More Detail On British Arrests

The Daily Mail is reporting that British authorities moved in on what they believed was a facility to train and indoctrinate youths into an extremist mindset. It was not an overt terrorist training facility, apparently.

Anti-terror police raided what is believed to be Britain's first home-grown jihad training camp in the grounds of a former English ballet school.

They rounded up a network of alleged terrorist recruiters after spying on them at the secluded country mansion.

It is understood the group, which included several recent converts to Islam, were being schooled in fundamentalist ideals associated with Al Qaeda.

Last night, 14 men were being questioned, including at least one man described as a 'high-profile fundamentalist Muslim cleric'.

Months of painstaking surveillance by MI5 culminated in police swooping on a group of 12 men as they sat down to a £4.99 'all-you-can-eat' halal buffet in The Bridge To China Town restaurant in Borough, South London, late on Friday night, after they returned from a trip to the Islamic school.

It was followed by a series of raids at addresses across the capital and a massive police and forensic operation targeting the building and grounds of the Islamic school in East Sussex where they had been staying.

Police said the men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Anti-terrorist police established a three-mile exclusion zone around the former Legat ballet academy in Mark Cross, near Crowborough, now occupied by the Jameah Islameah School, amid claims it was being used by Islamic fundamentalists to train teenage Muslim boys.

It is believed the action was sanctioned under tough anti-terrorism legislation banning 'incitement of terrorism'.

Whitehall security sources with first-hand knowledge of the operations said the raids were sparked by detailed intelligence about the activities of a group of 'terrorist recruiters'.

Security officials believe the network was involved in 'recruiting people to the extremist Islamic cause' and putting the raw recruits through 'intensive training and indoctrination'.

This may actually be a worse form of training than overt military style training in the long run. This is the sort of thing the Ottomans did. Build a force of indoctrinated youths. That did not, in the end, work out real well.

UPDATE: Agam over at Agam's Gecko catches a major error in coverage of this story by the media. It sems that the school in question has a website that describes its admission policy: "We only admit students aged between 16-65." Somewhere in that rather broad age group, people generally stop being referred to as "youths".

Even Cubans Notice

There is something very wrong about the entire situation with Fidel Castro. Even Cubans on the street and anonymous (for rather obvious reasons) Cuban surgeons are saying that there is something off about reports on Castro's condition.

Castro's careful crafted image of invincibility since sweeping to power in a 1959 revolution and entering into battle with the United States has been broken by two government broadcast videos showing him vulnerable and ailing at age 80.

"Fidel looked much better, more animated and stronger, but at the same time it appears he has quite a ways to go before being completely well," a man named Jorge said as he sold produce at a Havana market. He, like others interviewed, asked that his full name not be used.

Communist authorities on Friday broadcast a seven-minute video of Castro receiving friend and ally Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president who stopped briefly in Havana on his return from a foreign tour.

"It makes me sad every time I see him in his sickbed. For me he has been a guide, always leading the way, and to see him like that, even if he is better, fills me with sorrow," said Antonio, a retiree.

The Cuban leader handed over power for the first time in 47 years to his younger brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, on July 31.

Castro appeared much stronger than when he was last seen in a video on August 13, when Chavez visited him to celebrate his 80th birthday. Then, a frailer-looking Castro was shown only in bed covered by a blanket.

Friday's video showed a pleased but gaunt Castro resting on a bed in red pajamas giving Chavez a big hug and kissing and talking briefly with the Venezuelan leader's daughter and granddaughter.

The clip then cut to Castro and Chavez at a small table engaged in animated conversation and writing brief notes of praise to each other.

Photographs published Saturday by the official press showed Castro was sitting on his bed at the time, with the table alongside and Chavez in a chair.

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

What exactly ails the legendary rebel is considered a state secret and acting President Raul Castro has remained largely out of public view.

"He looks better, but honestly for a month after surgery and even at 80 years old, something very bad must have happened to the Comandante," a Cuban surgeon said.

"If he just had an ulcer, or some other not too serious condition, he would be up and around by now, running things on the phone," he said on condition of anonymity.

I have seen a number of very sick people through the years. In general, those that get better are up and around pretty quickly. If over a month after his surgery, this is the best he can do, he is not recovering well, if at all.

Our Very Own Lord Haw Haw

How wonderful. Al Qaeda has employed a modern day Lord Haw Haw, the man who did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis during the Second World War. Although a number of different announcers were given that particular nickname, the Lord Haw Haw, if you will, was one William Joyce, actually an Irish-American former member of the British Union of Fascists. He broadcast rather nasty propaganda from 1939 until the end of the war. Al Qaeda has Azzam the American.

The 48-minute video, posted on an Islamic militant Web site, had footage of Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri and of Adam Yehiye Gadahn, a 28-year-old American who the FBI believes attended Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan and served as an Al Qaeda translator.

It was the second time Gadahn has appeared in the same video with al-Zawahiri. In a July 7 video marking the one-year anniversary of bombings against the London transit system, Gadahn appeared briefly, saying no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by Al Qaeda attacks.

Saturday's message came days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

Gadahn spoke for nearly the entire video, wearing white robes and a white turban, sitting in front of a desk with a computer and Islamic religious books in a room with a white wall. He delivered a lecture on Islam and "errors" in Christianity and Judaism, and the video included no direct threats of terror attacks.

He said the United States was losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and addressed U.S. soldiers who he said were fighting President George W. Bush's "crusades."

"Instead of killing yourself for Bush … why not surrender to the truth (of Islam), escape from the unbedlieving army and join the winning side. Time is running out so make the right choice before it's too late," he said.

Al-Zawahri gave only a brief introduction to the video, calling on Americans to convert to Islam. "To the American people and the people of the West in general … God sent his Prophet Muhammad with guidance and the religion of truth … and sent him as a herald," he said.

Little is known about the degree of Gadahn's role with Al Qaeda. A resident of California who converted to Islam, he disappeared soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. In 2004, the FBI announced it was seeking Gadahn in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States, though it said it did not have information linking him to any specific terrorist activities.

But Saturday's video — and the length of Gadahn's speech — suggested Al Qaeda found in him someone who could direcly address the American people — in idiom they are familiar with.

"You know that if you die as an unbeliever in battle against the Muslims you're going straight to Hell without passing 'Go,"' Gadahn said, addressing American soldiers. "You know you're considered by Bush and his bunch of warmongers as nothing more than expendible cannon fodder … You know they couldn't care less about your safety and well-being."

"We send a special invitation (to convert to Islam) to all of you fighting Bush's crusader pipedream in Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever else 'W' has sent you to die. You know the war can't be won," he said, using Bush's nickname.

Oh, one thing. William Joyce, was captured at the end of the war. The British gave him a trial. Then hanged him.

UPDATE: Others: Wizbang, Assorted Babble, Old War Dogs, Outside The Beltway, Counterterrorism Blog, STACLU, Flopping Aces, Political Pit Bull,

61 Years Ago Today

Representatives of the Japanese government signed the official instrument of surrender ending the final phase of the Second World War. The Documents were signed on board the battleship USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. A short formal signing ceremony brought an end to the war and started the United States and Japan down a road of peace and mutual prosperity. It took a formal surrender to enable that, not a ceasefire or a truce. Bruce Kesler has more, including President Harry Truman's radio address to the nation.

The Big Lie

One of the most important propaganda tools there is is to tell the big lie and keep repeating it over and over again until it is reaches general circulation and gains that status known as common knowledge. So it is that the New York Times lays the blame for North Korea and Iran and their respective nuclear programs at George Bush's feet.

Unless something changes soon, by the end of President Bush’s second term North Korea will have produced enough plutonium for 10 or more nuclear weapons while Iran’s scientists will be close to mastering the skills needed to build their own.

That’s quite a legacy for a president sworn to keep the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world’s most dangerous regimes.

Even if the United States were not tied down in Iraq, military action would be a disaster. Besides, American analysts don’t know where North Korea has stashed its plutonium nor what technology Iran might have hidden. Its huge centrifuge plant at Natanz is still nearly empty, and the more threatened Iran feels, the more reason it has to hide its program.

If Mr. Bush has any hope of avoiding this legacy, he will have to give up his dreams of regime change, persuade his battling inner circle he means it and direct Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do some real diplomatic horse trading — starting with a clear pledge that the United States will not try to overthrow their governments as long as they give up their nuclear ambitions.

The Iranian nuclear program has been secretly working for at least 20 years and probably longer. The same with the North Koreans. The North Koreans and the Clinton administration reached a framework that was supposed to stop the nuclear program. The ink was not even dry when the North Koreans started right back up again. Here's a little shocker, that many people may not realize: North Korea had already extracted plutonium while Clinton was in office. Worse yet, the US also provided funds to stabilize deteriorating fuel rods.

Assuming these nations operate with the same rulebook is foolish. Blaming the situation all on the current president is dishonest. It is telling the big lie. 

Lunar Litterbugs

The European Space Agency plans on dumping a bunch of litter across the lunar landscape sometime around 1:20 am EDT when they crash their SMART-1 spacecraft onto the surface of the moon.

BERLIN - Europe's first mission to the moon got a scare, but ground controllers made a last-minute course correction early Saturday that kept the craft from hitting the surface earlier than planned.

Mission officials said they raised the low point of the SMART-1 spacecraft about 2,000 feet by using its positioning thrusters to avoid the almost mile-high rim of a moon crater.

The maneuver began late Friday night from the European Space Agency's mission control in Darmstadt and was completed about three hours later, said Octavio Camino, spacecraft operations chief for the mission.

"We have got confirmation that the maneuver was successful," Camino said.

SMART-1 has been orbiting lower and lower ahead of Sunday's scheduled impact, which experts hope to study for clues to the composition of the surface in that area. Without the correction, it would have crashed one orbit too soon, making the impact difficult or impossible to observe.

The craft is to end its three-year voyage at 1:41 a.m. EDT Sunday by crashing into a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence at 4,475 mph. The impact could increase understanding of how the lunar surface evolved and help test a theory that the moon originated when another astronomical body slammed into the Earth.

Even before the $140 million mission ended, ESA was celebrating the main goal — a successful test of the ion engine that it hopes to use for future interplanetary flights, such as the BepiColombo joint mission to Mercury with Japan's space agency slated for launch in 2013.

Litterbugs. Anyway, here's a link to a description of the rather cool ion engine they tested and here's the Space.com article about the first ignition. This is the planned impact area in case you feel like staying up late tonight. And just for fun, here is a really cool interactive map of the moon to play around with.

The Stone Walls

Confederate Yankee has been asking the folks at Editor and Publisher for an explanation of Greg Mitchell's apparent rewrite of an old story. He has been getting nothing at all in response. I don't really think it is all that unusual for the media to have a raging double standard in operation these days, sadly. After all, the New York Times demands accountability of the administration but lets Bill Keller lie to readers with impunity.

Over the course of the week, various bloggers have attempted to contact Mr. Mitchell and other figures inside both Editor & Publisher and its parent company, VNU Media, about this journalistic fraud, and neither publisher Charles McKeown of Editor & Publisher, nor VNU Media's company spokesman Will Thoretz has had enough courtesy, professionalism, or even concern about the reputation about the craft they are supposed to represent to respond to those asking very serious questions about a very real breach in ethics apparently committed by one of their senior staff members.

Media organizations have essentially two ways with which they can deal with situations of journalistic fraud as noted by Dr. David Perlmutter recently and ironically enough, in this editorial in Editor & Publisher about a similar journalistic scandal:

News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don’t delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.

I suspect it will be a long while before we hear any explanation from behind those stone walls at E&P or the NYT.

How To Tell It Is A Slow News Day

Ah, the dog days. This is, of course, a time when news generally slows down. Traffic on the web is down a fair amount too. But today, I finally realized how slow the news really is today though. The AP wire has a story that brought it all home.

When the recovery of a stolen mule harness makes the wireservices, it is slow. As in  S  L  O  W.

(And when that story makes it onto a blog, you know it's pretty lean out there!)

The Ultimate In Extreme Sports

Bored with life? Want to do a little thrill-seeking just to get the blood pumping? Do you find that paragliding just doesn't do it for you anymore? Do what an Israeli man did then. Add excitement by landing your paraglider in a new and different place.

A Minefield.

The unidentified man took off from a peak in the Golan Heights and drifted east towards the Syrian and Jordanian borders before crashing in the minefield, severely injuring his legs in the fall, rescue services said.

Several hours later he was retrieved and evacuated to hospital by helicopter, an army spokesman said.

Paragliding, in which participants jump off tall peaks or cliffs with a parachute strapped to their back, is a popular sport in the Golan, where there are many steep mountains.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but if you're paragliding near minefields you may be a few fries short of a Happy Meal to begin with.

14 British Troops Killed In Afghanistan

A NATO aircraft carrying 14 British servicemen crashed in Afghanistan, killing all on board. Officials are not saying what caused the crash, but the Taliban say they shot the plane down using a Stinger missile.

The crash came a day after fighting across the volatile south killed nine Afghan policemen, at least 13 suspected Taliban and a British soldier.

The "aircraft was supporting a NATO mission. It went off the radar and crashed in an open area in Kandahar" province, about 12 miles west of Kandahar city, said Maj. Scott Lundy, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

The British Ministry of Defense said the dead included 12 Royal Air Force personnel, a Royal Marine and an army soldier.

Lundy said "there was no indication of an enemy attack." He gave no other details, but an ISAF statement said the plane's crew reported a technical problem before going down. It also said that "enemy action has been discounted at this stage."

However, shortly after the crash, a purported spokesman for the Taliban, Abdul Khaliq, claimed responsibility. "We used a Stinger missile to shoot down the aircraft," he said.

Haji Eisamuddin, a local tribal elder, told The Associated Press by phone that the plane's wreckage was burning in an open field.

"I can see three, four helicopters in the sky, and coalition forces are also arriving in the area," he said.

Not a good thing whatever the cause.

Failing To Pay A Living Wage

I expect an immediate coast-to-coast caravan to protest this grave injustice. The perpetrators of this travesty of the American dream must be brought down at once? Wal-Mart? Nope, they pay really well compared to the real evil-doers.

The Democratic party.

John Dedering worked for Grassroots Campaigns for about a month last year and again this year. He says the company paid a satisfactory base wage in 2005, when he canvassed for Environmental Action, but this year switched to a new system, dropping his wages to less than minimum.

Juan Ruiz says he put in about 45 hours working at Grassroots Campaigns for five days this year, and was paid just $56. And Miles Kristan produces pay stubs for two two-week periods, during which he says he typically worked 50 hours per week. One is for $339.81, the other for $281.50. Before taxes.

We have heard plenty of outrage from Congressional Democrats this year over the length of time since the last minimum-wage hike. Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer have railed about how minimum-wage workers have not had a raise in seven years, somehow neglecting to mention that the minimum wage is a transitional wage only and that raises come as part of a performance reward system when one stays at a job.

Their rationalization for breaking the law is laughable. Their contractor, Grassroots Campaigns, argues that special rules apply to canvassers that allow them to pay commission-based compensation. GC also acknowledges that they do not pay for employee time spent during orientation, claiming another exemption. Neither exemption exists, and even if they did, Democrats still would need to explain why they would support any system that paid $56 in wages for 45 hours of work.

This is the worst form of hypocrisy. My guess is the Democrats will try to dissociate themselves saying it was just a contractor. But why would they contract with a company that is abusing people worse than the company they all have their sights set on?

Attacks On Jews Increasing

Attacks on Jews in Britain have soared since the war in Lebanon, triple the average since record keeping began. The British government is calling for immediate intervention.

BRITISH Jews are facing a wave of anti-Semitic attacks prompted by Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Synagogues have been daubed with graffiti, Jewish leaders have had hate-mail and ordinary people have been subjected to insults and vandalism.

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.

Mark Gardner, of the Community Security Trust, said: “In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984.” In 2000 the monthly average was between 10 and 30 incidents.

The former minister Denis MacShane, who chaired the parliamentary inquiry, said: “These figures confirm the evidence given to us that anti-Semitic attacks are a very real problem.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews submitted evidence to the inquiry that anti-Semitism in Britain was at its worst level.

The July incidents “were more dispersed than usual”, Mr Gardner said. “It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow.”

The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. “When it’s verbal abuse, it’s just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented.”

In hate-mail to senior Jewish figures, ordinary Jewish people were being blamed for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. “There are also references to the Holocaust, saying that Hitler should have wiped out the Jews.”

This is reprehensible. It is, I think, highly regrettable that Muslim leaders have been making dire warnings both here and abroad about how worried they are about backlash against Muslims. There has been very little of that at all. But casting themselves as victims makes it more likely that these kinds of attacks will occur against Jews. US statistics show that attacks against Jews are much, much higher than attacks against Muslims. I suspect the result is the same in Britain.

The Shame Of The UN

When it comes to condemning Israel, the UN generally pulls out all the stops and gets resolutions passed in record time. When it comes to halting genocide by Islamist militias in the Sudan, however, if they get around to anything at all, they give the Islamist Sudanese government veto power and allow the genocide to continue.

In the face of ongoing genocide in Darfur, the international community's failure to accept the "responsibility to protect" (that's United Nations language, officially adopted) innocent civilian lives has taken its last, abject form. The National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in Khartoum, made up of the very men who have for more than three years orchestrated the systematic destruction of Darfur's African tribal populations, has been told directly and unambiguously that there will be no U.N. peacemaking force without its consent.

In the revealing words of British U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, Khartoum's agreement to U.N. deployment "is quite crucial" to taking any meaningful action. Jones Parry's words have been repeated explicitly by U.N. and U.S. officials, as well as officials of other countries possessing the military resources that are the only possible source of protection for approximately 4 million people in Darfur and eastern Chad — people whom the United Nations describes as "conflict-affected" and in growing need of humanitarian assistance.

In short, the international community has conferred upon the genocidaires the power to veto deployment of the very force that might halt an accelerating slide toward catastrophic human destruction.

Given present trends (Khartoum has launched a major military offensive in northern Darfur) and the woeful inadequacy of the present African Union monitoring force — and presuming no intervention to protect civilians or the humanitarian efforts upon which they depend — mortality in Darfur over the next year could exceed the present death toll of about half a million human beings, some 10,000 people a week.

Can those who support the UN actually look themselves in the eye? Much wailing and gnashing of teeth occurs if Israel kills one person unintentionally. Not one word in spoken when 10,000 a week are killed in Sudan quite intentionally indeed. This is the shame the UN brings on itself.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing isn't exactly thrilled with Kofi Annan's UN, either. Unfortunately, even when the corrupt and anti-semitic Annan leaves office, things may not improve. Reader_I_am from Done With Mirrors sees the enabling going on.

More About The Anti-Missile Test

The Washington Post reports on the successful anti-missile test yesterday. When I noted the event yesterday, I wrote that I thought it an amazing feat even though such tests are not completely realistic. The WaPo article spends the bulk of its article denigrating the test outright.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the successful test is a step forward but that the military is a long way away from having a working anti-missile system. He described the U.S. capability as "very limited," requiring a far more intensive testing program.

"It's important to have the test, but you need a frequency and a level of testing that proves you can do this reliably," Cordesman said. "Is this a milestone of a kind? Yes. Does it prove we have a mature, ready system? No way."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week during a visit to Alaska that he would like to see a full test of the missile system's capabilities. In a written statement about yesterday's test, Rumsfeld was cautious, saying the success should increase U.S. confidence as work proceeds toward developing an initial missile defense capability.

"Tests will continue, some of which will be successful and some of which will not," he said. "This was a challenging test, and the tests will become even more challenging in the period ahead."

Officials operating the system yesterday knew roughly when the target would be launched and where it would originate, Obering said, factors that in a real attack would be almost entirely unpredictable.

The military also has yet to fully deploy an advanced radar system — called X-band radar — that eventually will be located on a floating platform off Alaska's coast. Though the radar was tested yesterday off the coast of California, it has not been winterized for northern conditions. It is scheduled to be transferred to Alaska this fall.

The cost of yesterday's test was estimated at more than $85 million. The missile defense program has cost nearly $100 billion since it began in the early 1980s with President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" concept of space-based lasers.

Without tests like this, the system will never be capable of intercepting anything. With continued testing we may be able to negate the threat that rogue nations pose. It will take time, patience and testing to get the system to full operational capability. They have made enormous progress and some incredible technical strides.

Site Meter Problems

It would appear that my Site Meter counter has ceased working. StatCounter shows normal traffic, Site Meter has not counted anything since about 2am. If anyone has a clue what might be wrong, let me know, please.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jim over at bRight and Early for pointing out a new post at the Site Meter blog:

Due to a power outage, the statistics for most accounts are currently delayed about 7 hours. They’ll start catching back up to real-time in the next hour or two. No statistics were lost, just the reporting is deplayed. Thanks.

It only took them how many hours to post that?