Mexican troops' U.S. foray a 'misunderstanding'

The State Department and the U.S. Border Patrol on Wednesday described as a "misunderstanding" a Sunday night incursion of Mexican soldiers into Arizona, where they held a Border Patrol agent at gunpoint until backup agents responded to assist.

During a press briefing in Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said U.S. officials were aware of the incident and had brought it to the attention of the Mexican government, but that the encounter "stemmed from a momentary misunderstanding as to the exact location of the Mexican-U.S. border." .... there have been about 40 similar incursions along the 1,957-mile border this fiscal year. .... Since 1996, there have been more than 200 confirmed incursions by the Mexican military into the U.S.

Anthrax suspect passed 2 polygraphs

(Compiler's note: If this all turns out to be correct, something STILL does NOT "smell" right here. rca)

Handwriting analysis also failed to tie Ivins to letters

WorldNetDaily -- Casting further doubt on the FBI's anthrax case, accused government scientist Bruce Ivins passed two polygraph tests and a handwriting analysis comparing samples of his handwriting to writing contained in the anthrax letters, U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say.

The Justice Department yesterday closed the case, announcing the late "Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks."

Ivins passed the first polygraph to satisfy a security requirement prior to working with the FBI as part of a team of scientists at the Fort Detrick, Md., lab who originally helped analyze the anthrax letters. He passed a second exam after he became a suspect.

WND has learned that the FBI was so frustrated with the exam results that last October authorities asked a judge for permission to search Ivins' home and vehicles specifically for evidence of any materials, such as books, that would have helped him "defeat a polygraph."

Also, officials confirm that FBI handwriting analysts were unable to conclusively match samples of Ivins' handwriting with the writing on the anthrax envelopes and letters, which sounded as if they were written by jihadist accomplices of the 9/11 hijackers. The crude notes declared: "DEATH TO AMERICA. DEATH TO ISRAEL. ALLAH IS GREAT."

Investigators also failed to uncover other critical evidence linking Ivins directly to the letters. For instance:

• No textile fibers were found in his office, residence or vehicles matching fibers found on the scotch tape used to seal the envelopes;
  
  
• No pens were found matching the ink used to address the envelopes;
  
  
• Samples of his hair failed to match hair follicles found inside the Princeton, N.J., mailbox used to mail the letters.

Also, no souvenirs of the crime, such as newspaper clippings, were found in his possession as commonly seen in serial murder cases.

What's more, the FBI could not place Ivins at the crime scene with evidence, such as gas station or other receipts, at the time the letters were mailed in September and October 2001.

While acknowledging the circumstantial nature of their case against Ivins, prosecutors argue they're confident they would have been able to prove his guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" in court.

They say they used new forensic technology to narrow the deadly spores used in the attacks down to a batch stored in Ivins' lab. However, they concede that more than 100 other people – including some Arab-American scientists – had access to the batch and that the virulent Ames strain was found elsewhere.

Also, the FBI sent the anthrax letters to the same lab for analysis within days of the attacks, which might explain the match.

Still, prosecutors also point to the fact that Ivins spent an inordinate amount of time working in his lab in the days before the attacks, possibly preparing the poison. They say the number of his late nights spiked in September and October of 2001.

They cite an e-mail Ivins wrote to a colleague in which he expressed anger toward the 9/11 terrorists but also toward those in government who didn't do enough to protect the country. Prosecutors speculate one of the reasons he targeted Democratic leaders in Congress was because he felt they were soft on terrorism.

However, lab records reviewed by WND show the number of late nights Ivins put in at the lab first spiked in August 2001, weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

Ivins told FBI agents that he was putting in more late hours to escape problems at home, an explanation prosecutors found "unsatisfactory."

Prosecutors highlighted another Ivins' e-mail to a colleague in which they say he used language similar to the threats used in the anthrax letters. The partial text of the quote the officials first leaked to the media was "Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax" and have "just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans."

However, the full text of the first line of the e-mail cited in the government affidavit for a search warrant read as follows: "I heard tonight that Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas." (The e-mail was sent after 9/11 when al-Qaida was in the news.) The next line in the e-mail begins, "You ... " followed by a blacked-out line.

Prosecutors redacted the rest of the sentence from the copy of the affidavit unsealed for the press. The government did not provide an explanation.

Ivins, in an apparent suicide, last week overdosed on Tylenol 3 with codeine. His lawyers say he was depressed and driven to suicide by overly aggressive FBI agents who stalked him and his family.

They say the government's case against him amounted to "heaps of innuendo" and that their client would have been acquitted if he had survived. They point out that the government's evidence was not even strong enough to present to a grand jury, let alone a trial jury.

Indeed, prosecutors had not delivered the case to a grand jury for indictment. And the Pentagon had not revoked Ivins' security clearance.

Prosecutors were equally confident another scientist, Steven Hatfill, was the anthrax culprit before recently agreeing to pay him $6 million in damages.

Click here for additional information

Marines' war-zone tour extended

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has ordered roughly 1,250 Marines serving as trainers for the Afghan security forces to stay on the warfront almost a month longer to continue a mission that military leaders say is a top priority, according to a senior military official.

In addition, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has authorized the deployment of up to 200 other troops to Afghanistan to support the Marines. That includes eight helicopter crews that could be shifted from Iraq if commanders decide. ....

Airlines to cut 60m seats for Christmas

Air fares are expected to rise dramatically after it emerged that 60m seats will be cut in the run-up to Christmas. ....

Obama's Muslim outreach director resigns

WASHINGTON — An attorney who volunteered to help Barack Obama improve his relationship with Muslim and Arab-Americans has resigned from the campaign amid questions about his connection to a fundamentalist imam.

Mazen Asbahi started as the campaign's outreach coordinator on July 26, and he resigned in a letter to the campaign Monday. He said he was stepping down "to avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change."

Asbahi, an associate at the Chicago law firm Schiff Hardin, said in his letter that he served on the board of the Dow Jones Islamic Index Fund for a few weeks, but resigned "as I became aware of public allegations against another member of the board."

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the other board member during Asbahi's tenure in 2000 was Jamal Said, imam at a fundamentalist-controlled mosque in Illinois. The Justice Department named Said as an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fundraisers. The case ended in a mistrial. The newspaper said the connections were first exposed by an Internet newsletter.

Obama, who is a Christian, has been fighting false Internet rumors that he is a Muslim. Asbahi, in a post on the Obama campaign blog last week, said that had created "added sensitivities" between the campaign and the Muslim community, and he encouraged Muslims and Arab-Americans to get involved. ....

Interview with David Freddoso, Author of 'The Case Against Barack Obama'

Michelle Oddis: Dave, you’re a reporter, not a columnist. You’ve worked very hard to dig into the Obama story. You've said that you started reporting on Barack Obama in 2004. After all this research, what do you think is the most important thing people should know about Sen. Obama?

David Freddoso: The main lesson is that Barack Obama’s record, throughout his career, demonstrates conclusively that he has never been a reformer, that this image of “change and hope” that he projects is really a great lie. In fact there’s never been a single time in Senator Obama’s political career where he did something that was difficult and would cost him politically for the sake of needed reforms and change. ....

Al Qaeda Shifting Tactics, Finding New Recruits

The good news is that nearly seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida appears to be battered. The bad news is that like a prize fighter, it is bloodied, but not bowed — leaving it still capable of dealing a devastating blow. In June, CIA Director Michael Hayden trumpeted the good news, telling the Washington Post that al-Qaida movements in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were essentially defeated and struggling elsewhere, including in the terrorism hot-bed Pakistan. In truth, some doubt Hayden’s take on Pakistan, especially with Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri still on the loose in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

But, according to experts, there is bad news, too. The Islamist terrorist threat is still evolving, and the gains made on the ground against this scourge could easily be reversed. Their warning: If we do not take heed of, and adapt to, new trends in terrorism, the tide could ultimately turn against us, resulting — once again — in a tragedy on the scale of 9/11 or worse. ....

(Compiler's note: Please read the rest of this article.)

Exclusive: How Britain Helps Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood: Part Two (of Two)

While Martha Stewart was turned away from Britain, men like Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, who says Americans in Iraq should convert to Islam or die, are welcomed.

....Obviously, for an unpopular government that is spending tax-payers' money on Muslim groups in the hope that they do not become radical, it would appear shocking if the same government was seen to support an event led by supporters of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

So for the moment, the government pretends that it does not do deals with extremists. But as I have shown, elements within the government have certainly supported extremists in the past, and probably continue to support them. There is no evidence to suggest that this government and its civil servants will cease from supporting extremists in the future. Without a mole like Derek Pasquill to report on its clandestine operations, there is no accounting for what this government might do.

The Left Is on the Run

With over 70% of Americans advocating the opening of America's own natural resources as quickly as possible, should Congress be called back from their 5-week vacation to deal with this critical issue? ....

UAE Pledges $10 Million to IAEA Fuel Bank

The United Arab Emirates has promised to contribute $10 million to an international nuclear fuel bank to be administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, UAE officials announced today (see GSN, Aug. 5).

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has promoted the fuel bank concept as a way to discourage developing nations from building their own fuel production facilities which could also be used to produce material for nuclear weapons. The bank would ensure that nations could purchase nuclear power plant fuel even if their commercial market supply was disrupted.

UAE leaders have been exploring nuclear power in conjunction with five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (see GSN, March 24), and this year the nation inked a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States (see GSN, April 21). The nation’s nascent nuclear policy has called for acquiring nuclear fuel only on open markets. ....

How to Fix the Spooks' New 'Vision'

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently released their new vision for the future of the spooks and spies community. And, shockingly enough, it's actually pretty smart -- sparking a bit of optimism for those who think serious change is too long in coming. It's a more far-reaching document than I have seen come out of the IC (Intelligence Community) in the past. The parts about supplying intelligence to everyone from the Departments of Health and Human Services to international organizations to private sector and non-governmental organizations were especially heartening.

That said, it still doesn't reach far enough. Everyone in the IC likes to say that we're in a period of unprecedented and extensive change. If that's the case, I'd expect the response to match the challenge. Some suggestions:

Reducing the size and workload of various agencies. Too many agencies are doing too much of the same thing. Some competition is good, but internal community competition isn't real competition: its cannibalism. If it doesn't deal exclusively with classified information, give it to a university or think tank or contractor. If you are in the information business you ought to be using the best resources period -- not duplicating an existing effort simply because its people are not cleared. That's particularly the case with OSINT, open source intelligence, which so many now say is the source of first resort. ....

The New Spies

When the Cold War ended, it didn't spell curtains for the secret agent. Private espionage is a booming industry and environmental protest groups are its prime target.

As you hunker down for the last few days of the Camp for Climate Action, discussing how to force your way into Kingsnorth power station in an attempt to prevent the construction of a new coal facility, cast your eyes around your fellow protesters. Do they look entirely bona fide to you? And don't look for the old-school special branch officers - Kent Police are a tiny force. It's the corporate spies hired by private companies you need to watch out for.

According to the private espionage industry itself, roughly one in four of your comrades is on a multinational's payroll. ....

Economy Causes Undocumented Immigrants to Leave Long Island

While lawmakers debate measures to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants on Long Island, something unexpected is happening: Some immigrants are leaving, not because of legislation, but because of the economy.

By the dozens, and possibly by the hundreds, immigrants are moving to the South, and even back to their countries in Central America. That, at least, is the conclusion of academic experts, church workers, contractors and the immigrants themselves.

Precise local numbers are difficult to compile because undocumented workers live in the shadows, eluding census takers, landlords and others. But from Glen Cove to Greenport, some of those shadow inhabitants are missing ....

Anthrax DNA Analysis Key to Allegations Against Army Scientist

US investigators outlined their case against government biologist Bruce Ivins as their primary suspect in the anthrax mailings of 2001 Wednesday, citing evidence gained through technological breakthroughs that could become vital to future investigations of bioterrorism threats.

FBI researchers achieved a key scientific breakthrough in 2005 and later developed a specific ability for the validation of the anthrax spores used in the attacks in 2007, Jeffrey Taylor, US Attorney for the District of Columbia, told HSToday.us at a press conference in Washington. ....

Click here for additional information regarding a motive.

PETA ad compares bus beheading to animal abuse

TORONTO (AP) - The animal rights group PETA has tried unsuccessfully to run a newspaper ad comparing the beheading and cannibalizing of a passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada last week to the treatment of animals by the meat industry.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said on its Web site it wanted to run the ad in Manitoba's Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic, which is distributed in the city near where a man stabbed a fellow passenger multiple times, then beheaded him and ate pieces of the body.

However, city editor Tara Seel said Thursday the newspaper had no intention of running the ad, which uses imagery of a victim's throat being cut, in reference to the slaughter of animals on factory farms. ....

Chinese Islamists threaten Olympics: US group

A Muslim separatist group in China has made a new video threat against the Beijing Olympics, warning Muslims to keep their children away from the games, a US group that monitors extremists said Thursday.

The nearly six-minute video shows flames consuming a Beijing Olympics logo and an explosion over a venue for the competition, and features a masked, turbaned speaker clutching what appears to be an assault rifle.

The IntelCenter released a copy of the recording, attributed to the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), an ethnic Uighur and Muslim organization seeking to create an independent state out of China's heavily Muslim Xinjiang province.

The SITE Intelligence Group, meanwhile, translated some of the message, which was delivered in the language of the Uighurs, and said that the speaker identified himself as a TIP member and issued a threat against the Games.

The speaker urges Muslims to keep their children from the competition, and warns "Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings, or any place the Chinese are," SITE said.

In July, the Washington-based IntelCenter said TIP had taken credit in another video statement for a deadly bus bombing in Shanghai in May and warned of new attacks in China during the Olympics. ....

Click here for the video

'Citizens should be outraged lawmakers are playing political games with our safety'

By Bob Unruh-WorldNetDaily

Majority Democrats in the California Assembly have rejected two amendments that would have allowed schools to fire any employee discovered to be part of an extremist terror network and require users of school facilities to affirm they are not terrorists.

A report from Karen England at the Capital Resource Institute said the amendments were submitted by assemblymen Martin Garrick and Chuck DeVore to a plan that also would allow members of the Communist Party to teach in public schools.

"I am appalled that Democrat lawmakers will not agree to these commonsense amendments," said England, executive director of CRFI. "My son is currently serving in Iraq to defend our state and nation from terrorists, yet Democrats will not do their part on the homefront to also defend us from such extremists."

England argued lawmakers are charged with the duty of defending their citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic. ....

Wafa Sultan: Beware Sharia

The great Wafa Sultan speaks truth re Sharia Law. Don't miss this 8:53 min talk!!!

Latino immigrants suddenly avoiding the DMV

The number of Spanish-speaking people taking Oregon’s driving test plummeted in February, just as Gov. Kulongoski’s executive order took effect requiring test-takers to provide valid Social Security numbers.

In the Portland area and statewide, there was a jump in people taking the driving test in Spanish in the two months after Kulongoski issued his November order – but before it took effect Feb. 4, according to new data from the state Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. The number of people taking the test in Spanish fell more than 80 percent after his order took effect. ....

Secret deal kept British Army out of Basra battle

London • A secret deal between Britain and the notorious Al Mahdi militia prevented British Forces from coming to the aid of their US and Iraqi allies for nearly a week during the battle for Basra this year.

Four thousand British troops — including elements of the SAS and an entire mechanised brigade — watched from the sidelines for six days because of an “accommodation” with the Iranian-backed group, according to American and Iraqi officers who took part in the assault.

US Marines and soldiers had to be rushed in to fill the void, fighting bitter street battles and facing mortar fire, rockets and roadside bombs with their Iraqi counterparts.

Hundreds of militiamen were killed or arrested in the fighting. About 60 Iraqis were killed or injured. One US Marine died and sevenwere wounded.

US advisers who accompanied the Iraqi forces into the fight were shocked to learn of the accommodation made last summer by British Intelligence and elements of Al Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Moqtada Al Sadr, the radical Shia Muslim cleric. ...

Emerson Exposes Radical Ties of State Department Outreach Partners

The State Department has collaborated with many radical Islamist organizations and individuals in its attempts to engage in outreach to the American Muslim community at large, Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Executive Director Steven Emerson told a congressional panel Thursday. Many of the individuals in charge of these organizations, and the organizations themselves, have been convicted, indicted, or designated as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism cases throughout the United States.

Emerson's appearance before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade came despite the protests of some of the same Islamist organizations. Emerson urged Congress to review the State Department's interaction with these organizations in its attempts to reach out to the Muslim community.

Emerson outlined some of the more troubling aspects of participation with these groups: namely their ties to terrorist entities and promotion of radical Islamic ideology. A number of groups that the State Department has cooperated with have links to entities such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hizballah - which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government. The groups partnering with the State Department help to support an ideology that focuses on eliminating secular Western powers and promoting their stringent ideas of Sharia law, or law as governed by Islamic text. ....

Step Right Up to The 'Waterboard Thrill Ride' at Coney Island

NEW YORK — Guantanamo waterboarding as a Coney Island sideshow — that's what one political-minded artist has created on the Brooklyn seashore.

The "Waterboard Thrill Ride," by Steve Powers, is a stone's throw from Coney Island's famed Cyclone roller coaster and Nathan's hot dog stand.

For a dollar, visitors get to look through a barred window on a Guantanamo-like interrogation, enacted by animated robots. The hooded figure leans over a man in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered with a towel and his body tethered to a tilted plane.

Lights come on and water pours into the man's nose and mouth, producing convulsions for 15 seconds.

The display sits in the midst of Brooklyn's decaying entertainment mecca, the perennial object of redevelopment battles. A sign on the outside pictures SpongeBob SquarePants saying "It don't GITMO better!" as Squidward, another character in the SpongeBob cartoons, pours water over him. ....

"Allahu ak--dang--"

Do you get the virgins of Paradise for work accidents?

"Taliban militants killed while bombing school in Pakistan," from RTTNews, August 6 (thanks to Kemaste):

(RTTNews) - Two suspected pro-Taliban militants were killed while attempting to detonate explosives in an effort to blow up a school in Pakistan's northwestern valley of Swat, according to media reports quoting the police. ....

Schools as Terror Targets

This is an hour broadcast that you will want to listen to. "Watering Hole" on blogtalk radio just did an interview with John Giduck on the Beslan School Seize. According to Esquire Magazine, “On the first day of school in 2004, a Chechen terrorist group struck the Russian town of Beslan. Targeting children, they took more than eleven hundred hostages." John Giduck is the author of Terror at Beslan: A Russian Tragedy with Lessons for America's Schools.

Police Offer $30K for Information on UCSC Firebombings

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — On Aug. 2, two researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) were victims of fire bombings. Police have classified both attempts as acts of domestic terrorism and are offering a $30,000 for information on suspects in the case.

One incident, which occurred around 5:40 a.m., involved the firebombing of a molecular biologist David Feldheim’s home. The biologist uses mice for his research.

Feldheim’s family, including two young children, was in the home at the time of the bombing. All had to escape the home on a fire ladder from a second-story window. Feldheim suffered injuries to his feet during the incident. Police are considering this bombing an attempted homicide because the family was home.

Around the same time, another researcher’s vehicle was firebombed in his driveway in a faculty housing area on campus. That victim’s name has not been released

Feldheim’s name was one of 13 researchers whose names were listed in a threatening animal rights pamphlet. The pamphlet included the names, home addresses and home phone numbers of the researchers. ....

Sharia banking may touch $1trn in 2 years

LONDON, Aug 6: Today, the Sharia finance and banking industry is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and is estimated to be worth more than US$1 trillion in the next 2 years, according to the UK-based Securities & Investment Institute.

Unaffected by the subprime crisis, projections suggest that this market will grow by 15 per cent per year over the next decade and will account for 60 per cent of the savings of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslim community, in that same period.

The Securities & Investment Institute (SII), the leading financial services educational body in the area of Islamic finance, first announced the development of its benchmark Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) in 2005.

This is said to have captivated global interest, and last year the IFQ was sat by 285 candidates around the world. SII has designated Singapore as its first choice for the regional launch of the IFQ. The Institute is also working with financial services regulators throughout the Middle East including all the Gulf Corporation Council countries (GCC).

IFQ is sold in 53 countries and has become a required qualification in a number of finance houses and government institutions around the globe. It has just become the first and only Islamic finance qualification on the UK list of recommended examinations.Singapore as a regional economic hub is said to be ideally located to reach to the developing countries of S.E. Asia to provide service and products to the rapid growth in the Islamic Finance industry.

The launch of the SII Islamic Finance Qualification from Singapore provides the perfect tool for consumers in the region to gain the prerequisite background to assess wholesale instruments, such as Sukuk, Islamic bonds or retail products such as Islamic mortgages.

America’s Future: Candidates Provide a Framework for Fighting Terrorism

Seven years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, plunged the United States into a global War on Terror — and with more than 170,000 U.S. troops still fighting on two foreign fronts — recent polls show American voters fixated chiefly on the economy, not terrorism or national security.

Yet the next president will confront a broad range of potential terrorist threats: from the ongoing assault by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that executed the Sept. 11 attacks, to Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East; from invisible biological, chemical and cyber attacks to Russia’s still unsecured nuclear arsenal.

On the campaign trail, the candidates’ talk on terrorism has tended to focus almost exclusively on the two war zones. ...

China and the Enduring Uighurs

On Aug. 4, four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, two ethnic Uighurs drove a stolen dump truck into a group of some 70 Chinese border police in the town of Kashi in Xinjiang, killing at least 16 of the officers. The attackers carried knives and home-made explosive devices and had also written manifestos in which they expressed their commitment to jihad in Xinjiang. The incident occurred just days after a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks and security incidents in China and warned of further attacks targeting the Olympics.

Chinese authorities linked the Aug. 4 attack to transnational jihadists, suggesting the involvement of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing has warned is the biggest terrorist threat to China and the Olympics. Despite the Chinese warnings and TIP claims and the intensified focus on the Uighurs because of the Aug. 4 attack, there is still much confusion over just who these Uighur or Turkistani militants are. ....

United 93 shoot down reference again appears in news

By Wayne Madsen

(WMR) -- At the first military commission trial last week in Guantanamo, Cuba, Navy Lieutenant Commander Timothy Stone, one of the prosecutors, told the jury that accused Al Qaeda terrorist Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, was guilty of knowing about the 9/11 attacks because he overheard a conversation between Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda number two man Ayman al Zawahiri concerning details of the attacks.

According to a Reuters report from the courtroom, Stone stated: “If they hadn’t shot down the fourth plane it would’ve hit the dome.”

The reference was to United 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Chief prosecutor Colonel Lawrence Morris later said that Stone was merely quoting Hamdan, however, Morris would not even concede that the “dome” reference was to the U.S. Capitol building.

Whether or not Stone was himself referring to the shoot-down of United 93 or whether he was quoting Hamdan, who was, in turn, quoting either Bin Laden or Zawahiri is immaterial. The shoot-down of United 93 is backed up by evidence in U.S. intelligence files, including those found in the super-classified CRITIC database maintained by the National Security Agency (NSA). There is little doubt that the prosecutors in Guantanamo had some form of access to CRITIC and other intelligence in preparing their case against Guantanamo detainees like Hamdan.

On May 27, 2005, WMR reported: “President Bush spoke of the heroic actions of the passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93 over rural Pennsylvania on the morning of 911. However, NSA personnel on duty at the NSOC that morning have a very different perspective. Before Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, NSA operations personnel clearly heard on the intercom system monitoring military and civilian communications that the ‘fighters are engaged’ with the doomed United aircraft. NSOC personnel were then quickly dismissed from the tactical area of the NSOC where the intercom system was located leaving only a few senior personnel in place. NSA personnel are well aware that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not ‘misspeak’ when, addressing U.S. troops in Baghdad during Christmas last year, said, ‘the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.’ They believe the White House concocted the ‘passengers-bring-down-plane’ story for propaganda value.’”

On December 2, 2005, WMR reported: “Vice President Dick Cheney ordered two U.S. Air Force fighters to shoot down United flight 93 over Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001, according to an intelligence officer who was monitoring the flow of intelligence between the Pentagon and the White House that morning. After the target was identified as United flight 93, Cheney gave the order to engage the target and shoot it down. There have been previous reports that Cheney ordered the shoot down.”

On October 29, 2007, WMR reported: “According to U.S. intelligence sources, the archives of the National Security Agency (NSA), available to cleared users via the INTELINK network, contains an archive of Flash precedence and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) NSA intelligence messages known as ‘CRITICs.’

One such CRITIC from September 11, 2001, which includes a number of follow-on intelligence reports, concerns United Airlines flight 93, downed over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. However, the CRITIC is at odds with the official account of the fate of United 93, which is that passengers and crew attacked the hijackers and forced the plane to crash into the ground.

The NSA CRITIC, according to sources who have seen it, is about five or six sentences, and paraphrasically states:

“Two F-16s scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base at [likely 1336 Zulu]. Civilian airline hijacked. Over state of Pennsylvania civilian airliner was ‘intercepted’ at (Latitude and Longitude of intercept].”

Several follow-up CRITICs are appended to the first United 93-related CRITIC. One follow-up CRITIC mentioned a possible fifth hijacked plane flying south from Canada that was near the Canadian-U.S. border. Another CRITIC states the plane ‘intercepted’ over Pennsylvania was ‘confirmed civilian.’

On April 16, 2008, WMR reported: “WMR has received another confirmation, bringing the total number to three, that United Flight 93, hijacked on the morning of September 11, 2001, was shot down over rural Pennsylvania by U.S. Air Force jets scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. There are also reports that one F-16 scrambled from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia returned to base minus one air-to-air missile but the National Security Agency CRITIC report specified the interceptors that downed United 93 took off from Andrews.

“The third confirmation, as were the first two, is from a National Security Agency (NSA) source. In fact, a number of personnel who were on watch at the Meade Operations Center (MOC), which is a floor below the NSA’s National Security Operations Center (NSOC), were aware that United 93 was brought down by an Air Force air-to-air missile. Personnel within both the MOC and NSOC have reported the doomed aircraft was shot down.”

The fate of United 93 serves as an example of the lying conducted by the Bush administration in order to advance its perception management campaign to inflate and perpetuate the cleverly-constructed U.S. government propaganda surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state. ....