Tuesday February 9, 2010
I've Been Thinking:
An al Qaeda website broadcast an audio recording of Said a Shaheri, the deputy head of al Qaeda in Yemen.
What makes this broadcast newsworthy is the fact that Said a Shaheri was supposed to have been one of 30 leaders killed last month in a Yemeni Air Force raid that strafed their camp.
In the broadcast Shaheri spoke of his true objective and tried to persuade recruits to join his mission.
He said:
"The Christians, the Jews, and the treacherous apostate rulers have pounced on you ... you have no other way out from this plight other than to wage jihad,"
He continued:
"We advise you, our people in the Peninsula, to prepare and carry your weapons and to defend your religion and yourselves and to join your mujahideen brothers."
Said a Shaheri is one of those notorious prisoners released from US custody in Guantanimo Bay, Cuba who has re-emerged as a significant al Qaeda leader.
Upon his return to Yemen Shaheri assumed his previous role and he continues to evade the West.
It is becoming more and more apparent that, best intentions aside, we are the ones who continue to facilitate the growth and strengthening of al Qaeda.
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Monday February 8, 2010
I've Been Thinking:
On Sunday CNN broadcast an interview with King Abdullah of Jordan. The Monarch was eloquent as he described the ticking time bomb that is the Middle East.
King Abdullah minced no words.
He said point blank that President Obama needs to dedicate time to change the situation on the ground between Palestinian and Israelis.
The King exaggerated slightly when he said that an opportunity for peace would be lost if not accomplished in the next thirty days. But he was correct in describing correctly the disappointment that is felt throughout the Arab and Muslim world that President Obama has not made the Middle East a top priority.
The King asserted that the possibility for a two-state solution is slipping away. If that opportunity slips away, so will the possibility for normalizing relations between Palestinians and Israelis.
The King implored President Obama to take action now.
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Sunday January 7, 2010
Ive Been Thinking:
It is the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
Iran has planned a ten day celebration.
The excitement had been limited to the launching of rockets and the unveiling of satellites.
Now, according to Iranian radio, the Iranians are now adding two new missiles to their arsenal.
The first is an anti-helicopter missile.
The second is an anti-armor, anti-tank weapon.
There is an expression: work for peace and prepare for war.
We should assume that Iran is preparing for war and not for peace.
Presenting the new weapons is one of the ways Iran engages in a game of intimidation. The Iranians are demonstrating that they have capabilities and weaponry that will exact a toll on any attacking forces.
Iran has a larger plan.
They are allowing us one glimpse at a time.
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Saturday February 6, 2010
I've Been Thinking:
The Irish Herald reported yesterday that the assassins who killed Hamas operative Mohamed Mabouh in his hotel room in Dubai were traveling on Irish passports.
The report could not be confirmed from through any other source.
On more than one occasion the Dubai chief of police has said that the killers entered and left on European Union passports.
Most people are still pointing their fingers at Israel.
The use of Irish passports does not give us any clues as to the identity of the assassins. Irish passports issued several years ago are still valid even though they do not contain holograms and RFID chips the way newer passports do. Old passports work perfectly in the hands of any operatives or other unsavory characters like drug traffickers and spies.
RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification chips which use a specific frequency to make certain that they are not counterfeit.
Many border patrols have no idea what an RFID is, so the old Irish passport is still in use.
We may have new information, but it is not yet useful information.
There are many more pieces to this puzzle.
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Friday February 5, 2010
I've Been Thinking:
The Russian press is reporting that Moscow will be hosting a very special guest next week.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will be the honored guest of the Kremlin.
Russia is making a play for influence in the Middle East.
It is not enough for the Russians to simply make statements - they need to make promises and they need to show that they can be a guiding force. That means that they must demonstrate support in the form of humanitarian assistance.
Russia thinks they know how to play the game.
They want to out - maneuver the United States in the region and they are hoping to buy their influence with Hamas. What the Russians do not realize is that Hamas is not for sale. They will take the money and run.
There is no counter balance to Hamas.
Nothing can and nothing will control Hamas - not Iran and not Russia.
Hamas is accountable only to Hamas.
Nothing else matters.
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Thursday February 4, 2010
Column:
The Iranians took a rat, a turtle, a few worms and put them in a rocket ship and launched it into space. It sounds like the opening line of a good joke, but this is nothing to laugh about.
The Iranians really did put a rat, a turtle and worms into a rocket ship and sent it off into space. And with that launch the Iranians have catapulted not only a rocket into space, but Iran itself to almost the very head of the class of global space travel. The funny part was watching the launch and hearing the countdown and seeing nothing happen. The count down was begun again and this time the rocket took off - at the count of five.
The rocket is a Kovahshgar 3, also called an Explorer 3. It is Iran's third generation of space satellite rockets. What makes this rocket significantly different from other Iranian space ships is that the Kovahshgar 3 is a two-stage rocket system. This machine will travel 320 km into space.
Once a country achieves the ability to develop multi-stage rockets there is no limit to the distances their rockets will travel and the tasks their rockets will be able to perform. In a two-stage rocket the first, or spent, rocket detaches itself after lift off allowing the second, or next stage, rocket to launch again as a lighter space ship with more energy.
A long term objective of Iran's space program has been to move to any orbit that requires them to launch to 1000 km into space. Now that they have achieved the status of staged rockets, reaching their objective is only a matter of time. The satellites that Iran launches from here on will allow them the ability to monitor everything that happens in every corner of the entire globe. Everything.
Just prior to this launch Iran unveiled three new satellites called the Simorgh, or Phoenix. The unveiling and launch were televised on Iranian national TV and promoted as a part of Iran's anniversary celebration commemorating the Islamic Revolution. At the ceremony, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at length about the importance of these launches and these satellites. The president spoke about study and technology and the information that will be gleaned from this experiment of sending living organisms into space. The rat, the turtle and the worms will, he said, provide important information for scientists to analyze.
More frightening than the two-stage rocket, more frightening than the launch, is the knowledge that this despotic, demonic, extremist regime is in possession of this technology. The technology that launched the Kovahshgar 3 is the same technology that will allow Iran to provide a delivery system for non-conventional weapons.
This public launching in Iran is a watershed. While the West and the IAEA were running around trying to determine Iran's nuclear capability, Iran was legally building satellite rockets that easily convert to ballistic delivery armaments.
This launch demonstrates how advanced science and technology are in Iran, how fast they have developed over the past few months. It shows how deaf and blind the world has been to the significance of Iranian threats, how laissez faire the West has been in monitoring the aerospace industry in Iran, one of the most important elements of a nuclear delivery system.
And it shows how proud the Iranians are of their accomplishments - so proud that the Iranian government itself released a video of the launch on You Tube. Iran knows how to play the West - literally and figuratively.
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Wednesday February 3, 2010
I've Been Thinking:
Dennis Blair, the administration's point man on terror, testified before the Senate Committee on Security yesterday.
He said that the Taliban are growing in strength.
He said the Taliban are stronger than they were in 2006.
This is an understatement.
The Taliban are growing in numbers, in weapons and in influence.
Everyone is upset, but almost no one is doing anything to stop it.
Yesterday, the Saudis called upon the Taliban to exile Osama bin Laden.
They used Muslim logic and tried to prevail on the Taliban to reject bin Laden.
Obviously, their plan did not work.
At least the Saudis had an idea and ran with it, even if it was senseless.
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