`Sears' Home-Grown Terrorism Case Ends In A Mistrial

A mistrial was declared in the 'Homegrown Terrorists' case as a Federal jury deadlocked. Six of the seven defendents will be retried, while one, Lyglenson Lemorin, was cleared of all charges.

Lemorin remains in custody as he apparently has some pending immigration charges:

U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard declared a mistrial regarding the counts against the other men, dealing a setback to prosecutors in a case that had been cited by Justice Department leaders as a reminder of the threat posed by "homegrown terrorists."

The jury had deliberated for nine days.

"It was evenly split on a lot of counts," said jury foreman Jeff Agron, 46, an educator at a local synagogue. "You wish you could reach a decision, but it is what it is."

At trial, prosecutors presented FBI recordings that included video of the seven men swearing allegiance to al-Qaeda. In one recorded conversation, the group's leader proposed knocking down the Sears Tower. As he described it, the tower would topple and cause a disastrous tidal wave in Lake Michigan.

The case against the men had been orchestrated by two confidential informants working with the FBI. One of them posed as an al-Qaeda organizer and led the men in the al- Qaeda oath.

Taking the stand on his own behalf, the group's leader, Narseal Batiste, testified that he had never wanted to blow up the Sears Tower and that he had only described the outlandish Sears Tower plan to the undercover informant in hopes of gaining as much as $50,000 in support.

Batiste, 33, and the other defendants whose fate the jury could not decide -- Patrick Abraham, 28; Stanley Phanor, 32; Burson Augustin, 22; Rothschild Augustin, 24; and Naudimar Herrera, 23 -- could have faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted on four terrorism-related conspiracy charges.

A new trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 7.

Mearsheimer, Walt, And "Cold Feet"

Mideast and foreign policy expert Dr. Martin Kramer is at it again, taking the occasion of an appearance at Princeton by Mearshimer and Walt to hawk their latest twist on the Evil Joos and the dreaded Zionist Lobby to superbly skewer them:

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt appear at Princeton University tonight, to promote their book The Israel Lobby. I've held back while other critics have had their say, and many of them have done a splendid job. But I don't think anyone has understood the neat sleight of hand the authors performed in moving from article to book. The innovation in The Israel Lobby is their "cold feet" thesis about the Israeli genesis of the Iraq war.

But first, remember why pinning the Iraq war on the "Israel lobby" is so important to Mearsheimer and Walt. Their main argument isn't that the Palestinians are paying a terrible price for that support. In most quarters, that draws a simple shrug. Instead, the duo claim that Americans are paying the price for U.S. support for Israel. They paid it on 9/11, and they're paying it now in Iraq. The killers of 9/11 set out on their mission because of their rage against unconditional U.S. backing for Israel; and the pro-Israel lobby got America into the Iraq war because it served Israel's interests, not America's. America is bleeding so that Israel can avoid doing what it should have done years ago: give the Palestinians their state. And it's because Americans are dying that Israel shouldn't be indulged anymore.

Of the two arguments made by Walt and Mearsheimer, the 9/11 argument is the less effective. That's because very early on, Americans decided that Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, and the 15 of the 19 hijackers who were Saudis, weren't out to kill Americans over Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Al-Qaeda hates us for everything we do and represent--they're 200-proof hatred of America. Americans understood that instinctively, and it was confirmed by the 9/11 Commission Report. The report's narrative showed how the 9/11 plot developed precisely during the years when Bill Clinton fussed over Yasser Arafat. The report became a bestseller, and its impact has been profound.

So the Iraq argument is far more crucial to the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis, and it's also dearer to them. It's generally believed that their anger over the Iraq war drove them to write the book in the first place. They both opposed the war before it started, and they signed a prominent letter against it. Much to their chagrin, no one took much notice of their ironclad, realist arguments against going into Iraq. To the two professors, the United States had become an anomaly, a place where the national interest (as they saw it) wasn't driving foreign policy. They explained that anomaly by the distorting influence of the "powerful Israel lobby."

In their original article, Walt and Mearsheimer had a straightforward chain of causation for the Iraq war: Israel pushed the "Israel Lobby" (with a capital L), which pushed the neocons, which pushed the Bush administration into war. I immediately came back with a large body of evidence, proving that Israel wasn't much worried about Saddam, and instead wanted the United States to take care of Iran. Israeli cabinet ministers and officials went to Washington to stress Iran over Iraq, and these efforts even surfaced in prominent stories in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times--articles that Mearsheimer and Walt had missed entirely.

In the book, Mearsheimer and Walt admit that Israel was pushing for Iran over Iraq. And yes, they say, Israel only joined the Iraq bandwagon when the Bush administration seemed set on Iraq. But they haven't dismantled their thesis--far from it. Instead they've come up with the new and improved Mearsheimer-Walt thesis, and it goes like this: the Iraq war must still be blamed on Israel, because in the lead-up to the war, Israel and its lobby worked overtime to ensure that Bush didn't get "cold feet."

Believe it or not, this the new Mearsheimer-Walt twist: the "cold feet" thesis of Israel's responsibility for the Iraq war. For example, page 234: "Israeli leaders worried constantly in the months before the war that President Bush might decide not to go to war after all, and they did what they could to ensure Bush did not get cold feet." And this, page 261: "Top Israeli officials were doing everything in their power to make sure that the United States went after Saddam and did not get cold feet at the last moment."

Mearsheimer and Walt bring not a single footnote, in their copiously footnoted book, to substantiate this new and bizarre claim. You have to be pretty credulous to imagine that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld would waver "at the last moment" when they had Saddam squarely in their sights. You can read Bob Woodward forward and backward and find no evidence of wobble. Nor is there any evidence of Israeli worries that the Bush administration would waver on Iraq. Mearsheimer and Walt just made it up.

In doing so, they miss (or conceal) the real story. Israel did worry in the lead-up to the war--not about "cold feet," but about the "long pause." A year before the Iraq war, Natan Sharansky, then an Israeli cabinet minister, went on the record with this quote (missed by Mearsheimer and Walt): "We and the Americans have different priorities. For us, Iran comes first and then Iraq. The Americans see Iraq, then a long pause, and only then Iran." It never occurred to Israelis that Bush would get "cold feet" on Iraq, but they fretted endlessly over just how long the "long pause" would last, and they had good reason.

For example, four months before the war, Ariel Sharon told the London Times (November 5, 2002) that Iran should be put under pressure "the day after" action against Iraq. Mearsheimer and Walt bring the quote. But they incredibly omit what followed on the very same day: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw shot back at Sharon on the BBC. "I profoundly disagree with him," Straw said, "and I think it would be the gravest possible error to think in that way." The London Times reported the spat the next day ("Straw and Sharon 'Deeply Disagree'"), adding that both British and U.S. senior diplomats were "dismissive of Sharon's call." The paper went on to quote "a senior American" who spoke these words: "The President understands the nuances. You can't paint Iran as totally black in the same way as you do Iraq.… I would have a hard time buying the idea that after victory in Iraq, the U.S. is going to turn its sights on Iran."

So the Israelis had good cause to worry. Walt and Mearsheimer write (p. 261) that the Israelis "were convinced that Bush would deal with Iran after he finished with Iraq." No they weren't, because they knew Britain would oppose it, along with plenty of "senior Americans." Precisely because they weren't convinced, they kept coming back to it. And they were right to worry, because in the end, the United States accommodated the Brits. There would be no Iran follow-up. Why? Because Tony Blair did Bush an immense favor in Europe, and the British sent thousands of troops to Iraq. Bush's feet were snug and warm--nailing Saddam had 80 percent public support in America--but Blair felt the chill at home. To keep him on board, Bush gave him to understand that there wouldn't be an Iran sequel, at least not on Blair's watch.

Not only wasn't the Iraq war Israel's first choice; the war's aftermath was a defeat for Israel's own openly declared priorities. Israel is now living with the consequences of that defeat. Here we are in the last days of 2007, and the United States is still in the midst of the "long pause." Maybe it should be renamed: the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has put a lame-duck administration into menopause. So much for the manipulative power of the "Israel lobby." The Iraq war and its aftermath prove exactly the opposite of what Mearsheimer and Walt claim they prove. They're evidence not of Israel's influence, but of the limits of Israel’s leverage when it comes up against other major U.S. interests and alliances.

In sum, the Iraq war thesis of Mearsheimer and Walt is make-believe, and it doesn't get better from the article to the book--in fact, it's worse. Almost every reviewer has questioned it on some grounds, although not one has identified the "cold feet" thesis. But that's what I propose to call it, and it deserves to be known for what it is: a conspiracy theory, pure and simple."

Read the whole thing...it's one of the best beat downs of these lying `anti-Zionist' hacks I've seen.

Everything You Needed To Know About Last Nights' GOP Debate..

From Jackie and Dunlap at Red State Update, of course!

The World's Most Famous PhotoShop Fakes

What are the world’s most famous photoshop fakes?

Photopreneur has its nominees and they're most interesting...you'll like this one.

The Saudis invite Ahmadinejad To Mecca For The Haj

Here's yet another sign of the new order in the Middle East, and the growing closeness between our `eternal friends' the Saudis and Iran.

Today,IRNA confirmed that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had personally issued an invitation to Iran's President Ahmadinejad to come to Mecca to observe the religious festival of the Haj as his guest. This is the first time an Iranian leader has ever been invited to Mecca to partake in the Muslim pilgrimage. The Saudis have announced that the high point of the haj when pilgrims converge on Mount Arafat near Mecca would take place on December 18th, and the Eid al-Adha marking the end of the pilgrimage would be celebrated the next day, the 19th.

The invitation was confirmed by Mohammad Hosseini, Iran's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Ahmadinejad is almost certain to go, and the meeting is rife with the symbolism of much closer ties between the Saudis and Iran.

Of course, that alliance has been in the works for quite some time. But regular members of Joshua's Army are aware of that.

It started with a private meeting in Riyadh between King Abdullah and Ahmadinejad, and continued at the Arab League Summit in Riyadh and the GCC conference in Doha. In later years, historians may compare these to the meetings between Hitler and Mussolini in the late 1930's.

The players change, but history rarely does.

Incidentally, I also noted in the same essay that Iran and our other Arab `ally', Egypt were preparing to resume relations for the first time in 27 years.That happened December 10th, when Egypt formally announced that it was sending an ambassador to Tehran for talks to finalize the resumption of relations.

Jordan may not be very far behind the Egyptians....and don't be surprised to see Iraq get on board as well.

This is an historic alignment of forces against the west,and one that we continue to ignore to our peril.

Odd and ironic indeed that the same people who continue to ignore this are dubbed `foreign policy realists.'

The Iran Dissidents Who Busted Tehran's Hidden Nukes Say The NIE Is Delusional

Well, they would know...and their track record is better than the CIA or the IAEA on Iran, after all.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian dissident and president of Strategic Policy Consulting provided some valuable intel on Iran's nuclear program in an interview with FOX News.

Jafarzadeh, by the way, is the man who exposed Iran's hidden nuclear weapons program in 2002.

He claims that the scientists working on the Iran's `civilian' nuclear centrifuge program are are Republican Guard commanders, and he provided a list of names to the press on December 11th. He also is quite clear that the programs' intention isn't simply civilian energy.

"It's the IRGC that is basically controlling the whole thing, dominating the whole thing," Jafarzadeh told FOXNews. "They are running the show. They have a number of sites controlled by the IRGC that has been off-limits to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and inspectors, including a military university known as Imam Hossein University. ... That site has not been inspected. They have perhaps the most advanced nuclear research and development center in that university."

According to Jafarzadeh, the regime did briefly stop the program in 2003, after it was exposed, but restarted it again in 2004.

Several sites that Iran had that were exposed could be masked as dual purpose facilities. Lavizan-Shian, located in a suburb of Tehran could not, he said.

"The regime knew that this is not the site that they can invite the IAEA ... this site was heavily involved in militarization of the program," Jafarzadeh said. "They were doing all kinds of activities that were not justifiable. So they decided before the IAEA gets in — and it usually takes four to six months before they can go through the process and get in — use the time and try to basically destroy this whole facility, and that's what they did."

Jafarzadeh claims the Iranians tore down the buildings, carted away the soil, cut down the trees and turned the whole place into a public park..afrter which they allowed the IAEA to inspect it, in June of 2004. Notice that El Baradi and the IAEA gave them plenty of time to camouflage things.

Jafarzadeh said that "in a way it's correct for the NIE to say that in late 2003 the weaponization of the program was stopped, and they said it was due to international pressure. But they failed to say that it restarted in 2004" in a location called Lavizan 2, he said.

Lavizan 2 "has never been inspected by the IAEA," Jafarzadeh added.

I wonder if that could possibly be the code name for this place?

Another Iranian dissident group, the National Council for Resistance on Iran(NCRI) came to the same conclusion that Jafarzadeh did.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, NCRI's foreign affairs chief, told The Wall Street Journal in December 11th's edition ( sorry no link - subscription only) that some of the equipment was moved to another military compound known as the Center for Readiness and Advanced Technology, to Malek-Ashtar University Isfahan and to a defense ministry hospital in Tehran.

The regime broke the facility into 11 fields of research, including projects to develop a nuclear trigger and shape weapons-grade uranium into a warhead. t

"They scattered the weaponization program to other locations and restarted in 2004," Mohaddessin said.

"Their strategy was that if the IAEA found any one piece of this research program, it would be possible to justify it as civilian. But so long as it was all together, they wouldn't be able to."

I think that pretty well covers it.

And of course, we now know that the Bush Administration has no intention of doing anything about it.

Why A Major Terrorism Case Ended In A Mistrial

You will remember the Holy Land Foundation case, where a major `charity' was caught funneling money to Hamas.

As you know, the case ended in a mistrial when the jurors refused to back the verdict as given.

Now, we get an inside look at the reason why....jury room bullying.

She felt the men were guilty and tried to explain why to the 11 other jurors. When she finished, one juror spoke up in an angry tone.

"If you're going by the evidence in this room," she recalls him snapping, "then you need to go home."

The terrorism-support trial of five Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) officials, which began July 24, already had been stressful for 49-year-old Kristina Williams. She had lost her job two weeks into it. Now during deliberations, she felt bullied and intimidated virtually every time she voiced an opinion.

"When I'd get off the jury I'd come home every night and basically cry because I felt like every time I spoke I would get knocked down, criticized, one way or the other for something pertaining to the way I voted," Williams said in an exclusive interview.

While several jurors favored acquittals, just one out of the 12 did most of the knocking down. In fact, interviews with three HLF jurors - speaking publicly for the first time - suggest that juror William Neal's stridency may have changed the trial's outcome. Neal even claimed credit for steering jurors away from convictions in a recent radio interview. Until now, he has been the sole source for public perception of the deliberations and the government's case.

The three jurors interviewed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) showed the Neal-created perception as skewed. All three jurors say they disagree with his views of the evidence and the prosecution's case. To them, it seems clear that Neal made up his mind going into the jury room and refused to consider any argument in favor of guilt. He preferred to read the court's instructions rather than look at exhibits in evidence, they said. And his often snide manner intimidated and bullied those who disagreed with him.

The effect this had on the case is clear. When a juror walked out in frustration after just four days of deliberations, it followed a confrontation with Neal. When another juror briefly refused to cast a vote, it was after a confrontation with Neal. Williams broke down several times during the 19 days jurors spent locked in debate. Each incident followed what she felt was an attack by Neal.

In an interview with the IPT Dec. 3, Neal said he had no regrets. He disputed only some parts of the other jurors' stories – he said he can't remember telling Williams to go home if she was relying on the evidence in the jury room -- but stopped short of saying it didn't happen.

"We had so many conversations they tend to blend together," he said.

The defendants were accused of illegally routing more than $12 million in support to the terrorist group Hamas through a series of charities, known as zakat committees. Prosecutors said those committees are controlled by Hamas. Defense attorneys argued HLF simply helped out Palestinians living in desperate poverty and provided support to widows and orphans regardless of whether they served Hamas.

Interestingly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas effectively sided with prosecutors recently by claiming he was closing down 92 charities he said had been taken over by Hamas.

The HLF trial ran for six weeks. Then jurors deliberated 19 days. One defendant, Mohamed El-Mezain, was acquitted on all but one count against him – participating in a conspiracy to provide material support to Hamas. Jurors did not reach a unanimous verdict on that count and El-Mezain is facing a retrial for conspiracy.

Initially, it appeared others had been acquitted on multiple counts, but then two jurors stunned the courtroom: When U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish polled the jury, a standard practice, Williams and a juror named Gail said they did not agree with the verdicts. Curiously, Neal joined them, later saying he wanted deliberations to continue. He believed jurors gave up too soon.

Judge Fish was left with no choice but to declare a mistrial, and did so Oct. 22. Attorneys on both sides are gearing up for a second trial in 2008.

"The jury room was a mess"

Williams describes a factionalized jury room, with those favoring guilty verdicts trying to explain their reasoning only to have those favoring acquittals shoot them down. Many times, jurors could not agree whether evidence was useful to them. Williams pointed to some that she thought was. When she did, she said Neal snapped back: "Go back to sleep, you're not important."

Another time, Williams and other jurors thought it would help to view photographs copied onto a videotape in evidence to see who had attended a pivotal meeting on scuttling Middle East peace hopes. Neal argued it was a waste of time and talked the group out of it.

That's because videotapes sometimes covered hours, Neal said, and jurors had no way to pinpoint the 30-second segment they were shown during the trial.

A second juror corroborates Williams' account. That juror spoke to the IPT only on the condition that the juror's name is not used. The juror didn't care if the defendants knew it. Neal, however, was someone the juror did not want to deal with again.

A third juror, Sylvester Holmes, also spoke publicly for the first time in an IPT interview. He and his two colleagues agreed that their arguments for conviction were dismissed out of hand. Sometimes they were told "that's not evidence." Other times, the argument didn't meet Neal's interpretation of the court's instructions. Or, he simply repeated arguments offered by defense attorneys.

The three jurors interviewed were far from agreement on the verdicts. Holmes believed in guilt on all counts. Williams could not convict on charges involving some specific transactions but felt all five defendants were guilty of conspiracy to support Hamas. The unnamed juror who spoke with IPT was convinced only HLF executive director Shukri Abu Baker and Chairman Ghassan Elashi were guilty of conspiracy. But all three say that Neal bullied and intimidated those who disagreed with him, stifling true discussion of the case.

"He took control of that jury room," Holmes said. "You just look at the case. The jury room was a mess."

Among the examples cited:

* Arguments for conviction met with immediate scorn and ridicule. At times, Neal raised his voice, cursed or otherwise belittled them for what they said. A handful of jurors called for an immediate break after he hollered "f*** your opinion" to a female juror.

* Williams said she felt pressured by a majority of jurors into voting to acquit defendant Mufid Abdulqader. To them, Abdulqader was a bit player with no control over HLF money. Later, however, Williams said she saw receipts showing HLF paid Abdulqader's travel expenses to attend a fundraiser. Already convinced there was a conspiracy to support Hamas, she decided that Abdulqader was a part of it. But the other jurors refused to let her change her vote on conspiracy counts, saying Abdulqader's verdict form already had been signed and put away. Deliberations continued for at least another week after Williams' request was rejected. That's what prompted her to speak up when the judge polled the jury.

* In a case featuring more than 80 videotape and audio recordings, jurors did not watch one video or listen to one tape during the 19 days of deliberations. Those who wanted to examine the exhibits were told it was a waste of time and printed transcripts were sufficient.

It is in this context that one juror named Gail refused to vote several days into deliberations. "People kept saying not guilty because they kept saying there was no evidence," the unnamed juror interviewed by IPT remembered about Gail. "She'd seen evidence herself and she felt they weren't taking the time to look at the evidence. They kept saying there's no evidence and she just got tired of hearing that."

Williams agreed that the juror named Gail just gave up at that moment. "She said ‘I'm just tired. I'm just ready for this to be over with.'"

Holmes got so frustrated that he walked out, forcing deliberations to start over when an alternate took his place. That deprived those favoring a guilty verdict of an ally. He wrote to the court saying he did not "feel that I can give the defendant's (sic) justice. Due to the circumstance in this case, I ask to be dismiss (sic) for this case."

Neal's Account of the Deliberations

Neal, a graphic artist, apparently felt the same way about others wasting his time. He was interviewed by Dallas radio and television stations within days of the trial and by the Dallas Morning News. Thus far, his assertions have provided the only detailed insider assessment about the prosecution case.

Neal made his disdain clear two days after the mistrial in an interview on Dallas radio station KRLD.

"A lot of the jurors couldn't even say words that had four syllables," Neal said on the Ernie and Jay show on KRLD 1080 AM. "They just picked the jury based on socio-economical reasons. A lot of these people are blue collar, you know, working UPS, working food, cafeteria cashier. You had people [from] secluded lifestyles. They had no idea of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They had no idea about worldly affairs. To get them and you show them bombs and show them kids – that's not our lifestyle so we've got to vote them guilty because of that. That's the whole reason."

The Dallas Morning News noted Neal "also had difficulty calling Hamas a terrorist group. ‘Part of it does terrorist acts, but it's a political movement. It's an uprising.'"

He reinforced that assessment in the IPT interview, saying he read the Hamas charter twice during deliberations. "They haven't always been a bombing kind of group," he said.

Hamas' first actions involved shootings and stabbings. Its preamble to the charter includes this: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

So, to Neal, what is Hamas?

"It is marked as a terrorist organization. My personal viewpoint, I didn't know too much before. I see it as a political struggle. Our country was founded on a terrorist act. The Boston Tea Party wasn't a tea party, dude. It was a rebellion against the king's wrath. They fought back against an oppressive government."

He argues that prosecutors never proved that Palestinian charities, the zakat committees, were controlled by Hamas. HLF routed its money to the committees. Absent that proof of Hamas control, Neal reasons, the defendants can't be convicted. Within hours of the mistrial, he told reporters the government's case "was strung together with macaroni noodles."

"There were so many gaps in the evidence, I could drive a truck through it," he told the Morning News.

That, the three other jurors interviewed said, was not the case. Neal simply refused to consider it as valid evidence. Even at the end, a majority favored convicting Baker and Elashi, Williams and the unnamed juror reported.

The evidence

There wasn't one single exhibit that swayed the jurors interviewed. Rather, each placed exhibits in the broader context of statements and activities by the defendants. Baker, they said, was shown to have lied repeatedly about his attitude toward Hamas. The defendants privately discussed Hamas activities, from a bombing that defendant Abdelrahman Odeh described as "a beautiful operation," to the 1997 arrests in Brooklyn of three alleged Hamas members accused of plotting another bombing.

Williams was struck by transcripts of a secret gathering of Hamas members and supporters in Philadelphia in 1993. They met in the wake of the Oslo peace accord, which they feared threatened to marginalize Hamas politically and which eventually could lead to a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they opposed.

At one point, Shukri Abu Baker tells the others "war is deception." That, combined with other false statements, swayed Williams.

"That was pretty intense for me, that, why would he say that? I know he said it at the Philadelphia meeting. And if it's a charity set up, then why is he saying that? And plus there was Hamas leaders there, and they showed tapes of Hamas leaders," she said.

A January 1995 call from Abdelrahman Odeh to fellow defendant Mohamed El-Mezain entered into evidence at the trial stuck with the unnamed juror. Odeh wanted to alert El-Mezain about a Hamas bombing. El-Mezain hadn't heard about it yet and could not understand the radio report Odeh played over the telephone.

"What is important is that they carried out an operation," Odeh said. Eighteen people were dead and 60 others injured. Odeh called El-Mezain again a little more than a year later to report Yehya Ayyash, the infamous Hamas bomb-maker known as "the Engineer," had been killed by the Israelis.

Then there was evidence introduced at trial concerning fundraising conference calls HLF organized in which speakers repeatedly praised Hamas. In January 1997, one such call featured Mohamed Siam, a prominent Hamas member, and Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal al-Hilbawi. Hilbawi praised "the steadfast" and named Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmad Yassin, the Hamas bomb-maker Yehya Ayyash and Hamas founder Mousa Abu Marzook as those helping the Islamic world move "from weakness to strength and to the love of martyrdom."

"A legitimate foundation wouldn't do that," the unnamed juror said. But those favoring acquittal argued that HLF officials were not the ones who made the comments even if they were the ones benefiting from the money raised.

"They're the ones who brought these people in and who let them talk in raising this money," the juror said.

The juror also was struck by a 1997 conversation admitted as evidence between Baker and Elashi, in which they discussed the Brooklyn arrests of three men alleged to be plotting a Hamas-connected bombing in the United States. Baker insisted that the suspects had nothing to do with Hamas, whatever they had done; adding that Hamas leader Abel Aziz Al-Rantissi had already issued a denial.

Still, Baker expressed concern that the incident could be damaging:

Sh: I just wanted to tell you because it seems that whoever, the guy in New York, this dog, tried to tie it to parties…Don't be surprised if the fabrication gets bigger than that. They would keep on publishing confessions that…er, which are nonsense. They cannot get us by law, they will try to get us by fabrication, man.

The unnamed juror found that incriminating, wondering why Baker and Elashi would be so concerned about Hamas being falsely blamed for a plot if Baker and Elashi had nothing to do with the organization.

Neal saw that call differently. To him, the call had no significance because between references to the Brooklyn arrests, Baker and Elashi spent several minutes discussing a van Elashi wanted to buy. That section may not have been read to jurors in court. But when he read it during deliberations, Neal accused prosecutors of trying to misrepresent defendants' statements.

"…[T]hey left [that] out conveniently to show the other side of the fence," he told WFAA television. "Take one sentence that says Hamas. Well did you know they were talking about a van in the two sentences before that? No because you just completely want to talk about Hamas."

In his interviews, Neal expressed deep skepticism of virtually every aspect of the government's case. He believed little, if anything, of what he heard from prosecution witnesses. Expert witness Matt Levitt wasn't credible, in Neal's view, because he had testified in a series of similar trials. Levitt has extensively studied Hamas' infrastructure and tactics and authored the book, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad.

And Neal believed nothing he heard from an Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a pseudonym. "Avi" provided evidence Israel seized during raids of HLF offices in the West Bank and explained how some zakat committee officials were tied to Hamas.

"So you've got this guy who works for the Israeli government, who's gonna name names. That's his job. His job is to find Palestinians who are Hamas or troublemakers or whatever. I expect him to name names. He admitted in open court that he's being paid to be here. So that's completely biased. All the prosecution witnesses were all biased because they've been doing this for 13 years," Neal said on the Ernie and Jay show.

In the IPT interview, he questioned why Hamas was designated a terrorist group.

"The Israeli government is one of our friends. It's a close ally and a lot of our political actions go in favor of Israel. If they'd have been in favor of the Palestinians we wouldn't be hearing about these things. There was probably a lot of pressure" on the United States to designate Hamas as a terrorist group and pass legislation outlawing transactions with it.

( I guess Mr. Neal isn't familiar with Hamas' connection with the Muslim Brotherhood or the American citizens they've murdered - ff)

Defense arguments, in contrast, were embraced by Neal. He used them to rebut Williams when she put stock in a videotape exhibit that she said haunted her during the trial. It showed a skit in which defendant Mufid Abdulqader portrayed a Hamas member who kills an Israeli police officer. The skit was performed at a fundraiser for the Islamic Association for Palestine. The IAP, like HLF, was part of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee," which prosecutors say worked to benefit Hamas.

"I am Hamas, O dear ones," Abdelqader said. "And I am Hamas, O dear ones. In midst of fire, they throw me. And I am Hamas, O dear ones. In midst of fire, they throw me. I swear to wipe out the name of the Zionist. And protect my land, Palestine. And you must get out."

Neal dismissed the skit as meaningless. It was an exercise of free speech, he said, echoing defense attorneys. But to Williams, it showed knowledge of the ultimate objective.

"He's doing a skit raising money for the committees but he's doing it as a Hamas terrorist. If you're raising money, I wouldn't think you would be making Hamas look good. You would try to be helping the charities for the poor Palestinians that are poor and lost their loved ones or are under whatever circumstances whether they're martyrs or innocent bystanders."

When defendant Abdelrahman Odeh singled out the son of a slain Hamas bomb-maker for support, Neal told jurors who found that incriminating that they were wrong. The child shouldn't suffer because of the father's sins, he said, again repeating a defense argument.

Williams and the unnamed juror argued it wasn't about the child; rather, the fact that Odeh made a specific request to support the son of Hamas martyr Yehya Ayyash was telling.

"I don't know why Ayyash's kid was so important," Williams said. "Odeh made it a point of saying ‘This is who I'm going to support.' He didn't hide the fact that he supported Ayyash. And it was obvious Ayyash's son was the son of the major bomb maker of the Hamas."

To Neal, the specific nature of Odeh's action had no deeper significance. "It shows he's supporting an orphaned kid who happens to be the kid of a Hamas bomb maker. It's their religion to give to charity," he said. He seemed to view each exhibit in isolation, refusing to connect it with other evidence that might show a pattern of behavior.

After the mistrial, Neal told WFAA television the other jurors lacked sophistication and accused prosecutors of manipulating their credulity.

"If you're ignorant or you have no idea about any culture or you have no idea about a certain way of life or you don't know that Hamas was once a political – and it still is a political figure – you know, they still do political things. And if you're going to sit there and show bomb belts, and you're going to show what they're doing to the, you know, in their homeland – why didn't they show us what – I know it's not important in the case but at the same token you could show what Israeli people are doing to Palestinian people," Neal said.

In one interview, Neal indicated prosecutors may have falsely believed he would be sympathetic to them. His father works in the military, he said on the Ernie and Jay show.

"My answers [to the questionnaire] looked like I was a pro-American, you know, flag-waving American. I mean, I am, but they thought I was not going to be able to think for myself and just go on the facts that these were Muslims and these were, you know some of the defendants were not American citizens."

Neal told the IPT he went into deliberations with no opinion and wanted to see where the evidence took him. The other jurors never knew how he was voting on secret ballots, he said. Neal told interviewers it was the other jurors who had their minds made up before deliberations started, that it was their refusal to budge that dragged out deliberations.

That's just wrong, the anonymous juror said.

"If he believed not guilty across the board, if he wanted to talk about the case, that was fine. But he shouldn't have said stuff that wasn't true," the juror said. Asked to clarify, the juror said, "He talks a lot about people not changing their minds. I changed my mind throughout the deliberations on several defendants. I guarantee you he never changed his mind throughout. He was at not guilty from the time he sat in there."

Williams, Neal said, was often confused and disorganized. In his view, she "was there for the check," he said on Ernie and Jay. "She lost her job during this case so she was there for vacation and checks. She was flim-flamming all over the place."

Kristina Williams

In court, Williams says, she paid close attention. She filled three binders with notes from testimony and exhibits. Under the court's direction, she wasn't allowed to read from those notes during deliberations, but they did help her remember certain points and find exhibits from dozens of boxes stuffed into the jury room.

On Thursday, Oct. 18, jurors came to an agreement that further deliberations were pointless and they notified U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish. There were unanimous decisions on some counts, deadlocks on others.

Fish was out of town and the verdict forms, indicating acquittals for defendants Mohammed El-Mezain, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, were sealed until Fish returned Monday morning. Then, as is standard practice, the judge polled the jury – asking each whether they agreed with the verdicts.

Williams stunned the courtroom and her fellow jurors by saying no. She had already written to the court that morning asking whether they would be polled. If not, "I would like to give my statement while the court reporter is there," she wrote.

She said she had succumbed to pressure in voting to acquit Abdulqader on the conspiracy counts. Later, she recalled, she found evidence she felt proved his guilt on conspiracy.

"They [other jurors] said, ‘We've already voted on him. We can't go back and change our vote,'" Williams said. On this point, Neal agrees with Williams' account.

Fish initially sent jurors back to see if more deliberations were possible. Williams said several other jurors were angry with her. "The foreperson was very embarrassed that it came to this. And I come out and I told them, ‘I told you I found some evidence on Abdulqader but you guys didn't want to hear it.' I says ‘I told you I wanted to change my vote to guilty and you told me we couldn't do it … I told you I didn't like my vote when we voted.' They told me, ‘Krissy just shut up and go back to sleep.'"

Williams denies ever sleeping during deliberations. There were times, she said, when she closed her eyes due to tension or fatigue, but she stayed awake. The unnamed juror said it did appear Williams dozed off a few times, but that came in "periods of silence" when jurors were waiting for someone to dig out an exhibit.

Other jurors disagreed with her on the case, Williams said. But they did so without attacking or belittling. For those jurors, Williams said, the evidence simply fell short. They were not sufficiently convinced that the zakat committees were part of Hamas.

Williams was convinced, pointing to a 1991 letter introduced at the trial that was addressed to defendant Shukri Abu Baker. It listed the committees and detailed which were "ours" and how many representatives worked there. Some jurors dismissed the letter due to its age, but Williams looked at it in conjunction with the testimony of "Avi" and FBI agent Robert Miranda. She felt their testimony further tied zakat committee members and HLF guest speakers to Hamas.

In some cases, Miranda was able to show the speakers' telephone or fax numbers traced back to known Hamas offices. For example, at least seven speakers used by HLF to raise money had the same telephone number as Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh. Miranda found the number on a 1995 letter Ghosheh had written to U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch protesting American detention of Hamas political leader Mousa Abu Marzook.

It seemed to Williams that, short of a check written from HLF directly to Hamas, jurors were not going to convict.

"These people were smarter than that to just come out and write the word Hamas on a check. I think they knew what they were doing," she said. "They were just smarter than that to be that obvious that they were supporting Hamas. Some of the jurors, they wanted to see the word Hamas on a check. Sure, I would have loved to see Hamas on a check. It's just realistic. I think these people were just that smart."

The 1991 letter listing zakat committee connections was contradicted by other exhibits, Neal said. Oftentimes those documents were undated, making it impossible to determine when those whom HLF considered "ours" were present. Agent Miranda's testimony was barely discussed, he said.

The Common Thread

When things got heated, the one constant was Neal's involvement, the three other jurors interviewed say. Williams remembers one confrontation that prompted other jurors to demand a break to let tempers cool. A woman juror was going toe to toe with Neal, Williams said. At one point, she explained something and said "that is my opinion."

"Well f*** your opinion," Neal hollered back at her.

That tenor made it difficult on some days for her to commute to court from her home about 25 miles south of Dallas, Williams said. "There were just some days where I just didn't want to go in because of one juror and I wasn't the only one who felt that way."

All disputes aside, there is one comment from Neal on which all the jurors might find agreement: "Honestly," he said on Ernie and Jay, "if I hadn't been on that jury this would have been a different case."

The one thing I'd most like to know that the article doesn't really reveal is who Wiliam Neal is, and whom he might be connected to. I have a feeling that the real story lies in figuring that out.Meanwhile, the case is set for retrial in 2008.

A hat tip and a commendation to long-time Joshua's Army member Joyce C. for bringing this to my attention.

Watcher's Council Nominations, 12/12/07

Every week, the Watcher's Council members nominate two posts each, one from the Council members and one from outside for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week's Council nominations can be found at the site of our fearless leader, the infamous Watcher of Weasels


Do take the time and check out the non-Council links..they are always rewarding.


Now, here's this week's Council lineup...

1. JOSHUAPUNDIT: Pearl Harbor...And 9/11 It pretty much went unnoticed, but December 7th was the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an attack that took 2,403 lives and destroyed most of America's Pacific fleet. Sixty years after that terrible morning, there was another sneak attack on American soil. I have a few things to say about these two events,why they were handled so differently,and the lessons from the past for the future.


2. Done With Mirrors:How Kennedy Said It Callimachus looks at Mitt Romney's speech on faith, compares it with John Kennedy's famous address and makes some discerning comparisons between the two.

3. Soccer Dad: Making NIE This week Soccer Dad does a type of post he does exceedingly well...comparing different views on a given subject an dexamining them to allow the truth to pop up of almost of its own accord. This time his subject is the NIE, something that was on a number of minds within and without the Council this week. By this time, most of you know how I feel about the matter...

4. The Glittering Eye: What the NIE on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Development Doesn't Say Dave likewise looks at the NIE, and to his credit looks at the actual non-classified part of the report to draw his conclusions, as opposed to the public perception. he's correct in that it hedges its bets almost to irrelevancy. Bureaucrats, after all, have developed CYA into an art form, almost.

Unfortunately, the public perception is what's going to carry weight,(which is exactly what was intended, IMO) and it has already had quite a lot of fallout, especially in the Middle East.

5. Bookworm Room: Explaining Americans Jews' Love for Israel and America Ms. Bookworm takes something head on that's been bubbling under the surface for some time, but has been exacerbated by Jimmy Carter, the Angry Left, Mearshimer and Walt and their ilk- the dual loyalty American Jews supposedly feel towards Israel as opposed to loyalty for the US.

Of course, one would have to make the case that supporting an important American ally is somehow being disloyal to America or not in America's best interests. The Saudis have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to make that case, or at least buy adherents for it and have definitely met with a certain degree of success.

6. Rhymes With Right:Another Sign: Islam Is a Human Rights Violation Greg looks at the case of a British young woman who's under death threat for being an apostate from Islam, and draws some conclusions about the way the Qu'ran and Mohammed's recorded revelations, sayings and deeds (the Hadiths) are applied by a significant number of his followers.

For those interested, the Islamic notion is that we are all Muslims at birth regardless of our religion and that Islam's mission is to get the entire non-Islamic world ( dar harb, literally `the place of war') to embrace dar-Islam, Muslim practices and rule. This gives rise to a certain confusion, since many people misunderstand that when many Muslims talk about peace, they actually mean dar-Islam.

Once one has recited the shehada and accepted Islam, attempting to leave the religion is considered a capital offense, according to both the Qu'ran and sharia. And while not all Muslims feel this way, the fact that many accept this is indeed cause for concern.

7.Colossus of Rhodey:U.S. "Stingy" on Foreign Aid Hube looks at a TIME magazine piece quoting no less than ex-UN oil-for-food scamster Kofi Annan that purports to judge what would constitute a fair amount of US aid. Since part of the raison-de-etre of that aid is to make friends and influence people, I suggest that some curtailments might be in order...starting with the UN.

8. Cheat Seeking Missiles:Burying A Hate Crime Here, Laer writes a post about the hidden side of the recent Colorado church shootings, and highlights an obvious fact that was glossed over, that the shooter hated Christians. he's quite correct IMO that had it been a mosque or a synogogue and their were similar motivations, it would have been the entire focus of the media blitz.

I would also add, thank G-d for the bravery of one woman who prevented a great many deaths in this incident.

9. The Education Wonks: Babies Having Babies: Now a Generational Problem Edwonk looks at the effects of teen pregnancy and draws some obvious conclusions. And as an educator, he rightly deplores the schools being expected to deal with the resulting mess..

10. Right Wing Nuthouse: Release of Iran NIE a Remarkable Testament to American Exceptionalism Rick makes the case that the recent NIE report is a tribute to America's openness and freedom, that such a thing could be released at all. In my view, that public release was deliberate and designed as part of a foreign policy gambit, but I digress...

11. Big Lizards: Hoodwinkers and Their Codependents: In Search of Intelligent Intelligence on Iran Dafydd's take on the NIE focuses on an item I examined here on site, the views of British intelligence that the CIA had been `hoodwinked' and subjected to Iranian disinformation.

12. Wolf Howling: A Deeply Flawed NIE Changes Nothing & Everything Wolf Howling likewise looks at the NIE, and does a fine job of eviscerating it. I particularly liked the line about how the last line in the report should read "and they all lived happily ever after"!

That's this week's lineup..enjoy!

Anti-Syrian General Assassinated in Lebanon

Lebanese army operations chief General Francois al-Hajj and his bodyguard were assassinated in a Beirut car bomb attack this morning in the Christian suburb of Baabde in East Beirut, just near the Presidential Palace. The killers used a parked car as a bomb and detonated it remotely as al-Hajj's vehicle passed by.

General al-Hajj was apparently targeted because he had been named by the anti-Syrian faction to succeed the pro-Syrian and pro-Hezbollah General Michel Suleiman as army chief of staff after Suleiman is elected president.That's pretty much a done deal after Annapolis, although it will take a constitutional amendment waiving the normal waiting period for military figures to serve in political office to do it.

This is a clear signal that Iran and Syria are not going to be content with just Suleiman in the presidency. They want control of the Lebanese military, and they want anti-Syrian PM Fuad Siniora out as well, and in fairly short order, with Hezbollah, Amal and the pro-Syrian factions assuming total control of Lebanon.

This will ensure that Lebanon comes under the control of Syria and Iran, and that the UN tribunal implicating members of Basher Assad's family and other top Syrian political figures in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafiq Hariri goes nowhere.

Like Israel, Lebanon's democracy is the chief casualty of the new `understanding' engineered by the Saudis between Iran and the Bush Administration

How Dhimmi-itis Works

I've written before on these pages about the dread disease of dhimmi-itis, an infection that affects large groups of people and causes them to accept the world view of Islam towards non-Muslims - or kufars , non believers to adopt the correct term of preferred contempt Muslims use.

Common symptoms include loss of self respect, self-hatred, fearfulness and anxiety and if untreated, a total loss of liberty, prosperity and free will.

We have today before us a classic case.

You may remember Democrat apparatchnick Larry O'Donnell, famous for red-faced, spittle tossing rants ( `Liar! Creepy liar) on national TV and one of the major pundits on MSNBC.

A few days ago, during a discussion of Mitt Romney's speech, this cretin exploded on `The McLaughlin Group' in a bigoted rant on Mormonism and its founder Joseph Smith, whom he referred to as anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist'.

Today, in a follow up on Hugh Hewitt's talk show, O'Donnell at least had the courage to admit something most dinosaur media pundits won't...that he's afriad to speak about Islam the same way he spoke about the Latter Day Saints:

HH: Would you say the same things about Mohammed as you just said about Joseph Smith?

LO’D: Oh, well, I’m afraid of what the…that’s where I’m really afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly, but I’m afraid for my life if I do.

HH: Well, that’s candid.

LO’D: Mormons are the nicest people in the world. They’re not going to ever…

HH: So you can be bigoted towards Mormons, because they’ll just send you a strudel.

LO’D: They’ll never take a shot at me. Those other people, I’m not going to say a word about them.

HH: They’ll send you a strudel. The Mormons will bake you a cake and be nice to you.

LO’D: I agree.

HH: Lawrence O’Donnell, I appreciate your candor.

What a prime example of `liberal' thought and courage, eh? O'Donnell may be a bigot, but he's not crazy. This is one cockroach that has survival down pat, and a perfect example of dhimmi-itis and its effects. I won't hold my breath, but I'll be interested to see if MSNBC distances itself from his remarks on Mormonism the way it would if Mohammed and Islam were involved.

As for O'Donnell this buffoon has allowed his own cringing fear to censor himself and thus proven himself unworthy of living in a free society .

Observe, and be forewarned. Dhimmi-itis can strike anyone, anywhere and is highly infectious.

The Saudis Host Hamas' Top Brass - And Reveal The Middle East's New Order

In another sign of the changing lineup in the Middle East, our `eternal friends' the showed their contempt for `moderate' Abbas and the US and embraced Hamas by giving the Hamas top brass a red carpet reception in Riyadh.

The delegation included Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal, Musa Abu Marzuk, the No. 2 man in Hamas, Muhammad Naser and Sami Khater, members of the Hamas politburo.

The Hamas delegation met with several top Saudi officials and members of the royal family, including Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who no doubt gave them a detailed briefing on the Annapolis gang rape of Israel and what can be expected from the new arrangements with the Americans. From there of course, it will get back to Iran, the Hamas patrons. That's if the Saudis haven't already talked to them, which they no doubt have...probably at Doha, where Ahmadinejad was the guest of honor and he and Saudi king Abdullah strolled the grounds hand in hand.

As I've written before, it's patently obvious that the sudden `discovery' by the new NIE that Iran supposedly has ended its quest for nuclear weapons is a signal to the Iranians that the US military option is off the table. And it ties in with the humiliation of Israel at the Annapolis Conference and the UN, the embrace of the Saudi `peace' ultimatum by Condi Rice, and the recent crumbling of the March 14 anti-Syria opposition in Lebanon and the ascension to the presidency of the pro-Syrian and pro-Hezbollah candidate Michel Suleiman to the presidency.

I see this as amounting to nothing less than a budding reapproachment between Iran and the Bush Administration, with the Saudis as the middle men.

I largely agree with Saudi journalist Jihad El-Khazen in the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. In exchange for quiet and a reduced arms and IED flow into Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration suddenly removed not only the US military option but any prospect of a third round of sanctions, something that has left France, Germany and Britain feeling silly for going along with the idea, and the Russians emboldened to resume nuclear fuel shipments to the mullahs and to send a war fleet to the Syrian port of Tartus for the first time since the Cold War.

As for China, Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, when asked if sanctions were likely simply said that the Security Council members `now have to consider that things have changed.'

The idea of sanctions never had much hope, but like the Witch in the Wizard of Oz after Dorothy's House fell on her, the sanctions are now `not only really dead but most sincerely dead.'

Another part of the deal was obviously Lebanon, where the Siniora government was sacrificed and thrown under the bus as the Bush Administration obviously agreed to cut its losses and allow Syria and Hezbollah to take over, leaving the Lebanese to their tender mercies. With Sulieman in charge, the UN tribunal on the murders of Hariri and the other Lebanese politicians,journalists and dissidents will just be another UN project that goes nowhere and does nothing.

As I've noted, the Israelis are likewise a part of the package. Like the Lebanese democracy movement and the Iranian dissidents, they've likewise been sacrificed and if I were them, I'd pretty much plan on going it alone and not relying on any security guarantees they may have gotten from the Bush Administration which will continue to use its leverage on Israel's weakest and most corrupt leader to force Israel into strategic concessions, no matter what the cost to its security

There may very well have been some additional quid pro quos from the Arabs for all this largess that we're unaware of.I've noted before the large amounts of Arab capital now moving into the US financial markets into places like CitiGroup, the NASDAQ,and the heavily Bush family invested Carlyle group, among others.

There may also be a connection with the Saudis continuing to lean on OPEC to keep oil sales pegged to the falling dollar...in effect importing US inflation and keeping the US economy out of recession, at least temporarily.

Aside from a briefing by the Saudis for their terrorist pals in Hamas on Annapolis and a coordination of strategy against Israel, there was more talk of a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah...which of course destroys one of the chief understandings that Israel had when going into the talks in the first place.

Look for that to happen, or for Hamas to simply take over completely and push Abbas out of the way after the maximum in concessions is extracted from Israel.At that point, unless the Israelis take control of the situation and take drastic action, they will be placed in an untenable position with indefensible borders, with a united terrorist front in control of `Palestine' armed with advanced Iranian missiles within easy range of Israel's coastal plain and a rearmed Hezbollah to the north with even more advanced missiles, all aimed at Israel's civilians.

This is Peace In Our Time with a vengeance, and we will pay a huge price for it.

I seem to remember, deep in my memory a distant phrase, uttered by a ghost: "You're either with us or with the terrorists."

Whatever happened to that man, anyway?

CIA `Hoodwinked' On Iran Nukes - British Intelligence

Apparently John Bolton, numerous commentators and the Israelis aren't the only ones going public about the flawed Iran NIE.

British Intelligence apparently has similar doubts:

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been `hoodwinked' by Teheran.Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation

The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.

The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.

"It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."

A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share the concerns of the British and the Israelis. "Many middle- ranking CIA veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in Iran in 2004," the official said.

Of course, Joshua's Army members know my views on the subject.This was not something that was foisted on the Bush Administration by `rogue' intel agents, but something designed and made public by the Administration deliberately.

British PM To Iraq Troops `Your War Is Over'

Gordon Brown finally made official something that's been obvious for a long time - the Brits are leaving Iraq.

The writing's been on the wall for this ever since Brown took over and the British troops retreated to a fortified compound right near the Basra airport.

Brown visited the British troops hunkered down in Iraq and told them "Happy Christmas, your war is over."

PM Brown told the troops that combat operations in Basra will end “within two weeks”. Most if not all will be gone early in 2008, and the rest will leave no later than March.

In his speech to the troops, Brown reportedly quoted Churchill and Field Marshall Montgomery....which shows me he's not entirely devoid of a sense of humor, if nothing else.

So long, cousins...

Steyn-O-Phobia???

Writer and columnist Mark Steyn, the author of `Eye Of The Tiger' and `America Alone' is under attack in Canada by Muslim groups claiming that his writings are `Islamophobic', in another attempt to strangle free speech here in the west.

What happened is that Maclean's, the number one news magazine in Canada presented an excerpt from Steyn's best selling `America Alone' and was immediately jumped on by the Canadian Islamic Congress, their version of CAIR.

Even though Maclean’s published a total of 27 letters over two issues in response to Steyn’s piece the CIC apparently decided that wasn't good enough and demanded t a longer response, which Maclean’s was willing to consider. The CIC then insisted on a five page article, written by an author of their choice, with no editing by the magazine...plus, they wanted it to be a cover story, with art chosen by them, rather than the magazine.

At that point, Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte pulled the plug on the CIC's `response' after which the CIC filed suit, and at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial agreed to hear their complaints that their human rights had been violated.

This is a bigger deal than it appears to be.

There has been a concerted effort by Islamist groups here in the west - largely funded by countries like Saudi Arabia - to shut down any criticism of the Islamist agenda. Some of you may remember talk show host Michael Graham, who was fired after agitation by CAIR and other Islamist groups here in America. Lately, CAIR has been sued by talkshow host Michael Savage for attempting to blackmail his sponsors and destroy him, and using copyrighted material he owns to do it.

Another aspect of this is the so-called ' libel tourism' , which uses British law and US reciprocation in a well-funded attempt to destroy writers critical of the Islamist agenda.

Maclean's and Steyn will no doubt come out just fine in the end. But it's high time we began explaining to people like CAIR the CIC and their ilk that this is a free society, and that if they're not comfortable with that there are other countries more in accord with their line of thinking.

Enough is Enough.

Israel Challenges NIE Intel On Iran

In response to the puerile NIE report claiming that Iran had stopped its quest for nuclear weapons back in 2003, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and others have been quite plain in publicly stating that Israel's evidence shows something very different.

"It’s apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped its military nuclear program for a time. But in our opinion, since then, it has apparently continued that program," Barak told Israel army radio.

The Israelis plan to present their hard core evidence to the US when the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen lands in Israel Sunday morning for a 24-hour visit that will include a one-on-one meeting with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and Barak.

Mullen was in Israel with his wife two years ago when he was the commander of the Navy, but this visit will be the first time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has visited Israel in the past decade.

Mullen and Ashkenazi are familiar with each other; they first met at the NATO military commander conference in Brussels last month and are said to get on well.

Aside from Iran,Mullen and the Israelis are going to discuss the proposed sale of advanced JDAM missiles and other weaponry by the US to Saudi Arabia.Israel's tacit support for that had been based on US assurances that the Saudis were going to use the 20 Billion in advanced armaments to help contain Iran. Now, it appears things just might have changed slightly,in view of the Saudis' behavior at Annapolis and the new NIE.

Mullen will sit through a day of presentations by IDF generals, including Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin and OC IDF Planning Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan on these topics and others, including The presentations that Mullen will hear will be on a wide range of topics - including the Hamas buildup in the Gaza Strip, Egypt's failure to stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and Hezbollah activities as well as Iran and the Saudis.

So, what does all this mean?

My friend Carl in Jerusalem at Israel Matzav voices the thought that no one in Israel truly wants to abandon the idea of the US allying itself with Israel to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions just yet, and that President Bush sent Mullen as an envoy to try and coordinate this.

While I hope he's right, I frankly doubt it.

I think the Israelis requested a visit by Mullen to discuss iran and other topics and that the White House acceded to that request, but when it comes to Iran I can't see the Bush Administration changing directions on Iran or the Saudi arms deal based on anything the Israelis have to say. Not after Annapolis and the NIE report.

The script is set in stone as far as the Bush Administration is concerned.

They are going to go with the scenario of appeasing and arming the Arabs in the hopes they will contain Iran, and part of that involves forcing the Israelis to swallow the Saud`peace' ultimatum and give up all of Judea, Samaria and half of Jerusalem, no matter what, and to push it through before the end of Bush's term.This is a dangerous fallacy, but that's the view from Washington these days.

Not only is the US not going to attack Iran, but the Bush Administration is going to do their best to make sure Israel doesn't either...because they're invested in the mirage of an Arab `coalition' to contain Iran, and because the president wants it quiet until his retirement in a year or so.

Pearl Harbor ...And 9/11

66 years ago on this day, December 7th, Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbor in a sneak attack launched from a Japanese carrier force..while Japanese diplomats in Washington were still talking peace with Cordell Hull, then our Secretary of State.

They killed 2,403 Americans, mostly servicemen, and destroyed most of America's Pacific fleet.

The next day, December 8th,President Roosevelt went before Congress and asked them to declare war, and our nation took up the task of fighting not only the Japanese, but their axis allies as well.

Remarkably, that resolve came when the nation was largely unprepared for war.In fact, there was a considerable constituency for isolationism and non-involvement.

Less than 4 years later, Germany, Japan and Italy were in ruins, their militaries destroyed, their capacity for evil extinguished. And a great darkness passed from the earth.

America was hardly free from politicking or dissension during World War II, but it was kept to a minimum, within bounds...because the American people knew that to let the evil of fascism continue, to not achieve victory,would be unthinkable and a sin against their posterity.

Sixty years after that grim December morning in Hawaii, there was another sneak attack on American soil. 3,000 Americans, mostly civilians this time perished in the flaming ruins of the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania.

It's been over six years since that happened, and we have yet to defeat these enemies who pose no less of a threat to our civilization and our freedom.

Why is that?

Our military is not less competent or less courageous, we are far richer and more powerful than we were in 1941 and our enemies are much weaker than us, compared to how strong the Nazis, Fascists and Japanese were then.

What's changed?

Leadership for one thing.

On December 8th, 1941, President Roosevelt went to Congress and asked them to declare war against specific enemies. He called on his fellow citizens for sacrifice and support, in eloquent words that expressed the shock of the country and girded it for the struggle ahead. Once Congress declared war, he immediately put the nation on a war footing. He put together bipartisan commissions to mobilize the nation's labor, industry and manufacturing for the war effort. He called on his fellow citizens for shared sacrifice and instituted rationing of food, gasoline and strategic materials.

Roosevelt, aside from incarcerating and/or deporting anyone who was a known security risk or might have potentially been one gave the FBI carte blanche to intercept all overseas phone calls and cable transmissions and to intercept any domestic mail within the US that it deemed necessary. I've personally seen a citation and medal given to one elderly woman who steamed the stamp off a domestic letter and found some microfilm under it...which resulted in the destruction of a Nazi spy ring and sent 6 spies to the gallows.

One can only imagine what the response of Congress and President Roosevelt's fellow citizens would have been if he had announced that America was now involved in The Great War On Aviation, that we should all calm down, that the creed of our enemies meant peace, that the goal of this war was `safety and security' rather than victory, and that everything would be all right if we would just go shopping.

That's essentially what we got after 9/11.

Imagine how different it might have been had President Bush had conducted himself the way FDR did after Pearl Harbor....

Another problem is the continued denial about who our enemies are. I don't think it's any coincidence that in the Harry Potter novels, JK Rowling has some of her characters refer to Voldemort as `you-know-who' or `the One we do not name.'

Many of our politicians, including the president, have been doing the same thing for six years now. It's only in the last two years or so that phrases like `Radical Islam',`Islamic Fascism' , and `Caliphate' have begun to be uttered in these circles. That has yet to be translated into a concerted war effort, even when it comes to the enemy exporting the ideology of radical Islam to our shores.

Take a hundred or so reasonably well-informed Americans into a room and ask them to write down the countries who are actively involved in waging and supporting jihad against America. Does anyone doubt that most of them would come up with pretty similar lists?

But our own government and influential elites tiptoe around this reality, and continue to spout the fiction that this is a different war, that we lack clearly defined enemies.

We are not fighting `terrorism'. That is merely a tactic used in this war. There has never been a terrorist or `insurgent' movement that has survived for long without a safe haven to train, regroup, recruit and finance. The Weathermen, the Baider-Meinhof Gang, and the IRA in its latter days are good examples of this principle. Destroy the enablers and the havens, end the terrorism.

Unlike World War II, we have put limitations on our war-making and our military that are self-imposed, and often counter-productive.After Pearl Harbor, anyone talking about `limited war' or `rules of engagement' and `exit strategies' would have been laughed out of the room at best and scorned as a coward or traitor at worst.

In that kind of climate `victory' becomes a controversial word.

Most Americans today, deep down, are not less patriotic or less unified then they were 66 years ago. Anyone who was in America after 9/11 knows that.

They were merely allowed to go back to sleep, and lulled into the idea that this was another limited war without a significant effect on their personal lives. And the nation has been deliberately and artificially divided for political purposes.

It may take another Pearl Harbor type strike on America to harness the nation's energy again, to convince people that this is the existential war that it is, and that it must be fought accordingly.

I hope not.

Pearl Harbor is thought to be a tourist attraction today, a peaceful monument to the men who died there.

It is, but it's more than that. It's a monument to the Americans who defeated the enemies of freedom, the monsters that attempted to enslave them and their Republic.

It's a monument to victory.

And something that's a living example of lessons from the past that we need to revisit and act on. By doing so, we honor not only the Americans who died at Pearl Harbor but all of our countrymen who've given to our beloved Republic what President Lincoln aptly called `the last full measure of devotion.'

Pittsburgh Kindles The Hanukah Lights

'Lighting The Chanukah Menorah' by Zalman Kleinman.


Miracles do happen...sometimes they just take more than eight days.

Way back in 1986, Chabad of Pittsburg did something they do in many localities, erected a menorah in public near City Hall. They were promptly sued by the ACLU, who claimed the menorah was too close to City Hall and thus violated the First Amendment, which in the ACLU's eyes constituted a violation of the `separation of church and state.'

I should interject at this point that both the concept and the phrase `separation of church and state' are mythical, and do not appear in our Constitution.

The case went al the way to the Supreme Court, which quite properly ruled in 1989 that the Hanukah display did not constitute government endorsement of religion.

Since then, Chabad has erected a menorah in the same place as before the suit in front of City Hall, but the City of Pittsburg had prevented Chabad from lighting the candles out of sheer peevishness or political correctness ever since.

This year, things were different.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl issued a special invitation to Chabad to light the menorah, and over 200 people showed up Tuesday for the festivities.

“To have the same city that once fought our menorah now choose to recognize it really brings the story full circle,” Rabbi Sruli Altein, Chabad of Pittsburgh's outreach director, told reporters.

Like I said, miracles happen. Sometimes they just take a little longer.

Watcher's Council Results, 12/07/06

The Council has spoken! A complete list of results can be found at the site of our fearless leader, the infamous Watcher of Weasels


This weeks' winner is:
Wolf Howling: Of Islamist Foxes and British Chickens In his debut piece as a Council member, Wolf Howling's excellent piece on British dhimmitude in the face of Islamism won the honors.

In second place we had:

Cheat Seeking Missiles: FBI Rebuts CAIR Scare Tactics Laer's fine piece using actual FBI stats on anti-Muslim incidents as opposed to CAIR's bloated figures.

For non-Council, the winner was:

Pierre Tristam's Middle East Issues Blog: Teddy Muhammad A neat piece with valuable background on the now infamous incident in the Sudan.

In second place for non-Council was:

Right Wing News: The 2nd Annual Worst Quotes From The Daily Kos (2007 Edition) Which is about what you would think,only worse. And, I should point out that these quotes are from the writers only , not the commenters....that would have been like shooting fish in a barrel.

Hearty Kudos to all the winners!

John Bolton Shreds The NIE On Iran

The always superb John Bolton absolutely massacres the new NIE report on Iran in a WAPO piece, The Flaws In the Iran Report:

First, the headline finding -- that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between "military" and "civilian" programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran's "civilian" program that posed the main risk of a nuclear "breakout."

The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of "intelligence."

Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real. We have lost many fruitful sources inside Iraq in recent years because of increased security and intelligence tradecraft by Iran. The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. In a background briefing, intelligence officials said they had concluded it was "possible" but not "likely" that the new information they were relying on was deception. These are hardly hard scientific conclusions. One contrary opinion came from -- of all places -- an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency official, quoted in the New York Times, saying that "we are more skeptical. We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran." When the IAEA is tougher than our analysts, you can bet the farm that someone is pursuing a policy agenda.....

Read the whole thing.