I am a United States citizen, born in the US, lived and worked in the US, now disabled in the US, writing in the US, and have this lovely low-traffic blog in the US that gets the ability to be read worldwide. If having readers in the UK makes me published in the UK, then that is true of Iran, Kenya, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, and quite a few other places. I really don't keep track of who reads me or from where. Indeed, given such things as the TOR network, any attempt to filter traffic would, as the Chinese are finding out, prove well neigh impossible.

I will point out that when I utilize a blockquote or indent, I am utilizing a quotation from another source, that I link to. I also try to do that thematically, so that the same color holds to a source, but there are only a limited number of colors that I find pleasing to read, so a careful reader needs to pay attention to source citation and linkage.

From there I will say that I found The Observer article referenced to be very fascinating including the give and take between the subject of the article and The Observer, as the subject had specific points of contention that he brought up. And The Observer was addressing those. There was some problem between their original publication date, in 2001 and the subject bringing up his problems with the article. At the time, unaware that there was a lawsuit ongoing, I linked to the information brought up by the subject with The Observer. In my two extracts, I utilized 176 words and 165 words from the article for a total of 340 words, which I considered to be 'fair use' under US standards. The electronic media, being unlike print media in which linked material can be brought up to examine a discussion, video or other interplay by the reader allows for such linking to put the reader into the position of determining if I am giving a fair analysis of the material.

That fair analysis included reading the original, the subject's response and the response to that.

Part of that give and take is allowing there to be a record of what was inaccurate and how such things get published. At the time, being unaware of legal proceedings and taking what was happening as an interplay between the subject and The Observer I utilized a web cache for the historical document being referenced as many of the larger media systems tend to age or pull down articles on a regular basis. There is little way for a reader to know if there is a lawsuit starting up or not, or if that is part of the regular shifting of articles. Thus I considered that I had given fair use of content, linkage to both parts of a dispute and review of both the original article, the subjects protest and the rejoinder. This includes all parts of it that I had cited, and I did my best to ensure that other articles linked to in my article had distinctive research outside of The Observer, in particular the work of Kommisar and Kommersant.

Do note that I did the exact, same, thing with regards to the later Financial Times article and the subject's problems with it.

The next point of interest is in the lack of reading ability by the solicitor and/or the subject: at no point in my article do I say or impute that the subject gave money to Sen. Obama's campaign funds of any sort.

With regards to having talked or spoken to Saddam Hussein: BNP-Paribas certainly had discourse with the Government of Iraq during the late 1990's as it was the chosen source for selling oil under the Oil For Food program. As the subject has a substantial investment in BNP-Paribas during the Oil For Food scandal, it is difficult to see how there could be no gain, connection or understanding that funds gained under that system would benefit the subject. For said subject to have no connection to it he must have no interest, investment or seek no gain from such things and ensure he is isolated from them via non-investment in said financial institution. Do note that the subject is cited via linkage as being the largest shareholder out of that union of banks. While a minority it is, apparently, the largest minority.

Also, movement of funds from NY to Europe would most likely take place via Clearstream and its SWIFT system. It is that system that had particular problems show up from criminal organizations utilizing it for their funds transfers. Even after that is revealed, the subject takes an interest in Clearstream, which then goes on to have yet another scandal take place while the subject is an investor. I am astonished that the subject does not do research before investing his funds.

Further I do cite, in particular, that the subject was outside of Iraq when Saddam Hussein came to power.

Further I do cite, in particular, that Saddam Hussein killed a brother of the subject in his coup that saw 66 executed.

As the subject has banking interests in CIPAF and banking in the UK arises, it is more than fair to say that those are areas in which business is transacted for the subject. As said subject is wealthy and has substantial business interests and assets utilizing the concept of 'empire' sounds applicable.

One problem raised is in a fair use excerpt of The Guardian taken from Fordham University's own fair use excerpt. Note source citation and linkage in the article. Also note that the other link to The Guardian also has the information that the author of that article apologizing to the subject.

As some of the information addresses citations to articles by Lucy Kommisar who has done hard work getting records from across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas would be in order. Those are, from my reading of her work, on the record sources from government and industry, and often court documents. Particularly that of the Italian 'Clean Hands' investigation, which has official court testimony about the subject on record.

As to the subject's conviction in France in the TotalFinaElf conviction: innocence is decided by a court.

I specifically cite the Al Taqwa banking system for *its* movement of funds as a way to examine how that is done within a larger article.

Note also that the transit system for funds is described by Lucy Kommisar and I am paraphrasing her words after a quotation linking to her work on that.

I thank you for informing the world, some few decades after published reports of the subject being Saddam Hussein's cousin that he is not. The time to correct that record, from what I have seen from multiple sites, was a couple of decades ago.

In describing how the 'nebula' of holders around BNP-Paribas interacted with Menatep bank and their work to shift funds via multiple systems to hide industrial gains in Russia, it is difficult to conceive of that as being 'small scale' or limited. Being part of that 'nebula' of ownership, and the largest minority, plus backing Russian firms seeking to go after such gains it is then incumbent upon those backing such institutions to ensure that they have no dealings with them and seek no gain from those things. As BNP-Paribas was interested in or took part in backing such companies looking to gain profit from the fall of Yukos, it is difficult to estimate how that could be a non-connection with interest in Yukos oil assets. Note articles citing that involvement with such companies. And even that the subject might become just a bit gunshy after having one of those deals turn sour on him!

I specifically cite that the subject is a passive investor in Orascom. I also note that he sought out the partnership and leave it up to a reader to examine the many, many links from defense sources, telecom sources and more general reporting sources to decide if I am giving a fair rendition of those events.

Freerepublic you will have to deal with on your own, but do note that I am not attributing post-war bribes to the subject, but as a listing of events looked at in the article.
===
To wrap this up:

I find it highly interesting that I am considered to be published in the UK! That means I am now global in scope, and so is each and every individual who posts anything, anywhere at anytime. As I make no money, as in zero income and a substantial time investment in this work, I gain zero benefit financially from it. And as my readership is low, due to the complexity of the work I present, I can barely say that I register on anyone's website statistics: not only is this work gaining minimal reading, but I expect that most readers will find it too challenging to read through one of my more or less normal posts.

Also, when looking to give a review, I link to multiple sides of a dispute if I can determine that: A) there is a dispute, and B) that it is ongoing. In each and every instance I have done so, to allow the careful reader to go to the linked sites. It is that discourse between individuals that can yield up facts end demonstrate how differences in viewpoint can lead to differences in opinion and recording of facts.

I have tried to give an honest effort at the 'fair use doctrine' while providing links to full articles. That is necessary so as to ensure that the reader can gain a good, overall feel for the larger document, present cogent viewpoints and otherwise demonstrate that excerpts are not 'cherrypicked'. Unfortunately those not used to reading on the web may not know how to recognize when material is quoted from other sites and when a direct rendition is being given.

When dealing with those that have substantial sums to invest in institutions, it is essential to point out when the institution is doing work and when the individual is doing work. That line gets blurred when the investment goes above that of other investors.

This is some of the most complex reading that an individual can run across and I endeavor, at each and every point, to ensure that links are put in place, that I separate out the views of others by demarcating them and otherwise ensuring that readers know they are getting quotations and to otherwise make sure that there are separations between what I garner from those views and those views, themselves.

It is unfortunate that the subject wishes to have such things taken down as it is that conversation, held in the open, and openly cited and linked, that can give understanding and credence to a wider view and better understanding of events. Instead of assertions, I perform linkages, often to primary documents and, if not those, then reputable researchers who link to the primary sources. It is that honest, open dialog and understanding that can work out exactly what events are, what they mean and what they imply beyond just those involved.
[END UPDATE]

This has been a few months to remember in politics with serious swings up an down on all sides with candidates going from front-runner to no-running and vice-versa in no time flat. Through it all, however, have been some sign posts that have been coming up again and again that, really, have been showing that there is an underlying set of associations between the rich and infamous and the current crop of politicians. Now not all the candidates, it is true, got to hob-nob with these folks, but the trend amongst the front-runners and well financed is interesting.

To start out lets get on with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) smiling his way to the nomination, if only he could shake the pesky associations with the Chicago Mob, its ties to the Democratic Machine and the relationship with one Antoin "Tony" Rezko. It is not everyday that one gets to see a Presidential candidate appear on the witness list of reputed mobster, and we might even get to hear the money exchanges between said mobster, Tony Rezko, Michelle Obama's interest in the neighbor's yard, and a bit of funding coming from the mobster's friend, Nadhmi Auchi, to help pay for the deal so that Mrs. Obama could have some 'gardening space' which would, more or less, include a whole lot next door. A lot owned by the Rezkos. Yes, all sorts of graft, corruption and cash moving around between foreign financiers, local Syrian born mobsters and a Presidential candidate will make one wonder just what the hell is going on. All of this because the friendly financier wanted to be the 'Donald Trump' of Iraqi origin in Chi-town, via land deals featuring lots in upscale areas... or soon to be upscale, at least. And a few folks realized it wouldn't look good to have a Presidential candidate of the 'new and clean' variety get a bit dirtied knowing these sorts of folks, so better to just forget it all, hmmm?

Apparently lots of folks want you to not even think about names like Rezko and Auchi because you just may have a nerve tingling on that letter one. The reason is that Nadhmi Auchi tends to have a *lot* of connections out there, due to his past, which starts with Saddam Hussein and continues on to this day getting to meet Bashar Al-Assad, President of Syria via his ties to the British parliament, Anglo-Arab organization. His main claim to infamy... no, wait a second... he has no *single* infamous claim that stands out above the rest. So it is best to start at the beginning and this article from The Observer on 06 APR 2003 (Source: waybackmachine) gives us the quick synopsis of that early life:

In a series of astonishing new developments in a story first broken by this newspaper two years ago, a fresh Observer investigation has discovered that Auchi:

· Was tried alongside Saddam Hussein for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate an Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad in the 1950s;

· Used money from military contracts in Iraq to establish a business and banking empire in Britain and Luxembourg; and

· Was employed to pay alleged bribes from Italian companies to win oil contracts in Iraq because of his close links to the regime.

The disclosures have already prompted opposition MPs to demand full details of Auchi's relationship with the Blair government.

Nadhmi Auchi's influence stretches to the highest levels of the British political establishment and he counts princes and presidents among his personal friends. The wealth of the Iraqi billionaire outstrips the Queen and Sir Richard Branson and has given him access to the rich and powerful from Crown Prince Abdullah of Jordan to Lord Sainsbury. He collects prominent former politicians from across Europe as directors of his companies.

Yes, quite the busy life! In the earlier article, that was updated on 16 NOV 2003 at The Observer in which Mr. Auchi responds to the original, we also see some of the other things that went on with Mr. Auchi including being conveniently out of Iraq when Saddam staged his final coup in 1979 and executed 66 Ba'ath party members, including Mr. Auchi's brother. Mr. Auchi would not only include lucrative arms deals via front companies in Panama, but also dealing with the Italian Mafia. This from the report:

In the mid-1980s he got to know Pierfrancesco Pacini Battaglia, a man whose role in directing money to politicians led Italians to call him 'the one below God'. Saddam Hussein had ordered the construction of a pipeline from Iraq to Saudi Arabia. Battaglia and Auchi secured the contract for a Franco-Italian consortium. In a statement to New York lawyers Battaglia alleged he knew how. 'To acquire the contract it was necessary, as is usual, especially in Middle Eastern countries, to pay commission to characters close to the Iraqi government... In this case, the international intermediary who dealt with this matter was the Iraqi, Nadhmi Auchi.' Auchi has denied any wrong-doing.

The scandals unearthed by the 'Clean Hands' investigating magistrates destroyed a generation of corrupt Italian politicians. But they didn't affect Auchi. He carried on receiving the compliments of Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat leaders, a tasteful water colour from Lord Sainsbury and sober advice from the presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament.

For those of you who remember the days when Italy seemed to go through a government a year, this was part of the investigation causing the turmoil. So that gets one up to the late 1980's... but Mr. Auchi would continue to be busy, so busy that he would get caught up in a few scandals as seen in this Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy at Fordham University cache of article summaries, from 2003:

LONDON: FRANCE DEMANDS EXTRADITION OF ARRESTED IRAQI BILLIONAIRE FRIEND OF UK POLITICIANS- Nadhmi Auchi the Iraqi billionaire with controversial links to Saddam Hussein's regime was arrested in London this week on a French extradition warrant after two years under British protection. Auchi whose Business Empire is worth more than Pounds 1bn, is expected to appear corruption trial involving the giant oil firm TotalFinaElf. The trial, expected to start next month, will involve testimony about Mr Auchi's alleged role in channeling a pounds 28m commission from the French oil company to buy an oil refinery from its Kuwaiti owners. British politicians linked to Auchi included former Tory chancellor Norman Lamont, former Tory health minister Gerry Malone and former Conservative Home Office minister, Tom Sackville, who resigned from a board of one of the banks Mr Auchi bought into, BCN of Germany. Scotland Yard is quoted as saying Auchi is bailed to appear at a London magistrates Court on April 8, 2003. His business empire is also involved in pounds 27m lawsuit by the National Health Service, which claims one of Auchies pharmaceuticals firms, is one of those that colluded to overcharge the NHS for the drug warfarin. (The Guardian 02 Apr 2003 summary by Davis Joseph Weddi).

He would go on to be convicted of the charges under TotalFinaElf and get 15 months suspended sentence for it. At the 10th International Anti-Corruption Conference Jean-Francois Medard presented a paper on the relationship between Elf, Angola and individuals at the head of the banking concerns involved, like Nadhmi Auchi (and for a not officially published work you can't quote from, it is excellent). The resultant method used to ensure that funds, arms, oil and company assets would not be easily traced is what is termed 'a nebula of networks' and I commonly refer to as person-to-person trust-based networks. As many have heard about jobs 'it is not what you know, but who you know' the exact, same thing goes on for illegal transactions of arms, equipment and money laundering. It is a question of who you know and who they trust who can help lead to getting whatever needs to be done, accomplished. This includes not only the direct p2p network, but also trusted organizations and the individuals in them, so that things like Masonic Lodges (quite the societal networking group for European business and mafioso) in which the establishment, itself, represents a node on the p2p network.

It is this network that would include individuals like Pierre Falcone, Etienne Leandri, Charles Pasqua, Marc Rich, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Nadhmi Auchi and organizations like Elf, the corrupt Menatep Bank of Russia (used by the Abromovich organization) and the Bank of New York system compromised by the Berlin couple and Semion Mogilevich. By exchanging Angolan debt and cash from other parts of the system, the entire affair was able to arrange for arms to be shipped illegal to Jonas Savimbi in Angola. That entire deal, involving so many multiple level 'cut-outs' in the banking structure (between BNP and the corrupt BoNY system), off-shore banks and money transfers (mostly to paper front companies) plus the high level of individuals and organizations ensured that no one would be able to properly figure the whole thing out. Just to be sure, President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich due to his high level of involvement in that and with the Russian Mafia.

Yes a busy 1990's for Nadhmi Auchi that would see, beyond this, beyond his overcharging for medications in the UK and generally making money hand over fist, he would also be involved with the other TotalFinaElf scandal: Oil For Food. This would become Saddam Hussein's main method of money laundering and moving funds outside the oversight of the UN because the UN, quite plainly, lacked the ability to conduct oversight on the entire affair. It says a lot when Saddam was able to tell the UN to use BNP-Paribas which just happens to have Nadhmi Auchi as its largest shareholder. One of the recent sidelights of BNP-Paribas is its takeover of a previous bank used to support Saddam Hussein's regime: Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). Actually he may have been involved in that, but, as Kenneth Timmerman points out in a 01 NOV 1996 document (Source: gulfweb) it may have had so many high level individuals on both sides of the political aisle involved, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, that the Dept. of Justice let those things that might actually still be prosecutable slide under the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations.

What was apparent, however, is that the system that Saddam had been setting up since the 1960's and 1970's to supply Iraq and launder its funds had demonstrated its capability. In the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal of DEC 2000, Amatzia Baram looks at how that system operated on a p2p level and was utilized to undermine OFF and ensure that there would be a supply of arms and munitions for the Iraqi regime, plus funds available for enticing French, German and Russian companies into pressuring their governments to remove the sanctions. On 13 APR 2003 the Times Online (UK) would publish the background on how the system set up by Said al-Mahdi for Saddam worked in the west.

Like the work seen in TotalFinaElf and its 'nebula', the al-Mahdi system would feature numerous offshore companies and accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Panama, Bahamas and elsewhere. The account also links those to the French firms Dassault and Thomson-CSF, along with Russian arms manufacturers that continued to sell to Iraq during the sanctions. Other firms included in this web are Dumynta, Radistal and Technoservice International (Vaduz). The funding web, itself, would go much farther, however, and the reporting of Lucy Komisar on 02 JUN 2004 would show the connections between Saddam Hussein's al-Mahdi system and the Taqwa banking system used by al Qaeda:

The Banca del Gottardo in Lugano, Switzerland, moved al-Qaida money via the Al Taqwa bank, a shell bank that operated through correspondent accounts at the Gottardo branch in Nassau. It also handled payments for the Saddam money network. The bank’s spokesman wrote, “Please be advised that we do not intend to make any comments or discuss any issues with you regarding the article you proposed in your e-mail.”

Banque Paribas, headquartered in Paris, with a significant portion of shares owned by Saddam’s cousin Nadhmi Auchi, moved money for the Al-Mahdi network in the 1980s and was the bank chosen to handle the Iraqi oil-for-food payments. In fact, Iraq insisted that Paribas handle the oil-for-food escrow account.

A corporate document for Al Taqwa Trade, Property and Industry Co. Ltd. of Liechtenstein — an al-Qaida network shell company also shut down by the United States — lists Banque Paribas, Lugano, where it had accounts. (Paribas in 2000 merged with another French bank to create BNP Paribas, with Auchi continuing as one of the largest shareholders.)

This puts Nadhmi Auchi's role in the banking system front and center, having BNP (and then BNP Paribas) serve as the transit bank for funds shifting from the al Qaeda banks of Al Taqwa and for the corrupt Al-Mahdi banks for Saddam Hussein. Saddam had sent his half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti, to Switzerland in 1968 (yes, you read that correctly) to scope out the lay of the financial land as he knew that Iraq would need a method to quietly and untraceably move funds for arms, munitions and other needs, so that Western institutions would have trouble tracking them. She then points to Said Rahim Hussein Al-Mahdi and Nadhmi Auchi as the key operatives sent in after that to establish ties with Said's father-in-law, who had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and who was already working for Barzan in Switzerland. Nadhmi Auchi's role was to establish multiple offshore companies and accounting systems, and would see the construction of a web of companies that were approximately one sheet of paper deep. Even more fun is that Banca del Gottardo is the subsidiary of the collapsed 'Vatican Bank', which had collapsed due to fraud via offshore companies. Al-Mahdi himself, however, would not resist temptation to skim funds and was executed in 1986 by beheading in Iraq.

Marc Rich, who had been indicted for tax evasion to the tune of $48 million dollars and illegally trading in Iranian oil after the revolution there, was *also* a part of this network. The Kroll report would detail the links between Marc Rich and Iranian banking sources and the ability to use those in shifting funds through the al-Mahdi and Al Taqwa systems. Before the 'Clean Hands' investigation in Italy, a previous Italian report had detailed the following:

After Roger Watson in 1987 became Saddam’s financial consultant, he also became an adviser to Auchi’s International Company of Banking and Financial Participations (CIPAF). According to official Italian documents, Auchi used Panama to launder kickbacks for two contracts for the Iraqi military. An Italian parliamentary report in 1987 said that one of them, Dowal, set up by Watson, was used to collect $23 million in hidden commissions on Baghdad’s purchase of warships manufactured by the Italian shipyard, Cantieri Navali Riuniti.

This sophisticated system of bribes, kickbacks, overcharges, offshore banks and companies would exist *before* the OFF scandal broke and *before* the Bank of New York penetration a bit less 6 years later by the Red Mafia. Nadhmi Auchi was no stranger to large scale financial fraud by the time OFF rolled around, to say the least, and had his own network clearly set up when the Red Mafia added its capability into as seen from the Angolagate material above. For a time the largest criminal and underground network for financial transactions and illegal purchases spanned from the Bank of New York (done by the Ivankov gang with help of Semion Mogilevich), trading in the largest industrial money laundering scheme seen in Trans World Commodities run by the Chernoy brothers and with the most complex schema of paper companies ever seen (or unseen) done by Simon Reuben, shift funds via BNP Paribas system to and from Iraq (my look at this part of the Red Mafia is here), Iran and al Qaeda, and include the burgeoning natural gas empire being shifted over to Dmitri Firtash in Ukraine (my look at DF Group is here). This banking and funds transfer system literally spanned the globe, reaching all the way to bank affiliates in China and Japan, to Australia, and across Africa and South America all the way to San Francisco and Vancouver, BC. While BCCI may have been a forerunner of this, it is dwarfed by orders of magnitude by this combined system and the complexity of it remains so opaque that multiple individuals running it remain not only free but uncharged with *anything* because no one in securities and banking investigation can figure it out. Or, as Jules Kroll points out, no one wants to figure it out.

To get an idea of how the Al Taqwa system worked there is the testimony of Steve Emerson before the House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, looking at this problem of terrorist funding, on 12 FEB 2002. He goes through the informal p2p ethnic systems like the Hawala system (my previous article on that and the Black Market Peso Exchange system is here) and then goes on to the more formalized Al Taqwa banking system:

Al-Taqwa was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1988 in the Bahamas and later in 1991 in Algeria, as the beginning of —establishing a world bank for fundamentalists“ aimed to compete with Western financial institutions.64 Al-Taqwa reportedly has other branches in Liechtenstein, Italy, Malta, and Panama with its headquarters in Switzerland. As a world bank for fundamentalists, al-Taqwa was open to money laundering with a number of terrorist organizations, most notably al-Qaeda and, in the past, Hamas.

Al-Taqwa enabled al-Qaeda‘s financial network to obscure its paper trail by transferring money from one al-Taqwa branch to another. French Intelligence officials claim that by 1999, the bank was channeling funds for Osama Bin Laden.65 A Swiss investigation that started in 2000 revealed that al-Taqwa transferred funds for Bin Laden from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to al-Taqwa‘s affiliates in Malta and then on to Switzerland and the Bahamas.

He then goes on to describe how institutions obscure their past via name changes, shifting of connections and other means so as to remove those prior connections from current institutions. Then by utilizing the paper companies and institutions offshore, the money trail becomes harder and harder to trace. After that he looks at HAMAS' Al-Aqsa Bank, Beit al-Mal, and its working with Citibank via Joint Ventures. Finally he examines the purely p2p courier system, for securely moving documents and cash via trusted routes and individuals outside of the banking system.

It is *that* system that was added on to the Al-Mahdi system of Saddam Hussein. As Lucy Komisar reports on 15 MAR 2002, this Al-Taqwa system was going on to the knowledge of the FBI for 4 years and it was only 9/11 that drove them to actually start looking at shutting it down.

Now to catch up on *another* scandal of Nadhmi Auchi, and that is the Clearstream scandal. Clearstream is, or was, the trusted financial transaction system for Europe to exchange currencies during financial moves overseas. This system, in theory, had its own safeguards to ensure that each financial transaction was from a reputable source, covering a reputable company with assured funds. Unfortunately it didn't work out so well and was compromised by the Bank of New York system and was then utilized by the likes of Auchi for shifting OFF funds through it via less than reputable banks and companies. This was part of the reason he was prosecuted by France on the Elf deal, as TotalFinaElf was also involved in the oil shipment end of Oil For Food.

Auchi's contacts via Angolagate and OFF would lead in two directions during the end of the BoNY phase of the system. The two cover almost the same timeframe but two distinctly different areas: 1) Yukos and the entire financial problems and scandals around the Russian oil giant, and, 2) Orascom and the cell phone scandal in post-invasion Iraq as Auchi flexed his financial and personal relationships in Iraq to land that deal. Going by size, then, is Yukos, which was part of the great 'oil bonanza' period in post-Soviet Russia that saw investors trying to throw money at anything with an oil well attached to it or a funding source with it. BNP Paribas would invest in Tyumen Oil (Source: Global Finance JUN 2002, via findarticles), Russian Standard Bank (Source: Global Finance SEP 2004, via findarticles) and $10 billion into Gazprom as part of the Yukos deal (Source: The Independent (UK) 30 DEC 2004, via findarticles). As Yukos failed under investigation for fraudulent deals, the various backers would start lining up for their share of it, and that would include BNP-Paribas.

On 01 NOV 2003 Lucy Komisar would start to look at the French raid of the offices of Menatep bank, the bank behind so much of the Red Mafia and Russian Oligarchs, and lists the transactions and major front companies utilized by Menatep in its financial fraud system. In just a bit over a year the entire arrangement had come apart, and the shaky finances underlying Yukos crumbled, as described by Kommersant on14 DEC 2004. A few days later the NYT on 18 DEC 2004 described the syndicate of banks unwilling to back bad money with good as the following:

A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman in London, Joanna McCulloth, declined to comment. But the syndicate of banks - which included Deutsche, J. P. Morgan, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Calyon and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson - will not be lending money to Gazprom in the next 10 business days or risk defying the judge in Houston.

Gazprom "strongly believes the decision was unfair and the filing of a bankruptcy proceeding by Yukos in the U.S. was an attempt to circumvent Russian law," said Nikolai Krylov, a partner at the Winston & Strawn law firm, which is representing Gazprom. "Their main assets were in Russia."

In one of the delightful turn-arounds of East-West relations, the Yukos representative in the US owning a single house in Houston was able to file for bankruptcy of the Russian oil giant in the US! No wonder the banks were upset... BNP Paribas, having been burned by Yukos and unable to get its money out of it also would pull out of its deal with Standard Bank. They would also try a lawsuit in the UK, but that would not work out, either, and so the thing slowly dragged on with no one wanting to declare Yukos fully dead, but not alive, either. By 21 MAR 2007 the very same syndicate of banks would try to back Rosneft's bid for Yukos, or what remained of it, but that wouldn't work out. This is one case where 'writing off the loan' just might be the best idea, but at $10 billion, I can see why they want their share of the remains.

This then takes us to the smaller part of things with Orascom, and Naguib Sawiris. Mr. Sawiris is an Egyptian who is the head of Orascom, and brought in a new IT director in 2004 to help out with the Iraq contract, but is also on the lookout to expand his cellphone business to Italy, which is pretty natural as head of one of the largest private equity groups in the region. This expansion would also see opportunity in Hong Kong and by moving into that market, Orascom would become one of the 10 largest telecom companies on the planet. That said, going into Italy it almost is a given that you will get corruption charges laid against you, as happened with Mr. Sawiris this year.

It is that Auchi backed deal in Iraq that, however, keeps coming up in the news, even once the contract was let in 2003. One of the major requirements was that anyone looking to provide cellphone service had to have actual backing inside Iraq. Also, there would be three contracts let for the North, Central and South of Iraq, so no one service would get the entire deal. Thus when Orascom backed by Mr. Auchi arrived the cry of 'cronyism' went up (Source: Atwola 09 NOV 2003, NY Daily News 10 NOV 2003) which would lead to investigations delaying the contracts (Source: Globalsecurity 14 NOV 2003). By 16 NOV 2003 the Guardian's Nick Cohen would write about The Politics of Sleaze and then apologize for a few parts once Mr. Auchi complained in 2007. By 26 NOV 2003 the Financial Times was looking at how a swift cellphone process had become entirely bogged down due to the cronyism charges. They, too, would apologize to Mr. Auchi about getting some facts wrong. In DEC 2003 the African and Middle Eastern Telecom Newsletter was reporting that there were accusations of vote rigging in who would get the cellphone contracts. As would the Baltimore Sun.

On 22 JUN 2004 Defense Tech would report the military was going to cancel the cellphone contracts because Orascom was on the verge of bankruptcy. And on 01 AUG 2004 the Times Online would publish (cache here) a report on some of the problems of OFF, BNP Paribas, and Orascom, and here is what the view taken by Mr. Auchi on Orascom was:

However, last November the businessman was fined £1.4m and received a 15-month suspended sentence in France for receiving illegal commissions from Elf, the oil firm.

He has extensive hotel, banking, construction and aviation interests in the Middle East. Another company in which he has a significant stake, Orascom, won a contract to provide a mobile phone network in Iraq after the war. But American officials now allege that the firm paid bribes of more than $10m to secure this deal.

Auchi says he is a passive investor in the firm, had nothing to do with the mobile phone contract and is unaware of any wrongdoing.

Yes, just a 'passive investor', so don't blame him for any problems in his home country! I am sure he had *nothing* to do with finding 'local representatives' or investors! A UN report in DEC 04 would be a bit more prosaic noting that Orascom had over-promised and under-delivered on service, quality and quantity of units. By 20 FEB 2005 The Age of Australia would report on the corruption involved with the Orascom deal and even that the late Yasser Arafat had been an *investor* in it. By 25 APR 2007 PM Maliki would be demanding payment of $250 million for the licenses to operate in Iraq from each of the three companies involved, as part of an extended deal. Orascom would finally have enough of this and sell its Iraqi unit to a Kuwaiti firm called Iraqna.

What did catch my eye during this, however, was a Newsmax article cache at Freerepublic of 24 NOV 2005 that looked at Mr. Auchi, post-war bribes, and the companies involved with Orascom:

Another major supplier of equipment for the Iraqi cellular system is French-based Alcatel. The French communications company has already been linked to BNP Paribas. Alcatel profited from U.S. and Iraqi money supplied to rebuild the war-torn country.

"The winners in the Iraqi cellular license tender were Saddam's most senior financiers, their Egyptian and Iraqi supporters, the bank BNP Paribas, European cellular corporations - particularly Alcatel and Chinese telecom interests such as Huawei," states the May 2004 Defense Department report.

"If the French had provided a couple of divisions to take Baghdad they could not have gotten more," concluded John Shaw with disgust.

Now that is not a name that I really expected to see in Iraq, again, as the article points out the Chinese company in question had supplied a fiber optic air defense comm system to Saddam pre-war. So a bit of looking into things and, sure enough, on 24 SEP 2004 the People's Daily Online announces that Huawei is getting backed by BNP Paribas for putting in a network in Algeria. And Nigeria. This also brings up the problem of the Huawei deal to try and buy 3COM which is *also* being backed by BNP Paribas. And that brings up a connection to another Presidential candidate in this, that I had previously written about on this exact, same, topic: Mitt Romney.

You see Mitt Romney is the head of the Bain Capital group of companies and they have been working with Huawei ever since Huawei took a bit of Cisco technology and needed some backing to strongarm their way into the long distance router/services market. This has raised alarm bells all over the place as Huawei is seen as an organ of the People's Liberation Army of mainland China, and is more than willing to exploit any and all technical advances it can get its hands on. That deal is nearly dead, but their Joint Venture continues on. Amazing to think that there are now firm connections by Nadhmi Auchi to Barack Obama, both the Clintons (via Marc Rich) and now to Mitt Romney (via Huawei).

This, then, brings us to the next connection to make and that is going back to Russia again. Here the name is familiar to me, and I've been doing some side research on it and, well, lets just take a look at the article via Miningweb 03 JUL 2007:

The more insiders like Goldman and Gilbertson leave Rusal disgruntled, the more evidence that could be sought from them to indicate what, until now, the insiders have been reluctant to concede that they have even discussed - what is Deripaska's ongoing relationship with Cherney, and why doesn't he pay him off? This question has become especially sharp for US citizens working for Deripaska, since it was revealed that sometime between July and October of last year, the US Government decided that Deripaska's undertakings to it lack the veracity to warrant his retaining his entry visa. US citizens with potentially culpable knowledge of Deripaska's business practices in Tajikistan, Nigeria, and Guinea, for example, include Peter Clateman, Rusal's general counsel, and the new coordinator of the legal side of the IPO. Under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Clateman is liable to answer the allegations lodged in ongoing or decided court cases filed in the US and UK, regarding payments to foreign officials. US bankers and banks, through which Rusal's cash to and from Tajikistan and Nigeria, has flowed, appreciate they may be in a similar position.

It is noteworthy that the banks reported to be in line for Rusal's IPO mandate - JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Deutsche Bank - don't include a bank from the large syndicates which have loaned money to Rusal over the past six years, since its formation. In June, Rusal announced a $2 billion secured fund-raising by ABN AMRO, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Calyon, Citi, ING, Natexis and Societe Generale. Why is there no overlap? Why aren't the banks which know Rusal best also participating in the IPO?

One reason is that the banks which have been lending cash to Rusal longest also have in place the most elaborate methods to secure repayment of aluminium loans, in the event of default. Thus, they know how Rusal's aluminium trading schemes work; why the metal changes title as it crosses the Russian frontier; and how title, metal and money move between intermediary traders, final users, and Rusal's profit centres.

Knowing the confidential secrets of Rusal's trading schemes - also the subject of a successful lawsuit against Rusal by the Reuben brothers of London - creates for the lending banks a knowledge of transaction risk, cashflow and taxation risk, which these banks have sworn to keep secret. They would be in a more exposed position towards unsecured share- buyers, a position they may not want.

Yes, BNP Paribas involved with Oleg Deripaska! Yes, I've written about him, too. He has been working hard to get a visa to get into the US, but the FBI has been shutting down that effort... but he had hired someone unexpected to lobby for him: Sen. Bob Dole. And he has worked just a bit more to spend some time with the final person to be connected to him via a meeting with Sen. John McCain.

There you have it, the billionaire once removed from all the major Presidential candidates: Nadhmi Auchi.

Who knew that Presidential politics would turn out to be so fun?

Sphere: Related Content

In that land of sleeping

Between the waking and the dreaming stand I, the single one unmet where it is neither light nor dark. A strange land of untwisting dreams that never come and of straight waking that never fully yields. Step there is simple and yet takes one to places not of dream or waking land beyond our normal possibilities of dream. When taking it step by step away from this which is our home one finds the worlds of what might have been, those worlds that sit with ours and yet can never be reached by normal means.

It is not a good land to see these places and what is striking is the golden life of where I come from and the barrenness that surrounds that line make it ever brighter. Step and step and step is tiring in its own way and when awakened the slide is not the ending of dream but liquid vision of what might have been. This our lucky home by circumstance sits amidst the failed dreams of those who may have been like us, yet they each and every one for world upon world had failed in their making of their dreams.

Although the barrier of waking and dreaming does not permit the foreigner to see directly, the senses still pick up the shadow feeling of outline and circumstance. Well said, it was, that our time is one quite precious as the punishment for mistakes or missteps during times of brutal frozen conflict were extreme and sudden. These worlds, next door to ours, is where we had failed or our fathers or grand fathers or forefathers, each had created something that held deep within a final trouble that ended not just their dream but their world entire.

Some of those lands have frigid feel, of a scorched earth that had made their world suddenly go chill and done so recently through accident or blinded design. While man is not gone his very survival is not assured this time as, like times past, the changes coupled with sudden loss puts these other world people to the brink of ending along with many another life upon what was once a life supporting home. In snuffing out civilization the world now seeks to snuff them out entire, with reason and thought deemed a failure in survival.

Other worlds have the same feel of warm and balmy clime that had, like its icy brethren, reached deeply into what once had been thriving civilization and had now turned into tumbled, blasted ruin. These worlds hold better hope for man, yet the numbers are so few and what in our world is a teeming throng passing from waking to dreaming is, there, a lightly scattered crowd. Life itself is not under threat, but the balance of survival pits the once ill-ready against savage nature and only there can forethought prevail, even as it loses the underpinnings of creating common protection as the evil that brought them there is shunned.

Then there are the very few, very scattered worlds that still hold teeming masses, but they live in a wasteland of their own design, giving spirit up to rulers so that decisions and living is taken from their hands. These lands of broken promises and promises over fulfilled are, in many ways, worse than those others as their ends are understandable. While many upon many pass from waking mien to dreaming, there is a sameness on both sides of that veil as they have committed themselves to no dream worth attaining and have no waking life of meaning. In these lands adjacent to these worlds, the impression of the end of man is better transmitted as those thinking minds have given in to having no spirit and they communicate that in their fleeting moments in that nether land in which I dwell.

Here is the land of dream escaped into the waking world, and each one carries different names but they are the aspects of a single, deadly dream. That is the dream of controlling one's fellow man so as to make a better world or to stand with a homeland forever, just so long as one does not say 'nay'. Also is the great dream of Empire holding sway and impoverishing the life of humanity yet again as the great dream brooks no opposition and has final power with those that hold it closely.

Within such worlds as these there is also the dream of accommodating the beast of control, giving it more and more and more until there is nothing left to give save life... which had been its aim all along.

Some of these lands come through valor and victory and find themselves in the ashes of dream fulfilled. By chaining will to others they had not foreseen that they would have no will left nor say in their final outcomes as all was taken from them and crushing power ground the meaning of their lives into the ashes of victory.

Those that had brokered with their inner demons found that those demons through shells of imperfect man had thought that having lesser evil would halt the spread of evil but, instead, found lesser evil taking them to pave the way for greater as they no longer could distinguish between the good and the evil.

It is these last worlds that give most trouble as I wake into the storm of our discontent, with democracy failing us all around. By no longer drawing distinctions and being told that doing so was 'bad' we have, instead, permitted darkness to walk our lands to berate us in our never being dark enough to suit it. By watering down our thoughts and beliefs, we gain castigation for not submitting to further watering still, and try to bargain with the dark creature of dreaming land walking in our waking realm. Whenever you hear that lesser evil is still better than greater, the lack of understanding is that evil is given face and voice to walk our bright lands and put all we had dreamed of at peril.

That storm has come and our ability to distinguish between evils is now taken to be far better than distinguishing between the good and the evil. The echoes of not being enough like those that have taken greater evil to heart and that is somehow bad which we must amend. Just give up dream of leading one's life, of following one's spirit and of doing good by doing well so that all your toil goes to commonness and the uncommon is despised as evil, when it has created so much good for all. That most twisted dream now warps our very lives so that we start to become like the worlds of dead human spirit.

Their planets may flourish with life, but they hold no meaning, when those great dreams walk the waking world and will not be put aside nor attacked any more. And of the worst thing of those other worlds seen only from that land of unwaking and undreaming is that these fetters given to others was done voluntarily to finally submit to the control of those dreams, and for the great mass of humanity to be enslaved by it. These dreams spoke falsely in their desire for that end, and twisted every good of charity and desire to ensure one's fellow man did well to the iron rod of forcing all to submit to common will.

The poison of those dreams came cloaked in sugar so that it would be readily and quickly swallowed and then, only as one went through the box of sweets with deadly poison, did one realize that a deadly dose had been administered. The sweetest words of beneficence in the hands of harsh punisher means deadlier punishment still, as it mouths the words but seeks its vile ends of extinguishing all good within each and every one of us.

We hear its words daily.

"He, at least, is not as bad as the others, so rally to our flag of not so evil!"

"They will not give more to make everyone well, so take it from them for that good end!"

"Those that have failed in life do not need a hand up to better and meaningful life, keep them in their poverty of failure and give up your good earnings for that!"

"You are bad not to commit to the lofty ideals of control that others have taken, you must take them up yourself."

"The children need our protection and, you know, it took a village to do that, but we have given up the spirit of village so just hand over the power to your betters."

"He is not good, but rally to the party as it is not as evil as the other one!"

"One man's dream can chain you and you will love it, yes you will!"

"These chains were made by reaching across the aisle, and they are so good for having been made from lesser and greater evil, aren't they?"

"Let me rule to abolish your wealth as you are too unwise to spend it right, and I will never need to reveal my wealth as it is above reproach."

One reason I find it hard to distinguish between the dreaming and waking worlds is that we have decided that nightmares are fit for our waking land and have unleashed them to work their will upon our frail spirits.

I am not moved to join the rallying around the flag of lesser evil, for some strange reason.

For they have joined the army of evil entire and now willingly march against the good.

Many do not feel this storm, so used to twisted thought and outlook they have become inured to lashes of their evil ways.

When you find that your best choices are between lesser evils, then it is time to admit failure and attack *both* so as to protect the good.

Untwisting the edifice of evil that has warped our dreams and souls is hard work and start one must admit that they have failed in their outlook and that the current dream has been hijacked by nightmare.

In being quiet one acquiesces to that evil.

In doing nothing one helps that evil.

And in attacking those that point out the evil ways being inflicted upon us, you give the direct voice to those dark dreams of power, control and enslavement.

It goes by ancient name, that dream of many aspects.

But its worse is called Empire.

It is the enemy of liberty.

My enemy.

And yours if you can still recognize it.

Sphere: Related Content

The Senator and his tax outlook

Sen. McCain has an interesting view on taxes, as given via the WSJ interview of 03 MAR 2008 (H/t: The Corner via Instapundit):

Q: On ABC's "This Week" on Feb. 17, in response to a question, "Are you a 'read my lips' candidate, no new taxes?" you replied, "No new taxes." Did you mean that literally?

A: I'm not making a "read my lips" statement in that I will not raise taxes. But I'm not saying I can envision a scenario where I would, OK? But I'm not making it a centerpiece in my campaign.

I want lower taxes. I want the family to keep more of their money.

That Sen. McCain may not mean what he says on taxes is not a new phenomena as he had run on a similar platform the last time he ran for President in 2000. On 07 FEB 2000 The National Review (the folks who run The Corner) looked at Sen. McCain's plan like this (via findarticles):

John McCain's tax plan may reasonably be described as Bush Lite. Like Bush, he cuts or eliminates the estate tax, the Social Security earnings test, and the marriage penalty; like Bush, he expands the tax credit for children. He falls short of Bush in cutting marginal tax rates: Where Bush cuts across the board, McCain only cuts rates for some people in the 28 percent tax bracket. McCain does more for individual investors than Bush: The senator would create new family savings accounts and liberalize 401(k)s, education savings accounts, and medical savings accounts. But McCain raises taxes on corporate investment in the name of closing "loopholes." His rhetoric, meanwhile, has been worse than his proposal. He suggests that Bush's tax cut is so large that it endangers Social Security-as though the government could possibly tax its way into solvency for that program. When McCain said that Bush's tax cut was "unfair"-i.e., too generous to the rich-he should have known that no tax cut could be "fair" by the liberal definition he was using. Now that he has unveiled his tax plan, liberal critics are saying that it is almost as biased toward the rich as Bush's. McCain has only himself to blame for that-and for letting Bush get to his right on taxes.

Yes, he campaigned on 'fiscal responsibility' of the old school of: grow government and taxes to pay for it. It was described by Donald Lambro on 21 JAN 200 in Human Events (via findarticles) as 'tax-and-spend liberalism' and in that he was like the other 'maverick' on the Democratic side, Bill Bradley. Apparently to gain 'moderates' Sen. McCain would reach out via a form of liberal attack on candidate Bush's tax plan [all spelling errors in the original for all findarticles material]:

Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential primary, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is sounding more and more like a Democrat as he attacks Gov. George W. Bush's tax-rate reductions as a scheme Ao help the rich."

Using the same demagogic liberal rhetoric that we are used to hearing from Bill Clinton, Al Gore and House Democrats like Richard Gephardt of Missouri and David Bonior of Michigan, McCain says Bush's tax plan is "unfair because it favors the rich." "sixty per cent of the benefits from his tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10% of Americans, and that's not the kind of tax relief that Americans need," McCain said.

In fact, Bush's tax-rate reduction plan, which reduces the number of tax brackets from five to four, calls for larger rate reductions for the bottom brackets than it does the top brackets. Even Robert Reischauer of the Brookings Institution, who does not support tax cuts, concedes Bush's rate reductions are "progressive," and tilt more toward lower income people.

Bush would take millions of workers in the 15% tax bracket and put them in a 10% bracket. McCain merely expands the 15% bracket.

Arizona Senator Opposes Reaganite Cuts

The left-leaning Arizona senator knows better. But he opposes the kind of across-the board income-tax cuts Ronald Reagan signed in 1981, and that Bush proposes now. McCain thinks the economy will not grow beyond the low 2.4% projected by the administration and the Congressional Budget Office, and that the budget surpluses won't get much larger than current forecasts.

To whom is McCain listening? His decinist fiscal gum is former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman, who is fixated, Hoover-like, on paying down debt instead of spurring economic growth. Rudman and the Concord Coalition he heads are notorious for being against tax cuts.

McCain wants to spend not only the Social Security surpluses to pay down the debt (which is already in decline), but also much of the non-Social Security, general-fund surplus, too-leaving little to cut excessively high tax rates.

This is not the cause of free-market economic growth that Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp championed, and that Bush champions now. It is a left-leaning, debt-obsessed, bigspending agenda that says the top tax rates are fine where they are and that the surplus should not be given back to the people who earned it. No wonder Mr. McCain is doing poorly in just about every state except New Hampshire.

Of course conservatives could have cut the size of government, while they were at it, so that there would be less spending, too. Given just a smidge of cash liquidity, couldn't 'fiscal conservatives' figure out that the leading cause of increased government spending is this thing known as "Increased Government"? Apparently not. What is even more interesting, of course, as that spending bills for the budget originate in Congress and a bit of leadership in Congress could go a long, long, long way towards getting some of this 'fiscal responsibility'. Even before the primaries were over, Sen. McCain would have a wonderful chance to demonstrate such leadership from the Senate on a bill to give one of the highest post-WWII tax cuts to everyday Americans seen up to that point in time. Wouldn't that have been a delicious and ironic way to undercut fellow Presidential candidate George Bush? The following comes from a Human Events article from 18 FEB 2000 by Mike Catanzaro (via findarticles):

One day before the scheduled floor vote on the Senate Republicans' proposal to relieve the highest tax burden since World War II by passing a $792-billion tax cut, the Republican whips were working desperately to find the 51 votes needed for victory As the clock ticked away, they were stuck at 47.

John McCain--presidential candidate and self-professed "conservative" reformer-was not among them.

The effort to stop this bill was being led by Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and John Chafee (R-RI). Sen. McCain explained his opposition to a tax cut package that would gotten rid of the estate tax, marriage penalty and cut rates across the board for this reason:

" [S]pecial interests get the biggest breaks," McCain said, "[and] American families get the leftovers."

What he was carping over was some of the very pork barrel spending, at a scale far, far lower than it is today, cutting some corporate taxes and helping businesses turn chicken waste into energy. Mind you this would have carried out his same *campaign promises* seen just two weeks previously and he could easily have written off some of the small amounts of pork as a necessary deal to get his economic program in place BEFORE THE ELECTION. He would have had a 'two-fer' of substantiating his own Republican credentials and his tax views while undercutting his opponents by doing something his opponent could not do: vote for a package containing those promises.

What would it take to convince him? That gets to be very interesting:

Hours before the vote, McCain remained undecided. Sen. Phil Gunin (R-Tex.), joined by several other conservatives, personally lobbied him to change his mind. McCain at last relented-but only when aides advised him that he would have to defend a "no" vote on the Sunday talk shows.

Mr. Principle made a last-minute public relations decision.

A month later, McCain was back ridiculing as anti-populist and pro-Washington the tax cut he had voted for. "It galls me and enrages me when you see all these tax breaks for special interests," he said. "It's a cornucopia of good deals for special interests, and a nightmare for common citizens."

Yes he would no longer be the 'maverick' or 'media darling' if he voted for them so he voted for them... and then denounced that very same package. Sen. McCain's views on taxation would run afoul of those who see 'populism' not in the pushing of 'popular' packages, but in actually giving money back to the people:

And last month he declared, "I don't know why these millionaires or billionaires need a tax cut ... I'm not giving tax cuts for the rich." "Did you ever hear [Ronald] Reagan say anything like that"" responded an angry Martin Anderson, who served in the Reagan White House as an economic and domestic policy adviser, pointing out that the fair-minded Reagan cut taxes across the board.

Writing in the Manchester Union-Leader, Anderson said, 'McCain's policy views on taxes and limiting and controlling free speech in political campaigns are not a continuation of Reaganism-they are old-fashioned leftwing liberalism. Any man who could boldly advance such ideas will think of other similar ideas if we give him power." I know Ronald Reagan," said Anderson, "and John McCain is no Ronald Reagan. Not even close. Maybe close to Nelson Rockefeller."

Even Rep, Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), one of McCain's few congressional backers, tuned suddenly skittish when asked about Ins candidate's Clintonesque approach to taxes. On NBC's 'Meet the Press" January 9, he said, "John should focus on what his tax plan does."

Even better is that those closing of 'loopholes' in the McCain proposals would have eliminated corporate and business benefits to encourage businesses to provide insurance premiums, transit passes and the like, and those cost shifts would go to either eliminate those benefits as they are taxed, or cut wages. By changing the structure of the Earned Income Tax Credit, he would apply a double-whammy to low income folks by reducing those checks in his expansion of the 15% tax bracket downwards. Sen. McCain's previous work on this, in 1998, went down to defeat in the Senate in the class based 'Middle Class Tax Relief Act' so consistency in class warfare based tax proposals can be given to Sen. McCain.

To be fair I also criticized current retired candidate Mitt Romney for these exact, same views on taxation and 'closing loopholes' as not raising taxes... although they end up raising taxes (as seen from the Cato Institute's Fiscal Policy Report Card). But Sen. McCain, at the National level, has wider purview to enact legislation across the US, and seems unable to grasp the problem of taxing money that gets put into the economy for economic stimulus instead of in government spending which, when it finally does find its way into the economy, is used for ephemeral benefits.

Mr. Catanzaro's article is worth a lengthy read as it goes through the things that Sen. McCain proposed to be 'fairer' with taxes by going after middle-class benefits. He had also backed reductions for incentives on charitable giving based on property appreciation, so that if one held something of value that increased substantially over time, you would not be able to spend that money on charitable giving and get a tax write-off for an amount greater than the original value. This would have hit the holders of technology and business stocks hard during the boom years of the internet or for any investor that has wisely chosen fast growing investments.

Now, Sen. McCain could claim that he was going after ALL tax based incentives and benefits, across the board, but then one comes to the question: why not a flat tax? Instead we get attempts to 'tweak' the current system, close 'loopholes' which end up costing the poor and middle class disproportionately, and discourage savings and investment via stocks, bonds and funds vehicles. The idea of getting more money into the hands of everyday Americans is exactly what Ronald Reagan was about, and that was across the board.

Sen. McCain would not be beyond using the tax system and guiding regulatory plans for putting his own views into things and creating loopholes of his own, however. From this 26 APR 1999 TV Digest with Consumer Electronics article (via findarticles):

Other legislators at convention said there was little support in Congress for raising TV ownership caps. McCain addressed NAB via satellite, staying in Washington to introduce Senate resolution calling for use of necessary force in Kosovo. In his taped comments, McCain said he will hold hearings next month on broadcast ownership rules and on how to create "a new Y2K ownership diversity program" that will include new tax certificates --- policy advocated by FCC Comr. Powell, who was McCain's choice for Commission. In speech dominated by discussion of Kosovo policy, McCain criticized FCC for trying for 30 years to remove barriers to entry in broadcasting "with great vigor and a resounding lack of success." He said Commission should "work with entrepreneurial and market forces, not against them," and should use "private sector initiatives in a creative way that will benefit industry participants as well as new entrants." Republican Congress eliminated tax certificate program in one of its first acts after taking over in 1995, although minority ownership levels hadn't risen appreciably when program was in place.

[..]

McCain criticized FCC for failing to acknowledge that "the best entrepreneurial opportunities in the telecom industry aren't in broadcasting any more," and for coming up with microradio proposal. He denounced microradio policy, asking: "What possible diversity interest is advanced, what kind of opportunity is created, by manufacturing thousands of tiny new radio stations in an already overpopulated, transitional market?" He said that if FCC wants to enable more people to share their views, then Web or cable access channels work better.

The microradio proposal was that to allow small, low power community radio broadcasters to use parts of the spectrum for local broadcasts. Do remember the internet of 1999 was not the great multi-media thing it is today, but a rather limited area where getting actual connection and ability to surf the net was difficult. What microradio intended, however, was to increase the 'ownership' of broadcasting to local communities, and that would then serve those communities and as an outlet venue for local news and views. Combined with the internet, this would allow radio stations in places like the Balkans to continue 'service' even after their facilities had been attacked. The upshot of this was that Sen. McCain wanted to have more 'minority ownership' in *traditional* broadcasting and cable channels, which tend towards the monopolistic side of things. The internet would boomerang on views of upholding that MSM monopoly while microradio would face a long and entrenched fight against the national networks who were loathe to give up under utilized or used parts of the spectrum.

The final bill that Sen. McCain would come up with, as seen at TV Digest with Consumer Electronics on 20 SEP 1999 (via findarticles) would be the standard hodge-podge of special interest tax breaks that would require more government regulation to determine just who is and is not: a minority, special interest, poor. All of that would be left up to the Dept. of Commerce to decide upon via, yes, regulation. Yes, the public money would be spent on defining minorities and special interest groups that were 'underserved' by media who wanted to start their own media outlets. Just don't try to get a low cost microradio transmitter, that just wouldn't do for poor folks.

If this sounds like something that is made to protect the entrenched MSM and marginalize local views to little used 'public community cable channels' that is because it is exactly that. Sen. McCain protecting the MSM, that press that so adores him in primaries.

Speaking of speech, this 01 MAY 1998 Capital Briefs article by Human Events (via findarticles) would look at the first reactions to Sen. McCain's campaign finance reform bill:

ONLY THE LONELY: The voice of the late Roy Orbison ought to be echoing in the ears of Sen. John McCain (R.Ariz.) these days. One of McCain's Republican Senate colleagues told HUMAN EVENTS last week that McCain is now"the loneliest man in town"-increasingly shunned by other Republican senators for his promotion of a campaign "reform" bill that would deny conservative groups their 1st Amendment right to communicate with voters during federal election campaigns, and, also, for his attempt to enact a tobacco deal that would result in more than $500 billion in new taxes.

Nonetheless, McCain is still seriously considering running for President in 2000. Says GOP pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, "I still can't figure out what country McCain is positioning himself to run in."

Some of us out here, beyond the beltway but close enough to see its influences, understand that sentiment exactly. And a bit further on we would find a *backer* of Sen. McCain's bill:

GOP LIBS BACKSTAB AGAIN: A group of 13 Republicans led by liberal Rep. Chris Shays (Conn.) joined with Democrats last week in signing a discharge petition that would force consideration on the House floor of a radical campaign finance reform bill. The measure would restrict conservatives' constitutional rights to engage in issue advocacy and could damage Republicans' political fortunes for the foreseeable future. As a result of these GOP defectors, the House leadership was forced to agree to bring campaign finance reform back to the floor in May.

There you go, bipartisanship from Republicans in BOTH Houses of Congress to restrict free speech during campaigns! Yes, that lovely 'bipartisanship' really would help so much in reducing freedom of speech, that one just can't craft an Incumbistanian policy without it.

Few people may remember the internet boom years of the 1990's, where venture capital would go to fund sock-puppets and millionaires were made and broken in a heartbeat, but that bubble economy produced a very strange thing in the US: a budgetary surplus for the federal government. Yes, this rarity in modern times was the godsend of an overheated tech sector combined with liberal banking rules that would see the Red Mafia penetrate the Bank of New York system and infiltrate the money exchanging Clearstream system, beloved of folks like Mogilevich, Abramovich and Auchi (for his own deals, needless to say). That ephemeral surplus (it was a bubble economy and most admitted that by the end of 2000) produced a lovely budget surplus and for one of the few times in American History we got to see how political parties could handle an economic boom. It was already in decline by 2001 and heading downwards, with 9/11 accelerating that to a year with no growth, economically. Just before that time, however, we got one of the few glimpses of just what sort of 'good times' fiscal policy would be floated by all and sundry on the political stage.

On 07 FEB 2000, Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review (via findarticles) had a chance to look at the division within the Republican party during the primary season. This would not be a pretty look at Sen. John McCain's fiscal policy:

The Bush-McCain dispute concerns the non-Social Security surplus, projected (like the Social Security surplus) to be $2 trillion over the next decade. Bush wants to return much of this surplus to taxpayers. His campaign estimates that his tax-cut plan would reduce federal revenues by $483 billion over five years (assuming it doesn't increase economic growth, which would add back some revenue). McCain describes this as "fiscally irresponsible." He wants a smaller, $237 billion tax cut, partially offset by tax increases on corporations. But he wants to spend 5 percent of the non-Social Security surplus to reduce the national debt, and to save 62 percent of it for Social Security. Since the saving has to be done through debt reduction, McCain's policy amounts to using two- thirds of the non-Social Security surplus to reduce the debt.

Why 62 percent? McCain says he's making good on President Clinton's 1999 promise to devote 62 percent of the surplus to Social Security. Actually, McCain's going much further than Clinton: The president was referring to 62 percent of the total surplus of $4 trillion. McCain's talking about using the entire $2 trillion Social Security surplus, plus 62 percent of the $2 trillion non-Social Se curity surplus: a whopping $760 billion difference.

Clinton's promise was widely seen as a ploy to block tax cuts, and House Republicans might be expected to side with Bush rather than Clinton or McCain-with tax cuts rather than debt reduction. Yet in early January, House Speaker Denny Hastert announced that paying down the debt would be a priority for Republicans this year. He also made a long-term commitment: "We are putting together a plan to pay off all of our nation's debt so that our children will inherit a debt-free country." Only small tax cuts- relief from the marriage penalty and expanded educational savings accounts-are on the agenda.

Mr. Ponnuru then goes on to do a review of the utility of the Nation Debt and how it is used by the government to set monetary policy and how paying for a slightly more robust defense policy would make as much sense and have higher utility than paying down the debt. That would have been a worthwhile argument for Sen. McCain to make, in light of the problems Congress inflicted on DoD during the 1990's that left maintenance and supplies going wanting while President Clinton put out US troops for long periods in 'peace keeping' operations and then, promptly, forgot about them.

Many Congressional Republicans were up in arms about this abuse of power with the armed forces, committing them for a long period of time without coming to Congress to get sufficient funding for those missions. This so impacted the readiness of the Armed Forces that a Congressional Staff report in 1997 identified glaring weaknesses in training, maintenance and supplies that were eroding the capability of the Armed Forces to meet even modest 'peace keeping' missions. By 1999 the Army had two divisions, 10th Mountain and 1st Infantry, that had so been mishandled due to Presidential and Congressional neglect that they were at the lowest readiness seen since Vietnam. A further report on 26 SEP 2000, after the primaries were safely over, were a clear indictment of how the problems caused by both branches of government reached out to impact one of the most highly trained units in the US Army, the 10MD. Sadly, Sen. McCain was not one of those calling for accountability by the President for those long-term 'peace keeping' missions that had not been properly scoped nor authorized by Congress. A year is an expedient to meet a crisis, three years is lack of oversight or accountability. That is why, writing early in the year, Mr. Ponnuru was right to point out that spending more on the armed forces would have been wise, coming from those campaigning in 2000.

Mind you on 30 APR 2001 Sen. McCain would cross the aisle to vote for a DoD increase... but only because the money had a tax associated with it, thus making it 'fiscally neutral'. To the tune of $100 billion over 10 years, or $10 billion per year. No other Republican voted for that bill.

Now that plan from 2000 by Sen. McCain also was looked at by a small business trade group, and on 21 FEB 2000 here is what they had to say (via findarticles):

The Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC) today released its report card on the tax plans drafted by the leading presidential candidates.

Texas Governor George W. Bush scored highest with a B+, followed by Arizona Senator John McCain with a C-. Former Senator Bill Bradley received a D, and Vice President Al Gore received an F.

Released in the Entrepreneurial Economy, a special publication of SBSC, the report card is based on the impact each plan will have on the small business community.

Their President, Christopher Wysocki, would have this to say in particular about the McCain plan:

McCain tax plan is good in that it expands the 15% income tax bracket, strengthens medical savings accounts, and makes the ban on Internet taxes permanent, it also penalizes small businesses.

"The plan includes tax increases on small business by eliminating deductions for certain costs of doing business, and it fails to eliminate the heinous death tax. The plan also disproportionately hits charitable organizations that depend on contributions of appreciable assets.

Small Business Survival Committee? Have to love a group that has on its front page, currently:

How to Defend Against a Congressional Investigation

That is survival, all right, learning the best protocols to speak with the Emirs of Incumbistan. Special protocol and all for talking with Congresscritters and just their staff. Well, one assumes Big Tobacco knew all of that and yet they would get targeted for higher taxes, anyways.

Sen. John McCain would lead this battle and it would be, like all good Nannystaters, 'for the children'. M. Stanton Evans looks at Sen. McCain leading this charge on 03 JUL 1998 with The myth of the 3,000 kids at Human Events (via findarticles)[note original article had no emphasis in it]:

Washington is a city of statistics--and in the battle about tobacco, one statistic has been pounded home above all others: the "3,000 kids" who start smoking every day, presumably at the bidding of Joe Camel. This dreadful image was the oft-cited basis for Sen. John McCain's (R.Ariz.) sweeping, costly tax bill.

McCain himself has used this number incessantly in floor debate and comment to the press: "This has got to do with 3,000 kids every day starting to smoke," "every day, another 3,000 kids will start smoking," and so on. President Clinton, Sen. John Chafee (R.-R.I.) and countless other politicians have used the same statistic, in virtually the same phrasing.

[..]

However, if we check the basis for Kessler's numbers, we find the truth is not what is suggested by such statements. In 1996, for instance, he used the 3,000 figure in a piece that he and others at the FDA submitted to The New England Journal of Medicine. This is a well-respected scientific journal where one has to be more careful about what he says than in slapdash political forums, press interviews or debates in Congress.

In this we do indeed discover that "about 3,000 new smokers each day" come from the ranks of "young persons." So far, so good. If we keep going, however, we also read the following: "For purposes of this analysis, only persons aged 20 years and older are included, as information was not collected on younger persons in any consistent fashion over this time period." (Emphasis added.) Such is the ultimate basis for all the statements about "kids"!

Thus, through the statistical-verbal magic of Kessler and his friends, findings in which no one younger than age 20 was included morph into something dramatically different: From "young people" (in a science journal) to "kids"(in public forums), to subteens with cigarettes dangling from their lips in advertising pictures. The effect and purpose of these changes don't require much comment.

[..]

One cannot doubt that Sen. McCain has used this formula in good faith, assuming the data passed on by such as Kessler are valid. The fact remains that the entire uproar about "3,000 kids" is based on an intellectual con game.

This would serve as a basis for the Tobacco Tax, starting as an $885 billion McCain tobacco bil (Human Events, 12 JUN 1998) which would be the single biggest tax increase in history at that time. This would be resisted in a bipartisan fashion in the House (Human Events, 12 JUN 1998) as it was seen that a tax increase of this size, no matter what else it was partnered with, would not be politically feasible. Any resemblance to the dodgy science between 'greenhouse gas emissions' causing global warming and the McCain-Lieberman bill of recent vintage is purely intentional, as it, too, uses unrepresentative numbers, save that there even the numbers themselves have come under attack. It is hard to advance a progressive agenda without using the poor science and misrepresentation of progressives, but that is what you need to do if you are going to be 'bipartisan' these days.

Sen. McCain would also back the Franks-McCain bill to mandate that public schools and library deploy 'filters' to screen out pornography and not allow chat rooms on such devices (Insight on the News, 05 APR 1999). Again it was 'for the children' that adults need to restrict free speech instead of seeking things called 'parents' to monitor their children. Restricting the speech of adults because 'children may be harmed' is one of the most noxious potions brewed up by the Nannystate contingent as it purports that the protection of children is something that can only be done by government fiat, instead of by these individuals known as parents. Further, if public facilities wish to set up communications devices with large amounts of screening for children, they can already do so and label them as such and monitor them, without federal mandate. This is called a 'local issue' as it is best done locally by the community, not by bureaucrats in DC. While not directly a tax issue, if said bureaucrats wanted to limit, say, political speech during an election, they would have the grounds for their first mandate to do so. The first attempt to do this was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Online Newsletter, 01 NOV 1998) and trying this again with 'different language' did not seem to be and was not a winning concept the second time around.

So, will Sen. McCain press for more taxes if he becomes President? I am pretty sure he will try to 'close loopholes' first, which will effectively raise taxes. I've always wondered why those candidates running for President don't just say: 'by tradition there are some areas of the tax code that prior administrations have been lax on and I intend to make those permanent, thus safeguarding your income'. I know it is a non-starter for the progressives out there, but if the tax collection system has so many 'loopholes' then why not just stop making them in the first place? After that, loopholes being less than a few percent of income for the federal government (at $3 trillion, even 5% is only $150 billion), comes taxes, in which Sen. McCain has demonstrated his willingness to be 'fiscally responsible' and add to the tax burden of America. Not *just* to offset spending, but to increase 'sin taxes' and then promulgate his socially liberal views on restriction of the freedom of speech 'for the children' and politics. Nothing says 'freedom of speech' better than gags, after all. And if those require new mandates, I am sure Sen. McCain would be willing to put 'offset' taxes in place for them to be 'fiscally responsible'. Because we all pay for a bigger, more invasive government that just, somehow, can't collect its taxes. Or have politicians willing to advance a flat tax system so that there is equality of payment by all.

That *is* his record and he can run on many things, but he has not only *not* moved from his record he has stuck by it. And he can probably get enough bipartisan progressives to get those passed, too.

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The Pattern of the Pursuit

First they came for Monzer al-Kassar, the connections he has makes him one of the deadliest people to help spread transnational terrorism.  Those connections puts him close to so many, and makes him so valuable that his home Nation would threaten other countries to get his return.  For a man who can cause so much harm, it is no wonder they want him freed.

Then they came for one of the men who worked with al-Kassar, a cohort in crime from the Red Mafia, the man who's criminal empire makes it possible to hurt Nations by the control of energy supplies.  Yes, Semion Mogilevich pulled in for his misdeeds.  His empire continues on under steady and capable hands, stretching from China to Iberia and beyond.

After him there was the sudden ending of Imad Mugniyah, killer of Americans dating back to the early 1980's and one of the deadliest terrorists on the planet.  His ability to organize along with that of the al-Kassar family's connections put his work on a global basis in less than a decade after his entrance on the world stage.

Then came an arch-leader of FARC, Raul Reyes, brought down and killed, with some few of his cohorts captured and data with them.  This may ignite a regional war as the paths to Hugo Chavez and others are clearly demonstrated by the files capture with Reyes.

And today another of the great arms merchants, the merchants of death, Viktor Bout, has been rounded up and arrested.  A man tied to the Liberian civil war, the Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Osama bin Laden.

What is causing the round up of the Kingpins of Arms, the Dealers of Death and the Merchants of Narcotics?

Saddam is gone.

His files gone over.

The great ones are falling and quickly.

Who will be next?

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When in the course of human events...

When looking at the ability of the US to promulgate this thing known as 'Foreign Policy', it really does help if the Nation had some true goals and objectives to work towards! Yes, we hear fine things about 'spreading democracy' and to help this along the current Administration puts forward a lovely concept from the State Dept for the Middle East. Now, in an era where a Mercenary Congress can find in its vast wisdom the ability to hand $25 million to spinach farmers for lost income due to an FDA health advisory, how much do you think is spent on this vital idea known as 'spreading democracy in the Middle East'? Don't go to the page and *look* and remember this is everything outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, so think first and ask yourself the following:

1) Is it a worthy thing of the United States to actually advocate democracy for the Middle East? If you don't think its worth the time and effort to spread this concept there then, of course, $0 is what you would want. Mind you this is to try building it in such places as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Lebanon, and reinforce it in such places as Egypt and Jordan, and maybe a bit of sustainment to places like Turkey. Do you think that democracy is worth advocating as a system of government to help People find a good way to govern themselves?

2) If it is a *worthy* goal for the US to advocate, then is it something that should be pushed as a side-light? The US is, after all, based on a concept of representative democracy in a republic to have a Westphalian State. Since we enjoy this as a concept and as an enactment of the rights that we espouse to be Universal since the Declaration of Independence, should we make this the *center* of Foreign Policy? Or is it secondary to something like, oh, trade? As the US fought for 'no taxation without representation' do we espouse that *trade* is more important than Liberty? Or are we pushing a concept of 'no representation without trade'? What is the placement for *you* of these ideals when seeking to associate with a Foreign Nation? Funding should indicate the primacy of concepts that the US holds dear for itself and its interplay with other Nations, shouldn't it?

These are not idle questions as the concept that we have come to know in this modern world of ours is that 'money talks'. By wanting to put a value on all things we do, effectively, tag the importance of things with how much we are willing to spend to get it. Other Nations do pick up on this American concept and so we get judged on it by our prioritization of outlays of funds. The US, back in the 19th century, actually found other ways to promulgate democracy and such things as 'civics' without spending a much in the way of Federal funds. We believed in civil government, representative democracy and the republican form of government that a number of religious and civic organizations actually placed *schools* in the Middle East to teach these things on a secular basis. Some Federal funds would often help out, but the initiative was Citizen based, not Government led. Of course that was 'before the modern era' in which all things bright and beautiful made the world such a better place that these private initiatives got dwarfed by Federal spending and hoopla. In truth much in the way of sustainment of those 19th century outlooks is still done on the private side, but the attention paid, by Americans, to them is scant.

Remember, what we have today is supposed to be *better* than what was before.

Thusly, the commitment of the Federal government must be much, much, much higher than anything a mere private organization can do in the promotion of democracy! In this fantastic modern era we should have so much in the way of schools, medical facilities and all sorts of other outreach to a place like the Middle East that it would make our forebearers blush for the tightness of their charity. Right? That is what the folks in both political parties have done by centralizing so much authority and money in the Federal realm: they are saying to the American People that this government knows better than YOU how to spend YOUR money for the National Interest.

From the State Dept we get the 2005 FY figure for this lovely 'espousal of democracy in the Middle East' concept... this thing we had done as Citizens, by and large, without help from government in the 19th century... and it is: $22 million. And the pork spending for peanut storage subsidies was pegged at $74 million.

Yes, we aren't even spending peanuts on espousing democracy in the Middle East!

This is highly bemusing because of this bit I picked up from Hugh Hewitt's site and his citation of an article by Bill Keller in 2003 on the surprise of finding himself a hawk on Iraq. Here Mr. Keller quotes Ronald Asmus one of the experts on Europe from the Clinton Administration:

"The question is, is this about American power, or is it about democracy?" Mr. Asmus asks. "If it's about democracy, we'll have a broader base of support at home and more friends abroad. The great presidents of the last century -- F.D.R., Wilson, Truman -- all tried to articulate America's purpose in a way that other parts of the world could buy into. Bush hasn't done that yet." Before long, we'll find out if he cares to.

At $22 million I can safely say that whatever our Foreign Policy might be, the sustainment or creation of democracy and helping others to get it is *not* a priority. Woodrow Wilson 'talked a good game' but when it came to putting lives and blood on the line to help defeat the entire gamut of those aligned with Germany, he said: 'No thanks, trade will set them free.'

That hasn't worked out too well in the old territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire, has it?

And what, exactly, did FDR and Truman do to help build democracy in the greater Middle East? Whatever they *did* apparently didn't work out too well. Still, whatever this thing was that they did kept on being done for nearly 60 years so that it would continue not to build democracy. A bi-partisan inability to espouse democracy! What was it that these lovely Administrations from FDR onward *did* that *didn't* bring democracy to the Middle East after Woodrow Wilson promised, for sure, that the place would be so much better off being left alone and the US just trading with it?

That is, of course, what we did: trade. Lots of trade. Probably spent more on 'trade fairs' and 'business outreach' year on year, than this thing known as 'building democracy'.

I call this a lack of Foreign Policy.

When so many wanted to make the US Government so big to handle so much, we forgot that it is the WORST institution to try and spread democracy overseas. It handles things like Treaties and Wars pretty well, but the actual concept of 'building democracy' is left up to individuals to demonstrate by doing. That is why the Constitution is set up to give ONLY trade and war declaration powers to Congress: it is a useless body for the espousal of democracy overseas and not trusted by the People because it is full of politicians.

A President can and should espouse democracy, but has his or her hands tied by the fact that Congress only allocates funds as it sees fit and it is only given to funding those things it can be persuaded to fund for the State Dept. And as Congress is given limited scope of power and is jealous of the money it hands out, it usually hampers Foreign Policy by not funding it well. This is good because it requires that the President turn to Americans for help overseas. Convince the American People that something positive needs to be done and we will decide, on our own, if it is worth doing. Collectively the US hands out far more in *charity* than the entire Federal government does in its ability to sustain Foreign policy outside of the warmaking realm. It is made that way by design so that We the People do not forget the importance of democracy to us and that we hold it dear and show others how good a system republican government with representative democracy is. Superior to ALL other forms of government, or so we hold in our founding documents.

Trade can be used to build and support democracy, but not in a 'free trade' without any strings attached concept. Trade for the sake of trade ends up supporting tyrannies and democracies *both* and gives no incentive to move towards democracy as it showers its benefits equally. What can be done is to deny trade to authoritarian or tyrannical governments and deny them the benefits of trade with us. Some will point out that this allows other Nations to step in and gain benefits of such trade. That is correct, they gain monetary benefit. Our benefit is holding that self-government from consent of the governed via Liberty and Freedom gives valid income, while that garnered from tyrannical systems is a form of mollification of populations with goods so that we may profit and that government have no reason to wish to change to something more representative. Profit garnered from those under repressive regimes ensures that those regimes have no incentive to ever become less repressive. We gain by the suffering of others when we give such support and we lessen our Universal message of Liberty and Freedom via representative democracy with republican government.

That system has worked so well in the Middle East and China that they remain just about where they were when we started trading with them! And such profit was garnered for ourselves... and so much repression and suffering caused to give us such funds that we should be ashamed to even think of ourselves as supporting Freedom and Liberty as a concept. This has had bi-partisan support for decades, and has yielded the ugly thing that is transnationalism that seeks to destroy Nations and end Freedom and Liberty for all of mankind in its various, noxious forms. Of course we also hear that capitalism is the beneficent creation of mankind that will instantly bring about liberty and freedom, just don't mind the fact that capitalism is an economic system that has found itself at home in such places as Germany under the Kaiser and, later, the National Socialists, and even in such places as Argentina under Carlos Menem who, while being 'pro-US' helped Hezbollah to get a nice foothold in South America that spreads to this very day. China's crony capitalism of today has created horrific working conditions, low standards of quality for industrial output and, by having a banking system that will not hold anyone accountable for bad debts if it suits the political power structure, now bases most of its production on unsupported debt. If capitalism were so benign we would not need things like anti-monopoly laws and child labor laws now would we? Or is it that capitalism held under a representative democracy in a republic can aid liberty and freedom, so long as its abuses are kept in check by the laws made by the People?


If that latter argument is used, then *why* do we place trade ahead of promulgating a good system to CONTROL IT? Foreign Policy of the 'realist mode' that seeks economic stability and the spread of capitalist trade *before* having a democratic system to hold it accountable to the People of those lands we wish to export it to has given us the lovely, unfree and yet highly profitable world for the few that we have today. America's deep prosperity is not based on capitalism, but because we put the People before the economic system so as to control it and ensure that it does not destroy the basis of Liberty. That basis is allowing an individual to utilize the fruits of their labor as they see fit to do with the least amount of taxes. America is not a rich land because of its capitalist system, it is a free land that allows prosperity to expand via Liberty and the Freedoms necessary to support that Liberty. Any economic system that allows *that* to happen and to be accountable to the People will flourish and capitalism is just one system that does such.


When I was growing up, this was part of what the "Liberal Hawks" were talking about: use US military power to keep tyrannical regimes in check and give them NO room to maneuver. That was, of course, aimed at those Nations that supported the US, like Argentina under Menem, that were not so free with liberty for the People there. Unfortunately many on the Liberal side saw no reason to hold systems that were Leftist to account to this, and the US soon began to give leeway to less free systems on that side of things, too. The bare few that the US did stand up to from the Cold War onwards, North Korea, Cuba, Syria and Iran, were the most vile of governments that impoverished their People to create chaos as far as each of those could reach or imposed highly authoritarian or totalitarian methods upon their people. Mind you there are lovely folks who want to ease up on ALL of those, today, so that tyranny and despotism have a chance to expand their power against liberty and freedom. The "Liberal Hawks" had their feathers plucked out, year by year, so that transnational ideals promulgated by 'progressives' could flourish, and those ideals saw no reason to actually promote liberty and freedom.


The conservative side of the equation, the one promoting a high interplay of ideas to sustain dialogue of how to keep liberty and freedom has succumbed, very slowly, to the promotion of capitalism and of trade before democracy and freedom. If capitalism is such a great system, then will not a People, of any Nation, gravitate towards it once they are free from tyranny? Pushing capitalism first has not proven out in Africa, the Middle East, China, and many Nations in South America, to be something that actually gets you a system in which liberty is upheld so that freedom and democracy may occur. That has been done for generations and the result is obvious in the state of the world as it is today: transnationalism liquidating concepts of the Nation State, un-ruled and ungovernable areas that put Nations into chaos via promoting unaccountable organizations that seek to empower themselves and build nothing, and the impoverishment of the human spirit and economy in vast regions of the world that the only freedom there is is that of 'survival'. That was *not* the grand and glorious goals set out by Wilson, FDR and Truman, and yet those are the results of that outlook. Nor were these the goals set out by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton.

This is something that the entire political spectrum has brought about because it has no coherent view of the role that liberty and freedom play in creating governments and economies. Somehow, in supporting trade and government power over trade *first*, ideals of liberty and freedom have had to go to the back of the bus... with the emergency door there open and those two ideals pushed out the back to be left behind. When I, personally, hear about all the lovely things that *trade* and *capitalism* are supposed to bring, and look at places with authoritarian or totalitarian societies that are just a smidge less worse than those we detest, and we have been trading with them for decades, I begin to wonder exactly what the rate of transformation *is*. President Wilson looked at it in the terms of trade transforming the Middle East to become some lovely society that would be transformed by trade and Christianity. Mind you, it got him out of actually having to *do anything* there!

So 90 years further on, just how *free* are those regions once ruled by the Ottoman Empire? How better off were they for the US not going to war there? Much better? A lot better? A little better? No better? And anyone pointing to Iraq is making that exact *point*: US military power has transformed one of the most authoritarian of Nations nearly overnight, and it is only the expedient of US power that accomplished that. The cost in money and lives has been high, though nothing like either of the World Wars and more on the scale of the Philippine-American War, given the fraction of the society and economy involved.

China since the mid-1970's has gotten over its charismatic totalitarian government and has put in its place one that utilizes State control over regulated capitalism to achieve State ends. So, pretty much a highly government-centered, authoritarian Nation, with limited liberty and freedom. So much accomplished in only 35 years! Some of the most highly polluting industries on the planet! Political and social repression still rampant! A mountain of bad debt that is supporting their industrial output due to corruption in the regime! Trade has been so *good* for the US... and China? It has helped the State, no end, but the people? And just what sort of Nation is it that is described as having 30-60% of its industrial infrastructure built on bad debt? A thriving one? Does anyone remember when Japan had a mere 10% of its economy built on same during the late 1980's? Do the words 'bubble economy' have any meaning to those glorying in trade and the freedom it supposedly brings? Is this really such a *good thing* to have supported with increased trade, to the point where our economy now depends heavily on one with a bubble beyond the scale of anything seen since... oh.... the 1920's?

Then there was the idea of using *trade* to support Yugoslavia, so that it could get a 'soft landing'. Just how did that go? A bit of ethnic cleansing? Terrorism getting a bit inculcated there and melding with organized crime and narcotics groups? Standing up a Nation that has a leadership that was backed by al Qaeda? Just what did that trade buy the US? In theory it helped the US, but just what is the status of Yugoslavia? What? Ah... it is 'The Balkans'... again.

Finally there is NAFTA. Quite the rustling has been heard when Sen. Obama proposed that maybe the US should pull out of it! The Canadians were a bit more than teed off, saying that they would sell their oil elsewhere... which is their right, as a Nation, although the stuff is damned fungible on the open market. But if they really wanted to disconnect their pipelines and no longer utilize those of the US and the US storage facilities and port outlets, why I am sure that Canada is more than prepared to build similar inside their Nation. So while Canada might be selling direct to China, they might also take awhile to have to build up their infrastructure, port facilities, storage facilities and such... and as oil is an 'open market', who knows where the stuff might get shipped to.

Say, why don't we just utilize 'open markets' as a concept instead of 'free trade'? You know, let buyers and sellers set prices based on their economic outlook and National constraints? And if some Nations wish to subsidize their exports, then others could put these 'tariff' things in place... cumbersome, yes, but it would generate revenue for Nations willing to have such. And it might, just possibly, protect National pathways for citizens to work their way out of poverty without having to worry about being undercut by a highly productive Nation able to produce goods at a low cost due to inherent efficiencies of their production schemas. Mexico could have, actually, used something like that to protect their poor farmers who, when put in competition to US agribusiness, failed to make enough on overproduction to make farming worthwhile. Farming did help feed their families and generate some income... but the US agribusiness under cut that severely.

The Mexican people did buy cheap food from the US!

Until those wanting to make ethanol were able to pay a higher price, that is...

And all the folks illegally seeking employment in the US?

Ever notice the increasing violence due to organized crime in Mexico the last couple of years? Organized crime turns out to be a pretty good 'employer of last resort'.

That 'free trade' worked out so well as to produce those lovely side-effects.

It seems that 'free trade' between Nations of equivalent technical capability and economic status, along with productivity efficiencies works pretty well: there is a relatively level playing field amongst such Nations.

For those at a disadvantage, however, 'open markets' allow for discrimination against goods from 'more efficient producers' as, sometimes, the lower price for someone else's higher efficiency means cutting off parts of one's own society and offering little in return. It may make 'economic sense' but it may not make 'social sense' so as to sustain and uphold the society within a Nation. If one remembers there is a slogan that is pertinent to this:

No Taxation Without Representation

It was a stamp tax on tea being brought into the colonies and it was imposed royally, without the colonists having any representation or say on it. It was not a revolution to *abolish* taxation on trade, as the colonies were paying off debts for the French & Indian wars. The colonists were more than willing to pay taxes that they had a say upon... it was those imposed without referring to the people who had to sustain their society that caused the grief. The Nation was founded upon the concept that trade can be taxed, but that the people must have say on it so that their society would not be put at peril due to the tax regimen.

Perhaps we could stick to an ideal of 'free trade' with those Nations that have been long-term friends and allies, supporting us through thick and thin, and we doing the same with them. Currently, looking over the border and seeing an organized crime insurgency slowly becoming worse than Iraq, we seem to have created a mess through our good intentions. And when I see Nations that have supported the US or who have thrown off the shackles of tyranny, then I really must ask: why are we not offering 'free trade' to them? Places like Poland, Hungary, Romania, Israel, Bulgaria... they are at a distance, yes, but they have helped us in Iraq and Afghanistan and been supportive of US goals of liberty, freedom and democracy. Or is 'free trade' only worth it when transportation is *cheap*?

I do think that Sen. Obama went a bit far on NAFTA: we should encourage and support free trade with Canada, a long term friend and ally. Mexico, however, has had its problems with the US and has been not fully supportive of US goals and ideals over the decades. Having three 2-way treaties means that only a portion of them can be set aside. Perhaps that is too 'nuanced' this 'supporting friends and allies of the US and supporters of liberty and freedom' thing.

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Computers and the time they eat

Ah, the loveliness of computers!  They do everything you tell them even when it isn't what you want them to do... just open those pod bay doors, HAL...

Today's entry is brought to you courtesy of the Dell Inspiron 1721, which I got on the refurb site at Dell.  Basically a mid-line computer for basic tasks, nice screen and integrated graphics.  I should have known better!  The lovely thing about Dell products is that they tinker with them so that, in theory, recovery from problems should be easy but, in actual fact, they aren't.  In this case, by doing something fun with the hard drive controller integrated in with the main motherboard, when you update using the stock AMD/ATI drivers, something happens to the hardware recognition of the SATA drives throwing them offline.  So when you re-boot, you can't boot as the poor little drives are all tuckered out and sitting on the sidelines.

So, go to update the Catalyst Control Center, take the basic install and *poof*.

Needless to say as the system rebooted the drives are 'offline' and there is no joy in Mudville.

The last time this happened (yes, I repeated the mistake!  'operator error'!) it took 3+ hours with Dell tech support and left me exhausted for two days.  So, instead of that, I decided to see if I could make things worse by DIY.  Always a danger with these highly integrated systems gone off due to a minor problem... still... it would be a 'learning experience' for awhile.

Now, after some fiddling I was, finally, able to get the poor little controller on-board to unrecognize and re-recognize the hard drives.  Which, as things happen, made it worse, not better... although I did find that Dell had put a teensy copy of good old DOS (Disk Operating System!  HIMEM and everything) so that it would run from RAM.  Yes, my very first PC you can fit on a ROM and load over to RAM.  Amazing, that.  Tempting, too.  But skipping temptation, as the drives were 'ONLINE' I should be able to whisk up the 'restore disk' and get things going again.  Right?

No.

Never *that* easy.

I did, way back when, leave an e-mail to Dell and they did get back to me and I will have to peruse their view on the original problem.  As it stands my longer-range goal of installing an OS that I know (Win XP x64) advanced up a coupe of notches.  I am fed up with Vista (great for games, as my niece will attest to, but the most butt-ugly OS that the MotherShip has come out with since... WinME... Win95... DOS 6.0... ok, MS has a few of the butt-ugly OS's behind it, so to speak.  I still *like* NT 4.0, and it being done right as Win2K, and finally stomping the extras out to get XP x64 working well.  And as I've worked with two versions of DOS, two versions DOS/Win, 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2K, XP x64, and now Vista (x32 and x64), so batting .250.  Good enough for the big leagues, but not terrific.

The last two days I have been looking at creating brand-new install disks for XP x64, and WinV x32.  This is most entertaining and fun, if you don't mind huge downloads in the background while you do other things.  This can be done with two of the following tools, made by the same folks:

nLite for Win2K, XP, Server 2003

vLite for Win Vista

If you have the 'recovery' disk or original install disk, plus updated drivers from various manufacturers for your target machine, plus any other goodies that need integration (like Service Packs) the n/vLite tools are perfect!  They will take those disk copies, add in the drivers and Service Packs and then burn a new install disk with all that fun stuff included.  For some of the drivers you may need Universal Extractor that works on all the .msi, .cab and other formats used to carry drivers around in.  Works like a charm.

So now I have dual install disks ready (Vista and XP x64) and will be hitting the thing *again*, possibly looking at what I should have done to start with... which was not to buy Dell.  Beyond that, if I can get it to boot to the old install, that would be fine.  If not... well... original install disks are very, very handy to have.  And a spare license for XP x64.

Beyond that my Lady is back from surgery and some time eaten up in doing things around here that she can't get done.  One of my cats has an enlarged heart (didn't show up on a X-ray 4 or so years ago, so it is recent and genetic), and now with lots of meds in yummy banana flavor, liquid form.  The other cat is doing fine.

Strangely enough, as I did a lot of writing in the kitchen with the notebook computer from Dell, my productivity has become stone-like.

Also, I'm exhausted.

Update whenever things head a bit more towards normal range.

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