While the derailment's been a blast, back on topic we now find that this whole 'major victory' in the 'war on terror' is just one more exaggeration from our exaggerator-in-chief and his boys. This is also the subject of tonight's Nightline which is on right now. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/missile030813_sting.html Less Than Meets the Eye? U.S. Government Sting Operation Criticized as Setup By Brian Ross Aug. 13— Administration officials are leaving out key facts and exaggerating the significance of the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States, law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS. They say there's a lot less than meets the eye. The accused ringleader, British national Hemant Lakhani, appeared today in federal court in Newark, N.J., and was ordered held without bond on charges of attempting to provide material support and material resources to terrorists and acting as an arms broker without a license. Outside the courtroom, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie called Lakhani an ally of terrorists who want to kill Americans. "He, on many occasions, in recorded conversations, referred to Americans as 'bastards' [and] Osama bin Laden as a hero," said Christie. But what he did not say was just how much of the alleged missile plot was a government setup from start to finish. For example, Lakhani had no contacts in Russia to buy the missiles before the sting and had no known criminal record for arms dealing, officials told ABCNEWS. "Here we have a sting operation on some kind of small operator … who's bought one weapon when actually, on the gray and black market, hundreds of such weapons charge hands," said military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. Court documents show much of the case is based on the government's key cooperating witness, an informant seeking lenient treatment on federal drug charges, officials told ABCNEWS. He was the first person who led the government to Lakhani. ‘He Might Say Anything’ The missile shipped into the New York area last month was not a real missile — just a mockup — also arranged entirely by the government. The government also arranged the meetings at a New Jersey hotel and elsewhere, where Lakhani allegedly told undercover agents posing as al Qaeda terrorists about his support of bin Laden. "One would have to ask yourself, would this have occurred at all without the government?" said Gerald Lefcourt, a criminal defense attorney. In London today, Lakhani's neighbors described him as a quiet man who worked in the garment industry and had faced serious financial problems. "I would have hoped the United States is thwarting real terrorism and not something manufactured because here all they're doing is stopping something they created," said Lefcourt. Government officials said the case will show that Lakhani went along with the scheme willingly and was not entrapped. But the question remains whether any of this would have happened if the government had not set it up.
Manny... I am not offended, and am trying to figure out if I missed an underlying message that would offend me. I do have some responses, and I hope that they won't offend you, or others who do/have done this odd 'persona' thingie... What's the point? To escape from yourself? That would imply all kinds of issues about self-confidence and satisfaction with life. I can see the value of escaping into a move or book o even game, and imagining experiences you could never realistically achieve, like living in other times, being a secret agent, etc...But of having another personality? And for extended periods of time? I really don't get it at all. What is more, aside from rimmy, I had missed that aspect to all the posters you mentioned, and have assumed that they were also being genuine. Now I know that there are those who have 'styles' , like B-Bob's irreverence, Mrs. JB's Parthian shots, etc. But if B-Bob were to engage in a serious discussion, and present series of arguments supporting his position, I would take him seriously. Same goes for Mrs. JB. I think that style covers some aspects of interaction in here, although I honestly have never given a second's thought to my 'style', but I would hope that style would lose out to substance when it comes to debating serious issues like war. Not when stopping in to make a witticism and leaving; that intent is obvious... In terms of taking things too seriously, I think that my posts in other forums show that I don't do that as a rule...but in here, regarding issues of significance, of things that some in here feel are worth sending other men to kill and die for, I don't understand the value of adhering to an adopted style rather than trying to get or give a side on topic. Certainly not to the extent of repeating the process day after day in debate after debate I'm not saying that the error necessarily lies with others...maybe I'm the odd man out on this. Either way, if this place and these issues are more about style than substance for many, then my interest has lessened. Maybe the positive aspect of that will be not having to wade through as many of my overly long posts. ( See now there I take issue...I just don't get the too long thing, but I know you're far from alone on this.) But have you ever considered what if? What if T_J has really thought he was presenting credible arguments? Can you imagine how he must feel reading all of this?
While most of our active duty troops are on assignment in Iraq or resting from longterm deployments for Gulf War 2: we are a little ill prepared for : Real Arms Smuggling or The Korean War, Part Deux. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56111-2003Aug13.html THE GRAY ZONE : Cargo of Mass Destruction On N. Korean Freighter, a Hidden Missile Factory By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 14, 2003; Page A01 First of two articles NEW DELHI -- Tae Min Hun, the dour captain of the North Korean freighter Kuwolsan, glared icily from the bridge as tempers around him soared in the midday heat. On June 30, 1999, as customs agents in India's northwestern port city of Kandla waited impatiently to board the vessel, Tae received urgent instructions from Pyongyang: At all cost, let no one open the cargo boxes. The Indians tried to look anyway, and a melee erupted. Tae and his crew rained blows on inspectors and barricaded the doors with their bodies, according to witness accounts and video footage of the encounter. A few agents who managed to slip into the cargo bay were horrified to find North Koreans sealing the hatches, trapping them inside. When the ship's doors were finally reopened at gunpoint, the reason for the extreme secrecy became clear. Hidden inside wooden crates marked "water refinement equipment" was an assembly line for ballistic missiles: tips of nose cones, sheet metal for rocket frames, machine tools, guidance systems and, in smaller crates, ream upon ream of engineers' drawings labeled "Scud B" and "Scud C." The intended recipient of the cargo, according to U.S. intelligence officials, was Libya. "In the past we had seen missiles or engine parts, but here was an entire assembly line for missiles offered for sale," said an Indian government official familiar with the discovery. "This was a complete technology transfer." Today, the evidence from the Kuwolsan remains locked in a military warehouse in the Indian capital, where it has been scrutinized since being seized four years ago. The results of India's investigation, shared among a small circle of intelligence and defense analysts, offer a extraordinary glimpse into the shadowy world of weapons proliferation, in which missile parts and bomb materials circle the globe undetected, secreted away in cargo containers and suitcases, concealed by phony ship manifests and fictitious company names, eluding customs agents and defying international treaties. The Kuwolsan incident -- described in detailed court documents and interviews with officials in the United States and India -- also has reinforced a view of North Korea as the world's most dangerous source of weapons proliferation. North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, this year expelled U.N. inspectors, abandoned the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and declared plans to build an atomic weapon. Just as worrisome, according to U.S. intelligence officials, is North Korea's continuing global trade in technology for weapons of mass destruction -- including instructions for making advanced missiles. North Korea has defended its right to sell the weapons and has said it is not bound by international treaties restricting such trade. The latest beneficiary appears to be Libya, but other nations are known to have received similar help, including Iran, Pakistan and Syria. North Korea has also sold missiles and parts to Yemen, which received 15 Scud missiles after they were briefly intercepted by U.S. and Spanish naval crews off the Yemeni coast in December. The Kuwolsan cargo attests to the existence of a gray zone -- a combination of weak states, open borders, lack of controls and a ready market of buyers and sellers of weapons of mass destruction. Small packages are sometimes delivered in the luggage of individual airline passengers, such as the Taiwanese businessman who was arrested at Zurich's airport in 2000 with North Korean missile parts in his rucksack. Big-ticket items are moved in rusting freighters such as the Kuwolsan. Technical information and designs fly across the Internet. "It is difficult, but not impossible, to intercept weapons and equipment," said Daniel Pinkston, a Korea specialist with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. "But human exchanges -- plans, data, intellectual property -- these are hard to intercept." Detour Into Detention In the end, a need for cash scuttled the Kuwolsan's mission. The black-hulled, 25-year-old freighter would probably have avoided Indian customs officials had the captain not gone out of his way to earn extra money, according to documents and interviews with officials. Just 10 days after departing North Korea's Nampo harbor on April 10, 1999, the ship made detours to two Thai ports to pick up 14,000 tons of sugar for resale along the way, records show. A deal to sell the sugar to some Algerians fell through, so the ship switched course again, to sell it to an Indian company. That meant a stop at the busy port of Kandla, in Gujarat province in northwestern India. "It was crazy," one Indian investigator recalled. "If you're carrying 200 tons of sensitive equipment, you don't go picking up extra cargo left and right." While the ship was somewhere en route, Indian customs officials were tipped off to its possible contraband. The Kuwolsan was rumored to be carrying arms or ammunition, perhaps intended for India's neighbor and rival, Pakistan. When the North Korean freighter steamed into Kandla on June 25, port officials were waiting for it. Within the first few hours, irregularities in the ship's papers became apparent. The company in Malta listed as the intended recipient of the cargo was fictitious, Indian officials learned. That prompted questions about the cargo itself: Why would Malta, an island nation a short flight from industrial Europe, choose to buy "water refining equipment" from faraway North Korea? But as customs agents began to press for answers, Tae, the 61-year-old captain, turned defiant. He blocked every request with increasing pugnacity and threatened international reprisals if the Indians did not allow him to leave Kandla. Finally, on June 30, as customs agents demanded a look at the boxes, Tae turned up with what he said was a telex he had just received from North Korea. "As per the telex, he would not open any more boxes," according to the official Indian after-action report. Afterward, "the crew members shouted at the [customs] officers and abused them." "It got very physical. There were fisticuffs," said an Indian official who was present and who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. "At one point, the crew began closing the hatches to the cargo hold, with the customs inspectors still inside." Hours passed in a tense standoff. Then, on July 1, backed by armed troops and a group of government weapons experts, customs officers forced their way back onto the ship for a first look at what was really inside the Kuwolsan's wooden boxes. 'Only One End-Use' True to the labels, some crates among the Kuwolsan's cargo did contain equipment that could be used in a water treatment plant. Inspectors found pumps, nozzles and a few valves. Everything else appeared to have been transported straight from a missile factory. Documents from the investigation contain a partial list: • Components for missile subassembly. • Machine tools for setting up a fabrication facility. • Instrumentation for evaluating the performance of a full missile system. • Equipment for calibrating missile components. In other boxes inspectors found personal items apparently intended for North Korean workers, including cookbooks in Korean, Korean spices, pickles and acupuncture sets. A separate cargo bay contained rocket nose cones, stacks of metal pipe and heavy-duty presses used for milling high-grade steel. Inspectors found a plate-bending machine capable of rolling thick metal sheets; toroidal air bottles used to guide warheads after separation from a missile; and theodolites, devices that measure missile trajectories. It was an intriguing mix, far different from other previously seized shipments because it contained more than just missile engines and spare parts. A technical committee of Indian missile experts concluded that the equipment was "unimpeachable and irrefutable evidence" of a plan to transfer not just missiles, but missile-making capability. The cargo "points to one and only one end-use, namely the assembling of missiles and manufacture of the parts and subassemblies of surface to surface missiles," the technical panel wrote in a report. But more interesting by far to the investigators were the documents: box after box of engineering drawings, blueprints, notebooks, textbooks and reports. The blueprints were kept inside numbered plastic jackets and wrapped in brown paper. Some of the packets were labeled, in English, "Scud B" or "Scud C." Nearly all the drawings showed rockets or sections of rockets, accompanied by notes and mathematical formulas handwritten in Korean. Native Korean speakers were brought in for translation, a process that continued long after the cargo was transported to New Delhi and the vessel and its crew were released. The analysis was slowed by yet another language barrier: The documents were filled with a unique kind of technical jargon invented by North Korean scientists to replace scientific terms in Russian or Chinese. Over time, the investigation yielded a trove of new information about North Korea's weapons program -- details that India later shared with friendly governments. "The CIA went to town on those blueprints," said Greg Thielmann, a retired director of the State Department's office on strategic, proliferation and military issues in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "They used them to make full mock-ups of missiles, complete with decals." For U.S. officials, the blueprints provided a rare look at the inner workings of North Korea's missile industry, the focus of much of the contention between the United States and North Korea since the 1980s. Successive U.S. administrations have condemned North Korea's missile sales to such countries as Iran and Syria. Fears of advanced North Korean designs capable of reaching the U.S. mainland were heightened by the launch on Aug. 31, 1998, of a three-stage missile. The first stage splashed down in the Sea of Japan, the second crossed Japan's main island and a third broke up and traveled 3,450 miles downrange, falling into the Pacific Ocean. This ambitious test helped fuel the drive for a U.S. missile defense shield. The Scud B and Scud C designs found on the Kuwolsan were from older North Korean missile programs, which in turn were derived from Soviet missile designs of the 1950s. One Indian government official who studied the blueprints described the science as "old and dated," though he added: "It still works." "It may be your grandmother's technology," he said, "but grandmother still kicks." The Kuwolsan's cargo did not, by itself, include everything needed for missile production, suggesting that there may have been earlier shipments, and perhaps later ones. "This was a slice in time of a technology transfer from North Korea to Libya," said Timothy V. McCarthy, a missile expert and senior analyst at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies who has examined some of the blueprints and other evidence. "As an intelligence find it was unbelievable, because it helps us learn how they learn," McCarthy said. "That's so important because it gives you an idea of how capable they are of progressing to more advanced missiles. It also gives us insight into the most troubling part of proliferation: when one country attempts to transfer technology to another. Once Libya can make its own missiles, you can't stop them." A striking feature of the cargo was the high proportion of foreign-made parts and machines, many of which still bore country-of-origin markings from Japan or China. Some analysts who saw the data were intrigued by design plans for a third type of missile, which the documents do not name. Weapons analysts described it as a modified Scud, altered to increase the range. "It uses an engine that we haven't seen, one that isn't used on any missile currently fielded by North Korea," McCarthy said. "It shows that there are still parts of North Korea's missile program we still haven't figured out yet." With the modifications, the missile was advertised as having a range of roughly 500 miles. Such a missile in Libyan hands, weapon experts noted, would give Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi something he has long professed to covet: the ability to strike Israel from his home turf. In India, defense and intelligence officials said they were convinced that the Kuwolsan's cargo was intended for Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons and missile programs. The Kuwolsan's captain acknowledged under questioning that he had planned to stop in Karachi, the Pakistani port city less than 300 miles west of Kandla, before heading to the Suez Canal and Malta. North Korea is known to have supplied missile parts to Pakistan in the past. But both U.S. and South Korean officials concluded that the cargo was intended for Libya, a conviction that grew stronger over time, said Gary Samore, the White House National Security Council's senior director for nonproliferation at the time the Kuwolsan was seized. In fact, U.S. officials viewed Libya's involvement as the single most surprising -- and disturbing -- aspect of the case. Since the incident, European officials have twice intercepted other North Korean missile materials bound for Libya. In January 2000, British police disclosed the interception of 32 crates of missile parts -- mostly components of jet propulsion systems -- at London's Gatwick Airport as the parts were about to be flown to Malta, then on to Tripoli. Three months later, a 44-year-old Taiwanese businessman was arrested at Zurich's airport with three cast-iron parts for Scud missiles in his bags. The man, who was traveling to Libya, was released two months later and sent back to Taiwan. He told Swiss authorities he was only a courier and had no idea what the parts were used for. "We were not fully aware of the extent of North Korea's dealings with Libya until that ship was intercepted," said Samore, now a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Ties between the two countries were judged to be relatively modest until the Kuwolsan incident, Samore said, when North Korea suddenly was caught sending Libya a "full production kit for missiles." Scuds for Yemen Last December, another ship and another destination drew attention to North Korean missile smuggling. The capture of the 3,500-ton So San, intercepted in the Gulf of Aden as it ferried 15 Scud missiles to Yemen, showed that North Korea, nearly four years after the Kuwolsan search, had seen no reason to change. The So San's captain, Kang Chol Ryong, was confident enough to sail without a flag, and with the ship's name and identifying markings covered up, when the vessel began its southward journey across the South China Sea in November. The ship's manifest listed a single entry -- 40,000 sacks of cement -- but spy agencies had known of its hidden cargo before it left its home port of Nampo. On Dec. 9, the Spanish naval frigate Navarra, part of an international flotilla then patrolling the Arabian Sea looking for Taliban fighters fleeing Afghanistan, spotted the So San about 600 miles off the coast of Yemen. When confronted, Kang refused to identify his vessel and even tried to outrun the larger Navarra. "The Navarra fired warning shots ahead of the ship; still he refused to stop, and continued sailing at the same course and speed," Javier Romero, a commander in the Spanish navy, wrote in a report on the incident. Sharpshooters from the Navarra then blasted away the ship's mast cables to allow Spanish special operations troops to rappel onto the deck from a helicopter, the report said. The So San's crew gave up without a fight, and within hours U.S. Navy Seals and explosives experts had joined the Spanish sailors in moving sacks of cement covering the real cargo: 15 Scud missiles complete with high-explosive warheads. Elsewhere in the hold the searchers found two dozen tanks containing a rocket-fuel additive and nearly 100 other barrels of unidentified chemicals. Despite the high-profile interception, the Bush administration decided to release the ship and its cargo because Yemen is a strategic partner in the U.S. war against the al Qaeda terrorist organization. A few Scuds, administration officials explained, were judged as not worth the price of losing a critical ally. The So San returned to North Korea and remains in service, but is closely tracked by U.S. intelligence agencies. Reports of other ships and other suspicious cargo have surfaced since then. Just last week, the 6,500-ton North Korean freighter Be Gaehung was seized in Taiwan's Kaohsiung harbor after customs officials discovered crates containing 2,200 tons of aluminum powder, which can used in manufacturing missiles. The Kuwolsan, meanwhile, vanished after it and its crew were released by India in 2000, and only recently has its fate come to light. According to shipping experts at Lloyd's maritime division in London, the vessel's name was quietly changed in the summer of that year, to Sun Grisan 9. As of last week, the renamed ship was still in active service, and was last reported headed to the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. The nature of its cargo was unknown. Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi in New Delhi and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report. NEXT: Import schemes
If you really think this, you haven't a clue about me. Not that you should, but it's as far from accurate in implication as it can get. I think literally as I 'type',except on serious issues, but even then the particulars come out as I write them. But in terms of stuff like this, what you read is what I've thought, both in terms of words, and in terms of time spent. As far as your overall argument, playground politics don't interest me, so if you want to emulate T_J and declare victory over who made who say what, be my guest.
Nor me, but I don't mind. I keep the board open most of the day and I'm usually doing at least two other things at the same time. But whatever. Those guys can have the pyrrhic victory. It's at least an even trade off with the collective assumption that Jorge 'wins' by being a parody of himself. I'm still talking about him! I'm so OWNED!!!
I don't desire to emulate T_J at all. We do however share many of the same opinions on important issues.
Batman, did Nightltline really debunk the whole big terrorist bust thing? If so, there has to eventually be a limit to what they can spin. Hey, texx, is there some sort of point at which the deceptions would worry you, even if you are a Republican and don't like Sadam Hussein?
To be honest with you glynch, I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy thinking about Trader_Jorge. It's kind of hard for me to think about anything else. The bits I caught were about why the government was making such a big deal over a guy who had no resources and would never have been a threat (or ever made it to New Jersey) without the aid of the entrapping agents. He was never a threat apparently, just a patsy. They'll have the transcript up on the Nightline site in a couple days.
I can't believe some of you've been posting all day regarding whether TJ is a lunatic, a dumbass, or some combination. It should be clear to everyone what the game is about by now. Juvenility to the nth degree until he gets your attention, then sit back and enjoy it. Actually it would help this forum if his posts were restricted somehow to the regular hangout so we could debate and discuss issues here without the usual TJ trolling routine derailing things.
I fully admit that I came into this thread to talk about TJ - to tell others that he was playing them (and well). Thus, my first real TJ-related post. Yipee. About time that sexy guy caught me with his manbait. By the way, Manny, you are only half right about me. There, always comes back to me. I feel better now. If only glynch would stop hatin' on me. Then maybe I could get Becca's respect.
Yep, big congratulations. Too bad there weren't any actual terrorists involved. And it was neither a success nor nice work. It was a bungled attempt at a setup. The guy arrested was apparently only a stooge invented by a government sting that went awry. By the way, I certainly don't fault them trying. I think they should probably be doing exactly this sort of thing. But it's pretty bogus of them to call it a success. It just wasn't. http://www.msnbc.com/news/952001.asp?0cv=CB10 News Leak Blows Big Opportunity _ The bust of arms dealer was supposed to be kept secret and another step in the hunt for Al Qaeda operatives __ _ NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE_ _ _ Aug. 13 — _While publicly congratulating themselves over the bust of an international arms dealer in an alleged plot to sell Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, top Justice Department officials are privately fuming over a premature news leak that may have blown a rare opportunity to penetrate Al Qaeda’s arms-buying network, NEWSWEEK has learned. _ _ _ _ _ THE FBI’S ARREST of London-based arms dealer Hemant Lakhani, 68, at a hotel room near Newark Liberty International Airport this week was supposed to be only an interim step in what officials hoped would be a far more meaningful long-term operation, law-enforcement sources said. The bureau’s plan was to quickly flip Lakhani, a British citizen of Indian extraction, and then use him as an undercover informant who could lead agents to real-life Osama bin Laden operatives seeking sophisticated weapons. _ _ _ _ But those plans went awry late Tuesday afternoon when the Feds learned that the BBC was about to broadcast a sensational report on Lakhani’s arrest by one of its star correspondents, Tom Mangold. The BBC story, based on an apparent leak from a law-enforcement source, had some key details wrong. For one thing, it falsely claimed that the arms dealer’s attempted sale of a shoulder-fired SA-18 missile and launder was part of a plot by terrorists to shoot down Air Force One—a target that never actually came up in the discussions. _ _ _ _ But even so, U.S. law-enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK, the damage was done. The FBI had to abort its plan to recruit Lakhani as an informant and instead charged him today in federal court in Newark, N.J., with weapons smuggling and with providing material support to terrorists. Also arrested in the case were two alleged confederates—a New York City jeweler and a Malaysian businessman—who were charged with conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transfer business. _ _ _ _The U.S. attorney in Newark, Christopher Christie, today called the arrest of Lakhani “an incredible triumph” during a press conference on the courthouse steps. _ _ _ _ But in Washington, senior Justice Department officials were “not happy,” said one law-enforcement official. “We didn’t want this to get out before we could determine whether this guy would cooperate or not.” For all the hoopla over the case, the official confirmed, it was essentially a government-arranged “sting” that never involved any contact with actual terrorists. _ _ _ _ Christie and some other federal officials played up the importance of the case today—the product of an elaborate 18-month undercover operation involving informants and investigators working for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Russian FSB. They noted that Lakhani, in taped conversations with undercover operatives, expressed his hostility for the United States, his sympathy for bin Laden and his willingness to work with terrorists to supply them with the weapons they needed to shoot down airliners. _ _ _ _ But the “terrorists” in the case were essentially all actors—undercover informants playing associates of terrorists for the purposes of making a case against Lakhani, an international arms dealer who, according to Christie, has a history of alleged criminal activity. According to a copy of the complaint unsealed today, the case began in December 2001 when an informant for a Joint Terrorism Task Force in New Jersey began to have conversations with Lakhani about his interest in buying antiaircraft guns and missiles on behalf of an unspecified Somali terrorist group. The Feds then wired the informant, who ultimately had more than 150 recorded conversations with Lakhani in Urdu and Hindi. _ _ _ _ In one such conversation, on Jan. 17, 2002, Lakhani stated that bin Laden “straightened them all out” and “did a good thing,” according to the complaint. In a later meeting, on April 25, 2002, the informant told Lakhani that his backers wanted the missiles for “jihad” and a “plane,” saying they wanted “to hit the people over here.” Lakhani allegedly replied: “The Americans are such bastards” and toward the end of the meeting said: “I am ready to work with you.” (And yet another meeting, on Aug. 17, 2002, the informant told Lakhani that his buyers wanted to purchase an “Igla-S” portable antiaircraft missile system in time for “the anniversary”—an apparent reference to September 11. _ _ _ _ The FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents then arranged to involve the Russian FSB, that country’s security service. When Lakhani flew to Moscow last month to actually inspect the missile he would be buying, he met with two FSB agents posing as missile suppliers who showed him what they said was an actual surface-to-air missile. In fact, it was a fake. The snookered Lakhani then arranged for the missile to be shipped from St. Petersburg and made a commitment to the two FSB undercover operates to buy 50 more such weapons as well as a multiton quantity of C-4 plastic explosives. _ _ _ _ Federal law-enforcement officials say Lakhani’s activities underscore the ease with which terrorists can obtain dangerous weapons that can represent a real-life threat to commercial airliners. (Indeed, at one point, according to the complaint, Lakhani even pointed the U.S. informant to the Dec. 6, 2002, issues of NEWSWEEK and Time, both of which contained articles about an attempt by terrorists linked to bin Laden to shoot down a commercial aircraft with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile in Kenya the previous week. Lakhani allegedly boasted, “ours is much higher,” reference to the quality of the Russian surface-to-air missile he thought he was supplying.) _ _ _ _ But at the end of the day, officials say, the Lakhani case remains a story about potential threats—and not the real-life terrorists they had once hoped to nail.
Rimbaud, in many ways you seem like a nice guy. If you are only interested in the more obscure aspects of art history or literary criticism or whatever in order to get tenure or whatever, why comment on political issues at all? It is ok, many people are not interested in these issues. It would be interesting for us to see you post about something that actually involves or interests you. Don't you realize how your posts continually come off as very intellectually arrogant, as only reluctantly stooping to make flip comments about such mundane topics as war and peace and other political issues with your intellectual inferiors. If you don't realize this, it might be useful as a professor somehow to realize this. Maybe one of these days you'll decide if you're more or less a political conservative, a moderate liberal or just relatively uninterested in these matters. Perhaps you've decided. If so you might even let us know in an intelligible way. Perhaps years ago on this bbs you've made some relatively clear statements of belief. If so deign to give us a few clear sentences today. Note: many of us dont have the time or patience for obscure riddles and the like. Perhaps as a budding academic you feel afraid to express political opinions. Who knows?
smeg, No, I don't like blonds. Or whiteys. glynch, I was going to respond more fully to your post, but then that is just too much about me, and nobody wants that. Suffice it to say that you are off on just about everything (and I am not a professor, just a lowly grad student). So, quick summary, I am not: insecure, unsure, afraid, conservative, moderate liberal, undecided. I am: unable to control others' readings of my posts, unconcerned with those readings (although I do know I am arrogant and it is bound to come across - blame my parents ), politically established among vet posters but less serious about political posts at the moment (with good reason), most likely farther left than you.
Oh my god you guys are all insane. What a thread, I feel like i've been on a journey into the heart of darkness.
Rimbaud, cool enough. A little clearer than usual. Glad to hear you are so far left. Hopefully you at least vote or something occasionally. You seem like an interesting guy. As politics doesn't interest you much at this time , for whatever reason, it would be nice if you would post on something that does interest you. Thanks for the response. I won't be writing on this again.
