Please who want to swallow our story ???? see below
Iraq knew and supported Al Qaeda pre 9/11
March, 17 @ 05:59 GMT sensfan Newly released documents seem to point to the fact that the Iraq government knew of and supported Al Qaeda terrorists prior to 9/11. These documents go so far as to have pictures of Abu Musab al Zarqawi
original news source:
www.homelandsecurityus.com An examination of newly released documents released at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and uploaded to the US Army Foreign Military Studies Office website reveals that the Iraq government was aware of the presence of al Qaeda in their country. It also identified Abu Musab al Zarqawi by name and images. The ten-page document was described on the U.S. website as follows:
"Synopsis: 2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names."
Another document released yesterday substantiated a pre-9/11 relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda terrorist operatives. The document, dated 15 September 2001, was written by a member of Iraq's special police to a commander concerning a pre-9/11 conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani diplomat. The document indicated that bin Laden and members of the Taliban were in contact with Iraq and had visited Baghdad prior to the attacks within the U.S.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
If this turns out to be fact, and if the documents are being analysed correctly, many of the naysayers (me included) are going to have to do an about face and admit that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda prior to the war in Iraq.
I've looked at the website, it's not very credible, it's a bunch of right-wing nuts, even racist by the way they present a story about the two saudi young men and the fact they advertise their support for the Minutemen. The story and the documents about the 9/11 iraq link is something that has been largely discredited now. If you remember they've surfaced along with the testimony about the Czech diplomat back in 2001.This sort of thing is more directed at the core believers, the last Bush supporters, those who rely on faith rather than knowledge. We have the same brand on our side, you know the "Kuran thumping" type who are convinced that the West is out to get them, when any sane person knows by now that all of this mess is about money, the almighty bottomline. I'd rather read people like Greg Palast who digs the facts, unhindered by faith : www.gregpalast.com or you can get your daily dose of sanity at www.democracynow.org with Amy Goodman, one of the last bastion of independent journalism. You can also rely on commonsense about Iraq, remember who Saddam Hussein was, remember the viscerally secular dictator who chopped off any head wearing a beard, does it make any sense then that he would be in league with an organisation (Al Qaeda) which would likely have him killed for his secular streak ?
I assure you there will be more reasons coming to justify the unjust. This war is wrong and it will go in history as a bad step for the USA, and because of that, there will be people who will try to rewrite it as a good thing, remember, history is written by the winners.
Of course I understood that your title was ironical. Still you wouldn't believe the number willing to swallow this kind of junk, maybe not on this forum being a moroccan one. I'm always amazed at the level of ignorance in the US and this kind of website can do a lot of damage to an uneducated mind. I used to believe that they had mitigating circumstances having a ruthlessly capitalistic society which doesn't believe in funding education, but with the internet and the wealth of information available, being ignorant is a choice, there's no excuse anymore for saying "we didn't know".
Hi Chomsky and Edward Said did contribute un explaining this sad situation in the US. How the media determine the way US people should think etc. Europe is following up. Big corporate using big money in creating and controling the information...
Moving Toward Peace by Doug Kraft Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento September 16, 2001
It's been quite a week.
My little brother, Roger, is a carpenter. He was in the midst of office renovations Tuesday morning when the building jumped two feet. Everyone was knocked off their feet. Flames seeped through the elevator doors. Outside it rained paper, shards of glass, dust and debris and more paper. They were sure a bomb had gone off.
His co-workers dropped their tools and headed for the stairwell. He stayed behind. He said he wanted to search the floor to see if anyone was injured and unable to get out.
A short while later, my brother Charlie called me from New Hampshire to tell me to turn on the TV. Someone had flown an airplane into the World Trade Center and Roger was on the thirty-fourth floor.
I became glued to the TV. I wasn't feeling worried. I wasn't feeling much of anything. I wasn't absorbing the enormity of the situation. In understood it intellectually. But I had seen all these images before: action movies, the Balkans war, the Gulf war. I was numb.
As I stared at the smoldering towers on the screen, our president came on. He was sitting in a chair in a classroom looking a little disoriented. He called the attacks cowardly. There was a hallowness in my stomach. I began to feel alone and isolated. I thought, "What is he talking about? This is not cowardly. Brutal: yes. Ruthless. Hate driven. If you think of evil as acting with the intent to hurt someone, then it was certainly an evil act. But I wouldn't call it cowardly.
"To sit in the cockpit of an airplane and fly it into a building knowing you'd be vaporized -- to willingly immolate yourself for what you believed to be a higher cause -- is not a cowardly act."
I wanted our president and national psyche to have a little more depth of understanding.
Bush did remind people that this was not an expression of Islam or the Arabic people. The vast majority of Muslims are generous, peaceful people. The vast majority of Arabs condemn terrorism. I was grateful to him for trying to dampen racism and prejudice at that moment.
Meanwhile, I heard nothing from Roger. I was emotionally suspended.
Then, watching the surreal images, at last I realized, "he could die." Images came to mind of his wife Annette and their four kids: Josh, Daniel, Noel and Nicholas. I got teary.
In New York, Roger had found no one in need of help on his floor. He made his way down to the fifth floor. Firemen were going up. The power was still on, the stairs clearly lit. He began to encounter water.
The concourse was strewn with glass, pieces of wall and debris. When the plane hit the building, all the elevators dropped. Hitting the ground floor, they burst out of their housings. The glass walls, the revolving doors, everything was gone -- blown away. It was a wonder the building was still standing.
Police calmly directed people.
He walked out of the building and headed north on foot. He'd walked about fifteen blocks when Tower Two dropped in on itself.
He went to a bar to find a TV and some more information about what was going on. He also was able to get a call out to us.
When Charlie called the second time to let me know Roger was somewhere in mid-town, something finely loosened inside me. I was able to get up from the TV. We started making phone calls to make sure our nephews in Manhattan were okay. They were. I called the church to check on things there.
It's been quite a week.
Wednesday evening about 150 of us gathered here for a few hours in a vigil for healing and peace. I was touched by the fear and pain and poignancy and humanness and strength of spirit many of your shared.
Friday at noon a few of us sat here in silence for an hour.
It's been quite a week.
Toward Peace
It's been five days. Perhaps the initial shock has begun to wear off. We are beginning to move into a new and crucial phase. What we do individually and as a nation in the next two weeks to two months could determine the course of history for the next two decades or more.
So the question is, "How do we move in the direction of peace?" "Given the realities of the world that leaves us all vulnerable, how can we be an influence for the greater good?"
For the remainder of the service, I would like to focus on this: how do we move toward peace?
The second line of our covenant says "We value justice, compassion, integrity and acceptance." In our present context, what does this mean?
Can we bring to mind and heart all that we might be feeling in the wake of this tragedy? Take a moment and just be with all of that.
...
Now if you will, let's say that second line softly together:
We value justice, compassion, integrity and acceptance.
What kind of guidance does this give us?
In a moment, I want to open this worship service up to hear from you. But first let me share a few thoughts of my own.
Justice
To seek justice means doing everything reasonable to find those most directly responsible for these specific acts. The human need for fairness impels us do what we can to hold people accountable. Without this, many of us would go nuts with anger or crazy with hatred.
And let's be sure we proceed in a way that is truly just. Let's not allow seeking justice to degenerate into revenge or seeking accountability degenerate into retribution.
We have too much revenge and retribution in this world already. We can feed the cycle of hatred and violence if we act impulsively. However, with the vast sympathy we have from most of our fellow humans around the world, we have a chance to slow down this if we proceed wisely.
Compassion
And let's not kid ourselves. Even if we catch all the culprits in this attack, it will not make us safe. If we want greater safety we have to go deeper than justice alone. We have to cultivate compassion. We have to understand empathetically what motivates someone to be so destructive and the conditions that breed terrorism.
Our President said these terrorist hate us because we are the brightest beacons of hope and freedom in the world.
Please, please, can we have a little more depth of understanding, a little more empathy, a little more compassion. There are people who hate us, to be sure. But it is not the hope and freedom that they hate.
Imagine what it must be like to live in a Palestinian refugee camp. We are now into the fourth generation of people growing up in those squalid conditions. It is hard to imagine what it might feel like to grow up for generations looking through the fences to land you long to move onto: watching nice, solid-walled Israeli homes being build on land you feel is yours.
And if in frustration, you shake a fist at the Israelis, they return with a bulldozer. If you throw a rock, they shoot a bullet. If you shoot a bullet, they return with attack helicopters and missiles.
And those bullets and missiles are often made in the United States. We are not seen as even handed arbiters in the Middle East but as uncritical supporters of Israeli practices. We are not hated for being beacons of hope and freedom. We are hated for being perceived as obstacles to Palestinian hopes and freedom.
And we are hated because of a vast, mindless, ethic-less consumption machine called the capitalist economy that is devouring resources around the world -- raising the standard of living for a few while being indifferent to the many. We are widely perceived as the Dr. Frankenstein that created this monster that is ravaging the world.
This morning is not a time to debate the validity of this analysis. But at least we must understand the motives as best we can.
Compassion may be the hardest quality to cultivate in these situations. But it is the test of the depth of our humanity. By compassion I don't mean a mindless, uncritical sentimentality about brutal people. I mean a pragmatic, open hearted intent to understand others.
For example, if we really wanted to root out terrorism in the world, then we should divert some of the money from Star Wars and other useless projects toward raising the standard of living of poor folks everywhere. Someone who is poor and desperate has nothing to lose. Blowing something up may provide some entertainment and momentary relief of frustration. But as someone's standard of living approaches middle class, they begin to have a personal investment in the stability of the world around them.
And even if we can't help everyone, if we become widely perceived around the world as dedicated to raising the standard of living for all, then in a few generations we will be loved as a beacon of peace and freedom that we want to share.
Integrity
Justice. Compassion. Integrity.
To respond with integrity means to acknowledge our complicity. The gas we burn in our cars encourages the overseas oil companies which in turn want stronger military to protect their ventures. Our CIA trained Osama Ben Landen. To live in this country and pay taxes means we at least indirectly support these kinds of policies.
We can't opt out of the system. It's nearly impossible to live without a car. Because the world is more and more tightly interconnected, we are complicit in much of the harm in the world.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not running our country down. We are also complicit in much of the good in the world. At our core we are good and generous people. You can see this in how selfless people have been in helping in New York. And around the world, whenever there is a disaster, there are likely to me Americans wanting to help.
It is just that years ago I learned something about resolving conflicts. If someone accuses me of something and I think they are 90% off the mark, the place for me to start is to acknowledge the 10% of the criticism that I think is correct: "Yes, I think you are right about these points." Once I have done this, then I can talk about the other 90% with more chance of being heard.
Integrity means emotional maturity: being big enough to acknowledge our faults without getting lost in guilt or righteousness. It means seeing ourselves objectively and from other people's points of view.
Acceptance
Justice. Compassion. Integrity. Acceptance.
I was touched Wednesday evening when someone stood up and said, in effect, "I want to hurt someone. I know it's wrong, but I'm so angry I just want to strike back."
To be accepting means we start with self acceptance: allow ourselves to feel all our anger, helplessness, fear, urge to strike back. If we do this, then we know we feel the same things the terrorists feel. We are not that different. Don't get me wrong: there is a world of difference between wanting to strike back and actually doing it. Paradoxically, the more accepting we are of our feelings and the more willing we are to share them, the less likely we are to act out of them.
Moving Toward Peace
Justice. Compassion. Integrity. Acceptance.
These are just a few of my thoughts about our covenant, which I think can help guide us in this difficulty. I'd be interested in your thoughts as well. So let me close with one final thought.
Years ago I read a passage by Thich Nhat Hanh, the world renowned peace activist and meditation master. He said that the army general who moves the battle away from the village and out into the countryside so as to cause fewer civilian casualties is moving in the direction of peace.
As a long time conscientious objector and pacifist, this thought gave me pause.
We live in a complex world where each of us plays a different role. What I can do for peace and what you can do may be quite different. Each of us has something special we can do to move in that direction.
We are not going to create a perfect peace in an imperfect world. But there are things that each of us can do from where we live to increase understanding, good will, generosity and compassion. And if each of us moves in that direction, who knows . . .
Justice. Compassion. Integrity. Acceptance. What are some things you can do to move toward peace?
Hi Krim, thanks for the above. It reminded me how I felt after 9/11, I was really hoping that it would be a turning point for the best. I'm still surprised at the american public reaction, I expected them to turn to their leadership and ask something like : "wait a minute, what have you been up to ? what the hell did you do that made these psychos want to blow themselves up ?" But instead they dug deep into their ignorance and followed the "Moron in Chief" into his madness. Intelligence, clarity of mind went silent and has been ever since. 9/11 could have been a great opportunity to solve a lot of problems around the world because for a brief moment, every nation rallied around the US in their grief, unanimity is rare when it comes to world affairs, and for a fleeting moment, we had it. What a waste !
P.S : Almot, couldn't open the link, what was the article about ?
Terror Fears Hamper U.S. Muslims' Travel Erin Trieb for The New York Times
"If I was a crazy Muslim fundamentalist, this is not the disguise I would go with," says Azhar Usman, who performed recently in Carrollton, Tex. But what is funny on stage hurts the comedian in real life.
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Article Tools Sponsored By By NEIL MacFARQUHAR Published: June 1, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, May 31 — Azhar Usman, a burly American-born Muslim with a heavy black beard, says he elicits an almost universal reaction when he boards an airplane at any United States airport: conversations stop in midsentence and the look in the eyes of his fellow passengers says, "We're all going to die!" Skip to next paragraph Threats & Responses Go to Complete Coverage » Enlarge this Image Kenneth Dickerman for The New York Times
Ahmed Ahmed, whose name matches an alias of a colleague of Osama bin Laden, jokes about his visits to airports, but underneath the one-liners, the treatment grates. He performed recently in Orland Park, Ill.
For Ahmed Ahmed, a comedian, it is even worse. His double-barreled name matches an occasional alias used by a henchman of Osama bin Laden. "It's a bad time to be named Ahmed right now," he riffs in his stand-up routine, before describing being hauled through the Las Vegas airport in handcuffs.
Taleb Salhab and his wife say they too were dragged away in handcuffs at the border crossing in Port Huron, Mich., as their two preschool daughters wailed in the back seat of their car. The Salhabs were discharged after four hours of questioning, with no explanation from customs officers.
Getting through United States airports and border crossings has grown more difficult for everyone since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But Muslim Americans say they are having a harder time than most, sometimes facing an intimidating maze of barriers, if not outright discrimination. Advocacy groups have taken to labeling their predicament "traveling while Muslim," and accuse the government of ignoring a serious erosion of civil rights. Next month, the American Civil Liberties Union will go back to court to broaden a suit on behalf of Muslims and Arab-Americans who are demanding the United States government come up with a better system for screening travelers.
The delays, humiliation and periodic roughing up have prompted some American Muslims to avoid traveling as much as possible. Some even skip meeting anyone at the airport for fear of a nasty encounter with a law-enforcement officer. Those who do venture forth say they are always nervous.
"I find myself enunciating English like never before, totally over-enunciating just because I want the guy to know that I am an American," says Maz Jobrani, an Iranian-born, Berkeley-educated actor. "Middle Easterners are just as scared of Al Qaeda as everybody else, but we also have to be worried about being profiled as Al Qaeda. It's a double whammy."
Many Muslim Americans fault the Department of Homeland Security and its various agencies, chiefly the Transportation Security Administration, as failing to develop an efficient system to screen travelers. In particular, they deplore the lack of a workable means for those on the federal watch list by mistake — or those whose names match that of someone on the list — to get themselves off.
Mr. Salhab, 36, says his family remains shaken by their treatment at the border. Officers, their hands on their guns, swarmed around his vehicle, barking at him to get out as alarm bells clanged, he said.
"If I had sneezed or looked the wrong way, who knows what would have happened," Mr. Salhab said in a telephone interview. "I feared for my life."
Now, he said, every time his daughter, 4, sees uniformed officers, she asks if they are going to take him away.
"What happened to me at the border is inexcusable," Mr. Salhab said.
A complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security in January got Mr. Salhab a form letter saying the government was looking into the situation. There has been no further response.
A number of American Muslims similarly upset by how federal agents treated them and their families are seeking relief through the courts. About eight men with Muslim or Arab roots are joining a suit already filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union branch in Illinois demanding that the government improve its treatment of returning American citizens.
But similar suits have made little headway. In general, the Constitution protects all Americans against unreasonable search and seizure. But much more aggressive searches have been deemed reasonable at airports and at the border than elsewhere. Just how elastic that standard can be is what the lawsuits are addressing.
The Department of Homeland Security denies engaging in racial profiling. Agents should not base their decisions on a face or a name, said Dan Sutherland, head of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. "They should look at behavior, concrete action, observable activities," he said.
Mr. Sutherland said the department was aware of some problems with the watch list, but he argued that many Muslim Americans traveled without encountering difficulties.
Still, traveling makes many Muslim Americans feel like second-class citizens. Mr. Ahmed, the comedian, often travels wearing a T-shirt that says "Got rights?"
"That's the whole question of my existence right now," he said. "Do we have rights? I'm a taxpayer and I'm an American, and I want to be treated like one."
(Page 2 of 2)
The problem has become such a part of being a Muslim American that some comedians have built routines around it. Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Jobrani both perform on The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour. Mr. Jobrani jokes about his heightened state of anxiety as he passes through security. Skip to next paragraph Threats & Responses Go to Complete Coverage »
He says, "If anything beeps in the metal detector, I think, 'Dammit, I'm a terrorist! I knew it!"
But underneath the one-liners, the treatment grates. Mr. Ahmed, 35, now avoids flying on the day of a show lest he be barred from his flight. The stress reached a level that the whiskers in his beard started to fall out, he says. ("Your body is trying to de-Muslimize," Mr. Jobrani said jokingly, sitting next to him in a Los Angeles coffee shop. "Next, your skin will get lighter."
Mr. Ahmed was handcuffed in the Las Vegas airport in November 2004, and, he said, a young black police officer leaned over and said, "Yo man, now you know what it was like to be a black man in the 60's."
It is an apt comparison, Mr. Ahmed feels, noting that after the 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist bombing by a white former soldier, Timothy J. McVeigh, not every blond with a buzz cut was pulled over.
"I know I have to be demure and humble when I approach a ticket agent," Mr. Ahmed said. "If you show any ounce of negativity or righteousness, they'll deny you, they'll say, 'You're not getting on this flight, I don't like your attitude."'
When he called a phone line for those with travel problems like his, he said, he got no response. "I understand the need for security, but they go overboard, they always have to put on this public display," he said. Mr. Usman, 30, and part of a different comedy act called Allah Made Me Funny, draws big laughs when joking about his obviously Muslim appearance. "If I was a crazy Muslim fundamentalist, this is not the disguise I would go with," he cracks.
He refuses to shave his beard. "I have a problem that people associate a certain look with Muslim terrorists," he said by telephone from his native Chicago. "The look of someone trying to live a religious life, having a long beard, has been around a lot longer than Osama bin Laden and will be around a lot longer than Osama bin Laden."
Most of those wrongly placed on the watch list seethe with frustration and anger, finding it unbelievable that a technologically advanced country like the United States has been unable to develop a list that can distinguish between a lurking terrorist and a harmless citizen with a Muslim name.
Khurrum Wahid, a lawyer, said that the Transportation Security Administration had made empty promises for years about making improvements. "If the name John Smith was on the designated list," Mr. Wahid said, "I guarantee they would have come up with some way to check that list."
Dr. Sam Hamade, 33, was born in Lebanon and carries a Canadian passport but is a permanent United States resident and is seeking citizenship. A senior resident at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, Dr. Hamade legally changed his name from Osama to Sam to make his patients more comfortable.
In the last two years, driving back from Canada after visiting relatives or his fiancée, Dr. Hamade said, he has been detained at least six times. He has found himself weeping with frustration, he said, because the same thing happens every time — he is photographed, fingerprinted and his body groped — and every time the border police say that they are just following procedures.
Dr. Hamade was handed a "Fact Sheet" instructing him to write to the Border Patrol's "Customer Satisfaction Unit" in Washington. He wrote, but has received no answer. A complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security in April has also elicited no response.
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