http://www.americanintelligence.us/ AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE en-us Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:22:00 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE News http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.americanintelligence.us/images/logo.png http://www.americanintelligence.us/ http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5761.html Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers on Tuesday. During a heated exchange with Republican congressmen, Holder predicted that "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden" rather than to the US public enemy number one in captivity. "Let's deal with reality," the attorney general added. Bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom." Holder reacted angrily to Republican critics who say the attorney general's proposal to try terror suspects in US federal civilian courts would put Americans at risk. "They have the same rights that a Charles Manson would have, any other kind of mass murderer," he told a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. "The notion that a defendant in an Article III (civilian) court is somehow being treated in an inappropriate, special way -- that he's being coddled, is anything but the truth... These defendants charged with murder are treated just like any other murder defendant would be." Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:22:00 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5760.html Palestinians mounted violent protests in Jerusalem on Tuesday and President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy canceled plans to return to the region as a U.S.-Israeli crisis over Jewish settlement plans deepened. Hundreds of rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with police in several locations in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war along with the West Bank. Police responded with teargas and rubber bullets. "We have come to throw stones because that's all we have and the situation in Jerusalem is dangerous," one protester said in a confrontation at an Israeli military checkpoint, reminiscent of the early days of a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. Medical officials said at least 40 Palestinians were treated in hospitals in the most serious flare-up in the holy city in months. Police said 14 policemen were hurt and 60 people arrested. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:23:23 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5759.html REYNOSA, Mexico — This border city and others near the eastern end of the U.S. border escaped the worst of Mexico's bloody drug war for years, but now the bodies are piling up, several journalists are reportedly missing or dead and once-busy streets are empty after dark. The crumbling of an alliance between two Mexican drug gangs has plunged the 200-mile stretch of border into violence, raising fears of a new front in the drug war, a U.S. anti-drug official told The Associated Press. In Mexican border cities stretching from Matamoros near the Gulf to Nuevo Laredo, gunfire has been heard almost daily, and at least 49 people were killed in drug war-related violence in less than six weeks. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:42:03 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5758.html On Whitechapel Road in the heart of the East End stands the East London Mosque. For most of the 15,000 ordinary Muslims who pray there each week, it is simply a place of worship. For many, it provides valuable social facilities, and creche and outreach services. But for a small number, the mosque is the headquarters of a secretive, fundamentalist political network. The Islamic Forum of Europe is dedicated, in its own words, to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam”. The mosque and IFE are inextricably intertwined. Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari, the chairman of the mosque, and its vice-chairman are former IFE presidents. The director and imam of the mosque are trustees of the group. Of 22 IFE trustees in recent years, only five have not also been trustees or officeholders of the religious centre. The mosque calls the IFE a “social welfare organisation” and the IFE presents itself as committed to “community cohesion” and “tolerance”. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:52:41 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5757.html Despite recent government reports that China's holdings of U.S. Treasury debt declined during the second half of last year, the Asian economic giant almost certainly owns far more Treasury securities than official statistics indicate. After peaking at $801.5 billion, China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities declined to $755.4 billion at the year's end, dropping the communist power into the position of second-largest holder of Treasury debt after Japan's $768.8 billion, official government data reveal. But these numbers don't tell the whole story. "The U.S. Treasury data almost certainly understate Chinese holdings of our government debt because [the U.S. figures] do not reveal the ultimate country of ownership when [debt] instruments are held through an intermediary in another jurisdiction," Simon Johnson, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan forum established by Congress in 2000 to monitor the security implications of the U.S. economic relationship with China. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:44:26 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5756.html Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday. The move is a further sign of strains between Iran and Russia, which has indicated it could back new sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear work. For its part, Iran has voiced frustration over Moscow's failure to deliver a defense missile system. Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said the idea to order the Russian pilots to leave the country gained momentum after a Russian-made aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran in January, injuring more than 40 people. The plane belonged to Iran's Taban airline but the pilot was Russian, Fars said. It did not say how many Russians currently worked as pilots for Iranian airlines. "Upon an order from the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Road and Transport Ministry has set a two-month deadline, upon the expiry of which all Russian pilots will have to leave the country," Behbahani said. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:04:44 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5755.html President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City. The president's advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States. If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:08:38 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5754.html WASHINGTON — The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday narrowly approved an Armenian genocide resolution over last-minute objections by the Obama administration. After an extended debate that awoke many old ghosts, the committee approved the resolution by 23-22. The measure would put the House of Representatives on record as applying the word "genocide" to a man-made catastrophe in which, by some estimates, 1.5 million Armenians died from 1915 to 1923 during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. "I don't pretend to be a professional historian," said committee Chairman Rep. Howard Berman , D- Calif. , "but the vast majority of experts agree that the tragic massacre of Armenians constitutes a genocide." The nine-page resolution says that "the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future." Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:33:19 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5753.html Everyone should be aware of the recent (5-10 yrs mostly, some before that) serious cyber-threats to U.S. Security. This week FBI Director Mueller spoke at the RSA Conference in SFO. His thoughts were interesting, since much of what he could have said had to remain unsaid. One glimpse regarded online banking intrusions of a massive nature. What he was able to speak publicly about was interesting from an intelligence gathering stance. Anyway, here is the general thoughts, the link follows. FBI Director Robert Mueller on RSA Cyber Security Conference, March 4, 2010, SFO USA. The entire text is at link below, and is worth the read. Quote:: ...There has been much discussion of late about which nation-states pose the greatest danger of cyber attack. And to a certain extent, that discussion is irrelevant. It may not matter who the attacker is, or whether the motivation is political, ideological, or financial. The information may be bought and sold by anyone, anywhere in the world, whether friend or foe. The end result will be the same: we will lose our data. We may lose access to our own information. And we may well lose our security. ...... We have seen not only a loss of data, but also corruption of that data. We are concerned with the integrity of your source code. If hackers made subtle, undetected changes to your code, they would have a permanent window into everything you do. The same is true for those with access to hardware and software in the global supply chain.......... Some in the industry have likened this to “death by a thousand cuts.” We are bleeding data, intellectual property, information, and source code, bit by bit, and in some cases, terabyte by terabyte. The solution does not rest solely with better ways to detect and block intrusion attempts. We are playing the cyber equivalent of cat and mouse, and, unfortunately, the mouse seems to be one step ahead. We must work to find those responsible. And we must make the cost of doing business more than they are willing to bear.... I'm positive that Director Mueller's idea of 'making the cost more than they can bear', is much more gentlemanly than my ideas are. The speech is at this link: www.fbi.gov/pressrel/s...030410.htm Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:32:25 GMT http://www.americanintelligence.us/News/article/sid=5752.html February 23 marks the anniversary of the beginning of the battle of the Alamo back in 1836. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna's seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans. It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally known frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 23 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. There was something different about them, however. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort. Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom has little to do with financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Patriotism and Morality are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die. Early in the siege, Travis wrote these words to the people of Texas: "Fellow Citizens & Compatriots: I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. . . . The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword . . . I have answered the demand with a cannon shot & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. . . . VICTORY OR DEATH! P.S. The Lord is on our side. . . ." Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:57:18 GMT