STEVEN VINCENT AND THE BASRA POLICE

I just read the opinion piece that Steven Vincent wrote for the New York Times and which ended up getting him killed. In the piece he pointed out that the Basra police force the majority of officers are Shiite loyalist and more committed to a radical ayatollah than their positions as law enforcement officers. In fact, one of the officers he spoke to before writing this piece called cleric Moktada al-Sadr, a known anti-American radical Shiite “a great man.” Another officer on the Basra police force, a lieutenant, spoke of a “death car.” It is a white Toyota Mark II that carries off duty police officers to their next assassination assignment. Another officer told Vincent that up to 75% of the officers on the force are loyal to people and systems outside of the department.
The British, who are in charge of security and training in this part of Iraq seem either not to notice the corruption or not care. They do nothing to instruct the officer trainees in the concept of loyalty to the national government, human rights, democracy, or that a policeman’s personal feelings or beliefs must remain his own and not become part of how he decides who should or should not be arrested or detained or how matters should be settled.
Without doubt the British have been and are our most valuable ally in the war in Iraq. However, how can we continue to allow them to do only part of the job when we know that their failures will cost American lives? Do we have the right to tell them how to do the job they have been given? Or, is it our duty to tell them that they must make changes in how they are caring out their duties? These questions at best are difficult to answer, but nonetheless, they must be answered and answered soon. The fact that this article cost Steven Vincent his life serves only to verify the charges he leveled at the Basran Police Department and the dangers that our people will face because of British failures.
One last piece of information that might be of interest. Remember that white Toyota with off duty police officers? Vincent was seen being abducted by five police officers in a white Toyota police car.

SUPREME COURT NOMINEE JOHN G. ROBERTS JR.

The liberal media has always been zealous when trying to dig up dirt on people that don’t fit their liberal mold. Of course the New York Times is one of the biggest conservative haters in the country and they have climbed to new heights on the disgusting practices scale. This time they have gone so far into the distasteful realm that even a politician is upset. Texas senator Kay Baily-Hutchison says that reporters digging around for information on the judge’s adopted children is way over the line.
According to a spokesman for the Times says such an inquiry is just a routine part of an investigation into the background of person appointed to a high office. Routine? Just how stupid do the Times people think the American public is. They are looking for dirt anywhere they can find it and the only reason they are looking at the adoptions of the judges children is because they can’t find anything in any other part of his life. They are so used to dealing with people like the Clinton’s that they can’t believe someone has nothing to hide, nothing they have done to be ashamed of. I guess it’s to be expected though. When you lie down with the dogs you’re going to get up with fleas.

IRAQI CAR BOMBING

A suicide car bomber drove into a crowd outside an Iraqi police station and killed five civilians and wounded fifteen or more. This really isn’t big news since these types of bombings, outside of police and army posts or recruiting stations have been happening since the liberation. What amazes me is the fact that as many of these homicide bombings there have been, people are still wanting to sign up to be police officers or serve in the army. This says a lot for the average Iraqi citizen.
These people want to be able to defend themselves, to have an army that can protect their nation from foreign enemies and that they can be proud to serve in. They want to be able to police themselves, to live in neighborhoods where their families are safe, to be able to enforce the laws they as a people have chosen to put in place. Before you say so? lots of people want to be police officers or in the army. Maybe so but how many of them would stand in line outside of a place they new had a high possibility of being bombed? How many would risk dying just because they want to join the army or police force?
The average Iraqi wants to live in a country that they can have a free and productive life. Where they can raise their kids to be good people, people with a the opportunity to become whatever their abilities allow them to be, not what some religious psychopath tells them to be. The least we can do is protect them, teach them, and guide them into the future they deserve and are willing to die for.

TERRORISM DOT COM

The man writing the biography of Osama bin Laden says he watched the al Qaeda people leave their caves and head off to exile or hiding carry two things with them. A Kalashnikov rifle and a laptop computer. It seems that the terrorist having been deprived of their sanctuary and training facilities in Afghanistan have turned to the Internet.
They like to use free e-mail servers to pass messages and instructions to other terrorists. It usually goes like this. Abu bin Dimwit signs up for a free e-mail server such as Juno or Hotmail. He then types a message and saves it as a draft. Then, in some innocent chat room or bulletin board he passes the account info along to his cohort including the password. The recipient then can open the account, down load the draft and get whatever information or instructions it contains. Since no actual e-mail was sent there is nothing to trace or intercept by any security agency.
Another method is for Osama al Swineface to hack into an innocent unsuspecting business web site and upload whatever they choose. Then those in the know can log on, get their info and be back out without problems. The business eventually catches on and fixes things but of all the hits on the site which one is legit and which one is terrorist related?
The internet also contains hundreds of videos that anyone can view on subjects such as navigating across a desert by using the stars, shooting an American soldier, how to mix ricin poison, making a bomb out of commercially available chemicals, and how to sneak into Iraq from Syria by disguising yourself as a fisherman, among many, many others. Gabriel Weimann a professor at the University of Haifa has been tracking terrorist web sites for eight years. When he started he found 12, now he keeps track of 4,500.
Knowing that permanent sites can be traced and hacked the terrorist have a habit of using rapidly proliferating bulletin boards that allow them to quickly upload and store information temporarily before moving on to a new site. With the number of servers available it is virtually impossible to keep track of them all and this allows them a lot of freedom to communicate with each other undetected. Another new development is “cyber cells.” Rather than have an organized cell with a regular meeting place or places, terrorist meet and get to know each other on line and once they are comfortable with each other and have developed a mutual trust they can meet and carry out an operation in the field.
Just for fun I typed “How to Make A Bomb” into Google and got 8390 hits. I typed “Make A Bomb” into Ask Jeeves and got 17,900 hits and with the same inquiry on Google I got 38,400 hits. Granted a number of these were sites about other sites and I even saw lyrics to a song dealing with making a bomb but it still doesn’t make for a restful nights sleep. Tomorrow I will try a search for “Jihad” and see what happens. I’ve got a feeling it won’t be pretty.