An intriguing story from NBC News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Somewhere north of Tehran, living perhaps in villas near the town of Chalous on the Caspian Sea coast, are between 20 and 25 of al-Qaida’s former leaders, along with two of Osama bin Laden’s sons.Men such as Saif al-Adel, the former military commander of al-Qaida, and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the bespectacled bin Laden spokesman, are not in hiding but rather in the care — or custody — of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
“They are under virtual house arrest,” not able to do much of anything, said one senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
How they got there and what will happen to them is one of the more intriguing stories of the war on terror, one that is filled with secret movements, stolen communications and a failed attempt at a prisoner exchange involving Iranian dissidents.
“We believe that they're holding members of al-Qaida's management council,” Fran Townsend, President Bush’s counterterrorism czar, said of Iran.
In an interview with Tom Brokaw two weeks ago, she added: “And we have encouraged and suggested that they ought to try them, they ought to admit freely that they're there — which they have not done — that they're holding them. Or they ought to return them to their countries of origin, which they've also been unwilling to do.”
Read it all.
HELP DRAIN THE SWAMP!
See this post I've been circulating this morning on how the Blogos can assist the Iranian people to effect their own regime change.
*****
Bloggers: Help remind the international media to ask the hard questions!
We can talk about this until the cows come home.
On the otherhand if you actually want to do something in the Iranian peoples' struggle for freedom:
Dr. Zin of Regime Change Iran needs everyone's assistance RIGHT NOW!
Help Here!
Iran and Syria need to be dealt with next. Can there still be any doubt?
And then Saudi Arabia. The rest will fall in line after those 3 are handled.
If we continue to play patty-cake with Islamists, we are going to be writing chapters in history books one day about our sheer folly and lack of fortitude in the face of obvious evil and how great the price was.
Writing history that is -- IF we survive. Our current half-hearted stance as a nation could very well leave no heirs for the States to even write a footnote.
Possible future for the USA: English as a second language, stories of Western culture as a way to scare Muslim children at bedtime and Civil Rights set back 1000 years. Is that what we want?
Then just sit back and do nothing.
With what? An overextended, spent, undermanned military who lacks the equipment, and what equipment it has is worn out? With a demoralized military force that is fed up with being blown up.
We can't even occupy Iraq, without our troops being sabotaged, ambushed and killed driving hiways.
And at what cost to our Economy, Bush has already bankrupted us in Iraq, our grandchildren will be suffering the debt incurred, especially as funds are shifted from our vital infrastructure (transportation, education, health) to the war machine.
And Iran is not Iraq, the Iranians don't like the Mullahs, but they are first and foremost proud nationalists, who don't take kindly to invaders.
I guarantee that if we invade Iran, the anti Mullahcracy population, will quickly join the resistance.
The mullahcracy of Iran is fierce, and as brutal as Saddam, but the Iranians during the Iraq war through themselves at the Arabs, young kids too small to fight in trenches volunteered as human mine detectors and bullet absorbers in human wave attacks.
And if you think we are bogged down in Iraq, just invade Syria. The Syrians are as fanatic Muslims as the Iraqi's, and there is no substantial anti Arab muslim population like the Kurds, nor a Shi'a Sunni divide.
Maybe foehammer you are a covert western style Jihadi, who has a death wish, do you have the Sampson complex?
You overestimate our capabilities, and underestimate theirs.
You should read Sun Tzu, don't underestimate the enemy and don't overestimate yourself.
The only way to pull down Syria and Iran is from within, and that is virtually impossible, because they are Islamist, perfect, self righteous and at war with the kufr.
What is needed is a new approach, change of our attitudes towards Muslims (from their perception), and support of factions that can change Islam from within. It's a long battle, but first the US needs to take off it's metal gauntlet, and set aside the hammer. The heavy hand of America is only stiffening the spine of the Muslims, and reinforcing their belief that the west is out to dominate them for Israel's sake.
That unites them, and we can't invade, defeat, secure and control the Muslim world, not enough bombs, planes, tanks, bullets, men or money and definitely not enough people, and don't forget he Arabs and Iranians control the pump (the heart) that feeds the arteries of our military industrial petroleum complex - oil. All they need to do is stop pumping and we die. And Iran is THE pump for Europe, shut down that pump and prices will fly to over $100 a barrel, given that other ARab countries continue to pump, and that will hemorrhage the US since oil is sold on a global market and it's price is determined by supply and demand.
We aren't dealing with Germans and Japs, this is not WWI re run.
loosing western lifes for these country is a sillyness. We have to end what we have done, withdraw the troops. And boycott all the islamic petroleum countries, researching for fusion nuclear centrals and hydrogen and stop importing the bloody petroleum.
Giaor:
I'm a student of the Book of Five Rings, Art of War and the Prince. Trust me when I tell you that the ONLY reason that Islam is allowed to perpetuate it's evil upon the world is because of people that truly believe that the "enlightened barbarians" of that region are somehow by decree SUPERIOR to the West in tenacity.
Nothing could be further from the truth, except for the additional lie that continues to be perpetuated that the West somehow has brought these things upon itself.
Our volunteer military has barely begun to put heat on this enemy because the REAL enemy has yet to be spoken of aloud by our leaders in Washington, or the leaders of Western Europe.
The HAMMER as you call it, appropriately enough for one of my METAL, has not been dropped HEAVILY ENOUGH.
What you call for is appeasement.
What you give the Islamists in theory is far more resolve and intelligence than they actually possess.
You put the truth before the American people and I'll show you resolve. You want to see what the United States of America is capable, then just wait until the lies are no longer sufficient to tame the masses in this country into a quiet submission.
After the next 9/11 comes, then we can expect to see American anger on the level that happened after Pearl Harbor. Then our leaders will have no choice but to pick up that HAMMER again and slam it where it belongs.
I do not speak of a problem that has manifested only in the past century: Islam has been a militant theocratic scurge about this planet since it's inception and it is long overdue that something was done about it.
Do not come here and prattle on about appeasement.
I'm a warrior.