Monthly Archives: December 2007

Al-Qaida Taking Questions

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Al-Qaida invites journalists to send questions to Zawahri

Al-Qaida has invited journalists to send questions to its No. 2 figure Ayman al-Zawahri, the first time the terror network has offered an “interview” with one of its top leaders since the 9/11 attacks in the US.

The statement, first posted on Sunday, invites “individuals, agencies and all media” to submit written questions for Zawahri by sending them to the Islamic Web forums where Al-Sahab traditionally posts its messages.

It said it would take questions until January 16, then Zawahri would answer them “as much as he is able and at the soonest possible occasion.” It did not say whether his answers would come in a written, video or audio-tape form.

The authenticity of the invitation could not be independently confirmed.

Where’s Helen?

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Coming To A Screen Near You?

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What kind of a war is this? Ask our British cousins.

British children targeted with sing-along DVD for would-be suicide bombers

A Hamas TV show in March has made its way on DVD to Britain:

(From the Daily Mail and Jerusalem Post):

A children’s sing-along DVD for would-be suicide bombers is being investigated by police after being found on sale in one of Britain’s terrorist hotbeds.

The disturbing disc of music videos – part of an Egyptian-made series – shows a young girl singing about following in the footsteps of her suicide bomber mother.

A group of self-proclaimed orphans also turn against the West over the plight of the Palestinian people.

The shocking DVD was purchased in Bradford, West Yorks, and full details of the Leeds-based UK distributors are contained on the back of the cover.

The West Yorkshire Police specialist counter terrorism unit are investigating the contents – which contain three tracks sung by children in Arabic with English subtitles.


The first song is about two children who lose their mother when she becomes a suicide bomber.

The song is believed to be a reference to Reem al-Reyashi, a 22-year-old Palestinian mother-of-two who blew herself up on January 14, 2004, at a crossing, in the Gaza Strip, killing four Israelis.

Four-year-old girl vows to be suicide terrorist in Hamas TV dramatization

The video begins with an Arab woman playing with her two children, then leaving her home with dynamite tucked in her dress, blowing herself up after being challenged by uniformed soldiers, and her children and husband finding out about her death on TV.

After finding out about the suicide on television, her small daughter finds a stick of dynamite in her mother’s wardrobe and turns to the camera with the subtitles: “My love will not be by words. I will follow my mother’s steps.”

Where next? Chicago? Denver? San Francisco?

Links:
Jihad Watch
Daily Mail

First Flight: Kitty Hawk, 1903

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On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the 1903 Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. It flew forward without losing speed and landed at a point as high as that from which it started.

With Orville Wright as pilot, the airplane took off from a launching rail and flew for 12 seconds and a distance of 37 meters (120 feet). The airplane was flown three more times that day, with Orville and his brother Wilbur alternating as pilot. The longest flight, with Wilbur at the controls, was 260 meters (852 feet) and lasted 59 seconds.

The Flyer, designed and built by the Wright brothers, was one step in a broad experimental program that began in 1899 with their first kite and concluded in 1905, when they built the first truly practical airplane. The basic problems of mechanical flight, lift, propulsion, and control were solved in the Wright design.

See the aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, DC.

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Watching, Waiting, Listening

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The World Trade Center was attacked twice.

– The first time was on Friday, February 26, 1993.

– The second time was 3,119 days later, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

They waited, for whatever reason, almost nine years to attack the second time.

There hasn’t been a successful attack since.

It’s been this many days since that second attack.

3,119 days from September 11, 2001 would stretch out to Saturday, March 27, 2010.

Are they willing to wait that long again?

Are we?

NIE: Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities

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National Intelligence Estimate: Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities

That National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that has been in the headlines is here, courtesy of The Council on Foreign Relations.

If you have a specific question, and it matches one of the questions below, just click the question for a quick jump to the answer.

* What is a National Intelligence Estimate?

* What did the NIE on Iraq’s WMD say?

* Who is in charge of writing an NIE?

* What’s the process for writing an NIE?

* What are the agencies generally involved in the process?

* How long does it take to write an NIE?

* How long did it take for the NIE on Iraq’s weapons to be completed?

* What was the genesis of the Iraq NIE?

* Who directed the project?

* How was the process accelerated?

* Why the rush?

* Were there any footnotes in the Iraq NIE?

* What did the Senate report say about the Iraq NIE?

* Did President Bush or other policy-makers pressure the writers of the NIE to reach conclusions that supported the administration’s pro-war case?

* How has the intelligence community responded to the Senate report?

Congress Generous To Pentagon

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Congress Gives The Pentagon More Than It Wanted

The U.S. will spend $692.3 billion on defense in 2008. However, 27 percent of that (nearly $200 billion) is just for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For some of this money, there are some strings attached. While the navy gets $11.7 billion for ship building, all submarines, aircraft carriers and cruisers must be nuclear powered.

Although the army and marines are having second thoughts about ordering so many armored trucks (MRAPS), Congress gave them $17.6 billion (50 percent more money than originally requested.) That’s good politics.

The new spending bill comes with more auditors and regulations regarding contract fraud.

The generals and admirals have some flexibility here, as this bill is the “authorization” to spend the money, and in most cases, the brass can decide not to spend it on some things.

That usually means they can’t spend it on something else. But in the case of buying weapons or equipment you don’t need, you also save on not having to maintain stuff you did not decide to get.

Hanukkah at the White House

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Bush pays tribute to Daniel Pearl in celebration of Hanukkah

President George W. Bush recognized Hanukkah on Monday by remembering the kidnapping and murder in 2002 of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at the hands of Islamic militants in Pakistan.

“His only crime was being a Jewish-American — something Daniel Pearl would never deny,” Bush said as he celebrated the Jewish holiday that commemorates religious freedom and the successful fight against oppression.

Pearl’s father, Judea, struck a match and he and the reporter’s mother, Ruth, lighted candles on a family menorah. Daniel Pearl’s great-grandfather, Chayim Pearl, brought it with him when he moved from Poland to Israel in 1924. The menorah will stay at the White House through Tuesday, the last night of Hanukkah.

“In his final moments, Daniel told his captors about a street in Israel named for his great-grandfather. He looked into their camera and he said, `My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish, and I’m Jewish,”‘ Bush said. “These words have become a source of inspiration for Americans of all faiths. They show the courage of a man who refused to bow before terror – and the strength of a spirit that could not be broken.”

Koreas: New Train Service

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Koreas: Daily Cargo Train Service Begins Tuesday

On Tuesday, South and North Korea will launch a regular cargo train service through their heavily fortified border for the first time since the end of the Korean War, officials said Monday.

The train service is one of the first major economic reconciliatory projects reached at a summit between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in early October.

A group of South Korean officials, including Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, will travel to the North’s Panmun Station, just north of the inter-Korean border, Tuesday morning for a ceremony marking the launch of the rail service, a ministry official said.

Read more here and here.

Leaving The Dream Job Behind

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Radio personality heads for war zone

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA – Women called crying, e-mails flooded in and strangers showed up at the station just wanting to shake his hand.

The reaction was overwhelming and caught Chris Charles completely off guard.

Charles, the afternoon drive on-air personality at WARM-FM 103.3, quit his dream job late last month to work with United States soldiers in Iraq.

“This is the biggest challenge of my life,” Charles said, “but I look forward to it like nothing else.”

Charles, a 1996 Penn Manor High School graduate, signed a one-year agreement with a prominent government contractor to serve as morale, welfare and recreation coordinator for the armed forces in southern Iraq, about 20 miles from the Kuwaiti border.

His job will be similar to that of an activities director on a cruise ship, except there’s no ship, just desert. Charles will organize volleyball and basketball tournaments and other physical-fitness activities to bring fun to the off-duty hours of military personnel.

He’ll be the director of fun.

“I just want to put a smile on their faces,” said Charles, 29, who is single and an amateur bodybuilder.

Feeling an urge to help, he applied for the job six months ago. He received a call three weeks ago asking if he could deploy to Houston for training. He flew to Texas Dec. 2 for two weeks of training and believes he will be in Iraq before Christmas.

It is a bold move for someone with a great job in radio in a preferred market and time slot — to say nothing of the safety concerns — but it felt right to give it up, if only for a short while.

“Ever since the war [in Iraq] started, I’ve read how morale with our troops was eroding,” he said. “I’m working for our men and women. I’m serving them. They’re our heroes.”

Charles said family, friends and the radio station have been supportive, knowing how much it means to him. Since he was 6 years old, working in radio was his dream. On his family’s chicken farm near Millersville, he used to walk around with a microphone. He built a studio, with mixer boards, in his bedroom when he was 10.

After starting on the lonely overnight shifts, Charles was offered afternoon drive at WARM two years ago.

Radio is still his first love, and when he returns to the United States after his contract expires, he plans to get back into the business, but he believes it is important to put his career on hold.

“I achieved my dream: afternoon drive,” Charles said. “Radio will always be here; this opportunity won’t. Sometimes you’ve got to go for it.”

Immigration Moves To the Courtroom

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Ariz. Immigration Law Challenge Tossed

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking to block a new Arizona law that prohibits people from hiring illegal immigrants and requires businesses to verify whether applicants are eligible for employment.

The law takes effect Jan. 1.

In his ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake wrote that the lawsuit was premature because there was no evidence that anybody had been harmed, and that the plaintiffs — a coalition of business and immigrant rights groups — were suing the wrong people.

Arizona Governor Napolitano signed the bill in July, saying that while immigration is a federal responsibility, Congress was apparently “incapable of coping with the comprehensive immigration reforms our country needs.”

Read the details here.
If our lawmakers in DC can’t get it done, can states and a judge or three get something done?
Probably not Judge Roy Bean.

No More “Any Wounded Soldier” Mail

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No More Mail For Any Wounded Soldier

The U.S. Army no longer accepts mail addressed to “Any Wounded Soldier.”

In the United States, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where most wounded soldiers are cared for, has long accepted letters or parcels addressed to “Any Wounded Soldier.”

No longer, mainly because of the huge amount of it.

Over a million pieces a year, most of it during the holiday season, are sent just to the Walter Reed hospital.

Instead, the American Red Cross, and the Pitney Bowes Corporation, will accept such mail for the Christmas season, assign a name to it, and get it delivered. Such mail should be sent (and arrive no later than December 27th) to:

We Support You During Your Recovery!

c/o American Red Cross

P.O. Box 419

Savage, MD 20763-0419

No packages, just cards and letters.

But something can be arranged via www.usocares.org,
or ww4.army.mil/ocpa/tooursoldiers,
or http://www.redcross.org.

(h/t: StrategyPage)