Atlas Shrugs

Pamela Geller, Monday's WND Column: Pure deliciousness! 'Uninvited' at CPAC

_{Photo courtesy Pamela Hall}

Al Cardenas,  chair of the American Conservative Union that puts on CPAC,  is asked if "Pamela Geller would be invited to CPAC next year." He said, "Maybe. We have not begin that process yet." Blazing Cat Fur send me the audio clip: Download Pamela cpac-1

As for Grover's New York [Jew] remark, Big Fur Hat has a brilliant takedown here (read the whole thing). Everyone knows what Grover Norquist is (Grover Norquist and the Iran Lobby). And this is hardly new; Franklin Foer was warning us of Grover Norquist's ties to jihadists right after September 11th here.

My column for WND Monday is what I saw at the CPAC circus:

DEFENDING THE WEST

Pure deliciousness! 'Uninvited' at CPAC
Exclusive: Pamela Geller shares exceptional debate of hot-button issues

It was particularly delicious that I was invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, at the invitation of the Breitbart organization. The Breitbart event, “The Uninvited,” was a special two-hour session of hot-button issues, including global jihad, the ongoing global persecution of Christians and the gutting of the American military. Breitbart is here, indeed.

The event was standing room only. And I was overwhelmed by the rush of applause and folks who stood up when I walked into the room for the event. It was mind-blowing. These people get it.

The theme of my remarks was “The War on Free Speech.” Truth is, the new hate speech according to our betters – the enemedia and political elites. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is attempting to intimidate the West into criminalizing criticism of Islam, and what is shameful is the eagerness of the Western mainstream media, the left and even many conservatives to do their bidding by censoring themselves when speaking about Islam and demonizing and marginalizing those who dare to speak the truth about the jihad and Islamic supremacism. By their silence and weak response to the attacks, defamation and libel of voices of freedom, the right has sanctioned this speech-crushing device of the left and Islamic supremacists. Silence is sanction.

Suhail Khan is a foremost instrument of this demonization of voices of freedom. The enemedia got into an uproar when I said, “Am I saying that Suhail Kahn is as bad as [Anwar] Al-Alwaki? He’s worse. I knew when I said it that the media tools would jump all over it as a “gotcha” quote, and the hopeless Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon again and BuzzFeed got right on it. And just to show you what dishonest merchants they are, Matthew Boyle reports at Breitbart News that Salon’s Jillian Rayfield had written a good bit of her story, including charges of “Islamophobia,” before the panel even began. There was no need for her to actually watch the panel to apply the enemedia spin.

Of course Khan’s stealth jihad is more dangerous. Awlaki is dead. Suhail is working his treachery every day, under the guise of a “conservative” mask. Anwar al-Awlaki, too, was a moderate Muslim before he wasn’t. He was praised in the New York Times. Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a friend of Norquist and Khan, was also a moderate before he wasn’t. Alamoudi was Suhail’s mentor before he went to prison for terror-related crimes. Alamoudi was al-Qaida’s largest secret financial courier. Suhail Khan is tightly linked to jihadists who want to take down this country. Here is the background.

These attacks on me and my work are not about Pamela Geller. There is nothing personal in this war against me; it’s the subject matter. So when conservatives allow the attacks and marginalization of my work, they sanction the war on free speech. All of my colleagues have had their names dragged through the mud, their reputations ruined, their ability to make a living destroyed. Yet many conservatives remain silent (including some who were at “The Uninvited” event). They think they can do it better, softer – make the argument more saleable. But no one who touches this subject will be spared.

I have been dive-bombing into CPAC since 2008 – holding events on subjects that this body of the conservative movement refuses to address. And what CPAC omits is immense. There was little or no discussion of jihad in America; Shariah (close to half of the state legislatures are currently enacting or considering foreign law – why no discussion at CPAC?); the rise of Islamic supremacist regimes throughout the Middle East and Africa; the case for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East with a shared value system of governance: life, liberty, individual rights; how college students can handle the vicious anti-American bias on university campuses – the list goes on and on.

But more than this, at CPAC there is no discussion of philosophy. And without a basic understanding of our system of thinking – the nature of knowledge – we are cooked.

Indeed. Tocqueville wrote in “Democracy in America” that no country in the civilized world had paid less attention to philosophy than the U.S. He observed that Americans had no philosophical school of their own and little interest in those of Europe. But this was our genius, because our philosophy was our sense of life. We shared the same premise, conducted our understanding in the same manner, governed by the same rules – without taking the time or trouble to define the rules.

We must first go back to square one and learn why capitalism is the greatest and most benevolent of all economic systems. Capitalism is individual rights. We should have taught the 10,000 great Americans who came to CPAC why we think the way we do. Our story is a great one, the greatest. Individual rights. The U.S. the first really moral government in history based on that premise. And everything glorious and magnificent and supreme that we achieved was a rational fidelity to that principle.

Individual rights is the basis of my work. Individual vs. statism. This is the unending battle of the human condition. Communism, Nazism and now Shariah. There is no individual soul under Islam. And the Shariah is diametrically opposed to freedom.

Please read the rest.

Robert Spencer, Steven Bannon and Larry Solov of Breitbart

Syria's massive chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of jihadists

There will be an unimaginable bloodbath of Christians and Alawites slaughtered if Assad falls, but that's just for starters. The king of Jordan is warning that their chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of jihadists.

It's interesting to me that the world's eyes look to Israel. Israel, the scapegoat and word's punching bag, is the one the world relies on in that part of the world to save us from evil  (i.e. the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the NORK-built nuclear plant in Syria).

Washington has held talks with Israel about a possible strike at Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, which is thought to be the largest in the world.

Thomas Donilon, the US national security advisor, was in Israel last weekend to discuss the bloody crisis:

Telelgraph: Its concern is shared by King Abdullah of Jordan, who told CNN that in the "worst case scenario" chemical weapons could end up in the hands of jihadist groups among the patchwork of anti-Assad forces.

"Our information is that there is a presence of al-Qaeda in certain regions inside Syria, and has been there for a while," he told CNN.

The king of Jordan warned Wednesday that his northern neighbor Syria was on the brink of all-out civil war and that in a worst-case scenario, chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda. AFP, July 18, 2012

King Abdullah II told CNN a bomb attack that killed core members of the Syrian regime was a "tremendous blow" to President Bashar al-Assad but not yet the death knell for a regime that remains determined to cling to power.

"In other words, it's getting very, very messy to a point where I think the worst-case scenario for all of us in the region is when you get full-out civil war. There is no coming back from the abyss," he said.

Earlier, a bomb attack in Damascus killed key Syrian officials, including Defense Minister DaoudRajha, Assad's brother-in-law AssefShawkat and General HassanTurkmani, head of the regime's crisis cell on the uprising.

"Definitely this shows some cracks in the system, but again, I don't think we should jump to any conclusion writing the regime off in the near future," Abdullah said, while warning time was running out for a political solution.

"I think as we continue to pursue the political option, the realities on the ground may have overtaken us. Therefore I think the clock is ticking," he said.

"I think we should continue to give politics its due. But if we haven't already passed that window, I think we're getting very close to it.

"If it breaks down, if civil order breaks down to the point of no return, then it will take years to fix Syria. And I have a feeling we're seeing signs of that over the past three weeks," he warned.

"The only people that can bring us back from that brink are obviously the president and the regime. And I believe this is the last chance they have," he said. "This is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control."

Asked about reports that Syrian forces have begun moving chemical weapons stocks, Abdullah said he was concerned that in the event of a descent into all-out war, the arms could fall into extremist hands.

"Our information is that there is a presence of Al-Qaeda in certain regions inside Syria, and has been there for a while," he told CNN.

"And, again, one of the worst-case scenarios as we are obviously trying to look for a political solution would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands," he warned.

"A weapon of mass destruction was found in the U.S.": Shock confession of Customs officer

So why are they lying to us? The Obama adminsitration is playing deadly games with our lives.

Reporter: Do you ever find things that are dangerous like a chemical agent or a weaponised device?

Mr Hallor: At the airport, seaport, at our port of entry we have not this past fiscal year, but our partner agencies have found those things.

Reporter: So, specifically, you're looking for the dirty bomb? You're looking for the nuclear device?

Mr Hallor: Correct. Weapons of mass effect.

Reporter: You ever found one?

Mr Hallor: Not at this location.

Reporter: But they have found them?

Mr Hallor: Yes.

Reporter: You never found one in San Diego though?

Mr Hallor: I would say at the port of San Diego we have not.

Official Suggests WMD Intercepted at U.S. Entry Point Glo

Federal agencies have intercepted a "weapon of mass effect" entering the United States, San Diego's 10News last week quoted a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official as saying (see GSN, Feb. 11).

Asked if authorities have intercepted chemical agents or other weapons at U.S. ports, San Diego Assistant Port Director Al Hallor said: "At the airport, seaport, at our port of entry we have not this past fiscal year, but our partner agencies have found those things."

Asked if authorities look for radiological "dirty bombs" or nuclear weapons, he said: "Correct. Weapons of mass effect." Hallor then appeared to again confirm that such a device had been located at a U.S. point of entry.

The interview was brought to a halt before Hallor could elaborate. Customs and Border Protection later said in a statement it had "not specifically had any incidents with nuclear devices or nuclear materials at our ports of entry."

Hallor could likely have had undisclosed knowledge of an intercepted weapon, former Secret Service agent and airline security head Glen Winn said (10News, Feb. 9).

Daily Mail has this: 'A weapon of mass destruction was found in the U.S.': Shock confession of Customs officer

A port official has admitted that a 'weapon of mass effect'  has been found by 'partner agencies' in the U.S., raising major questions over a possible government cover-up.

The disturbing revelation came in an interview with San Diego's assistant port director screened by a television channel in the city.

The Customs and Border Protection Department tried to dampen speculation over his remarks, but doubts remained over whether he had inadvertently revealed a dirty bomb plot to attack the U.S. mainland.

Concern over a secret WMD bust came after U.S. cables made public by the Wikileaks whistleblower website revealed terror groups were plotting a 'nuclear 911.'

In the interview screened by San Diego’s 10News, Al Hallor, assistant San Diego port director, said ‘weapons of mass effect’ had been found, although he did not specify exactly where or what they were.

Reporter Mitch Blacher asked Mr Hallor: ‘Do you ever find things that are dangerous like a chemical agent or a weaponised device?’

‘At the airport, seaport, at our port of entry we have not this past fiscal year, but our partner agencies have found those things,’ the customs official replied.

Realisation: The assistant port director closes his eyes as reporter Mitch Blacher again asks him if weapons have ever been found in San Diego - and a public affairs officer intervenes

‘So, specifically, you're looking for the dirty bomb? You're looking for the nuclear device?’ asked Mr Blacher.

‘Correct. Weapons of mass effect,’ said Mr Hallor.

‘You ever found one?’ asked Mr Blacher.

‘Not at this location,’ Mr Hallor said.

‘But they have found them?’ asked Mr Blacher.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Hallor.

‘You never found one in San Diego though?’ Mr Blacher asked.

‘I would say at the port of San Diego we have not,’ Mr Hallor said.

‘Have you found one in San Diego?’ Mr Blacher asked.

The interview was then interrupted and cut short by a public relations official before Mr Hallor was able to answer the question.

San Diego's Customs and Border Protection agency was unavailable for comment today.

Earlier, Mr Hallor told Mr Blacher: ‘Potentially every city in America is a target. Given the waterways and the access to the Navy fleet here, I’d say, absolutely, San Diego is a target.

Shocking interview: 10News reporter Mitch Blacher interviews Al Hallor at San Diego port - where he makes the startling revelation WMDs have been brought into the U.S.

‘Our overall arching mission is to protect the American homeland against terrorists and from weapons of mass effect from entering the country. We are the guardians of America’s borders.’

Our overall arching mission is to protect the American homeland against terrorists and from weapons of mass effect from entering the country. We are the guardians of America’s borders.’

He was explaining how the port checks cargo ships arriving at the port. He suggested the customs ‘partner agencies’ may have found the 'weapons of mass effect.'

Former Secret Service agent and airline security director Glen Winn told 10News Mr Hallor’s comments appeared to be credible.

‘This person was, I believe, knowledgeable, has a very important position with the port and the government and as such has that knowledge,’ he said.

‘You posed some very serious questions as to security gaps and discoveries that perhaps have taken place in this area.

'I want to know how many and where did you find them so if I'm in that area, driving around and I see something that is out of place, I make a phone call,’ he added.

But 10News said a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security  told them Mr Hallor was 'just nervous' in the interview and 'mis-spoke'.

The spokesman denied officials said weapons of mass destruction had never been found in the U.S.- but would not answer questions about dirty bombs or chemical weapons.

After the interview, the Customs and Border Protection department in San Diego issued a statement denying it had dealt with any nuclear-related smuggling attempts.

‘CBP has not specifically had any incidents with nuclear devices or nuclear materials at our ports of entry,’ it said.

‘CBP is an all-threats agency. The purpose of many security measures is to prevent threats from ever materializing by being prepared for them.

'And, we must be prepared to stop threats in whatever form they do materialise at the border, whether it’s an individual or cargo arriving by land, air, or sea.

'Regardless of what the contraband or threat is, we’re being smart, evaluating, and focusing in on anything or anyone that is potentially high-risk.’

No WMDs have ever been smuggled into the US, or, a least, none have been disclosed.

There were reports more than six years ago that al Qaeda was planning to try and sneak a bomb through a secret tunnel into Arizona from northern Mexico, although it was never substantiated. Just last year, a 2,200 ft cross-border drugs tunnel was discovered in San Diego, complete with lighting and ventilation.

Terror risk? U.S. officials discovered a 2,200ft cross-border drugs tunnel in San Diego last year, raising fears al Qaeda could use a similar method

One reason for covering up a known attempt would be to prevent public panic. Just three days ago, acting Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Cynthia Schnedar, criticised U.S. efforts to prepare for a potential WMD attack as 'uncoordinated and fragmented'.

While the FBI had made adequate precautions for dealing with a WMD fallout, other branches of the DOJ were not sufficiently ready.

With the exception of the FBI, other departments had no training, did not participate in drills and had not selected an individual to take charge over WMD response operations, she said.

Back in October I wrote of the jihadis (OTMs) coming over the border here: GELLER: Borderline Obama - Washington Times

Wikileaks: WMD program existed in Iraq

Many of us  have been reporting on Iraq's WMD for years. But don't expect the propagandists and left-o-media to revise their lies or deliberate obfuscations to advance their treacherous agenda.

WikiLeaks is confirming Iraq's WMD. ****crickets hospitalized from chirping exhaustion****

RUSSIA moved Saddam's WMDs- Atlas Shrugs, February 2006

Congress's Secret Saddam Tapes and WMD - Atlas Shrugs, February 2006

Iraqi WMD Mystery Solved- Atlas Shrugs, March 2006

Iraq's WMD's Secreted to Syria - Atlas Shrugs, December 06

WMD in Iraq Crickets Chirping - Atlas Shrugs, March 2006

Iraq: WMD --Do Nukes Count? - Atlas Shrugs, February 2006

IRAQ'S WMD FOUND AT UN - Atlas Shrugs, August 2007

9/6 REPORT: Saddam's WMD in Syria - Atlas Shrugs, April 2008

550 Metric Tons Of Yellowcake Removed From Iraq, July 2008

Wikileaks: WMD program existed in Iraq prior to US invasion JIm Kouri, The Examiner

The release by Julian Assange's web site Wikileaks of classified documents reveals that U.S. military intelligence discovered chemical weapons labs, encountered insurgents who were specialists in the creation of toxins, and uncovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, Washington, DC officials and the news media have ignored this information.

One of the WikiLeaks document dumps reveals that as late as 2008, American troops continued to find WMD in the region.

There are numerous mentions of chemical and biological weapons in the WikiLeaks documents, however the U.S. media appear only interested in those portions of the leaked material that highlight actions that are viewed as embarrassing for the U.S. military such as the accusation that U.S. commanders were aware of abuse and "torture" of prisoners by Iraqi soldiers and police officers. 

The U.S. Defense Department continues to demand that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange immediately return the stolen military documents in his possession, including recent documents that created another stir when published, according to Elaine Wilson of American Forces Press Service. 

The department also wants the whistle-blowing web site to permanently delete all versions of these documents, which contain classified and sensitive information, from its web site, computers and records, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.

WikiLeaks documents don't reveal evidence of a massive weapons program by Saddam Hussein — the Bush administration’s leading rationale for invading Iraq -- or some enormous stockpile of WMD, but do reveal that chemical weapons did vanish from the Iraqi battlefield.

According to the latest WikiLeaks document "dump," Saddam’s toxic arsenal, significantly reduced after the Gulf War, remained intact. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict and may have brewed up their own deadly agents, according to the WikiLeaks web site.

During that time, former Iraqi General Georges Sada, Saddam's top commander, detailed the transfers of Iraq's WMD. "There [were] weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

Gen. Sada's comments came just a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, claimed that Saddam  Hussein "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."

in 2004, for example, American special forces members secretly purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard which have been used since World War I. Following testing in a military lab, the chemical was then secured and transferred to a secret location.

Read the whole thing.

Contemporary political memory seems to be conveniently afflicted with some kind of Alzheimer's disease. Not long ago, every Western leader, starting with President Clinton, fumed against Saddam’s WMD.

Obama: "Uh, What war?" Osama: "This One!"

On the eve of Obama's groveling tour to Islam, Osama Bin Laden lays down the law.

For all the mentally challenged liberals buying into the blatant and sick lie that there is no war, only an "overseas contingency operation," and there are no terrorists, just "man made disasters" ....... Osama Bin Laden is here to remind you, he's coming to git ya, suckers!

EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico

Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden Attacks US President Obama: The American People Will Reap What the White House Leaders Are Sowing MEMRI

Following are excerpts from an audio-tape by Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 3, 2009.

Osama Bin Laden: “...by ordering Zardari and his army to prevent the people of Swat Valley from instating Islamic law, by means of killing, fighting, bombing, and destruction. This led about one million Muslims – women, children, and the elderly – to flee their villages and their homes, and they have become homeless refugees living in tents, after having led honorable lives in their homes.

This simply means that Obama and his administration have sown new seeds that will increase hatred and vengeance towards America. These seeds as are many as the number of refugees from Swat Valley and the tribal areas in north and south Waziristan, as well as the number of their sympathizers. By this, Obama is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, increasing the enmity of the Muslims, as well as the number of fighting enemies, and initiating prolonged wars. The American people should prepare to continue to reap what the leaders of the White House are sowing, in the years and decades to come.

[...]

Asif Zardari and Ashfaq Kayani have continued to divert the [Pakistani] army from its main missions – the defense of Islam, its followers, and its land. They have pushed the army to fight Islam and its followers. They have directed it to fight and kill the Pashtun and Baloch tribes. Most of the Pakistani people reject this oppressive war. Zardari did this in response to the people who pay him in the White House – not 10%, but many times more.

This is high treason against the [Islamic] nation. I’m not just saying that in this war of his, he has exposed the economy of Pakistan to the danger of collapse. There is something even more important and dangerous. In this war of his, he is jeopardizing the religion, security, and unity of the people of Pakistan, by implementing an American, Jewish, Indian conspiracy. Thus, it is easier for India to bring the disintegrating Pakistani provinces, one after the other, under its influence, just like in the case of the former East Pakistan, or even worse. This will alleviate the American concerns about the Pakistani nuclear weapons, and India will join it in its fight against the mujahideen.

[...]

I would like to address a few words to America. Some reasonable and just people in research centers there may deduce from this what leads people to fight America and take revenge upon it, while what I say is completely ignored by those agents of the large corporations in the White House. I say that the free men who carried out 9/11 had not tasted the bitterness of being driven from their homes and their lands, to be sheltered by tents and beg for food. But these 19 men heard that this oppression was the lot of their brothers in Palestine, at the hand of the Zionists, using American weapons. Therefore, they left their schools and their universities, at the first opportunity to support the oppressed over there, and to punish the oppressors in America. So how would they have acted if they had indeed suffered these catastrophes?

Harry Truman is Puking in his grave

I wince when I imagine Truman's reaction to the current US groveling approach to North Korea. He sent men into battle to fight the nefarious scourge of communist expansionism in Korea (the Korean war). Imagine his horror if he witnessed the "carrots" we give to the brutal regime today. Could you just see Harry's face if he saw this 2006 news account on IPOD diplomacy?

The Bush administration wants North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as

Further, the United States of Maroons gave them massive quantities of heavy oil and committed to build the facilities in which to house the oil.

The NORKS are dropping Hiroshima nukes followed by long range missiles (delivery systems) in a sales presentation to all the evildoers the world over, and we are paying enormous amounts of tribute while the North Koreans starve in a 30 million manned gulag.

'Time is not on our side' is a quaint wax nostalgic.

Ambassador John Bolton wrote this in early 2008:

At a minimum, President Bush should not bequeath to the next president only the burned-out hulk of the Six-Party Talks, and countless failed and violated North Korean commitments.

David Gothard

Since they were conceived in spring 2003, the Six-Party Talks have stumbled around inconclusively. And for the last 13 months, Pyongyang has ignored, stalled, renegotiated and violated the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement.

Throughout all this "negotiation," which has mostly consisted of our government negotiating with itself, North Korea has benefited enormously. It's been spared the truly punishing sanctions that concerted international effort might have produced. In large part because of the appeasement policies of the two previous South Korean governments, Pyongyang has not felt the full impact of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) on its outward proliferation efforts. The U.S. has muzzled its criticism of North Korea's atrocious oppression of its own citizens. And, perhaps most humiliatingly of all, the U.S., in a vain effort at chasing the mirage, gave up its most effective pressure point -- the financial squeeze -- allowing Pyongyang renewed access to international markets through institutions like Banco Delta Asia.

In fact, the protracted Six-Party Talks have provided Kim Jong-il with the most precious resource of all: the time to enhance, conceal and even disperse his nuclear weapons programs. Time is nearly always on the side of the would-be proliferator, and so it has proven here. In exchange for five years of grace to North Korea, the U.S. has received precious little in return.

Pyongyang is now stonewalling yet again on its promise to disclose fully the details of its nuclear programs, including its uranium enrichment efforts and its outward proliferation. The successful Israeli military strike against a Syrian-North Korean facility on the Euphrates River last September highlighted the gravity of the regime's unwillingness to do anything serious that might restrict its nuclear option.

Arrested Smuggling Ebola into the USA

Amaros sent this with the following key observations, "the story says that this was not a dangerous shipment. True in the sense that these vials did not contain the virus per se (he had no access to that) but they contained the genetic codes for the virus, which is required for manufacture. The CBC reported the gene info just now but stressed that this material is for producing vaccines. If you can make the vaccine, you can make the disease.

So while he claims he was taking them to help his new research, he could have also sold them to terrorists with labs.

He is facing 20 years jail. They don't give that to plagiarists."

Canadian scientist arrested for smuggling vials for Ebola research into U.S.

A Canadian scientist was stopped at the U.S. border last week after authorities found 22 vials used in Ebola research from Canada's National Microbiology Lab in his possession, officials said Wednesday.

The incident has sparked controversy and serious questions about security protocols at the Winnipeg lab that contains some of the world's most deadliest pathogens.

Konan Michel Yao, 42, was apprehended by U.S. officials as he attempted to enter the United States at the Pembina, N.D., border crossing from Manitoba on May 5.

Yao faces U.S. criminal charges for smuggling and is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals service.

[...]

"There was a small amount of genetic material from the Ebola virus in the material that he took off with, but it posed no risk of infection and no risk to the health of the public," he said.

"It's basically genetic material, some of which had an Ebola gene in it. It's just a gene. It's not infectious. The only thing he could've done with it was make an Ebola vaccine."

"MONSTROUS BIOWEAPON" "INADVERTENTLY" SHIPPED COULD HAVE TRIGGERED A HUMAN PANDEMIC

Where is the media on the huge story? What would be the implications/ramifications had it not been caught in time? Where are the investigative journalists exposing how WHO inadvertently supplied samples of this WMD to European labs?

SUMMARY of following articles  Hat tip Rocketman

Baxter pharma, of heparin fame, screws up again; this time mixing H5N1 bird flu virus with a human-to-human transmissible but less lethal flu variant and then cheerfully shipping it out to labs across Europe for experimentation. They had to have their error pointed out by the recipients.  If this had gotten out into the public, there would have been a distinct chance of spawning the doomsday virus outbreak prematurely. What they shipped out was a monstrous bioweapon. That the ‘milder’ virus allegedly could not replicate is a poor excuse.

H9N2 is circulating in the same Asian population as the very deadly H5N1. A mix of the two would likely result in an easily transmissible flu. H5N1 alone so far has shown poor human-to-human transmission. If the two viruses mix it up in a single organism, the probability of a highly transmissible, highly fatal flu is increased significantly.

Anti-viral-resistant bird flu has come into Africa and is starting to develop there. Egypt has been the primary site so far. Three variants indicate there have been three separate imports. Either via international wild bird flights or other less clear means of importation.

ARTICLES

Officials spooked by bird flu mix-up                       

Public health officials in Europe are taking steps to make sure there's no repeat of a recent incident in which the lethal H5N1 virus was accidentally combined with a seasonal flu virus and shipped to labs in Europe. Officials say that the bird flu virus contaminated batches of H3N2 virus shipped from Baxter's Austrian labs to a customer. That raised the possibility of a viral mutation that could trigger a human pandemic. Baxter, for its part, stressed that the H3N2 virus had been made "replication defective" and that there was little chance of sparking a pandemic.

WHO mulls stricter transport of bio products

By Andrew Jack

Public health officials are studying the need for tighter controls on the transport of biological products after Baxter, the US pharmaceutical company, inadvertently supplied samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus to a series of European laboratories.

Specialists from the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control are monitoring the case at a time of growing concern that existing international rules to minimise the risks of the spread of pathogens are too weak.

Their scrutiny follows an incident that recently came to light when samples of H5N1 from Baxter’s Austrian labs contaminated batches of the less harmful H3N2 seasonal flu virus that it was supplying under a commercial contract to a customer, Avir Greenhills Biotechnology.

A combination of H3N2, which is highly transmissable between humans, and H5N1, which has killed hundreds of millions of chickens and other animals in recent years, could potentially lead to a mutated virus that forms the basis of a new human pandemic threatening millions of lives, according to scientists.

Baxter stressed that the H3N2 strain had been made “replication defective”, and was handled in tightly controlled laboratories purely for experiments, so there was little chance it could have led to an outbreak threatening humans. It also stressed that all staff potentially exposed were tested and given antiviral treatment to prevent any infection.

Baxter was forced to suspend production last year of Heparin, a blood thinner, after contamination during manufacturing of the primary ingredient in China triggered health alerts in the US, where regulators say it may have contributed to patient deaths. Baxter has refuted the FDA’s claim.

Baxter said the H5N1 samples were provided for its own research into a pandemic vaccine it is developing, and were from a variant of the virus identified in Vietnam and provided to the company by the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The material was handled appropriately in all steps of the process in the right conditions,” said Chris Bona, a Baxter spokesman. “The experimental material was produced exclusively for laboratory testing, was not used for product production and was not for use in humans.”

It somehow mixed with H3N2 before distribution last December to Avir, and the more potent virus was detected by a subcontractor in the Czech republic last month after it rapidly killed ferrets exposed to the viruses. Avir had also sent samples to Slovenia and Germany.

Mr Bona stressed that Baxter had since taken “corrective preventative actions” and its procedures had been approved by the Austrian authorities.

The incident comes just after the conclusion of an EU-funded project on biosafety highlighted the need for improvement to national regulatory frameworks for biosafety and laboratory biosecurity.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

New Strain of Bird Flu Poses Threat

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Even as governments and health experts around the world have been focusing on the threat of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, another dangerous strain known as H9N2 has gone mostly ignored, according to a study published in the journal PLos ONE.

"Our results suggest that the establishment and prevalence of H9N2 viruses in poultry pose a significant threat for humans," the researchers wrote.

Of three known species of influenza virus, two of them regularly infect humans. The third species, influenza A virus, primarily affects birds and is also known as bird flu. Among hundreds of strains of influenza A, the World Health Organization says that only four have ever been known to infect humans: H5N1, H7N3, H7N7 and H9N2.

H5N1 has attracted the most attention due to its extreme virulence and high death rate - of 385 humans known to have been infected with the virus since 2003, 243 have died. The virus is widespread in both domestic and wild bird populations, giving rise to fears that it could mutate into a form more easily transmissible to and between humans.

But H9N2 can also cross from birds to pigs, humans and other animals, and has infected at least four Hong Kong children to date. In its current form, the virus causes only mild symptoms. In the current study, however, researchers found that a single mutation was enough to make H9N2 more infectious and virulent, but also to enable it to cross directly between infected ferrets. Ferrets react to influenza similarly humans, and are often used as an animal model for the disease.

Hybridization of the H9N2 and H3N2 strains also resulted in a more pathogenic and easily transmitted flu. Researchers believe this could occur if a single organism is infected with both strain simultaneously.  Neither of the laboratory-produced strains was able to spread through the air and could only spread by touch, similar to colds.

Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com.

_______________________________________

Signs of Drug Resistance Found in Africa's H5N1 Virus

Iran and Syria secretly continuing nuclear projects

Unlike Rush, I do not believe Obama is merely in over his head - I believe this is silent approval of these jihad advances. I have been predicting this for close to two years. President Hussein's inaction is an action. President Hussein's new world order.

When this stuff happened around the world during the Bush administration, Bush would pop up and say something about it and condemn it and say that we weren't going to put up with it, that they are on the list. I think Obama just doesn't care, or he's in over his head on this stuff, probably a combination of the two. .... But regardless, the only thing he has said of any significance about things happening in the era of foreign policy is to express his displeasure with the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is going to be forming the government in Israel. He doesn't like the fact that the Israelis are going to be governed here by a right-wing coalition. Yemen released 120 terrorists to the street. We're not prosecuting the Yemeni USS Cole people. Not a word from Obama about that. So that may be an area of incompetence or simple lack of concern.  (more here - hat tip Barry)

And Iran knows it. With President Hussein's lifting of sanctions against Syria, and possibly Iran, approval of an aerospace system for Syria, Iran and Syria have hit the ground running.

Israel: Iran, Syria secretly continuing nuclear projects

Iran and Syria are secretly working on nuclear technology in a manner which risks peace in the region and the world, while bluntly ignoring their international obligations," a statement by the Foreign Ministry said Friday evening.

The statement was issued following a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which indicated Iran was continuing to enrich uranium.

"The report on Iran indicates a continuation of the uranium enrichment project which goes against the [UN] Security Council's resolutions, and proves Iran's lack of cooperation with the IAEA's effort to clear up heavy suspicions over the military goals of Iran's plan," the statement continued.

Israel also expressed concern over the Syrian military facility bombed in September 2007 and was expecting the IAEA "to continue investigating, including visiting other sites to which Syria is currently blocking access."

Earlier Friday, experts said a recent report by the UN nuclear watchdog which stated that Iran has slowed down its uranium enrichment program neglected to underscore the fact that Teheran already had enough fissile material to produce an atomic bomb.

The recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report states that inspectors uncovered 209 kilograms of low-enriched uranium that the Iranians had failed to declare, which brings the total amount that Teheran has so far enriched to over a ton, enough, with additional purification, to produce a nuclear weapon, officials told the New York Times Thursday.

independent weapons experts told the paper that they were surprised by the figures and criticized the IAEA for conducting inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities only once a year.

"It's worse than we thought. It's alarming that the actual production was underreported by a third," said Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

"You have enough atoms" to make a bomb, a senior UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The IAEA report, which was made public Thursday, stated that the new assessment of the total amount of uranium enriched by Iran factors in 171 kilograms of newly-produced material and 839 kilograms of old production. In the past, however, the agency had only reported 630 kilograms of old production.

Note to Bibi - a Livni-less government is required.

AL QAEDA HAS NUKES

Look, if Iran's got them, then their proxies have them. Be aggressive in where you get your news. The media is sedating the public.

Leader of Yemen's Mujahideen Claims al-Qaeda has a Nuclear Weapon Please read this post:

Atlas Shrugs: WHAT TO DO IF A NUCLEAR DISASTER IS IMMINENT!

This guide is for families preparing for imminent terrorist or strategic nuclear attacks
with expected severe destruction followed by widespread radioactive fallout downwind.

IF ONLY A 'Dirty Bomb' Attack (Not the vastly more devastating nuclear weapon blasts with fallout discussed below.) - You can expect localized and downwind contamination from the explosion and dispersed radioactive materials. If you are near enough to see or hear any local bomb blast, assume that it includes radiological or chemical agents. You should move away from the blast area as quickly as possible. If the wind is blowing toward you from the direction of the blast, travel in a direction that is crosswise or perpendicular to the wind as you move away from the blast area. If possible cover your face with a dust mask or cloth to avoid inhaling potentially radioactive dust. Upon reaching a safe location, remove your outer clothing outside and shower as soon as possible. Refer to local news sources for additional instructions about sheltering or evacuation. The government is better prepared to direct and assist the public in a 'dirty bomb' incident, unlike an actual nuclear weapon attack discussed below.

In a national crisis of imminent nuclear weapon attacks, read all the way through this guide first,

THEN TAKE EFFECTIVE PROTECTIVE ACTION WITH CONFIDENCE... FAST!

#1 - STAY OR GO?

You must decide FIRST if you need to prepare where you are, or attempt evacuation. The nature of the threat, your prior preparations, and your confidence in your sources of information should direct your decision. If you know already you will be preparing to stay at your own home or, at least, the immediate local area, go now to #2 below.

If you are considering evacuation, your decision requires a very high confidence that it is worth the risk. You do not want to get stuck between your current location and your hoped for destination, as there will probably be no easy getting back. If you fail to get to your destination, you may be exposed without shelter, in a dangerous situation with little effective law enforcement, perhaps among panicked hordes of refugees. Whatever supplies you have may be limited then to what you can carry on foot. IF you are in a big city or near a military target, AND you have relatives or friends in the country that you know are awaiting you, AND the roads between you and them are clear, AND the authorities are not yet restricting traffic, AND you have the means and fuel, evacuation may be a viable option for a limited time. DO NOT attempt evacuation if all of the above is not clearly known, or if the situation is deteriorating too quickly to make the complete trip. You do not want to get stuck and/or become a refugee being herded along with panicked masses. If evacuation is truly a viable option, do not wait - GO NOW! Do so with as many of the supplies listed on the last page as possible. Better to be two days too early in arriving than two hours too late and getting snagged mid-way, potentially exposing your family to a worse fate than having stayed where you were. Because of the very real danger of getting caught in an evacuation stampede that stalls, almost all families will be better off making the best of it wherever they currently are.

#2 - WHAT YOU NEED TO DO FIRST 

Because time is of the essence, you need to first delegate and assign to different adult family members specific tasks so they can all be accomplished at the same time. Your first priorities to assure your family survival are Shelter, Water, and Food/Supplies. While some are working on the water storage and shelter at home, others need to be acquiring, as much as possible, the food and supplies.

#3 - FOOD/SUPPLIES

Because much of the food and supplies listed on the last page of this guide may quickly become unavailable, you need to assign someone NOW to immediately go to the stores with that list! Get cash from the bank and ATM's first, but try and use credit cards at the stores, if at all possible, to preserve your cash.

#4 - WATER

With one or more adults now heading to the stores with the list on the last page, those remaining need to begin storing water IMMEDIATELY! Lack of clean water will devastate your family much more quickly and more severely than any lack of food. Without water for both drinking and continued good sanitary practices in food preparation and for bathroom excursions (which will inevitably be much less sanitary than normal), debilitating sickness could rampage through your household with little hope of prompt medical attention. That is a highly likely but, avoidable, disaster, ONLY IF you have enough water.

Every possible container needs to be filled with water RIGHT NOW! It will be very hard to have stored too much water. When the electricity/pumps go down or everybody in your community is doing the same thing, thus dropping the water pressure, what you've got is all you might be getting for a very long time. Empty pop bottles (1-3 liter) are ideal for water storage, also filling up the bathtub and washing machine. (Remember, later you'll have some in your hot water tank.) If you have any kiddie pools or old water beds, pull them out and fill them up, too. (Water from a water bed should be used only for bathing or cleaning, not for drinking as it may contain traces of algaecide and/or fungicides.) Anything and everything that'll hold water needs to be filled up quickly RIGHT NOW!!

One of the shopping items listed on the last page is new garbage cans and liner bags which you'll also use for storing water. If you can't get any more new cans, you could clean out an existing garbage can and scrub it throughout with bleach, then put in a new garbage bag liner and fill it with water. Even sturdy boxes could be used with bag liners. (Use two liners if they are very thin/flimsy.) Choose well where you fill up garbage cans with water because they won't easily be moved once full and many of them together could be too heavy for some upper floor locations. Ideally, they need to be very near where your shelter will be constructed and can actually add to its shielding properties, as you'll see below. BE ASSURED, YOU CANNOT STORE AND HAVE TOO MUCH WATER! Do not hesitate, fill up every possible container, RIGHT NOW!

#5 - SHELTER 

The principles of radiation protection are simple - with many options and resources families can use to prepare or improvise a very effective shelter. You must throw off the self-defeating myths of nuclear un-survivability that may needlessly seal the fate of less informed families.

KEEP READING THERE IS SO MUCH MORE. CLICK BELOW

Radioactive fallout is the particulate matter (dust) produced by a nuclear explosion and carried high up into the air by the mushroom cloud. It drifts on the wind and most of it settles back to earth downwind of the explosion. The heaviest, most dangerous, and most noticeable fallout, will 'fall out' first close to ground zero. It may begin arriving minutes after an explosion. While the smaller and lighter dust-like particles will typically be arriving hours later, as they drift much farther downwind, often for hundreds of miles. As it settles, whether you can see it or not, fallout will accumulate and blow around everywhere just like dust or light snow does on the ground and roofs. Wind and rain can concentrate the fallout into localized 'hot spots' of much more intense radiation with no visible indication of its presence.

This radioactive fallout 'dust' is dangerous because it is emitting penetrating radiation energy (similar to x-ray's). This radiation (not the fallout dust) can go right through walls, roofs and protective clothing. Even if you manage not to inhale or ingest the dust, and keep it off your skin, hair, and clothes, and even if none gets inside your house, the radiation penetrating your home is still extremely dangerous, and can injure or kill you inside.

Radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion, though very dangerous initially, loses its intensity quickly because it is giving off so much energy. For example, fallout emitting gamma ray radiation at a rate of 500 R/hr (fatal with one hour of exposure) shortly after an explosion, weakens to only 1/10th as strong 7 hours later. Two days later, it's only 1/100th as strong, or as deadly, as it was initially.

That is really very good news, because our families can readily survive it IF we get them into a proper shelter to safely wait it out as it becomes less dangerous with every passing hour
There is much more to be done - read the rest here.

TIP: Potassium iodide tablets help block the thyroid from absorbing radiation. They were distributed to many government workers after 9/11. They are cheap and safe. (here) hat tip Howard

al-Qaeda Claims to Have Nukes Yid with lid

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11 and chief operating officer of al-Qaeda, who revealed under intensive interrogation -- including the much-maligned tactic of waterboarding -- that a nuclear attack against the United States was a top priority for al-Qaeda. He wants to execute it in a way that kills up to 10,000,000 Americans.

Former Clinton Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Graham Allison believe that the nuclear destruction of one or more American cities is more probable than not in the very near future. Scary isn't it. Especially when you consider how close terrorist supporter Iran is to getting the "bomb." So while "President Obama" will be talking to Iran, some nut sent by one of Irans's buddies may be melting NYC.

Our new government doesn't really understand the threat. We keep hearing politicians talk about the retribution that Iran would receive should there be a nuclear attack on Israel or the US. What they don't get is mutually assured destruction  is not a threat to people who  strap bombs onto their children's backs so they can blow themselves up. YOU CAN'T TALK TO CRAZY PEOPLE. If they don't care about their children, what in heaven's name makes one think they are going to care about yours?

According to the head or al-Qaeda in Yemen, Nasir Abdul Kareem al-Wahayshi we should find out soon. Nasir claims that al-Qaeda already has their hands on nuclear weapons:


Leader of Yemen's Mujahideen Claims al-Qaeda has a Nuclear Weapon
By: Abdul Hameed Bakier

In a recent interview posted to jihadi websites, al-Qaeda's leader in Yemen claims the organization possesses nuclear weapons and vows to attack U.S. and Western interests to compel them to withdraw their forces from the region (hanein.info, January 27).

According to the interview, the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, 33-year-old Nasir Abdul Kareem al-Wahayshi (a.k.a. Abu Basir), was Osama Bin Laden's secretary until he was arrested by Iran and extradited to Yemen in February 2002. Al-Wahayshi has been a fugitive since he escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006 (see Terrorism Focus, February 7, 2006; March 18, 2008). In 2008, the second man in al-Qaeda, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, commended al-Wahayshi and named him the Amir of Mujahideen in Yemen. Since then, there has been a growing unity between al-Qaeda's Saudi and Yemeni affiliates and the mainstream al-Qaeda group in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region. Led by an Amir, a deputy Amir, and a military and Shura council, the Saudi and Yemeni affiliates have joined together as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

On the war in Gaza, al-Wahayshi said that the Muslim nation is longing for jihad, as is evident from the protests that broke out everywhere, but accused Hamas of refusing to receive the Salafi-jihadis that tried to aid Palestinians in the fighting. The Arab mujahideen went to Afghanistan only to prepare for jihad in Palestine, but before the mujahideen can go to Palestine, the blockade imposed by Arab regimes should be broken - an implicit call to topple Arab regimes, or what al-Qaeda identifies as "the near enemy." In the meantime, al-Wahayshi believes it is necessary to also attack the interests of the supporters of Israel, the United States and Europe in the Arabian Peninsula: "The Crusaders' campaign on our people in Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan uses the Arabian Peninsula as a launching pad. The U.S., British and French fleets in the region are only there to protect the Jews in Palestine. The Arab leaders, among them the Yemeni leader [President Ali Abdullah Saleh], vigorously contribute military and logistical aid to the Crusaders' campaign."

Al-Wahayshi further asserts that until the mujahideen are able to infiltrate into Palestine and fight the Jews, Western tourists are a legitimate target for the mujahideen, as the tourists are part of the Crusaders' campaign. Western tourists are either Christian missionaries, depraved individuals, or Western government agents spying on Muslims. Al-Wahayshi justifies killing Muslims who protect Christian and Jewish interests such as embassies and cultural centers, referring to al-Qaeda's attack on the U.S. embassy in Sana'a in September 2008 in which six Yemeni security personnel, six attackers, and four bystanders were killed. "Shame on those who protect the embassies of the Crusaders' countries. Shame on them to watch U.S. rockets and Israeli white phosphorus shells tearing up and burning Gaza children and still protect their interests," says al-Wahayshi.

Asked why al-Qaeda targets the oil industry infrastructure that serves the economy of a Muslim country when the majority of employees in that industry are Muslims, al-Wahayshi insisted that Muslims do not benefit from Yemeni oil. On the contrary, it only sustains the lifeline of the Crusaders and Zionists who are attacking Muslims, thanks to President Saleh. On the topic of tourism, al-Wahayshi insists Muslims should not allow infidel Jews and Christians into the Arabian Peninsula in the name of tourism or any other purpose.

On the Yemeni leadership, al-Wahayshi refuses to recognize the authority of the Yemeni president, alleging that he came to power through sham elections: "Democracy is a religion invented and imposed on Muslim nations by the United States to create grudges and animosity among them. Democracy drains the energy of Muslim youths by keeping them occupied with elections and leaves the nation powerless and acquiescent to the Crusaders' campaign."

Refuting President Saleh's declaration that al-Qaeda extremists have no vision and only blow up and kill innocent people, al-Wahayshi said the Yemeni president has been stealing government funds and destroying the country for years without a vision or plan for the well being of the country and its people. Al-Wahayshi claims Yemen's president has turned Yemen into a base for Crusaders and Zionists. Al-Qaeda therefore aims to replace the current regime with a just and secure Islamic Shari'a government in Yemen that will end U.S. influence in the region. The Amir adds that mujahideen attacks on U.S. interests have weakened the U.S. economy, as seen in the current world economic crisis. Finally, al-Wahayshi claims al-Qaeda possesses a nuclear weapon and only refrained from using it in the 9/11 attacks because those attacks were only al-Qaeda's "first message" to the Americans.

Many ordinary Yemenis believe the nation's "enemies" are propagating false allegations that Yemen is becoming a regional base for al-Qaeda in order to damage its relations with Saudi Arabia (al-yemen.org January 25). Others anticipate more international support for the Yemeni government in its fight against AQAP in Yemen in response to AQAP's formation. Answering AQAP's threats, Yemen's Interior Ministry said the Yemeni security apparatus is on high alert and is conducting security sweeps of all possible AQAP hideouts, adding that Yemen and Saudi Arabia are cooperating fully to apprehend AQAP members (Dar al-Hayat, January 31).

"911 WILL BE SMALL CHANGE IN COMPARISON" Professor Fantasizes About A Biological Attack On The White House

Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Nafisi Fantasizes about a Biological Attack at the White House and Prays for the Bombing of a Nuclear Plant on Lake Michigan Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - February 2, 2009 - 00:09:05 (hat tip Kasper)

President Hussein's strategy? Grovel and beg.

MUSLIM PIRATES DIE FROM SUBSTANCE THEY HANDLED OFF HIJACKED IRANIAN SHIP

Somalian Muslim pirates (think ...Barbary Coast ..... you know from the shores of Tripoli...) die after handling substance (nuclear? WMD?) on a captured Iranian ship. Obama's pal, he is going to sit down with this annihilationist.

16 pirates died after handling substance on captured Iranian ship  (hat tip randall)

LONDON — An Iranian ship captured by Somali pirates carried sealed containers of a powdery substance believed to be nuclear or chemical weapons agents.

Western intelligence agencies have been monitoring the capture of the Iran Deyanat, seized by Somali pirates on Aug. 21. The cargo ship, owned and operated by the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, contains sealed cargo thought to be linked to the death of 16 pirates.

In September 2008, IRISL came under U.S. sanctions as a company that helps Iran's nuclear and other strategic programs, Middle East Newsline reported.

Industry sources said the ship's crew of 29, about half of them Iranians and reported to have left China on July 28, would neither disclose the exact contents of the cargo nor provide the code to open the sealed containers.

In the Somali port village of Eyl, pirates blasted open one of the seven cargo units, said to contain an unidentified powdery substance.

About 40 pirates, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, boarded the Iranian ship, owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in the Horn of Africa, about 130 kilometers southeast of Yemen. Iran Deyanat was registered to carry a sealed cargo of 42,500 tons minerals and industrial products to the Netherlands via Egypt's Suez Canal.

Hard to know who to root for in these situations. Mutually assured destruction, that works for me.

IRAN'S NUKES! NUCLEAR THEFT! "Dangerously naive" Obambi say, nothing to see here folks keep moving

Just some Republican fear mongering!And now Sarkozy mongering too (zee fwench no less!). French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran (more here)

Is it any wonder that Obambi has been endorsd by the Muslim world and Ahmadinejad and Qaddafi, and Hamas and Gazans?

Sources: Sarkozy views Obama stance on Iran as 'utterly immature'  Haaretz hat tip Amaros

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West's proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West.

According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country's policy toward Iran, that would be "very problematic."

ElBaradei Warns of Nuclear Thefts (hat tip buff)

There were close to 250 thefts of nuclear and radioactive material in a 12-month period that ended in June, a figure International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday called “disturbingly high,” the New York Times reported (see GSN, Sept. 29).

“The possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive material remains a grave threat,” ElBaradei said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly.  “Equally troubling is the fact that much of this material is not subsequently recovered.”

And that from El Baradei, every  rogue nuclear regime's best friend.

ElBaradei Warns of Nuclear Thefts

There were close to 250 thefts of nuclear and radioactive material in a 12-month period that ended in June, a figure International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday called “disturbingly high,” the New York Times reported (see GSN, Sept. 29).

“The possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive material remains a grave threat,” ElBaradei said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly.  “Equally troubling is the fact that much of this material is not subsequently recovered.”

However, there is not enough missing nuclear material to produce one actual atomic bomb, according to IAEA personnel and independent analysts.

Threatening letter to McCain: "Allahu akbar"

Remember this letter?  (no worries!)

Threatening letter to McCain: "Allahu akbar" Jihadwatch (hat tip Babs)

"Akeem Ramsel El" appears at very least to be a Nation of Islam member -- and by the signoff of his letter, it also appears that he had jihad on his mind when he wrote to McCain.

"Exclusive: Man Who Wrote McCain Letter Explains Actions," from The Denver Channel (ABC7News)

ANOTHER WMD EVENT AND THE AL QAEDA MANUAL

Another WMD event in Denver today, and bear this in mind:  New Al Qaeda Manual Reflects Changing Face Of Terror. The manual, called "Method for Building the Personality of a Terrorist Mujahid" and written by an Islamist forum contributor nicknamed "Shamil al-Baghdadi," encourages militant followers to stop focusing on pulling off attacks on the scale of 9-11 and to start executing numerous smaller attacks.

It states that if for some reason the mission fails, the Jihadi must not abort, but instead carry on alone — as a one-man cell.

According to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, it's a strategy of which domestic law enforcement agencies are well aware.

"If you can't do the big attacks, do the small attacks. Do smaller attacks and more of them," Kelly said.

McCain Office Is Sent White Powder, Threat CBS News

(CBS) John McCain's campaign office in Denver, Colorado, has received a letter containing a threat and "an amount of white powder in it," a McCain campaign spokesman told CBS News' Michelle Levi.

"We immediately notified local and federal law enforcement agencies and are looking to cooperate with them," McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky said.

The city of Denver is at a heightened security level, as the Secret Service and other officials prepare for the Democratic National Convention, which is set to begin on Monday.

And last week's terrifying WMD incident:

Death in Denver A Small Event with an Ominous Warning Ilana Freedman

Denver Police have closed their investigation into the mysterious death of an indigent man in a suite of a luxury Denver hotel. They announced that his death was suicide, and that there was no link to terrorism. An FBI spokesman has also stated that the incident has no apparent terrorism connection.

The man was Saleman Abdirahman Dirie and, the coroner's verdict notwithstanding, his death raises far more questions than have been answered by the Denver police, who seemed quite happy to wash their hands of the whole affair. But the story surrounding Dirie's death is bizarre, and needs to be unraveled.

The facts, as far as they have been released, are these:  Saleman Abdirahman Dirie was a 29-year-old Canadian citizen, a Muslim, and a former refugee from Somalia with no visible means of support and no money. He came to Denver from Ottawa by bus and checked into an upscale hotel (where the least expensive rooms rent for nearly $250 a night) for which he paid cash. There are reports that several thousand dollars in cash were also found in his room. He was not seen again until his body was found six days later next to a one pound jar of sodium cyanide crystals.

If you consider that this all took place in the city where the Democratic National Convention was about to take place, suspicion becomes alarm.

The questions themselves are disquieting. Why was he in Denver? Where did he get the cash to pay for his room?  Where did he get a full pound of sodium cyanide crystals, enough to poison hundreds of people, and what was he planning to do with it?

Sodium cyanide is one of several cyanide salts that are among the most rapidly acting of all known poisons. These crystals are potent inhibitors of respiration, depriving the body of its ability to use oxygen. Its effect is deadly and swift. Mixed with acid, it becomes significantly more potent as it generates a highly toxic gas. Its close cousin, hydrogen cyanide, was used by the Nazis to produce Zyclon B, the gas of choice to murder millions of Jews in the Nazis' infernal gas chambers.

In short, a little goes a long way. So no one needs a pound of sodium cyanide to commit suicide, when a mere taste will do. A more likely scenario is that his curiosity got the better of him and he opened the jar, accidentally breathing or ingesting some of the cyanide. That would make it, perhaps, an accidental poisoning, but hardly a suicide.

The more important question remains: why else would anyone need a pound of cyanide?  The timing of Dirie's visit to Denver, less than two weeks before the Democratic convention, raises an alarming possibility. National Republican and Democratic Conventions have been considered a high value target since 9/11 and the last round was surrounded by heavy (if imperfect) security. Compromising the water or HVAC systems in the Convention Center is a plan that might seem quite attractive in the name of jihad. And it could kill several hundred people.

The combined circumstances make the possibility that Dirie was an operative part of a jihad plot very real. Evolving strategies among the terrorists groups seem to lean towards small cells carrying out limited attacks on prime targets. This situation could be that, with Dirie being a one man jihadi whose job was to place the poison where it would do the most damage. On the other hand, if a very large attack were planned, as seems possible in this case, he might have been one of a larger group of terrorists, each with a single role to play. In this case, he would not have known the parts of the plots or the people who would carry them out.  If the accidental death scenario is correct, then his extreme incompetence, which ended in his contamination and death, would indicate that the latter situation would be the most plausible one.

And that means that there are others like Dirie still out there, taking courage in the statements of the Denver police that the case is closed. As the festivities preceding the Democratic Convention are about to begin, the time to take this possibility seriously is now.

There are terrorist cells active throughout the country, using mosques and community centers, coffee houses, homes, and street meetings to develop and carry out their plans. Despite what the Denver police have said, this appears to be far more than a dysfunctional man taking his own life.

There is a pervading opinion among our leaders that Americans need to be protected from uncomfortable and frightening truths. Instead of giving us the opportunity to protect ourselves and our families, they prefer to tell us that everything is okay and under control, even when the threat is real and current. The time to be honest with the American people began a long time ago and the time for concern is now.

Ilana Freedman is Editor of IntelAnalysis and CEO of Gerard Group International, Inc.

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND WMD

The purpose of the August 11, 2008 teleconference is to disclose recent activities of the Board and to ensure that the public is given an opportunity to be involved in the deliberative process of the Board on personal preparedness issues that will specifically impact the Nation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to release information that will have impact on all U.S. citizens. The information involves the homestockpiling of antibiotics prescribed by a physician for use following an exposure to anthrax.

Availability of Materials: The agenda and other materials will be posted on the NBSB Web site here.

More on stockpiling here

Remarks by Mr. Ted Gistaro here
National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats

Terrorism's New Structure By MARTIN AMIS, WSJ

History is accelerating; and so the future becomes more and more unknowable. Among our foremost thinkers, we find only one presentiment that is universally shared. This turns out to be a sinister variation on the idea of "convergence." Not the convergence of nations and polities, whereby the world's autocratic regimes would gradually align themselves with the democratic and contentedly globalized mainstream. This particular expectation, even neoconservatives now concede, was a triumphalist fantasy of the 1990s -- that curious holiday from what Philip Roth has called "the remorseless unforeseen."

Photo illustration by Donald George/The Wall Street Journal; Photo Researchers (anthrax)

Bacillus anthracis (anthrax spores)

The convergence we have now come to anticipate is the convergence of international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction -- of IT and WMD. Even strictly parallel lines, I was taught, meet and cross in infinity. And the paths of IT and WMD are visibly inclined, like the sides of a tapering spire. Their convergence is guaranteed by the simplest of market forces. Marginal costs will fall; and demand will climb.

It has not been widely realized, even now, that America has already suffered a terrorist deployment of WMD -- as we have just been reminded by the one-man suicide mission of the troubled germ-scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, in Frederick, Md. This attack began on Sept. 18, 2001. The cost in blood was five dead and 17 seriously infected. The cost in treasure was over a billion dollars (the cost to the perpetrator, in a vibrant asymmetry, was estimated at the time to be as little as $2,500). And there was a third impact: the cost in fear. Anthrax is not contagious; but fear is. The scale of the attack was minuscule, yet for a while the terror filled the sky.

AFP/Getty Images; Newscom (spore)

Hazardous materials experts at a U.S. Senate building in November 2001, after an anthrax-laced letter was found. Inset: an anthrax spore, magnified 40,000 times.

Unlike the poet, the novelist (see W.H. Auden's glittering sonnet of that name) assumes that his or her reactions to the main events (in life, in history) are utterly median, average -- predictably and dependably human. I am confident that my reaction to Sept. 11 was quite normative: a leaden and sourly mineral incredulity. It is with rather more diffidence that I divulge my reaction to Sept. 18: I followed the example of that large and flightless African bird which, when sighting a threat to its existence, chooses to bury its head in the sand.

This was the kind of information I was unable to contemplate:

Using one aircraft dispensing 1,000 kg of anthrax spores. Clear calm night. Area covered (sq. km): 300. Deaths assuming 3,000-10,000 people per sq. km: one million to three million.

The affective content of Sept. 18 ran as follows: you cannot protect your children (and I had and have five). Staggering, too, was the perceived magnification of the putative enemy's power. Al Qaeda swelled like a Saturn; and for a while they seemed to be everywhere on earth -- the whisperers, the nightrunners of Osama. Sept. 18 was very cheap, very terrifying, and hideously elusive. It entrained over 9,000 interrogations and 6,000 grand-jury subpoenas; and the case is not yet closed.

The anthrax letters contained two near-identical cover notes. The first said:

09-11-01
THIS IS NEXT
TAKE PENACILIN NOW
DEATH TO AMERICA
DEATH TO ISRAEL
ALLAH IS GREAT

550 Metric Tons Of Yellowcake Removed From Iraq

"Let them eat yellowcake" ! I'd bake a yellowcake and make the leftards eat it, I swear. The endless flagellation and recrimination of the removal of Saddam is/was the real crime here.

Oh and while they are pretending this isn't happening, I am sure they will continue to ignore  the Iraqis leading the final purge of Al Qaeda from Iraq (You do remember al  qaeda dont you?_

Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq MSNBC hat tip Michael

Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine

Saddam, Al Qaeda and the Media

Source: www.knwe.org 

The media is irresponsible - dangerous even. They will not report the facts. Instead, they are running wild with the Plame affair. ugh - can anyone say ..... ARMITAGE? hat tip Ron the cop

Despite the most recent attempt by Senate Democrats to "report away" Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism evidence continues to come in and be ignored in the reports and in the mainstream press.  Here is the latest as cited by AJ Strata and Gateway Pundit, linked to MEMRI's translation.

Mark Eichenlaub of Regime of Terror 

Kurdish Paper: Cooperation Between Saddam Regime, Al-Qaeda

The Kurdish daily Kurdistani Nwe has published a 2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency that it says proves that there was cooperation between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

The letter, which appeared on the paper's front page, was published by the intelligence apparatus of the Iraqi presidency and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a "revenge operation" in Saudi Arabia.

And more here:

This story was followed by headlines of a similar bent. Steve Schippert's sample of some of the more prominent headlines provides readers with what the story's narrative looked like a few days ago:

ABC: Report Shows No Link Between Saddam and al Qaeda
New York Times: Study Finds No Qaeda-Hussein Tie
CNN: Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says
Washington Post: Study Discounts Hussein, Al-Qaeda Link
AFP: No link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda: Pentagon study

And within hours the (mainstream media) die had been cast. Saddam was not linked to al Qaeda went the theme.

The initial news reports of the study's findings were so far off base that one of the researchers involved in the report said (via Stephen Hayes) "The document is being misrepresented. I recommend we put [it] out and on a website immediately."

The full report was then posted online, and made available by ABC News, does indeed include a sentence that no "smoking gun" linking Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda was discovered during their research but goes on to give compelling evidence that mustn't meet the authors criteria in the "smoking gun" test. A closer reading of the study (see here, here, here, here, here and here) shows that Saddam Hussein's Iraq cooperated with, financed and supported a number of Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda proxies (at least five according to Thomas Joscelyn) and had a larger capacity for state apparatus terrorism (car bomb training, IED training, jihadist suicide bomber recruitment, etc.) than previously believed by many.

Of the many noteworthy findings in the report is the assertion made in the conclusion that Hussein had retained not only the capacity to launch anti-West terrorist attacks but the will to use those terrorist capabilities, including directly against the United States, which was also a matter of previous debate. The report's conclusion, while noting that a perfect grasp of Hussein's mindset at the exact time of U.S. invasion remained elusive, states that "evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces."

Instead of newspaper and television headlines such as "Hussein had the capability and intention of striking U.S. with terror attacks" the public is presented with disappointingly shallow stories that even days after the full version of the report is out still promoting the narrow "no links" narrative. The coming days and weeks should be a time when members of the media can and should put aside their previously conceived notions on this serious and important topic and read and then seriously report on this study. The time for that is long overdue.