Video on the way...

I apologize for the lack of posts. I am still working on my first 'video blog/article', which should be completed within a couple of days. Stay posted.

Musharraf names 9/11 suspect as possible British asset

My latest article is now available at From The Wilderness...

October 25th 2006, 4:47 [PST] - The man identified by the FBI as one of the primary financers of the 9/11 attacks, Omar Sheikh, may have worked for British intelligence during the 1990s, according to a newly released book by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

“It is believed in some quarters that while Omar Sheikh was at the LSE (London School of Economics) he was recruited by the British intelligence agency MI6,” Musharraf writes in his book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir. “It is said,” Musharraf notes, “that MI6 persuaded him to take an active part in demonstrations against Serbian aggression in Bosnia and even sent him to Kosovo to join the jihad.”

The man in question, Omar Sheikh, became infamous in 2002 when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a crime Musharraf and several others claim Omar did not commit.

While Omar Sheikh’s reported ties to Pearl’s death have been making headlines for years, his alleged links to 9/11, as well as to Pakistani and Western intelligence agencies, have gone significantly underreported.

Similarly, several key points have been omitted from Musharraf’s book, perhaps in an attempt to cover up embarrassing and possibly criminal activities of Pakistani and US officials.

Musharraf’s book does not mention Omar Sheikh’s alleged role in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, nor does it mention Omar’s widely reported connections to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, nor does mention Omar’s alleged history with the CIA.

A brief review of such details would have revealed startling information. ...

Full story available here.

Back in a week...

I've had trouble finding a place to publish my most recent article. It would appear that even the so-called 'alternative' press is afraid of rocking the boat too hard.

The 'round up' will be on hold for a few days (maybe a week) while I work on some new ideas.

I realize much of the information in my articles is lengthy and hard to digest. But if I convert it into a video and slap it on YouTube, maybe the information will start getting the attention it deserves. I have some 'skills' (as Napoleon Dynamite would call them) in music and video production, so I figure what the hell, it is worth a shot.

Keep posted for the new article and the accompanying video. I hope to have the prior published (although I don't know where) by the beginning of next week.

Round up...

Washington's Worst-Kept Secret: Changes Are Coming in Iraq Policy --Time Magazine (Will Baker propose dividing up Iraq?)

White House nixes partitioning Iraq --The Associated Press

Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program --Democracy Now!

Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad --Inter Press Service

GIs face worst Iraq toll in 21 months, situation expected to get even worse --The Chicago Tribune

Review says propaganda in Iraq was legal --The Associated Press

Former CIA Officer Robert Steele Reviews Tarpley's 'Synthetic Terror' --9/11 Blogger

Judge Orders Cheney To Say Who Visited Him --The Associated Press

General Pace: Rumsfeld 'is inspired by God' --Agence France-Presse

Terror Suspect Says CIA Recruited Him --The Associated Press

U.S. citizen indicted for supporting U.S.-supported 'terrorist' group

The utter hypocrisy of the so-called ‘war on terror’ is enough to make a person physically ill these days.

Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, as Online Journal contributing writer Mickey Z describes her, is a “95-pound, 51-year-old homeless Iranian widow with severe digestive problems…Armed only with a tattered coffee cup, a shopping cart overflowing with newspapers, and a name that will make Hollywood drool.”

Jedi, who currently lives in a Manhattan homeless shelter, has recently been indicted on federal charges for allegedly “providing material support” to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an officially designated terrorist organization.

This homeless (and apparently harmless) woman is currently the subject of a highly publicized FBI terrorist investigation, yet, while she faces a sentence of 15 years in prison for allegedly supporting the MEK, several influential Washington figures openly support the MEK without facing any consequences whatsoever.

In fact, according to reports from earlier this year, the Bush Administration has been using the MEK to orchestrate attacks and collect intelligence inside Iran.

Just this March, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the reputable online publication Raw Story, U.S.-sponsored MEK militants attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. These operatives were reportedly being “run” by the Pentagon under the instructions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

It appears, however, that the Bush Administration is allowed to get away with murder (literally) while federal resources are used to prosecute a homeless widow from New York City who is allegedly affiliated with the White House’s weapon.

Round up...

VIDEO: Clip from documentary Eternal Vigilance --Brad Blog



Peace Activists Beware: Homeland Security May Be Reading Your E-Mail and Passing it on to the Pentagon --The Progressive

Report Spells Out Abuses by Former Congressman Cunningham --The New York Times

Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol --The New York Times

"...The refusal to resign means that Mr. Ney can continue to draw on his $165,200-a-year salary, equivalent to $3,176 for each week he remains in the House, and his Congressional expense account, and to make use of a suite of offices on Capitol Hill, as well as four offices in his district in southeastern Ohio..."

Bush says he may ignore new war-funding law --The Air Force Times

Congressmen, intelligence officials do not know difference between Shiites and Sunnis --The New York Times

"...Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.” ..."

Round up...

Proposing Plan C: Report on the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions --The Community Solution

Energy Depletion & the US Descent into Fascism (PDF) --Mountain Sentinel (Dale Allen Pfeiffer)

Against An Imperial Internet --TomPaine.com (Bill Moyers and Scott Fogdall)

Academia Signs Up to Track Dissent --Truth Out

"...A regime openly committed to wielding arbitrary power over the life and liberty of every person on earth is now equipping itself with intrusive technology beyond the wildest dreams of the most totalitarian states in history. And some of the nation's most respected educational institutions - proud bastions of civilization and enlightenment - are helping them do it..."

Web could be terror training camp: Chertoff --Reuters

"Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Monday..."

Former ISI head says U.S. assisted in Pakistani coup --United Press International

Dark Days Ahead --Truth Out

"...three years after a devastating blackout left 50 million people in the dark in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada for nearly three days, and forced the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, nothing substantial has been done to overhaul the country's dilapidated power grid..."

Bush opposes three-way partition of Iraq --Agence France-Presse (This could become the Democrats' platform in 2008. It appears pulling out won't even be considered.)

Bush's Petro-Cartal Almost Has Iraq's Oil --AlterNet

First Bush-appointed election chair say 'no standards' for e-voting devices, system 'ripe for stealing elections' --Brad Blog

Rep. Doolittle Paid Lawyer Thousands in Connection to Abramoff Investigation --Associated Press

Round up...

Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America --Stan Goff via Truthdig

Will Google Take the Internet Over the Cliff --Alternet

"...Web activists envision a medium that will always support social change and can serve as a platform to distribute diverse points of view. But if the economic relationships between the old and new media are allowed to dominate online culture, what guarantees do we have that the Internet will continue to be the 'people's' medium?..."

The Peak Oil Crisis: Turning Points --Tom Whipple

Shiites Accused of Using Dirty Tricks --The Associated Press

"Sunni politicians accused Shiite lawmakers Thursday of using dirty tricks to push through a new law on federalism, a landmark measure that will transform Iraq by allowing Shiites to form a self-rule mini-state in the south. ..."

NATO backs Pakistan deal with Taliban --The Australian

Despite Critics, Pakistan May Expand Tribal Deal --National Public Radio

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests --The New York Times

Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff --The Washington Post

Scandal Grows Over Backdating Of Options --The Washington Post

"The heads of three well-known technology companies (Cnet, McAfee, & Monster) lost their jobs this week... The three are the latest of at least 135 companies to acknowledge or be investigated for backdating stock options..."

AP, networks sue over new laws banning exit polling in Fla., Nev. --The Associated Press

Video: GOP 'uses evangelicals for their votes' --Raw Story, YouTube

Round up...

Iraqi parliament approves law to divide country --Reuters

Death Toll of Iraqis Exceeds 600,000, Report Says --Bloomberg

Nearly 900,000 Iraqis have fled country, additional 300,000 forced to move --AP

US military 'turns blind eye to killings' --Inter Press Service

Army: Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2010 --AP (Sounds too optimistic to me.)

Treasury Secretary Paulson Aims to Protect Corporate Criminals --Bloomberg

40 countries face food shortages worldwide --Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN

Water for millions at risk as glaciers melt away --The Guardian

VIDEO: Oil, Smoke & Mirrors --Documentary via Google Video (Peak Oil, 9/11 and the 'war on terror')

HBO to Premier 'Hacking Democracy' Just Prior to November Election! --Brad Blog

Evangelical Psycho Crook w/ Connections

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an almost humorous story on Monday regarding the evangelical preacher and apparent spiritual advisor of Dennis Hastert, K.A. Paul. The opening paragraphs were as follows:

"Voters should oust congressional Republican leaders because U.S. foreign policy is delaying the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to a evangelical preacher trying to influence closely contested political races.

K.A. Paul railed against the war in Iraq on Sunday before a crowd of 1,000 at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, his first stop on what he hopes is a 30-city campaign."

This is the same guy who claims he has convinced Hastert to step down over the Foley scandal. Today, Mother Jones reports:

"...The two men (Paul and Hastert) withdrew into a private room where, Paul says, he launched into a sermon about what Hastert should do. Paul told Mother Jones that he cited politicians whose reputations suffered when they resisted stepping down: Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Bill Clinton. “I said ‘If you don’t do that, the Republicans will lose control of the Congress, you will no longer be Speaker in 30 days, and at the same time they will all blame you because of Foley scandal. You want that for you? You want that to be your life legacy after accomplish so many good things?’ So that’s what convinced him.” ..."

In addition to Hastert, Rumsfeld, Delay, and Clinton, Paul claims to have advised quite the cast of foreign characters as well. Also from today's Mother Jones article:

"Paul boasts that he convinced Liberian ex-dictator Charles Taylor to resign his office; he claims to have ministered to Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Khaddafi, and Slobodan Milosevic, and to have known al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 'when he was nobody."

Sounds like bull, right? Maybe not. In 2003, The New Yorker reported:

"Charles Taylor, having laid waste to Liberia, has been trying to set the record straight about who persuaded him to surrender his Presidency and go into exile in Nigeria. "I will say that 99% of [the credit] goes to Dr. K. A. Paul alone," he wrote on August 16th, in a letter to the Times.

...Dr. Paul even claims that he arranged, late last year, for Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave Iraq. But the Bush White House blew it. “I called Karl Rove and left a message. I waited two weeks, but I heard nothing."

It seems The Houston Press is the only media outlet to have looked at Dr. K.A. Paul in any depth. And as you might expect, the deeper one looks, the dirtier he gets. Read on.

Round up...

America ponders cutting Iraq in three --The Sunday Times

New Orleans Population Reduced Nearly 60% --The New York Times

Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work --CorpWatch

Musharraf faces new questions over Taliban --The Guardian

U.S. Senate majority leader calls for efforts to bring Taliban into Afghan government --AP

Report: Thousands wrongly on terror list --AP

Peak Oil: Yet another 'inconvenient truth' --Catalyst Magazine

White House worried terror ops will be exposed

The Bush Administration is apparently nervous that their proxy operations in Iran will soon be publicly exposed. Iran's Fars News Agency reports:

"...Asked why the US State and Defense Secretaries have refrained from attending a congress meeting to reveal whether the US army has initiated to lunch any illegal operations inside Iran, he (State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper) said he was not informed of the issue, adding that no reason has been mentioned by the two US Secretaries for their absence from the 'Growing Terrorist Threats' Committee of the congress.

Several congressmen have so far called on the US State and Defense Secretaries officials to brief the congress about the army's operations inside Iranian soil, but each time officials of the US administration have refrained from attending the meeting.

A retired US colonel recently said in a TV interview that the reason underlying absence of the Defense and State Secretaries officials in such meetings pertains to the White House worries about the disclosure of the illegal operations of the US army inside Iran and the army's use of the anti-revolutionary Mojahedin-e Khaq Organization (MKO) in the reconnaissance operations on the Iranian soil. ..."

See previous coverage of this story here, here, and here.

Article in the works...

I have been working on a few different things this week and haven't had time to post. However I have just completed a 9/11-related article that I hope to get published by next Monday (although I'm not sure where). The 'round up' will also return on Monday. Keep posted.