The Gang Who Couldn't Spy Straight, Part 2

The Hamas takeover of Gaza left the Central Intelligence Agency caught with its tender parts in a trap, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

When the Islamist group Hamas conquered the Gaza Strip in June it seized an intelligence-and-military infrastructure created with U.S. help by the security chiefs of the Palestinian territory's former ruler.

According to current and former Israeli intelligence officials, former U.S. intelligence personnel and Palestinian officials, Hamas has increased its inventory of arms since the takeover of Gaza and picked up technical expertise -- such as espionage techniques -- that could assist the group in its fight against Israel or Washington's Palestinian allies, the Fatah movement founded by Yasser Arafat.

Hamas leaders say they acquired thousands of paper files, computer records, videos, photographs and audio recordings containing valuable and potentially embarrassing intelligence information gathered by Fatah. For more than a decade, Fatah operated a vast intelligence network in Gaza established under the tutelage of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hamas leaders are expected as early as tomorrow to go public with some of the documents and the secrets they hold.

Or, as the Journal article sums it up:

• The Find: Palestinian group Hamas seized rival Fatah's intelligence-and-military infrastructure, which was built with U.S. help.

• What's at Stake: Secrets, expertise and technology are now in the hands of a group the U.S. calls a terrorist organization.

• The Damage: Though the ultimate impact is difficult to determine, Hamas leaders say they will make some details public and share others with Arab governments.

I suspect that the CIA spends more time gathering blackmail evidence against U.S. politicians to protect against being held to account than it does gathering actual intelligence about America's enemies to protect our nation. I could be wrong about this....

What dictionary do they use in Washington, DC?

Because 'recuse' must mean something different there than it does everywhere else.

You all remember Rep. Allan Mollohan (D - WV), right? He’s the Democrat currently under investigation by the FBI who Nancy “Most Ethical Congress Ever” Pelosi and her pals put in charge of the Justice Department (and thus the FBI’s) budget? When the controversy over putting a man the FBI is investigating in charge of the FBI’s budget first hit, Mollohan promised to recuse himself from any FBI funding bills.

Well so much for that promise:

Despite having recused himself from matters relating to the FBI — which is reportedly investigating his finances — Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday voted against an amendment that would have increased the bureau’s budget by $6 million.

Honestly, it’s like they don’t even care any more. They promise one thing, do another. They openly flaunt our laws and line their pockets with our tax dollars using the power we gave them with our votes, and then they act like it isn’t happening. Like we’re all so stupid that we don’t know it’s going on.

[Tip of the hat to Say Anything.]

Even the AP's bias can't spoil this victory

The lead paragraph of this story demonstrates the AP's institutional bias toward painting Iraq as a disaster, while the remainder of the story belies the negativity of the lead.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Iraqis from the Shiite south to the Kurdish-dominated north poured into the usually treacherous streets Sunday to celebrate a rare moment of joy and unity when the national team won Asia's most prestigious soccer tournament.

The revelers spanning the country's sectarian and ethnic divisions danced, sang and waved flags and posters of the team after Iraq beat three-time champion Saudi Arabia 1-0 to take the Asian Cup.

Chants of "Long live Iraq" and "Baghdad is victorious" rang out across the country as Iraqis basked in national pride. Some of the revelers - mostly men - took their shirts off to display the red, white and black colors of the Iraqi flag painted on their chests.

Reporters of the state Iraqiya television wrapped themselves with the national flag as they interviewed people celebrating in the streets. Some joined in the chanting.

Within seconds of the final whistle, celebratory gunfire echoed across Baghdad and elsewhere despite a government ban and the threat of arrest by authorities.

At least four people were killed and scores wounded by the gunfire. But as night fell on the country, there were no reports of bombings such as those that killed at least 50 and wounded dozens in Baghdad during celebrations of Iraq's semifinal win over South Korea on Wednesday.

Authorities said they foiled a potential car bomber in southwestern Baghdad after he refused to stop at a checkpoint and appeared headed toward a crowd of revelers. Iraqi authorities had banned vehicles in and around the capital from shortly before the game began until early Monday to prevent a repeat of last week's violence.

"The victory of our Iraqi soccer team is a wonderful gift to Iraqis who have been suffering from the killing, car bombs, abductions and other violent acts," said Falah Ibrahim, a 44-year-old resident of Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadr City district.

If the sectarian and tribal divisions were as deep as the writer says, there would have been no celebrations for a team composed of individuals drawn from all areas and sects of Iraq. But there were celebrations, big celebrations everywhere.

And they celebrated in the streets. And no one was able to repeat the horrors of the suicide bombings that followed the Iraqi team's semi-finals victory. And that means that the streets of Iraq, as dangerous as they may be, are not "no man's land" in which death is the most likely outcome of a walk or an errand.

The goal of al-Qaida, of the Sadrist militia, of Iran, of the dead-enders loyal to Saddam's memory, is the same: to tear Iraq apart so that its pieces can be used as weapons. The Iraqi national soccer team has struck a mighty blow for Iraq's freedom.

The Gang Who Couldn't Spy Straight?

A New York Times correspondent, Tim Weiner, has written a new book in which he details the failings of the Central Intelligence Agency over the last sixty years.

He paints a portrait of a rogue agency which devoted more time to covert action to oust governments than to gathering information about America's enemies, and which failed to predict every big international event from the outbreak of the Korean War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 9/11 attacks.

The book, Legacy of Ashes, has infuriated some former CIA officers who insist that the agency needs support, not denigration. One dismissed Weiner's criticisms as "superficial and unfair".

It details how the CIA relied from the outset on low-level sources and ill-trained officers. In 1953 it sent its first officer to Moscow, but he was so inept that he was seduced by his Russian housemaid - really a KGB colonel - photographed in flagrante and blackmailed.

In eastern Europe in the early days of the Cold War, almost every agent parachuted in was captured and killed. More than $1 million was sent to a fake spy ring set up by Polish intelligence - effectively paying money directly to their enemy.

During the Korean War, none of the CIA's 200 officers in the South Korean capital, Seoul, spoke Korean. In 1952, the CIA station chief concluded that nearly every Korean agent either "invented his reports or worked in secret for the communists".

Things were little better in the battle with America's main Cold War foe, Weiner argues. An internal CIA report in 1956 found that just two of the 20 spies recruited in the Soviet Union had any contact with the government or military. One of its top sources was a Russian vet.

When the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, among the CIA's best agents in East Berlin were a newspaper salesman and a roofer, who occasionally worked in the Soviet military compound. Small wonder, Weiner argues, that the CIA concluded that Russia would have 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles "ready to strike" them that year, when the true figure was four.

For eight years after 1986 the CIA sent reports to Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton on the strength of the Soviet military which they knew came largely from sources controlled by Moscow.

The CIA's current difficulties in the Middle East are part of a long and undistinguished history. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Robert Gates, then the agency's head and now the American defence secretary, was at a family picnic. A friend of his wife asked him: "What are you doing here?" Mr Gates said: "What are you talking about?" She replied: "The invasion." Mr Gates responded: "What invasion?"

Weiner concludes that even the CIA's apparent successes in covert action proved to be strategic failures. Ousting the Iranian government in 1953 led inexorably to the revolution of 1979. The CIA backed the 1963 Ba'ath Party coup in Iraq which opened the door for Saddam Hussein.

It's not clear that Tim Weiner is the most objective source for national security news, but the failings of the CIA are plain to see in the sheer number and magnitude of their mischaracterizations and miscalculations over the years regarding America's adversaries. This could be a very interesting read.

The world's smallest oud

Abu Hamza's wife is concerned for her husband's welfare while he's in a UK prison:

Hamza, 49, dubbed the "preacher of hate", is serving seven years for inciting the murder of non-Muslims.

In a letter to a London-based Islamic organisation, Nagat Mostafa, 46, said her husband claimed to be the victim of racist bullying and Islamophobia in Belmarsh jail.

Her letter to al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies was sent shortly after Hamza - who is fitted with hooks on both hands - underwent surgery in May to remove an inch of bone from his left arm stump, which had become infected.

She wrote: "I would like to bring to your attention the current plight of my husband…

"The reason that his arm needed further amputation was because of the removal of his prostheses, resulting in him constantly putting pressure on the remainder of his fore limbs. As there is no soft furnishing in his cell, he has been suffering considerable pain… After surgery, before he had even recovered from the anaesthetic, he was returned to Belmarsh, only to be told he had to move from his cell to another one. He was so weak and unable to stand that he refused, resulting in him being put in solitary confinement…

"My husband says the racist bullying and Islamophobia against him have intensified."

The contents of the letter were disclosed by the Maqreze Centre, which called the cleric's treatment "unjust" and said it feared he could die behind bars.

He could die behind bars? Oh, the humanity! I shed a bitter tear.

"These Hamas people are murderers and bloodthirsty. They are using religion as an excuse to commit crimes even against their own people."

Gosh, who said that? Benjamin Netanyahu? Rudy Giuliani?

Nope. It was a Palestinian general.

"I knew that I was wanted by Hamas and that's why I decided to fight to the end. I knew that Hamas was going to kill me anyway and that I had nothing to lose. On Thursday night [June 14], hours before Hamas completed its coup, I managed to fire dozens of rocket-propelled grenades at them. I inflicted heavy damages on them. I taught them a lesson that they will never forget.

"But when I finally realized that Hamas's forces were advancing toward our security zone, I decided to leave the area. At around 2 a.m. on Friday morning I ran away toward the Egyptian security delegation's offices on the 10th floor of a tower near my base. I covered my face with a keffiyeh and threw my rifle away.

"Shortly after I entered the Egyptians' office, about 30 Hamas gunmen stormed the area and detained me. They did not care about the fact that this was an office belonging to the Egyptian security forces. They dragged me down to the street, where most buildings and houses were on fire.

"As we stood there, I asked the Hamas people: 'Why don't you execute me and dump my body in the flames?' Actually I begged them to execute me because I knew I was going to be tortured. Before they put me in a jeep, I saw the Hamas gunmen execute several people right in front of me. They were shooting all the detainees. I was sure that one of them was going to shoot me in the head. But they later blindfolded me and took me to a place where I was held for about 12 hours.

"In this place, there were a number of senior security commanders who had also been captured by Hamas. We were all told that we were going to be executed immediately after our interrogation. They asked us many questions and kept us locked in small rooms. We had no idea where we were being held. Some of us were beaten severely," the PA general said....

Asked if he had any plans to return to the Gaza Strip, the general, who has been serving in the PLO security forces for more than three decades, said: "If I go back, Hamas will kill me immediately. I'm wanted by them. My wife and children are still there and Hamas has burned my house. I don't know what's going to happen now, but I'm not optimistic. These Hamas people are murderers and bloodthirsty. They are using religion as an excuse to commit crimes even against their own people."

There you have it, from someone who knows first-hand.

National pride trumps terror

Iraq has shown that free citizens with national pride on their side will always outperform people enslaved by fear. Their national soccer side has reached the finals of the Asian Cup.

Tournament surprises Iraq will play either defending champions Japan or Saudi Arabia in Sunday's decider in Jakarta.

The epic match went to a shootout after both sides failed to score in over two hours' of sustained committed football.

It is Iraq's first-ever Asian Cup final after getting as far as the 1976 semi-final against Kuwait, which went to extra time, while South Korea were chasing their third title since 1960.

In emotional scenes at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, Iraqi players rushed to their supporters to grab national flags as other players wept with joy when realisation hit that they had won.

This is fantastically good news for Iraq. Iraqis know that under Saddam, members of their soccer team were the playthings of Uday Hussein, subject to beatings and summary execution for poor play. To see their countrymen playing for their country (and not for a demented dictator claiming to be their country) and winning gives them a tremendous surge of pride and joy.

Which is something the enemies of a free Iraq cannot stand.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Two suicide car bombings struck soccer fans in Baghdad as they were celebrating Iraq's victory in the Asian Cup semifinal on Wednesday, killing at least 27 people [Note: Reuters says the death toll from these attacks exceeds 50 - ed.] and wounding more than 100, officials said.

The victims were among the thousands of revelers who took to the streets of the capital after the country's national soccer team beat South Korea to reach the tournament's final against Saudi Arabia on Sunday in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The first attack took place about 6:30 p.m. when a bomber exploded in a crowd of people cheering near a well-known ice cream parlor in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Mansour, according to police and hospital officials. At least 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded, the officials said.

Another suicide car bomber detonated his payload about 45 minutes later in the midst of dozens of vehicles filled with revelers near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the eastern district of Ghadeer, killing at least 16 people, including two soldiers, and wounding nearly 60, area officials said.

However, the national pride from the Iraqi team's Asian Cup performance is a far stronger weapon than the suicide bombs set against it. Suicide bombs are, sadly, not unprecedented events in Iraq -- but the Iraqi soccer team's performance is, and it pervades all of Iraq, not just one province or one ethnic group.

What does virginity have to do with it?

So three Palestinian sisters are murdered in Gaza, and as part of the murder investigation, apparently it was necessary to examine them gynecologically to see if they were virgins.

Three sisters murdered in Gaza on Sunday were all found to be virgins by medical examiners at Al-Shifah Hospital in Gaza City, Mona El-Shawa, director of the Women's Rights Unit at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights told The Jerusalem Post Monday.

Nahed Hija, 16, Suha Hija, 19, and Lina Hija, 22, were found buried in a shallow grave in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip early Sunday morning, said Hamdi Shakkour of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The girls had suffered multiple stab wounds - most notably to the face and knees.

Local rumors implicated the sisters' male cousins in the murder, leading to speculation that this was more than likely an honor killing.

I suppose if they hadn't been virgins, no one would bother to arrest the killers. But what honor is there in exterminating an entire family? (Maybe the real motive was to make sure that the girls weren't around to inherit a share of the grandparents' estate. But murder for profit gets a death sentence in Gaza, whereas honor killings are essentially ignored -- if not celebrated.)

"Oh, Sir... they put generals in our junta...."

Are Trekkers willing to fight the terrestrial versions of Klingons and Romulans?

THE Star Trek actor Walter Koenig yesterday urged fans of the iconic sci-fi series to turn their wrath on Burma's military junta, an earthly "outpost of tyranny".

Koenig, who battled alien Klingons and Romulans as an original member of the Starship Enterprise crew, said he hoped to mobilise Trekkies to join a campaign against the ruling generals blamed for human rights abuses in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta.

"I can tell people what I experienced, meeting people without limbs, the ex-political prisoners, the squalor, all that I have seen in these brief days," Koenig, 70, said after visiting a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border last week.

Thailand is home to about 140,000 long-term Burmese refugees, the UN refugee agency says, but half a million more have been internally displaced by attacks on villages in eastern Burma, home to one of the world's longest-running civil wars.

The United States has labelled Burma an outpost of tyranny and imposed economic sanctions, but the junta has avoided total isolation by using its vast natural gas reserves to befriend energy- hungry China and India.

Koenig, the son of persecuted Russian Jews who fled to the US at the turn of the century, said the campaign against injustice in Burma would resonate with Star Trek fans.

More power to you, Mr. Chekov. The Burmese people deserve far better than their current lot. And the real-life bravery of Aung San Suu Kyi matches any exploit of the crew of the Enterprise.

Gandhi's grandson: my Granddad would have stood up to Bin Laden

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson says that the Great Soul would have stood up to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the Islamofascist movement.

Rajmohan Gandhi told the BBC his grandfather would also have tried to organise "something dramatic" - perhaps a mass fast - to show how unhappy most Muslims were that their religion was being linked to terrorism.

Asked what he would have made of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Islamist Taliban militia in Afghanistan, Rajmohan said: "He would have stood up to them."

"The Muslim and non-Muslim issue was a very important issue in his life in India, and he was killed because many Hindus thought he was friendlier to the Muslims than was necessary," the former Indian parliamentarian said.

"So today, he would never agree with the idea that there's something connected between Islam and violence or Islam and terrorism. He would totally oppose that idea."

Rajmohan added that his grandfather "might have recommended to the Muslims of the world who were unhappy being hijacked by the terrorists to say how about demonstrating your dissociation with violence through a fast if need be".

One wonders whether moderate Muslims could have been shamed by the Mahatma into such a grand demonstration, or whether he would even have lived long enough to carry out the effort. It's fairly certain that the Islamofascists would have had no qualms about murdering him.

The lighter side of Osama bin Laden

The Daily Telegraph interviews Osama Bin Laden's erstwhile cook. Mmmm, mutton korma -- something Bin Laden and I can agree on.

"If he was here today, then of course I would prepare him a mutton korma," said Akhtar, sitting under one of the apple trees in his Kabul orchard. "It was his absolute favourite, with a pilau full of almonds, orange peel and raisins."

Akhtar claimed that his Saudi employer, who often grumbled about his health and was a picky eater, rarely let anyone else prepare his food, mainly due to worries about being poisoned.

Life in bin Laden's cave close to the Pakistan border was predictably austere, dominated by prayer and talk of jihad. Bin Laden slept little, rising at midnight to fit in an extra set of prayers on top of Islam's standard five cycles.

Akhtar claimed he shared a room with bin Laden and Abu Maz, his Palestinian assistant. There was only one bed and bin Laden gave this to Akhtar because he was the oldest.

Every afternoon bin Laden delivered lengthy lectures to his followers offering Koranic justification for holy war. But he had a lighter side to him.

"He was always making so many jokes," claimed Akhtar. "He was always happy before he went home to Saudi Arabia and would say 'Uncle, I have four wives waiting for me. It's time for some fun'.

"We Afghans do not talk about our wives in this way."

Scandalous!

Speaking truth to power -- for real

Someone in the Pentagon has apparently kept his testicles about him. There aren't many in the Beltway who have the true courage to speak truth to power -- power in this instance being Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman's response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," Edelman wrote.

He added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."

Ooh, low blow -- pointing out to Mrs. Clinton that her political posturing might cost real people their real lives. Kudos to Mr. Edelman.

Was he always this soft in the head?

I used to be a big admirer of Colin Powell. After he left the State Department, though, he seemed to soften quite a bit.

Now the softening has gone to his brain, based on the really stupid things he said to National Public Radio.

"This is a tremendous burden on our troops and on our families," Powell said of the ongoing troop presence in Iraq, in an interview with National Public Radio.

Speaking after Senate Republicans blocked a vote calling for troop withdrawals to start within 120 days and for a complete pullout by the end of April, Powell said the US Army and Marine Corps were stretched to their limit in Iraq since they had not been increased in size despite the greater responsibilities demanded of them.

"It is not sustainable for our troops just to stay over there for an indefinite period at 180,000 person-strength unless there is improvement in the conditions that generate what I consider to be a civil war. So we have to have progress on the Iraqi political side," Powell said.

Asked if in his opinion the US should start reducing troop numbers in Iraq by mid-2008, Powell said: "I think that's right ... It is not sustainable for an indefinite period at this level."

Powell also urged the administration of Bush to stop shunning Hamas as a political player in the Middle East.

"I think you'd have to find some way to talk to Hamas ... they are not going to go away," adding that Hamas has considerable support from the Palestinian people.

"They won an election that we insisted upon having. And so, as unpleasant a group as they may be and as distasteful as I find some of their positions, I think that through the quartet or through some means, Hamas has to be engaged."

No wonder we had to go back into Iraq to finish what Powell didn't finish during Desert Storm. One wonders whether he would have had the stomach for the Pacific Campaign of World War II, or the common sense to use the atomic bomb on Japan.

As for Hamas, what other genocidal fanatic movements does he want the world to 'engage'? Maybe he thinks we need to talk it out with al-Qaeda too -- after all, they seem to have pretty widespread support in the Muslim world.

Call Nancy Pelosi - her buddy Bashar needs a good talking-to

So Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, has this brother-in-law, and he's in charge of Syria's intelligence services, right? And it turns out, according to a Lebanese guy arrested in Beirut, this brother-in-law has been using a terrorist organization to destabilize Lebanon -- you know, asssassinate a few politicians, start a battle in a refugee camp that leads to the deaths of more than 100 Lebanese soldiers, that kind of thing.

Beirut - An alleged leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist network has testified to interrogators that the group is linked to the head of Syria's intelligence apparatus Maj. Gen. Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad.

Ahmed Merie, a Lebanese citizen arrested late in May at a Beirut hotel, also testified to military examining magistrate Rashid Mezher that four members of Fatah al-Islam gunned down legislator Pierre Gemayel on Nov. 21 in east Beirut's suburb of Jdaideh, according to the daily al-Moustaqbal.

Another pan Arab daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, published a similar report.

The report said Merie testified to Mezher during interrogation that he was the "liaison officer" between Fatah al-Islam's leader Shaker Abssi and Shawkat.

Can't Nancy Pelosi call her good friend Bashar al-Assad and straighten this out? I'm sure his brother-in-law didn't KNOW it was evil and a violation of international law to set up a terrorist organization in a neighboring country and help it assassinate that country's lawmakers and destabilize its government.

Why moderate Muslims might be reluctant to speak up about terrorism

Interesting which stories the AP doesn't think Americans need to hear about. Like, for instance, this one, about a Muslim man who thought it was his duty to tell authorities about al-Qaeda affiliates in his neighborhood -- and got cut up into little pieces for his trouble.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - A Muslim missionary who tipped off authorities about the activities and whereabouts of al-Qaida-linked militants on a southern Philippine island has been found dead and his body mutilated, a military official said Thursday.

The remains, chopped into pieces and put inside a sack, were found Wednesday in the village of Balagtasan in Lamitan township on Basilan island, more than a week after 14 marines were killed and 10 of them beheaded in an ambush blamed on Muslim rebels.

Marine Col. Ramiro Alivio, the island's military chief, said the slain missionary, who was not identified, had provided information to the military about Abu Sayyaf militants and other "lawless elements" on Basilan.

So what part of this story makes it unsuitable for US consumption: the fact that al-Qaeda terrorists murder their fellow Muslims in gruesome and barbaric ways, or that a devout Muslim had the guts and the humanity to do the right thing and tell the authorities about those terrorists to try to stop them from doing to others what they ended up doing to him?