Monday, May 01, 2006

terrorist training camps, ricin and anthrax

* RudePundit on Blinky: "In New Orleans yesterday, his arm around a prop black woman, President Bush declared, "I told the Governor and the Mayor earlier on that we would work to have these levees pre-Katrina -- better than pre-Katrina by June 1st," barely even blinking because lies come to him as naturally as drool on the chins of babies."

* RudePundit to TonySnow: "And, Tony, you know that if those girls aren't virgins just what to do should they get pregnant. Writing about how cool it was that South Dakota completely outlawed abortion, you said it was awesome that the state had rejected "the popular rape-and-incest exception." Explaining this seemingly cruel, vicious, and punitive action, you justified, "If one argues that a woman would suffer trauma by bringing such babies to term, what would prevent other women from citing trauma as an equally cogent reason for their abortions? Trauma introduces an obligation to pay special heed to the victims of rape or incest.""

* stanton: "Finally, an invasion of (iran) would likely involve Turkish assets of some kind. As a member of NATO, Turkey houses tactical nuclear weapons and, as reported by Ramin Jahanbegloo in the Daily Star, "Participation by Turkey in a US/Israeli military operation is also a factor [concerning Iran], following an agreement reached between the Turks and Israelis." Central Asia and the Middle East would become a bloodbath one minute after an attack on Iran."

* i thought that it was accepted fact that Blinky thrice refused to kill zarqawi before the war - apparently it was unsubstantiated, till now. Courtesy of the australian media and michael scheuer. i've always been wary of scheuer - and i'm not sure why he is coming forward to verify this story now - particularly given: "It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax" - i've long scoffed at the idea of 'terrorist training camps' and ricin - and you all know about the dodginess of the anthrax stories...

* more zarqawi from the Guardian's new blog (which is increasingly good): "

Arch terrorist and blood curdling executioner, Jordanian citizen Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, has at last obliged and supplied the US-led occupation forces in Iraq, and the world at large, a frontal and very clear picture of himself.

Along with many friends and commentators, I often wondered whether Zarqawi was real, and if so, was he still alive, particularly that the CIA had claimed, before the 2003 invasion, that his leg (which one I know not) was amputated in a Baghdad hospital. What are the chances of survival of a one-legged-man, hopping from one besieged and bombarded Iraqi city to another? This, after the US-led occupation forces have, during the three years captured or killed, at the last count, at least 40 men described as "right hand man" or "second in command" or "deputy" or "top aide" ?
[]
The CIA appears to keep a keen eye on the anatomy of famous terrorists. There were many media reports, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that Zarqawi's line manager, Bin Laden, had one kidney diseased or removed (which one they did not say) at an Abu Dhabi Hospital. But I digress.Zarqawi's new video and pictures appeared on 24 April 2006 on Al-Jazeera (Arab satellite TV station based in Qatar where the headquarters of the US forces in Middle East are based), exactly two weeks after the Washington Post published a report entitled "Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi. Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability." "
read the rest

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you. I don't trust either Baer or Scheuer. They both have said things that end up actually supporting some of the imperial hubris they apparently disdain.

At the very least, they should be honest and say that the US (and the CIA in particular) has created many of the bad guys they're so gung ho about going after. And certain "cookie companies" may still be pulling the strings on these guys.

I mean, I can't wholeheartedly blame them, part of what they say comes from the institutional mindset of a long career at Langley and from the fact that everything they say or write has to be vetted by the CIA PR folks first, but they should be honest and at least countenance the idea that many of these so-called terrorists, indeed some of the best-funded most notorious ones may be covertly funded by ideological American elements outside the direct control of the admin, but well within its political sphere of influence.

But maybe that would be too much letting the cat out of the bag.

And the idea of "labs" making vast quantities of ricin or anthrax out in the Afghan, Iraqi or Pakistani hinterlands is just laughable. The equipment is expensive, the know-how is difficult to obtain (you can't just read a protocol and voila, know how to do this kind of stuff), and at some point, someone would notice the suspicious amounts of raw materials flowing to these sites. We should be able to get reliable intel on at least THAT front. (hmm, I just carried a big load of castor beans over to that camp over there, don't know why they wanted them).

Most likely, any such bioweapons programs would be hidden in dual-use, ostensibly legit pharmaceutical or biomedical reserach facilities that are sponsored by the gov't or private capital. Not in the middle of some known terrorist training camp.

Just like there weren't any mobile bioweapons labs in the Iraqi desert...