…Truth be told, commuters need to be most aware of young men praying to Allah and smelling like flower water. Law enforcement knows this, and so should you. According to a January 2004 handout, the Department of Homeland Security advises United States border authorities to look out for certain “suicide bomber indicators.” They include a “shaved head or short haircut. A short haircut or recently shaved beard or moustache may be evident by differences in skin complexion on the head or face. May smell of herbal or flower water (most likely flower water), as they may have sprayed perfume on themselves, their clothing, and weapons to prepare for Paradise.” Suspects may have been seen “praying fervently, giving the appearance of whispering to someone. Recent suicide bombers have raised their hands in the air just before the explosion to prevent the destruction of their fingerprints. They have also placed identity cards in their shoes because they want to be praised and recognized as martyrs.”

The bodies of the London suicide bombers were recognized by their identification cards. And on the eve of the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and perfumed themselves with flower water in a pre-martyrdom ritual called ablution. But don’t expect the federal authorities to screen for these indicators on Amtrak, which pulls into Penn Station in New York and Union Station in Washington, two of the biggest commuter-rail depots in the country. Not only is there no passenger profiling on Amtrak, but there’s no screening or mandatory searching of carry-on bags. The only restriction on bags is a 50-pound weight limit – and that’s not much comfort when you recall that the bombs used in London weighed only 10 pounds.

Once an Islamist suicide bomber is sitting next to you on the train, your chances of escape are slim. The only solution is for the police to stop him well before he boards your car. But with the system as it stands, that terrorist could easily slip in through the numerical window of random security screening. By not allowing police to profile the most suspicious train passengers – young Muslim men who fit the indicators above – Mr. Bloomberg and other leaders not only tie one hand behind law enforcement’s back, but they also unwittingly provide terrorists political cover to carry out their murderous plans. Call it politically correct suicide.
nytimes.com

Well now add young Somali males to the list, and they will be searching all blacks as well. This is pure nightmare.

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip — Israel is increasing security at its border with the Gaza Strip in anticipation of next month’s withdrawal, the army said Thursday, disclosing details of a high-tech complex to ring the coastal strip with what it hopes will be the world’s most impenetrable barrier.

The barrier system will surround Gaza with fences, electronic sensors, watchtowers mounted with remote-control machine guns, and hundreds of video and night vision cameras, the military said.

…Palestinians trying to infiltrate into Israel _ like a would-be suicide bomber who managed to penetrate the old fence with wire cutters last week before being captured _ will first encounter fence made of coils of razor wire.

They would then have to cross a patrol road before reaching the current barrier, a fence with electronic sensors that sends a signal to a central command whenever it is touched or cut.

If they pass this barrier, they would have to traverse a 130-yard swath of land _ codenamed Hoover _ filled with motion sensors and scanned by an array of day and night optical devices, before reaching the third and newest electronic fence.

Watchtowers armed with remote-controlled machine guns are to be built every 1.2 miles and within a year, remote-controlled, unmanned vehicles will begin patrolling the area.
Full: washingtonpost.com

“We fight because we are free men who don’t sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.. Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn’t play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.” Osama Bin Laden, Al Jazeera 11-01-04

“The root cause of suicide terrorism is occupation, not Islam.” Robert Pape;” Al Qaeda’s Smart Bombs” New York Times 7-9-05

— — Tom Friedman is the undeclared spokesman of the American establishment. His articles represent a distillation of the current thinking among a broad range of American mandarins, particularly members of the powerful CFR; (Council on Foreign Relations) the driving force behind much of America’s foreign policy. He is the imperial chronicler; the man responsible for promoting the narrow interests of elites and transforming the crimes of the empire into a narrative of generosity and goodwill. If one can decode Friedman’s bi-weekly hieroglyphic, they can also understand how elites use the media to manage public perceptions.

In his latest article, “Giving the Hate-mongers no place to Hide”, Friedman offers his views on both terrorism and free speech. He argues that we should pay greater attention to “hate speech” and try to grasp its relationship to terrorism. Friedman sees this overheated rhetoric as such an imminent threat that he thinks the State Department should identify the top 10 hate-mongers and provide their names to the public.

Apart from the McCarthy-like overtones of Friedman’s proposal, it’s hard to believe that his contemporaries in talk-radio would be very enthusiastic about this new idea. After all, sectarian and racial hatred have become staples on the country’s airwaves, with many of the nation’s top broadcasters savaging gays and Muslims on a routine basis. As Friedman knows, the issue of hate speech is normally a question of “whose ox is being gored”.

But, Friedman’s intention is not to take aim at the “accepted” institutions of discrimination and racism within the body politic, but to single-out Muslims who vent their rage at American foreign policy and subject them to public intimidation. This can be accomplished by developing a State Dept “blacklist” of anyone who utters a word against the Fatherland and, presumably, its junior partner, Israel.

“Words matter;” Friedman opines, “We need to shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears. When their words are spotlighted, they often feel pressure to retract, defend or explain them”.

Friedman’s comments echo the Stalinesque directive from Donald Rumsfeld in May of 2005, “People need to be very careful about what they say as well as very careful about what they do.”

Indeed, they do, but is that the function of government; to silence those with an unpopular point of view? Or, are Friedman and Rumsfeld’s remarks simply intended to have a chilling effect on free speech? More importantly, does “hate speech” really generate terrorism or is there a more identifiable source?

While Friedman may be concerned with “shutting people up”, he’s much less concerned with the real origins of terror. His own paper the New York Times ran a very scholarly article just 3 weeks ago by Robert Pape, “Al Qaeda’s Smart Bombs” (7-9-05) that dismissed many of the commonly held illusions about terrorism. Pape, who documented every case of suicide bombing between 1980 and 2004, says that the “core motivating factor behind suicide terrorism” is “a nationalistic response to occupation”; “The root cause of terrorism is occupation, not Islam.”

Wow.

Pape’s “fact-based” analysis directly challenges Friedman’s “hate-mongering” theory of terror. The distinction between the two hypotheses is colossal. If Friedman is correct than the West is justified in invading Muslim countries to rid them of, what Tony Blair called, “an evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of Islam”. This is the rationale that supports the US occupation of Iraq; presenting the conflict as “the central battlefield in the war on terror”.

…The source of the problem is not in the heart of Islam but in the sanctuaries of the American plutocracy, where fantasists who never held a rifle dreamt of leading the nation to war. Their muddled vision has now produced the greatest wave of terror the world has ever seen.

Friedman scrupulously tip-toes around the facts so he can shift the blame onto his favorite whipping-boy; radical Islam. But the problem is not the “cancer in their midst”, as Friedman claims, but the cancer in ours.
Full: informationclearinghouse.info

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Iraq’s transitional prime minister called Wednesday for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops and the top U.S. commander here said he believed a “fairly substantial” pullout could begin next spring and summer.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said at a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the time has arrived to plan a coordinated transition from American to Iraqi military control throughout the country.
Asked how soon a U.S. withdrawal should happen, he said no exact timetable had been set. “But we confirm and we desire speed in that regard,” he said, speaking through a translator. “And this fast pace has two aspects.”

First, there must be a quickening of the pace of U.S. training of Iraqi security forces, and second there must be closely coordinated planning between the U.S.-led military coalition and the emerging Iraq government on a security transition, he said.

“We do not want to be surprised by a withdrawal that is not in connection with our Iraqi timing,”‘ he said.
Speaking earlier with U.S. reporters traveling with Rumsfeld, Gen. George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, said he believed a U.S. troop withdrawal could begin by spring 2006 if progress continues on the political front and if the insurgency does not expand.
Full: apnews.myway.com

Oh. Now the ‘Iraqi government’ says the US troops have to go. Iran ho.

LONDON, July 27, 2005 — The plot for the July 7 transit bombings in London, which killed 56 people, may have been much larger than previously known, ABC News has learned.

Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News an additional 12 bombs and four improvised detonators were found in the trunk of a car believed to be rented by suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer. Police believe the bombers drove the car to Luton, where they boarded trains to London.

“I believe that the explosives left in that car were left there for a second strike,” said Bob Ayers, a London-based terrorism consultant with expertise in demolition. “But the Metropolitan Police responded so quickly, they were able to get to the car and take control of the car before the second team could get the explosives and leave.”

…British authorities are deeply concerned they are in a race against time against people who want to plan another attack.
Full: abcnews.go.com

Police arrest nine more men in hunt for bombers

Images of Bombers
Simply bizarre that there are no other people to be seen in these pics.

Fearful Europe steps up security

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation’s senior military officer have spoken of “a global struggle against violent extremism” rather than “the global war on terror,” which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had “objected to the use of the term ‘war on terrorism’ before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.” He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that “terror is the method they use.”

Although the military is heavily engaged in the mission now, he said, future efforts require “all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities’ national power.” The solution is “more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military,” he concluded.

Administration and Pentagon officials say the revamped campaign has grown out of meetings of President Bush’s senior national security advisers that began in January, and it reflects the evolution in Mr. Bush’s own thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke in the new terms on Friday when he addressed an audience in Annapolis, Md., for the retirement ceremony of Adm. Vern Clark as chief of naval operations. Mr. Rumsfeld described America’s efforts as it “wages the global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization.”

The shifting language is one of the most public changes in the administration’s strategy to battle Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and it tracks closely with Mr. Bush’s recent speeches emphasizing freedom, democracy and the worldwide clash of ideas.

“It is more than just a military war on terror,” Steven J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said in a telephone interview. “It’s broader than that. It’s a global struggle against extremism. We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative.”
Full: commondreams.org

The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ model–incompatible ‘civilizations’, in compatible ‘philosophies’–back to the 18th century with its ‘different species’ of humans–utter garbage masquerading as ‘ideas’–the biggest secret about all these ideologues is that they are idiots.

When major oil companies report their quarterly profits next week, they’re once again expected to post record numbers. With crude trading around $60 a barrel, the oil industry is enjoying one of the biggest windfalls in its history. But as the industry looks for places to put that cash, it’s finding it harder and harder to put funds to work finding new deposits of oil and natural gas.

By just about any measure, the past three years have produced one of the biggest cash gushers in the oil industry’s history. Since January of 2002, the price of crude has tripled, leaving oil producers awash in profits. During that period, the top 10 major public oil companies have sold some $1.5 trillion worth of crude, pocketing profits of more than $125 billion.

“This is the mother of all booms,” said Oppenheimer & Co. oil analyst Fadel Gheit. “They have so much profit, it’s almost an embarrassment of riches. They don’t know what to do with it.
Full: msnbc.msn.com

“The policeman said ‘mind that hole, that’s where the bomb was’. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don’t remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag,” he said.
Full:prisonplanet.com/ Cambridge Evening News

No Video of the 3 Bombers Inside the London Subway Cars before they blew up?

How Black Ops Staged the London Bombings:
Evidence regarding the 4 alleged bombers comes from a single CCTV image of 4 similar-looking individuals.

Photo of ‘Bombers’ has been Doctored

Understanding 7/7: Al-Qaeda and the Real Trinity of Terror

I name the four powers who are behind the al-Qaeda conspiracy

Day 4 of Open Season on those who are “darker than blue”

US police state deepens, with help from Israel and centrist Democrats:
Heavy and increasing Israeli role in domestic US police/spy operations
Two typical news reports below provide a snapshot of worsening conditions, with ominous worldwide implications. The first (New York Times) article confirms the heavy and increasing Israeli role in domestic US police/spy operations, and exemplifies the new post-London “war on terrorism” propaganda, declaring “inevitable-not-if-but-when” suicide bombings. Repostings of the New York Times piece on America Online comes with the headline, “Suicide Bombs Next For U.S.?”

The emphasis of all such material is not true investigation or true law enforcement (both long lost commodities), but to condition the public to accept the premise of “unstoppable and impending ‘terror’ attacks”—and all policies launched under the pretext.

The second article covers the just-concluded Democratic Leadership Council summit in which the DLC leadership (which is setting up for a possible Hillary Clinton presidential run) calls for more troops (100,000+ according to reports from this event) and unlimited military recruiting in schools. This is the desired expansion of the “war on terrorism”, as described in

“London bombings and the ‘war on terrorism’ consensus” and “The Make Us Safe believers”.

All of the above comes at the same time as the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a permanent extension to the Patriot Act.

The leaders of the New World Order want a world permanently set to September 12, 2001. A permanent tyranny.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra (India) was recently in the US, marketing and showcasing Maharashtra for possible investors. Hopping between New York and the Napa Valley; Microsoft and Hollywood, business delegates and cultural conventions, Deshmukh must be glad to have escaped the acute water and power shortage, dying farmers, agitated bar workers, and growing resistance of the displaced slum dwellers of Mumbai. They have had it worst in “the most industrialized state” of India.

Three months since assuming power in Maharashtra, the United Democratic Front (UDF) — a coalition led by Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) began its assault on Mumbai’s poor. Announcing the “development and beautification plan” for Mumbai, Chief Minister Deshmukh launched a massive demolition drive that rendered 250,000 people homeless by December 2004. Justifying the first round of demolitions, Deshmukh thundered, “Many people will be inconvenienced and will have to make sacrifices if the city has to develop…The situation in Mumbai has deteriorated so much that there is hardly an inch of space left for migrants”. Deshmukh’s words were much appreciated by the local elite who helped co-construct a rabid rhetoric that demonized slum dwellers. After all, they are in for a free ride– they don’t pay taxes, and what’s worst, they are a threat to national security! Vijay Kalam-Patil, the demolitions officer proclaimed, ” We want to put the fear of the consequences of migration into these people. We have to restrain them from coming to Mumbai.” The migrant poor of Mumbai were to be controlled and the state could afford to forget about their rights.
Full: counterpunch.org

That’s right, allow ‘free trade’ to wreck the rural economy, causing people to flee to the city for bare survival and then deny them a place there. Zimbabwe is castigated for demolishing slums while India is given carte blanche to enter the nuclear club.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra (India) was recently in the US, marketing and showcasing Maharashtra for possible investors. Hopping between New York and the Napa Valley; Microsoft and Hollywood, business delegates and cultural conventions, Deshmukh must be glad to have escaped the acute water and power shortage, dying farmers, agitated bar workers, and growing resistance of the displaced slum dwellers of Mumbai. They have had it worst in “the most industrialized state” of India.

Three months since assuming power in Maharashtra, the United Democratic Front (UDF) — a coalition led by Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) began its assault on Mumbai’s poor. Announcing the “development and beautification plan” for Mumbai, Chief Minister Deshmukh launched a massive demolition drive that rendered 250,000 people homeless by December 2004. Justifying the first round of demolitions, Deshmukh thundered, “Many people will be inconvenienced and will have to make sacrifices if the city has to develop…The situation in Mumbai has deteriorated so much that there is hardly an inch of space left for migrants”. Deshmukh’s words were much appreciated by the local elite who helped co-construct a rabid rhetoric that demonized slum dwellers. After all, they are in for a free ride– they don’t pay taxes, and what’s worst, they are a threat to national security! Vijay Kalam-Patil, the demolitions officer proclaimed, ” We want to put the fear of the consequences of migration into these people. We have to restrain them from coming to Mumbai.” The migrant poor of Mumbai were to be controlled and the state could afford to forget about their rights.
Full: counterpunch.org

That’s right, allow ‘free trade’ to wreck the rural economy, causing people to flee to the city for bare survival and then deny them a place there. Zimbabwe is castigated for demolishing slums while India is given carte blanche to enter the nuclear club.