An American Warning

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AN AMERICAN WARNING - The Kansas City "Smart Port"... the not so smart idea
2008-05-15 02:55:00
The Kansas City Smart Port .   Many people have begun to wonder about the SPP, the Trans Texas Corridor, NAFTA, and all of the things that go into this evolving problem that many believe will lead into a North American Community/Union and ultimately a common currency and total loss of sovereignty for Canada, Mexico and the United States.   I?ve taken some time off to really dig into one aspect that I find the most interesting. It?s one piece of evidence that I feel needs to be looked at so that the other pieces can be put properly in their place.   What I find most amazing is how these people/agencies build their sites. Furthermore, the information that almost seems uncoordinated at times. I say this because on one site you can see a piece of information, on the next site you can see even more. Where one site will refute a certain piece, the other site confirms it.   Most of you know by now that about 14 years ago, the I-35 Corridor Coalition was created to pr...
More About: Idea

Handover of Terrorist Paramilitaries Could be Turning Point in Colombia
2008-05-14 23:54:00
Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's decision to extradite 13 leaders of the paramilitary, terrorist-designated United Self Defense Forces (AUC) to the United States could be a milestone in Colombia's efforts to erradicate terrorism from all sides of the political spectrum. Uribe's own past ties to paramilitary organizations, the political influence wielded by the groups and the alleged direct participation in the groups by his cousin and close adviser Mario Uribe, now jailed, have seriously undermined...(read more)
More About: Colombia , Terrorist , Point , Turning Point

Gun Control in Albany
2008-05-14 04:00:00
Politicians in Albany, New York, are keeping up their anti-gun ways. Their "task force on gun violence" is meeting to come up with new gun control laws, even when 80 percent of the violent crime in Albany doesn't involve guns at all. Doesn't it make more sense for politicians to focus on people committing violent crime, instead of guns? Of course it does - if the politicians are really serious about making Albany safer. But they're more interested in getting headlines than providing solutions....(read more)
More About: Gun Control , Control

U.S. House Makes It Tougher to Remove North Korea From "State Sponsors" Lis
2008-05-14 01:03:00
The U.S. House of Representatives will approve a bill with a special section that reinforces the conditions governing North Korea ’s potential removal from the list of " State Sponsors of Terrorism ." Sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Section 306 of the Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Reform Act of 2008 requires that before removal, the President must first certify that North Korea has ceased to provide nuclear assistance to Syria, Iran, and other "state sponsors";...(read more)

India: Multiple Terror Blasts in Jaipur City, SIMI-HuJI-LeT Alliance Suspec
2008-05-14 00:31:00
After brief period of quiescence, mass fatality terror has returned to India . And this time, as usual, it caught the security force, intelligence agencies napping. On May 13, around nine high to low intensity blasts took place at six places within a span of 15 minutes in the pink city of Jaipur , state capital of Rajasthan. All blasts occurred within a radius of one kilometer, hitting crowded markets, places of worships and one eatery. The explosions have killed more than 60 people (as of now) and...(read more)
More About: Terror , City , Alliance

Next Public Event: "Turkey and the U.S. Strategic Partnership: The Next Pha
2008-05-13 21:27:00
On Monday, May 19, at 2 pm, I will co-chair, with Professor Yonah Alexander, a special seminar titled, "Turkey and the U.S. Strategic Partnership: The Next Phase" in room 2255 of the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. Our featured speaker will be Ambassador Nabi Sensoy , who has served as Ambassador of Turkey to the United States since January 2006. Ambassador Sensoy previously held several positions in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has also served as Ambassador...(read more)
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More trouble for Tehran at home
2008-05-13 19:48:00
Further to my last week's article in the Middle East Times regarding Iran's internal rebellion, the newsletter The Croissan t (available for a small fee) reported that Khameini’s representative in Eastern Iran was murdered. Indeed after the trouble in Baluchistan, the following story seems to confirm a trend of minorities rebelling against Tehran . Indeed The Croissant reported that Sheikh Abbassian Abbas, the Supreme Leader’s representative in Taybad (a city located near the Afghan border)...(read more)
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The U.S. Should Oppose Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian Masters in Leba
2008-05-13 18:10:00
As President Bush prepares to travel to the Middle East , Lebanon's survival as a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational state is at stake. Hezbollah , the Shi'ite terrorist army "made in Iran," demonstrated its force by occupying the capital, Beirut....(read more)
More About: Masters , Iranian , Syrian

Assessing the Risks of Turkish Raids in Northern Iraq
2008-05-13 15:21:00
Turkey has just launched a fresh set of air raids against PKK targets in northern Iraq , continuing from last weekend into this week, following a series of PKK attacks in Turkey that killed four civilians and six soldiers. The New Anatolian reported yesterday that after the PKK's attacks, "The Turkish military retaliated with artillery strikes against the PKK hideouts in northern Iraq while the terrorists who attacked the military outpost were cornered as they fled back into northern Iraq and were...(read more)
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NEFA TerrorWatch: New Insight into the 7/7 Bombings, Pakistan Terror Connec
2008-05-13 09:15:00
This week's edition of the NEFA Foundation's Terror Watch cybercast takes an inside look at "Operation Theseus": a series of ongoing criminal investigations and trials in the United Kingdom involving a network of alleged accomplices in the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings in London. In the Spring of 2007, British police arrested four men: Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil, Sadeer Saleem, and Khalid Khaliq—accusing them of complicity in the bombings and possession of terrorist propaganda materials. Two...(read more)
More About: Pakistan , Insight , Bombings

Docs Suggest Chavez, FARC Agreed to Blame Paramilitaries for FARC's Murders
2008-05-13 00:51:00
On May 10, the Colombian magazine Semana reported that FARC guerrillas developed a strategy in the fall of 2004 to blame Colombian paramilitaries for the Apure massacre in which FARC killed five soldiers and a woman engineer in a raid on Venezuelan oil company assets there. At the time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his defense minister told the public that Colombian paramilitaries had carried out the raid, murdering the six civilians in cold blood. Privately, FARC's leaders discussed in e-mails...(read more)
More About: Farc , Blame

Deportation Hearings of Hamas-linked Imam Wind Down
2008-05-13 00:51:00
Deportation proceedings against Imam Mohammad Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic in New Jersey, charged with failing to disclose an earlier arrest and conviction in Israel, wrapped up today. News reports have alternately described Qatanani as "revered," "influential," and "respected." Likewise, all media reports have outlined both the charges against Qatanani and his excuses, bolstered by a coterie of quotes from supporters about how revered, influential and respected Qatanani is. What those...(read more)
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More on the FARC-Chavez Connection
2008-05-12 22:53:00
New materials released to the Associated Press and a Spanish newspaper reinforce earlier information showing ongoing operational cooperation between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombia's FARC guerrillas. Documents reviewed by AP provided by Colombia from the computers seized by Colomba in the March 1 cross-border raid on FARC that killed Raul Reyes were described by AP as detailing years of close cooperation between top officials in Venezuela's government and military and FARC, including...(read more)
More About: Connection , Farc

Expected and undisturbed Hezbollah coup
2008-05-12 20:37:00
Hezbollah has been rearming quite quickly- it has now close to 45,000 rockets, more than before the onset of the summer 2006 war with Israel- under the eyes of the helpless UNIFIL forces. For proof the March 30 incident when a missiles shipment coming from Syria was controlled at Jbal al Botm by an Italian battalion, part of the UNIFIL forces, and then authorized to continue to reach its final recipient: Hezbollah. I just wrote on Hezbollah's coup for The Middle East Times . To read the whole article,...(read more)
More About: Coup , Hezbollah

Jeff Breinholt Returns to DOJ and Bows Out of CTB
2008-05-12 19:34:00
Jeff Breinholt, who took a leave from the Department of Justice to serve as Director of National Security Law at the International Assessment and Strategy Center has now returned to active government service in DOJ. The board and contributors of the CTB would like to thank him for his contributions, both as a contributor and a member of the board, during that breather from his regular job. As one of the leading lights on terrorism and the legal issues in that field, Jeff was able to regularly provide...(read more)
More About: Bows , Jeff

More on the FARC Documents Come to Light
2008-05-12 19:32:00
Little by little more of the thousands of documents captured from the FARC rebels in Colombia are coming to light and the picture is not pretty. While INTERPOL is reportedly set to declare the contents of the computers captured after the March strike that killed FARC commander Raul Reyes, the Colombian government is quietly making use of the documents to inflict unprecedented damage on the guerrilla-criminal organization that is on the terror list of the United States, Canada and the European Union....(read more)
More About: Farc , Light , Documents

Lebanon's "300"
2008-05-12 16:21:00
While the West is busy living its daily life, a beast is busy killing the freedom of a small community on the East Mediterranean: Lebanon. Indeed, as of last week, the mighty Hezbollah, armed to the teeth with 30,000 rockets and missiles and aligning thousands of self described “Divine soldiers” has been marching across the capital, terrorizing its population, shutting down media, taking its politicians and the Prime Minister as hostages, and looting at will. The hordes of Lebanon’s...(read more)

Just War and Endgame Objectives in Iraq
2008-05-12 13:09:00
The just war theory connects the use of military force to politics, reminding statesmen that war and politics serve the same goals—namely, justice, order, and peace. Every activity within war must be scrutinized for its capacity to create a more just reorganization of power. Robust analysis should attend not only to questions about whether war is justified, but also to broader political questions about the dynamics that lead to war and strategies for achieving peace....(read more)
More About: Middle East , Iraq , Endgame

NEFA Foundation: Al-Qaida Reports "Martyrdom" of Senior Saudi Terrorist Abu
2008-05-12 10:25:00
The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of new letter from Al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid confirming the death of Al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Sulaiman al-Otaibi (a.k.a. Mohammed al-Thibaiti) during clashes with the "crusaders and apostates" in the Paktika province of Afghanistan. According to Saudi media, Abu Sulaiman was a former student at Imam Mohammed bin Saud University and had close contacts with influential Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia. Upon leaving Saudi Arabia and arriving in neighboring...(read more)
More About: Senior , Terrorist

Hard Truths About Philly
2008-05-12 04:00:00
The tragic death of Philadelphia police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski is being used for shameless pandering by politicians and pundits in Philly . Mayor Michael Nutter and Governor Ed Rendell have used Sgt. Liczbinski's murder to call for more gun control. Specifically, they're calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles like the one the career criminal used against the veteran of the police force. Columnists like Jill Porter use a senseless killing to chide gun owners for failing to support gun-control...(read more)
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Second Thai Counterfeit Passport Ring Broken Up This Month: Nearly 22,000 P
2008-05-10 15:05:00
Today Thai authorities announced arrests in an enormous counterfeit passport ring. 12 people were arrested and some 20,000 fake passports were seized. It was the second such arrest in the past month. The 12-person gang, included Thais, Burmese, and Indonesians. The 20,000 passports were from a diverse group of countries: Burma, Brunei, Canada, France, Germany, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Thai police reported that 2,000 of the passports were ready to be used. The ringleader of...(read more)
More About: Ring , Broken , Passport , Month

About Bout & the DEA
2008-05-10 00:05:00
The recently unsealed indictment of arms-trafficker extraordinaire Victor Bout is an interesting read. Perhaps the most notable line is on page 10, when Bout told the DEA operatives (who he believed represented the FARC) that America was also his enemy and their fight was his fight. Another international arms dealer, Monzar al-Kasser, who was arrested in a DEA sting, promised the informants to raise an army for the FARC in order to fight the Americans. Are these heartfelt sentiments, or just salesmen...(read more)

A Murder in Mexico
2008-05-09 19:40:00
The murder of Mexico 's police chief signals just how serious the Mexican drug trafficking organizations are about taking on the Mexican state. And just how weak the Mexican state is. "This could have a snowball effect, even leading to the risk of ungovernability," Luís Astorga, a Mexico City-based sociologist and drug expert, said in an interview. "It indicates terrible things, a level of weakness in our institutions -- they can't even protect themselves." By most accounts the police chief, Edgar...(read more)
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Jihad and U.S. Intelligence Resources
2008-05-09 06:58:00
How could the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence authorize "the largest funding increase in the base Intelligence Budget in history", but refuse to include an amendment that calls for identifying the Jihad ist enemy we fight? But that is precisely what happened on May 8. On May 8, Congressman Peter Hoekstra attempted to strike a blow for reason and sanity in the war against global jihadism, by making the rational and consistent definition of our enemy a priority in allocating budget...(read more)
More About: Resources

Hezbollah?s Beirut?s Blitz
2008-05-09 06:56:00
As many among us have warned several times over the past year, and many articles later, Hezbollah has indeed waged its expected blitzkrieg against the democratically elected Government of Lebanon. Within 24 hours, the pro-Iranian super-militia blocked all accesses to the Beirut International Airport, established an exclusive security zone around the organization’s headquarters in south Beirut, deployed its forces into several Sunni neighborhoods in the capital and erected check points across...(read more)
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Bad Omens in Latin America
2008-05-08 19:43:00
The Associated Press today reports on how thinly spread U.S. Special Forces are in many parts of the world, including Latin America , at a crucial time. "We're going to fewer countries, staying for shorter periods of time, with smaller numbers of people than historically we have done," Adm. Eric T. Olson said May 5 in his first interview since becoming commander of U.S. Special Operations Command last July. To illustrate that point, Olson said that when the 7th Special Forces Group, which is based...(read more)
More About: Latin America , Omens

Obama's Still Trying to Deceive
2008-05-08 04:00:00
Barack Obama just can't escape the gun issue. As gang violence continues to plague Chicago, the senator sat down with the Chicago Sun-Times to talk about guns and gun control. Obama wouldn't say how he feels about the legality of Chicago's ban on handguns, and he wouldn't give an opinion on the constitutionality of the D.C. gun ban, either. He did say that it's clear the bans aren't working, but still expressed his belief that these cities should be able to pass and enforce any gun-control law they...(read more)
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Colombian Newspaper Reports INTERPOL Found No Tampering with FARC Computers
2008-05-07 23:40:00
According to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo , computer forensics experts from INTERPOL have found that the personal computers found by Colombia in its March 1 cross-border raids of a FARC camp in Ecuador retain their integrity and have not been changed since the raid. Initial findings by the Australian, Spanish and Singapore experts from INTERPOL reportedly have found that the computers' archival register, which show the time and date of each entry, show no changes to the computer following the...(read more)
More About: Computers , Farc , Interpol , Newspaper

Virtual Worlds require Virtual-HUMINT (VHUMINT)
2008-05-07 23:14:00
The excellent Dark Web project at Arizona Universities Artificial Intelligence Lab has recently completed research into the use of Web 2.0 media by International jihadi groups. While fascinating in some respects it also clearly demonstrates how traditional text-mining attempts to collect data can be applied to some Web 2.0 applications, but miss the mark with virtual worlds. The leader of the lab Dr. Chen kindly forwarded their research paper to me and it can be linked to here ( Cyber Extremism in...(read more)
More About: Worlds , Virtual

Highlighting al-Qaeda's Bankrupt Ideology
2008-05-07 21:38:00
According to recent U.S. government reports and senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, contesting al-Qaeda's message is no less important than capturing or killing the group's operatives. And as the administration prioritizes its agenda for the last eight months in office, recognizing the need for a refocused communication plan to highlight the bankruptcy of al-Qaeda's ideology is a critical -- albeit overdue -- part of a reengineered counterterrorism strategy. The State Department's 2007 Country...(read more)
More About: Ideology , Bankrupt