Can The Mindset & "work" of The LNs Left Them With Blood on Their Hands,

[Guest Tom Scully]

I suspect that a new era was ushered in after the Washington establishment (congress, executive, military, intelligence, news media, lobbyists, and the moneyed interests they all are beholdened to...) noted their good fortune in having not only the media they owned, behind them in promoting acceptance of the controversial findings in the WC report, but also a suprisingly enthusiastic portion of the public, as well.

It is one thing to put your trust in the statements of your government, even in the case of the absurdity that is the magic bullet story told in the WC report.

It is quite another thing to put a personal effort into trying to persuade others that it is a plausible explanation for how so many wounds to the president and the governor could result from so few shots the WC report claimed were fired..

Given that polls have shown for many years that the majority are not accepting of what the Warren Commission reported had happened, that skepticism of the version of events of that last November, 1963 weekend in Dallas, told to us by the government would feel more like a mainstream mindset, than it does feel, especially after the passage of so many years?

Instead the establishment, with the support of a small but vocal, LN community, still defines what "reasomable" POV is. Would this be the case if the members of the public who accept the official version of events, it is expected there will always be some who do, did not consist of so many vocal activists.

Doesn't it seem that some influence is emboldening our government officials to be even less careful, if that is even possible, about what they claim has happened or has motivated them to do what they do? If government and media actors and the folks who they carry water for, had experienced more push back in reaction to the conclusions contained in the WC report, and in reaction to every important official statement, action, finding verdict, and contested election result since, would the challengers of authority have blood on their hands for the violent deaths that seem to be a consequence of their actions.

If anyone has a better explanation for how these things happened than from too much support for authority and too little questioning and challenging of it,

I'd like to read it.:

http://www.seattlepostglobe.org/2010/02/03...stani-woman-con

posted 02/03/10 04:37 PM | updated 02/03/10 05:04 PM

'Disappeared' Pakistani woman convicted of attempted murder

By larryjohnson

Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist, was convicted Wednesday of charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008. The Associated Press reported that Siddiqui, 37, was convicted on two counts of attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated. She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

The three-week trial made it sound like Siddiqui, who U.S. authorities had previously described as an al-Qaida sympathizer, had suddenly appeared in Afghanistan where she was arrested and then interrogated by Afghan and U.S. officials. (It was during that interrogation that Siddiqui allegedly staged her attack using a rifle a U.S. officer had left unattended in the room.)

The truth is Siddiqui had been “disappeared” in Pakistan by Pakistani intelligence forces in 2003. (She likely was picked up because U.S. intelligence agencies were saying she had terrorist links.)

A report in the Pakistani press said that Siddiqui and her kids, then 7, 5, and 6 months old, had been seen being detained by Pakistani authorities. Days later, a spokesman for Pakistan's interior ministry and two unnamed U.S. officials confirmed that she was in custody and being interrogated. Several days later, however, Pakistani and American officials apparently changed their minds, saying it was unlikely she was being held.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/06/...anamo.suicides/

Sunday, June 11, 2006;

CNN) -- Three prisoners at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have hanged themselves in what is being called a "planned event," the U.S. military has said.

.."This was clearly a planned event, not a spontaneous event," said Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo.

He added that there is a "mythical belief" that the Guantanamo detention center would be shut down if three detainees die.....

...Harris said Saturday that every prisoner at Guantanamo is considered "dangerous."

"They are smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," Harris said. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." (Watch a retired general call the suicides 'an act of defiance' -- 3:29)

Asymmetrical warfare is when one side uses unorthodox or surprise tactics to attack the weak points of its stronger opponent.

Harris said a guard early Saturday "noticed something out of the ordinary" in a cell and discovered one man had hanged himself early Saturday. Upon checking on other detainees, guards found that two others had hanged themselves as well, he said.

The men hanged themselves using nooses "made out of their clothing material and bed sheets," Harris said....

It's been confirmed by both Bush and his press secretary that these were intentionally deceptive statements.:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20021107-2.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

for Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

November 7, 2002

President Outlines Priorities

Presidential Hall

THE PRESIDENT:....And, you know, it's like people say, oh, we must leave Saddam alone; otherwise, if we did something against him, he might attack us. Well, if we don't do something, he might attack us, and he might attack us with a more serious weapon. The man is a threat, Hutch, I'm telling you. He's a threat not only with what he has, he's a threat with what he's done. He's a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...0030206-17.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

February 6, 2003

President Bush: "World Can Rise to This Moment"

Statement by the President

...We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. The network runs a poison and explosive training center in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. The head of this network traveled to Baghdad for medical treatment and stayed for months. Nearly two dozen associates joined him there and have been operating in Baghdad for more than eight months. ....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20030317-7.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

March 17, 2003

President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours

Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation

The Cross Hall

....THE PRESIDENT:

........The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20030917-7.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

September 17, 2003

THE PRESIDENT: We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th. What the Vice President said was, is that he has been involved with al Qaeda. And al Zarqawi, al Qaeda operative, was in Baghdad. He's the guy that ordered the killing of a U.S. diplomat. He's a man who is still running loose, involved with the poisons network, involved with Ansar al- Islam. <h3>There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties. </h3>...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20040615-4.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

June 15, 2004

President Bush Meets with President Karzai of Afghanistan

Remarks by President Bush and President Karzai of Afghanistan in a Press Availability

The Rose Garden

...PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm getting distracted over here, there seems to - be some noise.

Q The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He's the person who's still killing. He's the person -- and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?

Saddam Hussein also had ties to terrorist organizations, as well.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20040617-3.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

June 17, 2004

President Discusses Economy, Iraq in Cabinet Meeting

Remarks by the President After Meeting with His Cabinet

The Cabinet Room

.... I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Deb, why don't you lead it off?

Q Mr. President, why does the administration continue to insist that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda, when even you have denied any connection between Saddam and September 11th. And now the September 11th Commission says that there was no

collaborative relationship at all.

<h3>THE PRESIDENT: The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.</h3> This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence officers met with bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two. ...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20040618-1.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

June 18, 2004

President Bush Salutes Soldiers in Fort Lewis, Washington

Remarks by the President to the Military Personnel

Fort Lewis, Washington

.....And we're beginning to see results of people stepping up to defend themselves. Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps have

captured several wanted terrorists, including Umar Boziani. He was a key lieutenant of this killer named Zarqawi who's ordering the suiciders inside of Iraq. By the way,

''he was the fellow who was in Baghdad at times prior to our arrival. He was operating out of Iraq. He was an Al Qaeda associate. See, he was there before we came. He's there after we came. And we'll find him.''.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20060320-7.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

March 20, 2006

President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom

Renaissance Cleveland Hotel

Cleveland, Ohio

...THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. (Applause.) First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don't think we ever said -- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that he was a state sponsor of terror -- by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other

administrations. <h3>We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq</h3>.

And so the state sponsor of terror was a declaration by a previous administration. But I don't want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20060321-4.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

March 21, 2006

Press Conference of the President

James S. Brady Briefing Room

,,,THE PRESIDENT: I say that I'm talking realistically to people. We have a plan for victory and it's important we achieve that plan. Democracy -- first of all, this is a global war on terror and Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Mr. Zarqawi and al Qaeda, the very same people that attacked the United States, have made it clear that they want to drive us out of Iraq so they can plan, plot, and attack America again.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...8/20060821.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

<h3>August 21, 2006</h3>

Press Conference by the President

White House Conference Center Briefing Room

......Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would --who had relations with Zarqawi.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20070405-3.html Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to view

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

April 5, 2007

Interview of the Vice President by Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show

Via Telephone

1:07 P.M. EDT

Q It's always a great privilege to have the Vice President, Dick Cheney, with us. Mr. Vice President, welcome once again to our program.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Rush. It's good to be back on......

.....Q It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08 is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes. But they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill -- and, thus, official government language -- of that term. Does that give you any indication of their motivation or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure -- well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of Defense. He's Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about -- <b>just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene,</b> and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June....

Maybe you gave them an inch by campaigning for the acceptance by others of the conclusions of the WC, but it seems to me that they've taken a mile, and

lots of avoidably lost lives.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...namo/index.html

, Jan 19, 2010 10:20 EST

The crime of not "Looking Backward"

By Glenn Greenwald

....That's why Horton's story received so little attention and was almost completely ignored by right-wing commentators: because it shatters the central myth that torture was used only in the most extreme cases -- virtual Ticking Time Bomb scenarios -- when there was simply no other choice. Leading American media outlets, as a matter of policy, won't even use the word "torture." This, despite the fact that the abuse was so brutal and inhumane that it led to the deaths of helpless captives -- including run-of-the-mill detainees, almost certainly ones guilty of absolutely nothing -- in numerous cases. These three detainee deaths -- like so many other similar cases -- illustrate how extreme is the myth that has taken root in order to obscure what was really done.

(2) Incidents like this dramatically underscore what can only be called the grotesque immorality of the "Look Forward, Not Backwards" consensus which our political class -- led by the President -- has embraced. During the Bush years, the United States government committed some of the most egregious crimes a government can commit. They plainly violated domestic law, international law, and multiple treaties to which the U.S. has long been a party. Despite that, not only has President Obama insisted that these crimes not be prosecuted, and not only has his Justice Department made clear that -- at most -- they will pursue a handful of low-level scapegoats, but far worse, the Obama administration has used every weapon it possesses to keep these crimes concealed, prevent any accountability for them, and even venerated them as important "state secrets," thus actively preserving the architecture of lawlessness and torture that gave rise to these crimes in the first place.

Every Obama-justifying excuse for Looking Forward, Not Backwards has been exposed as a sham (recall, for instance, the claim that we couldn't prosecute Bush war crimes because it would ruin bipartisanship and Republicans wouldn't support health care reform). But even if those excuses had been factually accurate, it wouldn't have mattered. There are no legitimate excuses for averting one's eyes from crimes of this magnitude and permitting them to go unexamined and unpunished. The real reason why "Looking Forward, Not Backwards" is so attractive to our political and media elites is precisely because they don't want to face what they enabled and supported. ...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...ions/index.html

Thursday, Feb 4, 2010 05:05 EST

On the claimed "war exception" to the Constitution

....Remember when many Democrats were horrified (or at least when they purported to be) at the idea that Bush was merely eavesdropping on American citizens without judicial approval? Shouldn't we be at least as concerned about the President's being able to assassinate Americans without judicial oversight? That seems much more Draconian to me.

It would be perverse in the extreme, but wouldn't it be preferable to at least require the President to demonstrate to a court that probable cause exists to warrant the assassination of an American citizen before the President should be allowed to order it? That would basically mean that courts would issue "assassination warrants" or "murder warrants" -- a repugnant idea given that they're tantamount to imposing the death sentence without a trial -- but isn't that minimal safeguard preferable to allowing the President unchecked authority to do it on his own, the very power he has now claimed for himself? And if the Fifth Amendment's explicit guarantee -- that one shall not be deprived of life without due process -- does not prohibit the U.S. Government from assassinating you without any process, what exactly does it prohibit? Noting Scott Brown's campaign to deny accused Terrorists access to lawyers and a real trial, Adam Serwer wrote:

This is the new normal for Republicans: You can be denied rights not through due process of law but merely based on the nature of the crime you are suspected of committing.

That's absolutely true, but that also perfectly describes this assassination program -- as well as a whole host of other now-Democratic policies, from indefinite detention to denial of civilian trials.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassifie...-americans.aspx

Posted Friday, February 05, 2010 9:48 PM

Can Intel Agencies Kill Americans?

Mark Hosenball

The director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, shocked Washington last week when he told a congressional committee that U.S. spy agencies have the authority to assassinate American citizens abroad who are believed to be involved in terrorism. But he suggested that intel officials would have to follow special rules to do so: "If … we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," he told the House intelligence committee.

Blair's testimony left behind a pile of questions: By whose authority can intel agencies kill Americans? And who in the government has the power to grant or deny the "specific permission" to carry out such operations? In interviews with NEWSWEEK, current and former U.S. national-security officials—who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information—filled in some of the blanks.

These officials say that, a few days after 9/11, George W. Bush signed a classified "intelligence finding" authorizing the assassination of suspected terrorists. By this order, which continues under Barack Obama, officials within the CIA and Pentagon can launch lethal strikes on suspected foreign terrorists without seeking permission from higher-ups. But, say the officials, strikes specifically targeting Americans must first be approved by a secret committee made up of senior intel officials and members of the president's cabinet (it's not known which ones). The president himself does not have to sign off on kill orders....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2604239_pf.html

By Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, January 27, 2010; A01

...Word that the CIA had purposefully killed Derwish drew attention to the unconventional nature of the new conflict and to the secret legal deliberations over whether killing a U.S. citizen was legal and ethical.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests," said one former intelligence official.

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."

Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called "High Value Targets" and "High Value Individuals," whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi's name has now been added. ...

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassifie...-americans.aspx

Posted Friday, February 05, 2010 9:48 PM

Can Intel Agencies Kill Americans?

Mark Hosenball

…strikes specifically targeting Americans must first be approved by a secret committee made up of senior intel officials and members of the president’s cabinet (it’s not known which ones). The president himself does not have to sign off on kill orders...

[Guest Tom Scully]

Yes, Peter....and from such humble beginnings, we have arrived at a point where a secret committee of the president's men can put a citizen on a liquidation list with no due process, and there is no "pitchfork moment" in reaction to this news...far from it. After all, we are confident that the oath breaker in chief would only appoint men who condemn bad people to death in a process unencumbered by bothersome checks and balances.

LN's will tell you that if the WC report was wrong and there was a conspiracy followed by a cover up, it would have included too many participants to have been kept a secret. They were right, but they won't admit that it wasn't kept secret. It didn't need to be. The media and the LN's supported corrupt, ever more ambitious power, instead of speaking truth to it. Journalists and their editors, publishers, and broadcast producers kept the secrets of the powerful and eagerly engaged in producing the cover up in audio, video, and in print, all under the guidance of intelligence assets infiltrated into the media industries.:

...No one should be permitted to stand in the way of the prompt, efficient and secure accomplishment of this mission...

Our leader is honest and sincere and is never wrong, and neither are those he delegates his duties to. He knows we want him to preserve and to protect the country, even with the consequence of foregoing his oath to preserve and to protect the constitution.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...mobs/index.html

Glenn Greenwald

Friday, Feb 5, 2010 04:06 EST

The lynch-mob mentality

....They're willing not only to mindlessly embrace the Government's unproven accusation that their fellow citizen is a TERRORIST ("a declared enemy of the United States working to kill Americans"), but even beyond that, to cheer for his due-process-free execution like drunken fans at a football game. And the same people declare: no civilian trials are necessary for Terrorists (meaning: people accused by the Government of being Terrorists). Even more amazingly, the identities of the other Americans on the hit list aren't even known, but that's OK: they're Terrorists, because the Government said so.

A very long time ago, I would be baffled when I'd read about things like the Salem witch hunts. How could so many people be collectively worked up into that level of irrational frenzy, where they cheered for people's torturous death as "witches" without any real due process or meaningful evidence? But all one has to do is look at our current Terrorism debates and it's easy to see how things like that happen. It's just pure mob mentality: an authority figure appears and affixes a demonizing Other label to someone's forehead, and the adoring crowd -- frothing-at-the-mouth and feeding on each other's hatred, fears and desire to be lead -- demands "justice."...

http://www.foia.cia.gov/helms/pdf/doolittle_report.pdf

From the Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, commissioned by the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (otherwise known as the Doolittle Report – PDF)

....As long as it remains national policy, another important requirement is an aggressive covert psychological, political and paramilitary organization more effective, more unique, and, if necessary, more ruthless than that employed by the enemy. No one should be permitted to stand in the way of the prompt, efficient and secure accomplishment of this mission….

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of “fair play” must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy....

[John Dolva]

"If the United States is to survive..." forgetting that it's people who decide. These measures will ensure the US' ultimate demise. They're seeding the antithesis and the natural course of events will ensue.

If the US is to survive as a member of the world community it's in the interests of everyone to ensure that this dogma does not embed itself any further and that it is reversed. These people are the destabilisers, their actions spur revolt. More of the strategy of tension, divide and rule. I don't think they give a xxxx about people or freedom whatsoever. Like in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

The history of Iran Iraq is an example. US oil interests date to the beginning of last century. The installation of the Shah and then the support for Saddam (Irangate, Reagan) after the revolution in Iran, by the US subversive forces flip flop according to interests not the interests of people. People are expendable in the preservation of a very small power clique. Ultimately what they are doing is walking the path to demise. I hope they come to their senses, but I really doubt they will.

[Jack White]

"If the United States is to survive..." forgetting that it's people who decide. These measures will ensure the US' ultimate demise. They're seeding the antithesis and the natural course of events will ensue.

If the US is to survive as a member of the world community it's in the interests of everyone to ensure that this dogma does not embed itself any further and that it is reversed. These people are the destabilisers, their actions spur revolt. More of the strategy of tension, divide and rule. I don't think they give a xxxx about people or freedom whatsoever. Like in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

The history of Iran Iraq is an example. US oil interests date to the beginning of last century. The installation of the Shah and then the support for Saddam (Irangate, Reagan) after the revolution in Iran, by the US subversive forces flip flop according to interests not the interests of people. People are expendable in the preservation of a very small power clique. Ultimately what they are doing is walking the path to demise. I hope they come to their senses, but I really doubt they will.

Dolva makes a really sensible post!

[John Dolva]

Must be a first

[Guest Tom Scully]

(Read the opening post of this thread for background.)

A little problem arose with updated reporting on the "disappeared" children of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. WaPo, aka Operation Mockingbird receptive, "propaganda asset", made the early mistake of printing it....it still shows up in this Google News search result....but they've purge their website completely of this "contamination" of the offficial US Government, fairytale. NY Times and VOA were not so fastidious and sheep-like, compliant:

(How do the WaPo "scrubbers", even know when and what to "scrub", anymore?)

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=p&amp...2f7874af88fd208

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/...t-90488549.html

Pakistani Airstrike Kills 45 in Tribal Northwest

VOA News 10 April 2010

...Separately, Pakistan\'s Interior Minister said a girl left outside a house in Karachi earlier this week has been identified as the daughter of a U.S.-educated Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill Americans.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said DNA tests confirmed the identity of 12-year-old Fatima Siddiqui. Her mother, Aafia Siddiqui, was found guilty in February of shooting at U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in 2008 as she was about to be questioned by interrogators.

Aafia Siddiqui and her three children disappeared in 2003 before Aafia resurfaced five years later in Afghanistan. One of her sons was with her. The whereabouts of her other son is still unknown.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/04/10/...n-violence.html

Pakistani Jets Kill 45 People In Khyber: Militants

By REUTERS

Published: April 10, 2010

Filed at 8:55 a.m. ET

...SIDDIQUI'S DAUGHTER

Separately, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said a Pakistani girl left outside a house in Karachi on Sunday was the daughter of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted in a U.S. court for shooting at her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan.

Mariyam Siddiqui, 12, along with two siblings, has been missing since 2003, when her mother disappeared. Aafia Siddiqui resurfaced in Afghanistan in 2008 without her children.

"We have handed her over to the family. She is Aafia\'s daughter as her DNA result was positive," Malik told reporters in Islamabad.

Afghan authorities handed over Siddiqui\'s teenage son to Pakistan in September 2008. Another son is still missing.

Aafia Siddiqui, 37, was convicted in a New York court in February for grabbing a U.S. officer\'s rifle while she was being questioned in 2008 in Afghanistan and firing at FBI agents and military personnel before being wrestled to the ground.

Siddiqui, who spent years living in the United States, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who embarked for Washington to attend a summit on nuclear security, will take up Siddiqui's case with U.S. officials, Malik said.

Here's more....and it ain't over, not until it blows up in the faces of the governing authority......

[PDF] Siddiqui Aafia Complaint

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View

None of the. United States personnel were aware that SIDDIQUI was being held, unsecured, behind the curtain. c. The Warrant Officer took a seat with a solid ...

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/...a-complaint.pdf

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1954598,00.html

......While Siddiqui's trial has been highly anticipated, especially in Pakistan, it is unlikely to resolve any of the bigger mysteries surrounding her disappearance. Prosecutors have tailored the case narrowly to the shooting incident in Ghazni and told Judge Richard Berman last week they will avoid any mention of her suspected ties to al-Qaeda. The government's scenario of the shooting in Ghazni has been vigorously disputed by her defense attorneys, who at a pretrial hearing last week offered a preview of their case, saying there were no fingerprints or forensic evidence on the gun that would indicate Siddiqui ever even held it. "We're saying she simply didn\t do it," said attorney Linda Moreno. But, in what could be a serious blow for the defense, the judge ruled that some of the suspicious documents found on Siddiqui at the time of her arrest could be introduced to show her alleged intent.....

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/human...l-82849472.html

Human Rights and Law

Defense Begins Presentation in Siddiqui Trial

27 January 2010

....In earlier testimony, the government said two holes in a wall of an Afghanistan police station were possibly the result of bullets fired by Aafia Siddiqui, after she grabbed the rifle. The U.S. government contends that after Siddiqui fired the weapon, a U.S. Army officer fired back with a pistol and wounded the Pakistani woman. None of the Americans in the Afghan police station - U.S. troops and Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents - were wounded in the incident.

William Tobin, a former FBI technician and now a private forensic metallurgist, said the two bullet holes in the room could not have been made by the high velocity bullets fired by the Army rifle allegedly used by Siddiqui.

Tobin testified as defense lawyers began to present their case to the federal jury. Previously, government witnesses said that Siddiqui had picked up the Army rifle while she was detained as a suspected al-Qaida supporter.

In testimony videotaped in Kabul, Afghanistan, an Afghan anti-terrorist police official said he was present during the July 2008 incident. He told defense and prosecution lawyers that Siddiqui had been beaten when she was detained and that he heard shots fired, but that he never saw the woman holding the gun......

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-c...house-540-hh-03

Mystery girl left outside Aafia’s house in Khi

By Our Staff Reporter

Monday, 05 Apr, 2010

Dr Aafia's family (pictured here) and the girl did not recognize each other, though the girl is being looked after by them at present. - Photo by AP.

Pakistan

KARACHI: An 11-year-old girl was left outside the house of Dr Aafia Siddiqui in Gulshan-i-Iqbal by some people on Sunday, deepening a mystery surrounding the fate of Dr Aafia’s children.

A senior police officer told Dawn that the girl was wearing a collar “bearing the address of the house in case she wandered off”.

Dr Aafia’s family informed police about the girl left outside their house by some people, the officer who did not want to be identified said.

The girl speaks English, but it was not clear if she could understand or speak Urdu or any other language, the officer added.

The family and the girl did not recognize each other.

Later in the day, personnel of the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) came to the house and collected fingerprints of the girl.

“If results of the fingerprinting are inconclusive, there is always the option of a DNA profile for finding out the parentage,” the police officer said.

At present, he said, the girl was being looked after by the family of Dr Aafia.

In 2003, Dr Aafia Siddiqui boarded a taxi with her three children — six-year-old Ahmed, four-year-old Mariam and six-month-old Suleman —and left for the Karachi airport but never reached there.

However, if Mariam was four-year-old in 2003, her age now will be the same as that of the girl who was left outside the family house on Sunday morning.

A US jury in February found Dr Aafia guilty of two counts of attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated.

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?e...afia_siddiqui_1

.....The bank then notices that Siddiqui regularly gives money to the Benevolence International Foundation, which will soon be shut down for al-alleged Qaeda ties. They also discover her connection to Al-Kifah. The bank then notices Siddiqui making an $8,000 international wire transfer on December 21, 2001, to Habib Bank Ltd., “a big Pakistani financial institution that has long been scrutinized by US intelligence officials monitoring terrorist money flows.” [Newsweek, 4/7/2003] In April or May 2002, the FBI questions Siddiqui and Khan for the first time and asks them about their purchases. [boston Globe, 9/22/2006] But the two don’t seem dangerous, as Siddiqui is a neuroscientist who received a PhD and studied at MIT, while Khan is a medical doctor. Plus they have two young children and Siddiqui is pregnant. There are no reports of US intelligence tracking them or watch listing them. Their whole family moves to Pakistan on June 26, 2002, but then Siddiqui and Khan get divorced soon thereafter. Siddiqui comes back to the US briefly by herself from December 25, 2002, to January 2, 2003. On March 1, 2003, Pakistan announces that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) has been captured (see March 1, 2003). Some days later, Siddiqui drives away from a family house in Pakistan and disappears. Some later media reports will claim that she is soon arrested by Pakistani agents but other reports will deny it. Reportedly, KSM quickly confesses and mentions her name as an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, working as a “fixer” for other operatives coming to the US. On March 18, the FBI puts out a worldwide alert for Siddiqui and her ex-husband Khan, but Khan has completely disappeared as well. Siddiqui will be arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 (see July 17, 2008). [Vanity Fair, 3/2005] The CIA will later report that Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi), a nephew of KSM and a reputed financier of the 9/11 attacks, married Siddiqui not long before her disappearance. Furthermore, in 2002 he ordered Siddiqui to help get travel documents for Majid Kahn (no relation to Siddiqui’s first husband), who intended to blow up gas stations and bridges or poison reservoirs in the US. It will also be alleged that Siddiqui bought diamonds in Africa for al-Qaeda in the months before 9/11. [boston Globe, 9/22/2006] The Saudi Embassy will later claim that the wire transfers connected to Siddiqui were for medical assistance only and the embassy had no reason to believe at the time that anyone involved had any connection to militant activity. [Newsweek, 4/7/2003] Although Siddiqui seems to have ties with two key figures in the 9/11 plot and was living in Boston the entire time some 9/11 hijackers stayed there, there are no known links between her and any of the hijackers.

March 30, 2003: Alleged Female Al-Qaeda Sleeper Agent Disappears in Pakistan

Alleged al-Qaeda member Aafia Siddiqui vanishes in Karachi, Pakistan, with her three children. Although she and her family are Pakistani, she had been a long-time US resident until late 2002, and had even graduated with a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The day after her disappearance, local newspapers will report that an unnamed woman has been taken into custody on terrorism charges, which is unusual since nearly all terrorism suspects have been men. A Pakistan interior ministry spokesman confirms that Siddiqui is the woman who has been arrested. But several days later, both the Pakistan government and the FBI publicly deny that she is being held. Later in 2003, her mother will claim that two days after her disappearance, “a man wearing a motor-bike helmet” arrives at the Siddiqui home in Karachi, and without taking off his helmet, says that she should keep quiet if she ever wants to see her daughter and grandchildren again. Beginning with a Newsweek article in June 2003, Siddiqui and her husband will be accused of having helped al-Qaeda as possible US sleeper agents. Siddiqui’s sister will claim that in 2004 she is told by Pakistan’s interior minister that Siddiqui has been released and will return home shortly. Also in 2004, FBI Director Robert Mueller will announce at a press conference that Siddiqui is wanted for questioning. Siddiqui divorced her long-time husband in 2002. The BBC will later report that, shortly before her disappearance, she married Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and alleged participant in the 9/11 plot. “Although her family denies this, the BBC has been able to confirm it from security sources and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s family.” In July 2008, she will reappear in mysterious circumstances in Afghanistan, and then be transferred to the US to stand trial for murder (see July 17, 2008). Allegations continue that she was secretly held by the US or Pakistan some or all of the five years between 2003 and 2008. Her three children will not be seen following their disappearance. [bBC, 8/6/2008]

.......The Wall Street Journal will later report, “Riggs repeatedly failed in 2001 and 2002 to file suspicious-activity reports related to cash transactions in the low tens of millions of dollars in Saudi accounts, said people familiar with the matter.” Riggs Bank “handles the bulk of [Washington’s] diplomatic accounts, a niche market that revolves around relationships and discretion.” [Wall Street Journal, 1/14/2004] Newsweek will later report that “investigators say the embassy accounts show a large commingling of funds with Islamic charities that have been the prime target of US probes.” In one instance, on July 10, 2001 the Saudi embassy sent $70,000 to two Saudis in Massachusetts. One of the Saudis wrote a $20,000 check that same day to a third Saudi who had listed the same address as Aafia Siddiqui, a microbiologist who is believed to have been a US-based operative for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (see Late September 2001-March 2003). [Newsweek, 4/12/2004] The Wall Street Journal will later discover that Riggs Bank “has had a longstanding relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, according to people familiar with Riggs operations and US government officials” (see December 31, 2004). The relationship included top Riggs executives receiving US government security clearances. Riggs also overlooked tens of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions by right wing dictators from Africa and South America such as former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. [Wall Street Journal, 12/31/2004] A connection between the CIA and Riggs Bank goes back to at least the early 1960s. And in 1977, journalist Bob Woodward tied Riggs Bank to payments in a CIA operation in Iran. [slate, 1/10/2005] The CIA tie leads to suspicions that the bank’s failure to disclose financial activity by Saudi diplomats and other foreign officials may have been implicitly authorized by parts of the US government. Some of the suspicious Saudi accounts belong to Saudi diplomats, including Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/arti...m=1151003209000

From The Sunday Times

March 9, 2003

Was Khalid arrested where the FBI said he was?

Christina Lamb

Inside the villa in Rawalpindi where police say they arrested Khalid, an old woman sobbed gently, shoulders shaking, as she gathered a black shawl around her head and across her mouth and nose so that only her eyes were visible.

Mrs Mahlaqa Khanum is the mother of Ahmed Qadoos, the 42-year-old Pakistani accused of sheltering the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Qadoos was arrested in the raid on the house that police say netted Khalid and another top Al-Qaeda suspect.

The family is no stranger to controversy. Qadoos is a cousin of Dr Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart surgeon with whom Diana, Princess of Wales, was said to be in love. But Khanum said any idea that her son was sheltering terrorists who are on the FBI’s most wanted list was “impossible”.

Pointing at a large cage of blue and green budgerigars on the terrace, she said: “These are his life. Ahmed is a very simple person. He had no job, he hardly went out, just to the mosque to pray. He never travelled and his main thing was pets. He loved pets. We wouldn’t let him have a dog because we’re an Islamic family, but he loved his budgies.”

Qadoos would watch the army dog-training centre behind the house for hours. His mother produced a medical report describing him as a “low IQ person” and a letter about his condition from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for which her husband, Dr Abdul Qadoos, a microbiologist, worked for 30 years in several countries.

A heart bypass operation forced the doctor to retire in 1985 while he was in Zambia. Now he is managing director of Hearts International, a cardiac hospital in Rawalpindi, although his own heart condition has made him frail.

The description of Qadoos as a simpleton is supported by the family’s neighbour, Colonel Shahida of the Pakistani army.

“Ahmed can’t be a terrorist,” he laughed. “He’s a goof, simple in the head. Once he shot himself in the hand because he was cleaning a gun with the barrel against his palm. They are a purdah-observing household. We never saw anyone strange enter the house.” ....

Edited April 12, 2010 by Tom Scully