Iraq and Al Qaeda - Details begin to Emerge

Newsweek -- certainly no ally of the Bush administration -- just posted slides from a classified 2002 Pentagon briefing that outlined Iraq's cooperation with Al Qaeda in the years prior to 9/11. Though plenty of sections are redacted, note the key findings:

More than a decade of numerous contacts Multiple areas of cooperation Shared anti-US goals and common bellicose rhetoric - unique in calling for killing of Americans and praising 9/11 Shared interest and pursuit of WMD Some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with Al Qaida specifically related to 9/11 Relationship would be compartmented by both sides; closely guarded secret; indications of excellent operational security by both parties

Read the whole thing™. Next thing you know, we'll find out Iraq had WMDs.

Shhh... no one tell Pelosi, Kennedy or Schumer.

The Dilemma of the 9/11 Conspiracists

It's amazing to me that a few otherwise reasonable people still believe that 9/11 was a grand plot by the U.S. Government. According to this alternate universe club, 9/11 was intentionally fomented by the U.S. to incite a war for the Saudis or to boost Halliburton's stock price, take your pick.

Let's not mention the first World Trade Center attack, Bali, Beslan, London, Madrid or any of the other venues of extremist attacks.

Here's the real dilemma for the 9/11 conspiracists. They're primarily the same Left-bank eccentrics who think George W. Bush can barely tie his own shoes. Yet they've also depicted him as Grand Wizard of a neocon cabal, which was capable of orchestrating the greatest, most complicated coverup in history. A 9/11 conspiracy would make the grassy knoll version of the Kennedy assassination look like an impromptu puppet show run by nine year-olds.

Now, recalibrate this with President Clinton, depicted as infinitely brighter than W, who was unable to keep his dalliances with an intern off the front pages.

Not to worry: The engineers at Popular Mechanics have spent a great deal of time debunking all of the 9/11 myths:

To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military. In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really happened on a day that is forever seared into world history...

AllPeers - the next killer app for Firefox?

AllPeers is a Firefox extension -- a plug-in that creates new capabilities in the browser -- that provides a basic peer-to-peer sharing capability in the remarkably popular browser.

It represents itself as a basic buddy list, with all of the simple presence capabilities such a list entails. But discovery and sharing of files is also supported. You can choose to share a file on your network with one or more buddies.

RSS feeds are also integrated. Newly shared files appear as RSS content and can be downloaded with a single click.

Obviously, corporate honchos should be aware that Firefox now has a P2P-sharing component and should act accordingly.

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First 15 minutes of 9/11 attacks on the web

The Toronto Star has some original -- and riveting -- descriptions of the first 15 minutes of live TV/radio coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

The coverage of those fateful 15 minutes is among the most engrossing ever broadcast — and some of the most inadvertently telling, too, since it clearly reveals who among the anchors and correspondents got it right and who blew it, who could think on their feet and who couldn't, as the ultimate breaking news story unfolded. There are surprises. For example, Charles Gibson, co-anchor of ABC's Good Morning America, did an unexpectedly fine job of covering the moment when the second plane hit and was the only anchor on the three major U.S. networks to immediately speak up and tell us what had happened. Others, like Bryant Gumbel, the now-departed anchor of CBS's The Morning Show, contributed astonishingly awful reportage... "If Gumbel seemed to somehow miss the crash of the second plane, he was the only anchor who thought he saw non-existent third and fourth jets approach the burning towers at 9:41. "Hold it, hold it!" said a near-panicky Gumbel to his guest. "Two jets right now, approaching the World Trade Center! We're watching! Hold on!"

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IMSDB -- not IMDB -- The Internet Movie Script Database

The world's largest collection of movie scripts: IMSDB. And, yes, they even have the script for Reservoir Dogs.

An Unremarkable Declaration of War, Part II

Hassan Abbassi is the head of the Center for External Security Doctrinal Analysis, a strategic component of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Abbassi appears to have arrived at a war plan for the West that would obliterate Anglo-Saxon civilization, starting with Britain.

According to Abbassi, "Britain is the mother of all evils" seeing as how the remnants of the British Empire -- the U.S., Australia, Israel, New Zealand, the Gulf States, Canada, etc. -- turned out.

In a May lecture at Tehran University, Abbassi remarked:

...[The US has] 6,000 nuclear warheads on [its] soil. Those 6,000 warheads are the target of our plans. The guerilla groups will go and destroy those warheads there. Not Iranian guerilla groups, but groups from all Islamic countries. You can expel all of them. We are also working on the Mexicans and the Argentinians. We will organize everyone who has problems with America. When our Internet site goes up, the American friends should get hold of the address. We've prepared plans concerning the American Achilles' heal and their weaknesses. We have identified all of their weaknesses on land, in the air, by sea, their technological weaknesses, etc., and we will pass on addresses to the guerilla organizations of the entire world concerning these, America's weaknesses. We have established a department that will take care of England. England's demise is on our agenda. If America attacks us, Don't worry at all... Through the Straits of Hormuz, 67% of the world's total energy passes. You must know this. Imagine I'm gone and, God willing, you want to face America. Take a tanker to the Straits Of Hormuz and sink it there. The tanker won't sink because the water is shallow there - about 50 meters. The tanker itself is 55 meters high, and when it will lie on the surface, half of it will protrude. It will take five months until it will be salvaged. A rise in oil prices, as you have seen, causes the West fever. These are the weaknesses...

Iran isn't Somalia. It is indeed a regional power, with a stated mission of destroying -- in its leaderships' own words -- all of "Anglo-Saxon civilization." How should we interpret this declaration of war? Our choices appear to be simple. Should the West excise Iran's ability to wage nuclear war? Or should it, in the words of Mark Steyn, "wait 'til we we've got absolute definitive 100% proof that [Iran's] got WMD - the absolute definitive 100% proof being a smoking crater where Tel Aviv used to be, or maybe London."

Pity the mainstream media can't expend the necessary energy to report this story, even if it's only to let Iran's intended victims make up their own minds.

Click here for Part I of An Unremarkable Declaration of War

An Unremarkable Declaration of War

There's a credible news report out of Germany describing the possibility of a U.S. first-strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. It seems plausible, given the Mullahs' de facto  declaration of war against the U.S., Israel, and the U.K.

Wait a second, you say you didn't hear anything about a declaration of war by Iran against the West? Lest it get missed in the end-of-year news roundup (featuring Natalie Holloway, Kanye West, and Michael Brown), we call attention to Iran's top strategist, one Hassan Abbasi, who is on the record stating:

We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization... we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.

Not inflammatory enough for you? Well, hit the play button on the tape of Iran's "President" Ahmadinejad in October:

We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years... ...In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels... Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? ...you had best know that this... goal [is] attainable...

Yes, my friends, you just heard a de facto  declaration of war on our country by a totalitarian, fascist nutcase. And, as a free added bonus, he's a nutcase with messianic delusions.

In his speeches, Ahmadinejad frequently mentions the 12th Imam (or Mahdi), a messianic figure who vanished in 941 and whose return will herald "the end of days." Oh, goody. And Ahmadinejad even mentioned the Mahdi in his September speech at the UN. And he frequently discusses realignment of Iran's government to prepare for judgment day. Dee-lightful.

In August 2004, MEMRI's Steven Stalinsky, writing in The New York Sun, reported that some Iranians in the U.S. may have been performing recon missions:

It was reported that America expelled two Iranian security guards employed by Tehran’s U.N. offices on June 29, after the mission was repeatedly warned against allowing its guards to videotape bridges, the Statue of Liberty, and New York’s subway system.This was the third time the Iranians have been caught in such activities, which could be connected to the sites mentioned in potential plans to attack America.

So let's do the arithmetic: take a fascist dictator with delusions of messianic grandeur, add in a burgeoning nuclear weapons capability, fling in some reconnaissance missions, and then toss in a heaping dollop of hatred for the West. The result? A recipe only Adolf Hitler could love.

I guess this story isn't big enough for the likes of the New York Times. Or the Washington Post. Or the San Francisco Chronicle. Or, for that matter, any member of the mainstream media.

We're on the brink of catastrophe. And the mainstream media couldn't care less.

Click here for Part II of An Unremarkable Declaration of War