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Sun. Sep 15, 2002

Weekend Productivity

Weekend Productivity – It rained most of the weekend here in Atlanta (much needed rain), but it was far from gloomy. Or boring.

In addition to the arrest of "five upstate New York men accused of forming an al Qaeda-trained terrorist cell," it was announced a very large fish had been caught in Pakistan, a veritable Big Mouth Bass: "[Ramzi] Binalshibh, who wanted to be the 20th hijacker but was refused entry to the U.S., proudly carries a suitcase of planning ’souvenirs’ with him on the lam including flying manuals, airline guides and illustrations of ’how to perform sudden maneuvers.’ He said he has written a 112-page justification of the attacks that he wants entered in the Library of Congress. He said he hopes the attacks will be the ’beginning of the end of America.’ "

Just days ago, Al Jazeera aired the interview with Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed done back in June, in which Binalshibh boasted of planning the 9-11 attacks, daring authorities to catch them. The journalist who did the interview, Yosri Fouda, said "Ramzi was proud of his religious knowledge, of technology he was surrounded by laptops and cell phones he sat a lot and thought and he was dismissive of intelligence people as stupid."

Word of his capture has his peers and followers expressing shock and disbelief: "An Islamist Web Site sympathetic to Osama bin Laden denied Sunday that Pakistan had captured Ramzi Binalshibh, a key al Qaeda member accused of helping to plan the September 11 attacks. The Jehad Online Web Site said reports of Binalshibh’s arrest were part of a U.S. and Pakistani media campaign to demoralize supporters of Osama bin Laden [...] ’Through this statement we challenge them to show us brother Ramzi Binalshibh in captivity and we swear by God Almighty they will not be able to do so.’ "

Oh, please, allow me:

And so we get the pleasure of seeing the man who would terrorize others, and who thought he was too smart to get caught, doing the Pakistani Perp Walk.

Gee, he looks a little … terrified, doesn’t he? So much so, I’d imagine he’s in the same state of denial as his followers, who now claim Binalshibh was never even interviewed: "But Jehad Online said Fouda had never interviewed Binalshibh face-to-face. ’We challenge him to prove this direct dialogue with the brothers because they themselves denied this matter to us,’ said the Web Site."

And speaking of World-Class The-Sky-Is-Green Denial-Without-Peer: "Television programs and confessions of senior al Qaida members claiming responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States have still failed to persuade many Arabs that other fellow Arabs and Muslims were behind the devastating attacks on New York and Washington. According to the Jordanian mass-circulation daily al-Dustur’s Web site, the majority of online voters believed that Israel was the real party behind the attacks [...] Despite al Jazeera’s clear attempts to end speculation and doubts over al Qaida’s responsibility for the attacks, in which more than 3,000 people were killed, many in the Arab world remained skeptical."

"The Saudi, London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat daily reported Friday that one of the hijackers ’had direct links with the Mossad,’ Israel’s intelligence service. On the ’al Jazeera Forum’ call-in program after the video clips were aired, callers from around the Arab world went as far as accusing the channel of ’a Zionist agenda’ for blaming Arabs and Muslims for the Sept. 11 attacks. One caller said al Jazeera was ’providing a pretext for the Zionist Americans to dominate the Arabs and Muslims in their crusade against Islam.’ "

It seems there are some Arabs who won’t believe us, won’t believe our media, won’t believe their media, and won’t believe their heroes, Al Qaeda. And Al Qaeda is their hero because they urge the Muslim world to attack Americans … yet at the same time have never done so themselves, it was the Israelis.

It’s enough to make your head spin.

So let’s give it another Big Twirl. Let’s find an Arab supporter of bin Laden who was in Tora Bora back in December, and have him tell the world Osama was ”erased”: "Osama bin Laden’s supporters say the al-Qaeda leader is dead. Shahid Ayan, who was hiding in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains with bin Laden during United States air raids in December, said the terrorist chief died 10 months ago. ’Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, but the jihad will continue until Judgment Day,’ he told United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Bayan."

"Shahid said that late on December 10 ’the 24th night of Ramadan’ there were ’some scary explosions’ in the area where bin Laden’s cave was located. ’The cave was completely erased from the ground and became nothing,” he said."

Who knows if it’s true, but the source certainly is interesting.

As we see disarray, denial, death and detention on the side of Al Qaeda, meanwhile we see the Western world beginning to look like they’re forming a line on Iraq. After a speech to the UN on Thursday that was filled with diplomatic verbage, code language, and resolution numbers, President Bush laid it out in Plain English this weekend: " ’Enough is enough,’ Bush said. ’The U.N. will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant. And that’s what we’re about to find out,’ Bush said Saturday. He added: ’Make no mistake about it. If we have to deal with the problem, we’ll deal with it.’ " He meant, ”by ourselves,” but it’s looking less and less like that’s what will happen.

Italy: "Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi [...] joined Bush in warning that the U.N.’s credibility was on the line. ’The United Nations cannot continue to see its image undermined and its resolutions flouted.’ "

France: " ’In a sense we’re trapped,’ said a senior French official. ’On the one side there are the Americans and the British. On the other side are the Russians and the Chinese. We have to choose our camp. Ultimately, we will want to re-engage in Iraq. We built a strategic relationship there. We have a market. We want the oil and we want to be in the game of rebuilding the country. If there were a new regime and we have not been with the Americans, where will we be?’ "

"In other words, even more is at stake here than Saddam Hussein’s fate, and France’s special historic relationship with Iraq. The whole French relationship to America and with it the relationship of America to Europe and the United Nations Security Council, where France plays pivotal roles has been put into play in the Iraq crisis, and the French know it."

Earlier, Egpyt fell in line, and now, Saudi Arabia is leaning the same way: "The Saudi foreign minister said Sunday the kingdom would be ’obliged to follow through’ if the United States needed bases in the kingdom to attack Iraq under U.N. authority [...] Also Sunday, Saud urged Iraq to quickly allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to head off a Security Council resolution that could open the way for military attacks."

All in all, I’d say it was a highly productive weekend.