The entire explanation for World War 2 in Europe

summed up in a little video clip.

This deserves to be reposted

From the blog A Daily Briefing on Iran:

Ex-Official: Russia Moved Saddam's WMDs

Kenneth R. Timmerman, News Max:

A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein "cleaned up" his weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.

"The short answer to the question of where the WMDs Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John. A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va. (www.intelligencesummit.org)

"They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," he said.

Shaw has dealt with weapons-related issues and export controls as a U.S. government official for 30 years, and was serving as deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security when the events he described today occurred.

He called the evacuation of Saddam's WMD stockpiles "a well-orchestrated campaign using two neighboring client states with which the Russian leadership had a long time security relationship." READ MORE

Shaw was initially tapped to make an inventory of Saddam's conventional weapons stockpiles, based on intelligence estimates of arms deals he had concluded with the former Soviet Union, China and France.

He estimated that Saddam had amassed 100 million tons of munitions –- roughly 60 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. "The origins of these weapons were Rusisan, Chinese and French in declining order of magnitude, with the Russians holding the lion's share and the Chinese just edging out the French for second place."

But as Shaw's office increasingly got involved in ongoing intelligence to identify Iraqi weapons programs before the war, he also got "a flow of information from British contacts on the ground at the Syrian border and from London" via non-U.S. government contacts.

"The intelligence included multiple sitings of truck convoys, convoys going north to the Syrian border and returning empty," he said.

Shaw worked closely with Julian Walker, a former British ambassador who had decades of experience in Iraq, and an unnamed Ukranian-American who was directly plugged in to the head of Ukraine's intelligence service.

The Ukrainians were eager to provide the United States with documents from their own archives on Soviet arms transfers to Iraq and on ongoing Russian assistance to Saddam, to thank America for its help in securing Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union, Shaw said.

In addition to the convoys heading to Syria, Shaw said his contacts "provided information about steel drums with painted warnings that had been moved to a cellar of a hospital in Beirut."

But when Shaw passed on his information to the Defense Intelligence Agency and others within the U.S. intelligence community, he was stunned by their response.

"My report on the convoys was brushed off as ‘Israeli disinformation,'" he said.

One month later, Shaw learned that the DIA general counsel complained to his own superiors that Shaw had eaten from the DIA "rice bowl." It was a Washington euphemism that meant he had commited the unpardonable sin of violating another agency's turf.

The CIA responded in even more diabolical fashion. "They trashed one of my Brits and tried to declare him persona non grata to the intelligence community," Shaw said. "We got constant indicators that Langley was aggressively trying to discredit both my Ukranian American and me in Kiev," in addition to his other sources.

But Shaw's information had not originated from a casual contact. His Ukranian-American aid was a personal friend of David Nicholas, a Western ambassador in Kiev, and of Igor Smesko, head of Ukrainian intelligence.

Smesko had been a military attaché in Washington in the early 1990s when Ukraine first became independent and Dick Cheney was secretary of defense. "Smesko had told Cheney that when Ukraine became free of Russia he wanted to show his friendship for the United States."

Helping out on Iraq provided him with that occasion.

"Smesko had gotten to know Gen. James Clapper, now director of the Geospacial Intelligence Agency, but then head of DIA," Shaw said.

But it was Shaw's own friendship to the head of Britain's MI6 that brought it all together during a two-day meeting in London that included Smeshko's people, the MI6 contingent, and Clapper, who had been deputized by George Tenet to help work the issue of what happened to Iraq's WMD stockpiles.

In the end, here is what Shaw learned:

In December 2002, former Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, came to Iraq and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003;

Primakov supervised the execution of long-standing secret agreements, signed between Iraqi intelligence and the Russian GRU (military intelligence), that provided for clean-up operations to be conducted by Russian and Iraqi military personnel to remove WMDs, production materials and technical documentation from Iraq, so the regime could announce that Iraq was "WMD free."

Shaw said that this type GRU operation, known as "Sarandar," or "emergency exit," has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc defectors as standard GRU practice;

In addition to the truck convoys, which carried Iraqi WMD to Syria and Lebanon in February and March 2003 "two Russian ships set sail from the (Iraqi) port of Umm Qasr headed for the Indian Ocean," where Shaw believes they "deep-sixed" additional stockpiles of Iraqi WMD from flooded bunkers in southern Iraq that were later discovered by U.S. military intelligence personnel;

The Russian "clean-up" operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq "under the command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achatov and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and psing as civilian commercial consultants."

Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achatov and Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003.

Shaw says he leaked the information about the two Russian generals and the clean-up operation to Gertz in October 2004 in an effort to "push back" against claims by Democrats that were orchestrated with CBS News to embarrass President Bush just one week before the November 2004 presidential election. The press sprang bogus claims that 377 tons of high explosives of use to Iraq's nuclear weapons program had "gone missing" after the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, while ignoring intelligence of the Russian-orchestrated evacuation of Iraqi WMDs;

The two Russian generals "had visited Baghdad no fewer than 20 times in the preceding five to six years," Shaw revealed. U.S. intelligence knew "the identity and strength of the various Spetsnaz units, their dates of entry and exit in Iraq, and the fact that the effort (to clean up Iraq's WMD stockpiles) with a planning conference in Baku from which they flew to Baghdad."

The Baku conference, chaired by Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, "laid out the plans for the Sarandar clean-up effort so that Shoigu could leave after the keynote speech for Baghdad to orchestrate the planning for the disposal of the WMD."

Subsequent intelligence reports showed that Russian Spetsnaz operatives "were now changing to civilian clothes from military/GRU garb," Shaw said. "The Russian denial of my revelations in late October 2004 included the statement that "only Russian civilians remained in Baghdad." That was the "only true statement" the Russians made, Shaw ironized.

The evacuation of Saddam's WMD to Syria and Lebanon "was an entirely controlled Russian GRU operation," Shaw said. "It was the brainchild of General Yevgenuy Primakov."

The goal of the clean-up was "to erase all trace of Russian involvement" in Saddam's WMD programs, and "was a masterpiece of military camouflage and deception."

Just as astonishing as the Russian clean-up operation were efforts by Bush administration appointees, including Defense Department spokesman Laurence DiRita, to smear Shaw and to cover up the intelligence information he brought to light.

"Larry DiRita made sure that this story would never grow legs," Shaw said. "He whispered sotto voce to journalists that there was no substance to my information and that it was the product of an unbalanced mind."

Shaw suggested that the answer of why the Bush administration had systematically "ignored Russia's involvement" in evacuating Saddam's WMD stockpiles "could be much bigger than anyone has thought," but declined to speculate what exactly was involved.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney was less reticent. He thought the reason was Iran.

"With Iran moving faster than anyone thought in its nuclear programs," he told NewsMax, "the administration needed the Russians, the Chinese and the French, and was not interested in information that would make them look bad."

McInerney agreed that there was "clear evidence" that Saddam had WMD. "Jack Shaw showed when it left Iraq, and how."

Former Undersecretary of Defense Richard Perle, a strong supporter of the war against Saddam, blasted the CIA for orchestrating a smear campaign against the Bush White House and the war in Iraq.

"The CIA has been at war with the Bush administration almost from the beginning," he said in a keynote speech at the Intelligence Summit on Saturday.

He singled out recent comments by Paul Pillar, a former top CIA Middle East analyst, alleging that the Bush White House "cherry-picked" intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.

"Mr. Pillar was in a very senior position and was able to make his views known, if that is indeed what he believed," Perle said.

"He (Pillar) briefed senior policy officials before the start of the Iraq war in 2003. If he had had reservations about the war, he could have voiced them at that time." But according to officials briefed by Pillar, Perle said, he never did.

Even more inexplicable, Perle said, were the millions of documents "that remain untranslated" among those seized from Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.

"I think the intelligence community does not want them to be exploited," he said.

Among those documents, presented Saturday at the conference by former FBI translator Bill Tierney, were transcripts of Saddam's palace conversations with top aides in which he discussed ongoing nuclear weapons plans in 2000, well after the U.N. arms inspectors believed he had ceased all nuclear weapons work.

"What was most disturbing in those tapes," Tierney said, "was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission."

In addition, Tierney said, the plasma uranium programs Saddam discussed with his aids as ongoing operations in 2000 had been dismissed as "old programs" disbanded years earlier, according to the final CIA report on Iraq's weapons programs, presented in 2004 by the Iraq Survey Group.

"When I first heard those tapes" about the uranium plasma program, "it completely floored me," Tierney said.

No proof is given here, aside from a man's claims of seniority and "I'm not crazy, I'm a victim of a cover-up." Nutcase right? So why'd I post it again here? Because I've heard these points and theories before, and not in the media. (though I remember hearing about reports of "Russian convoys to Syria" in the days before the war, back before I was in intelligence)

Fuck California

From now until my death, any time I hear someone talk about how great California is I am going to laugh.

Beside the over-abundance of liberal whackoes, the socialist state, the unlit and poorly marked and railed highways, the stupid laws, and the superiority complex, I've found something else that I really, *really* despise...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That is literally more than *twice* the price of what such an item (a 12 pack of coke!) costs at home in Texas. In a major city, with a somewhat higher cost of living. I'll stick to the Commissary, thanks. Or import my food from Switzerland via the Internet. It'd be cheaper.

Fuck California.

Oh great.

Things just keep getting better.

If there is even a whiff of atomic weapons technology changing hands or being developed in Venezuela the US will reach down and crush them. South America is our backyard, and there is no way in hell the US would tolerate atomic weapons on the same landmass, esp. in the hands of a bizzarre, somewhat irrational enemy like Chavez.

The CIA and Army had better be all over this.

Fan the fires of jihad...

...by reading these humorous cartoons.

I haven't posted much about this whole cartoon thing because 1) I think the whole idea is fundamentally stupid and 2) the online community and press, including much more important people than I, has made this a prime cause. My contribution won't be missed.

I'd just like to say that this is the kind of thing that President Bush was talking about when he said that they "hate our freedoms." I've been trying to explain to people ever since that he wasn't just being rhetorical or repeating a ridiculous claim for political reasons, like everyone assumed. They really, really do.

There's even a genre of books that have been published on the idea, begun with something called 'Signposts Along the Way' or 'Milestones' (when translated to English) written by a guy named Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid was executed in the 60's by Abd al-Nasser in Egypt for anti-government Islamist ideas and actions with the Muslim Brotherhood, but his brother carried on his ideas and was one of Ayman al-Zawahiri's college teachers. The Wikipedia article I linked above is kind of sanitized and neutral (as I guess I reference has a right to be) but it doesn't say that he claimed that we Americans deserved death for how we lived. This one demonstrates some of his nuttiness. And here is a glowing biography of Qutb as a 'Great Muslim,' demonstrating that his life and ideas are still looked upon favorable in the Middle East and not just by terrorists but by Young Muslims and the Islamic Circle of North America, which describes itself as a "non-ethnic, non-sectarian, open to all, independent, North America Wide grassroot organization."

From 'Milestones:'

From Sword of Islam, a hardback that I own: "...jihad is solely geared to protect the religion of God and his Holy Law (Shar'ia) and to save the Abode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and no other territory... Any land that combats the Faith, hampers Muslims from practicing their religion, or does not apply the Holy Law, becomes ipso facto part of the Abode of War. (Dar al-Harb)"

Following this classification and borrowing some ideas from Sayyid Mawdoudi, he describes how those lands that apply Shar'ia are legitimate and those that do not are illegitimate and deserving of destruction and replacement by something new and righteous. He also originated the use of the term Crusader (Salibi) and Land of the Crusaders (al-Salibiyah) to describe Westerners and the West. You might have heard those terms used by Al Qaeda. You should've. They say it all the time.

Allow me to point out that these writings predate American support for Israel. Qutb was executed in '66. American support for Israel didn't really manifest in any meaningful way until after the Six Day War which was, of course, in '67. Also, Israel's most virulent enemy, Abd al-Nasser, was bogeyman #2 (behind the West) on Qutb and co.'s hit list. A blow against apologists and revisionists that think the world revolves around Jerusalem.

In conclusion, the reactions to this cartoon thing (manufactured as it may be) shouldn't really surprise anyone who has studied Islamism and the Modern Middle East. Liberties, individualism, and tolerance are literally not respected there. Orthopraxy, community, and piety are. It doesn't take a genius...

Holy crap

I can almost see the outline of a spine forming somewhere between the Seine and the Danube! Who'd have thought?

A startling admission!

Not startling in the sense that I'm surprised it happened, but startling in the sense that I'm surprised anyone admitted to it.

I almost wish that the Iranians would just bite the bullet and start a war. All this preliminary stuff (nuclear negotiations standoff, interfering internally with their neighbors, inflaming international incidents because of cartoons, et cetera) is tiresome.

On interrogation and torture...

I've stumbled across an excellent (and rather long, for the Internet) piece on US military interrogation methods and how woefully... weak, they are. That is, our interrogators have to be nicer to the terrorists that they interrogate than NCO's (non-commissioned officers; i.e. sergeants) have to be to their own soldiers. Which is, of course, completely and utterly assinine.

Ahmed the Afghani Goatherd who fought for the Taliban because they had been winning for the last 5 years might break if you stare at him sternly and tell him he was a bad boy, but a hard core Al Qaeda "professional" will not. They are trained and conditioned to resist interrogation, even torture, by oppressive Arab security and intelligence services at those nifty little camps they go to. A direct testimony of this truth is related in the book "The Interrogators," which the article's author quotes a few times. The squeaky clean by the book methods used by the initial groups of interrogators in Afghanistan in 2001-02 accomplished exactly nothing. No information of any value. Some detainees, including Arabs (who were obviously Al Qaeda transplants, and a few of whom were later revealed as key ["high value" in MI jargon] targets) were set free with a wave. It was only after the interrogators got more aggressive and creative that prisoners started to break. And then, only the flunkies (more or less) would break. The leaders would just clam up, confident that they could outlast their questioners. So off to Cuba they would go, for a tropical vacation and more of the same.

'Well,' you might ask, 'if these guys are supposed to be tough, what makes you think harsher treatment would break them?'

You should see what they do when we threaten to give them to the Israelis. Or the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians, Bahraini, or whatever other local power they've pissed off. (but especially the Israelis) A bunch of these guys have committed crimes from money laundering to drug trafficking to sedition to rape in some of these countries where rough treatment is more... routine. They would be treated worse in Yemen for peddling dope or raping a little boy (to use a case I'm familiar with) than they would in the United States for massacring dozens of Iraqis or beheading prisoners on television. And they know it. And many of them will do anything to avoid such a fate, including ratting out their friends. Some hold out though, thinking that they are tough enough to handle it or not really believing that we weak and puny Americans would do such a thing. Sometimes, after these criminals get sent to their respective offended countries (like some of them do), they suddenly start to sing to their new captors and lo! new information is gained. This is the root of the "Outsourcing of Torture" accusations in the press. This stupid flap over Secret International CIA Prisons is undoubtedly linked to this and similar tactics. That's the trouble with secrecy. Because it's secret, you can't just hold up pictures and placards disproving every stupid little accusation and theory that gets thrown at you. Hence why the CIA and Freemasons (both organizations are by and large made up of fine people) have sinister reputations.

Contrary to the not-necessarily-widely-held opinion that our interrogation techniques are somehow inhumane or cruel, they are in fact not tough enough. And after the Abu Ghraib incident (which is kind of stupid anyway... similar antics can probably be found on any large campus in the US... in a frat house during Rush Week. Naked pyramids, hooah!) Army interrogators there are saddled with so much red tape and bureaucratic mother-may-I? horse shit that they are completely ineffective. The military has had to train Air Force interrogators(?!) to go in there instead because of all the BS following the Army around. Shouldn't that ring some bells? The freaking AIR FORCE now has to interrogate terrorist prisoners captured by the Army because the Army is too scared to touch them because of possible political backlash. It's like the entire Johnson Administration's Vietnam strategy writ small. Fucking politicians. And that includes some military officers.

It's pushing 3am and I'm tired and kind of rambling. Summary:

"Is that all you've got? You Americans are pussies." - "Oh yeah? We'll send you to the Mossad!" - "Oh have mercy!" This does not mean that we are not, in fact, pussies.

Alright...

More or less settled in. Wife's arrived, household crap has been delivered (though not all of it has been unpacked and distributed yet) and Internet access has been set up. Huzzah.

Class date is set for 26 March. I tell myself, at least it's not in April. Oh, and remember that other company that Arabists were being transfered to? I've been transfered there. *sigh* Though I hear they've actually started investing in Arabic study materials. That's a plus. And apparently the 1st sergeant is a former SF operator, good guy, and does not ascribe to the style over substance philosophy that pervades the military. Heard nothing but good things about him so far.

Ok, done with personal update,