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Thursday, September 27, 2001
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 Thursday, September 27, 2001
started 9/27/2001; 12:37:17 AM - last post 9/27/2001; 12:37:17 AM
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Doc Searls - Thursday, September 27, 2001 
9/27/2001; 4:37:17 AM (reads: 5381, responses: 0)
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Teamwork tire-kick 
| | Several readers offer this link, also cited by Alain. |
A new meaning for Echo
| | I just heard Stacy Horn doing Karaoke in a story on NPR. |
Target practice?
| | Speaking of which, this article asks a bunch of creepy related questions: |
| | How many in the US know that the Taliban handed over to the Trust the remnants of the blasted Buddha statue of Bamiyan earlier this year so that it could sell them to art smugglers in the US and Europe and use the sale proceeds for its operations? How many noticed that the Al Rashid Trust transported these remnants to Karachi from Bamiyan with the knowledge and complicity of the Pakistani authorities?It should not be a surprise if the investigations turn out that the World Trade Centre in New York and part of the Pentagon were brought down by the terrorists with the help of the proceeds from the sale of the remnants of the Buddha of Bamiyan to art smugglers in the US. That is how terrorist organisations clandestinely fund their acts of terrorism and not through open bank accounts. |
| | The full title is "Will Terrorists Have the Last Laugh," by B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group. Raman's main point, by the way, is that the Taleban's real sponsor is the Pakistani government, president Musharraf in particular. |
| | It is time the US opens its eyes wide to the disturbing reality-- the jehad is there right in its midst and it will not be able to deal with it effectively and prevent the loss of more innocent lives unless and until it removes the root of the cancer from Pakistan. Hoping to ride to victory on the back of Musharraf would be like trying to cross a river on the back of a mud horse. |
| | ...the United States military aims are simple, namely: (1) Eliminate the Taliban from Afghanistan; (2) In the process destroy all Islamic Jehadi terrorist organisations and structures operating from Afghanistan; (3) Restore Afghanistan to a democratic political system and arrange its re-construction with US aid. |
| | The impossible terrain of Afghanistan is no impediment for high mobility air-based US military operations. More so, when the military aims are simple and limited. Furthermore, when the intended military campaign does not envisage occupation of large tracts of Afghan territory by ground forces requiring heavy logistics to be maintained by roads. |
| | Let's see. Our "simple and limited" military aims are to drive out the guys who defeated the Soviets and everybody else who has challenged them, destroy all other bad guy operations, and restore a democratic system that nobody has experienced in a generation, if ever. (And how exactly is "impossible terrain" not an "impediment?") |
The Good Doctor speaks
| | David Weinberger has issued a Special Doomsday Edition of JOHO. He'll also be doing a commentary on NPR this afternoon. I first knew David through his NPR pieces, and I'm sure this one will be full, as usual, of wisdom available nowhere else. |
This little piggie went to the trade show...
Always mind
| | "Would you trust a nameless news source?" a reader writes. Pointing to DEBKA's about page, he invites me to play "spot the name." Can you? |
| | DEBKA runs lots of interesting stories, but what's DEBKA's own story? |
| | If you have some clues, let me know |
Hang tight
| | An alert reader has pointed me to DEBKA, a site thick with news and analysis in English and Hebrew. Its War Diary is a blog, accumulating the newest material at the top of the page. The DEBKA slogan is bloglike too: We start where the media stop. |
| | It's fascinating, fact-packed reading. One sample: |
| | The United States also intends to lay siege to, or capture, the Afghan cities of Medan, Galdek and Maroof as well as the Arghastan Valley, where, according to intelligence provided by Russia, India and Israel, Osama bin Laden¹s forces have been concentrated in recent months. |
| | The U.S. operations will include air bombardments and missile strikes against Afghanistan¹s principal cities: Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar. |
| | Afghanistan is not the only target. Washington is planning a three-stage offensive against Iraq with the participation of U.S., British and Turkish forces. |
| | And it gives plenty of cause for worry. Take this item about Osama bin Laden: |
| | 14 September: Deception and misdirection are keywords in the Bin Laden¹s jihad against America. The red herrings were planted well in advance of the suicide assaults in New York and Washington. DEBKAfile picks up the false trail from the time it was laid. On August 8, RIA Novosty news agency in Moscow reported a strange story: The Taleban government in Afghanistan had appointed Bin Laden commander-in-chief of its armed forces - not only in Afghanistan but also in the Peshawar region of Pakistan, where the Taleban maintain several thousand weapons-trained recruits. |
| | The report did not go unnoticed by intelligence experts in Washington, Moscow and Jerusalem, who traded information but reached no consensus on what it all meant. |
| | Bin Laden, they knew, has prided himself on maintaining a low profile. For the past decade, his mysterious ways have nourished the psychological threat he poses to the West. It has also kept him out of harm¹s way. |
| | The experts could not figure out what prompted his personal friend, Mullah Mohammed Omar, supreme leader of the Taleban government to offer him the post. Both men go back a long time, to the mid-1980s, when they used to pray together in the Karachi mosque. |
| | It wasn¹t Bin Laden¹s only surprise. DEBKAfile¹s terrorism experts believe that story was made of whole cloth and planted as a piece of misdirection. |
| | By then, intelligence experts were scratching their heads over another odd piece of information appearing a week earlier. |
| | Bin Laden had just named Jumma Mamangani, an Uzbeki, as right-hand man and operations chief of the Al Qaeda terrorist movement. |
| | It's worth following. I just added to my newsrolling list on the right. |
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