Tag: us

CIA disbands bin Laden hunt team

The CIA has decided to disband the Osama Bin Laden Unit, that was set up back in 1996 to hunt the Saudi-born militant. The unit’s agents will be distributed to different departments working on militant Islamist groups. One US intelligence official quoted in this report said:

“Al-Qaeda is no longer the hierarchical organisation that it was before 9/11. Three-quarters of its senior leaders have been killed or captured,” the official said.
“What you have had since 9/11 is growth in the Islamic jihadist movement around the world among groups and individuals who may be associated with al-Qaeda, and may have financial and operation links with al-Qaeda, but have no command and control relationship with it,” he added.

With the start of the “war on terror” Bush officials and self-described counterterrorism experts tried to picture Al-Qa3da as an professional army, with bin Laden as its commander in chief. The discourse of the US intelligence community was to change later, to allow room for recognizing that the Al-Qa3da was more of a network, or more accurately an “idea,” than it being an organization. Dissolving bin Laden’s office marks the official end of this stupid view.
A good book I recommend on Al-Qa3da is Jason Burke’s “Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror.”
Here’s also another article on the decentralization of Al-Qa3da: Crusaders and Allah’s Soldiers

For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”

Arabist reader and dear friend SP sent me this report on Western Union…

Western Union profiles Muslim names
AP Jul. 2, 2006
Money transfer agencies like Western Union have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed, company officials said.
In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending US$120 to a friend at home this month because the recipient’s name was Mohammed. Continue reading For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”

The Bush doctrine and Egypt

Amr Hamzawy, a prolific Egyptian analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, and someone else I don’t know called Michael McFaul (a professor at Stanford) have penned an editorial wondering what happened to the Bush doctrine and Egypt. Cutting down to the bottom line:

The major challenge facing the United States in this region is how to help democratize Arab polities and in so doing giving peace, stability, and moderation a chance in the struggle against dictatorship and violence. So it is downright mysterious why American aid to Egypt should continue to flow with no political strings attached.
America could make the linkage very explicit, by putting forward clear benchmarks and timelines on political reform. At a minimum, if Bush were serious about his liberty doctrine, U.S. aid could be restructured to give less to the Egyptian military and more to domestic civil society and to American nongovernmental organizations involved in democracy promotion. Yet, ironically, these organizations are now under siege in Egypt.
Bush’s retreat on democracy promotion has implications well beyond Cairo. Autocrats throughout the Middle East are watching. To date, the lesson is obvious: Do a few minor reforms to appease the Americans when they are paying most attention during elections, then roll these reforms back after the vote.
In retrospect, it may have been a better strategy for Bush to not have delivered his second inaugural speech about liberty, but instead quietly pushed for incremental reforms. At this stage, however, the words have already been spoken. Bush must now back them up with real policies that show his commitment to freedom. If he fails in Egypt, he fails throughout the Middle East.

Too bad Hamzawy wasn’t making the expert testimonies (almost all against cutting or changing aid) at the recent congressional hearing on the matter. His conclusions are definitely spot on. Whether you care about democracy in the Arab world or not, as an American foreign policy maker you can’t afford to just abandon a “doctrine” like that. It’ll discredit you in the region and elsewhere. I mean, the Monroe Doctrine (originally America’s refusal to let Europeans colonize Latin America, later the perpetuation of America’s dominance over Latin America that Chavez is now prying apart) lasted about 180 years before it started falling apart under Bush’s guard. His own doctrine — at least the part about democratizing the Middle East, since the part about unilateralism seems to have already died — never even got off the ground.

Gitmo military trials rejected by Supreme Court

The US supreme court directed a blow to Bush’s “war on terror,� ruling today against the administration’s plans to prosecute Gitmo detainees in military courts. Already, the US president is in terrible unease about the island’s gulag, which has been denounced by virtually all rights groups across the globe as well as well as America’s own allies. He expressed in Vienna this month his desire to close it down during a summit with EU states. Continue reading Gitmo military trials rejected by Supreme Court

Court forces US to grant visa to Ramadan

A judge has forced the US to grant Tariq Ramadan — who was barred from entering the US last year — a visa after the ACLU and others brought a lawsuit. Whether you like Ramadan and his crypto-Islamist beliefs or not, this is a good thing on principle, for as the judge in the case explained:

while the Executive may exclude an alien for almost any reason, it cannot do so solely because the Executive disagrees with the content of the alien’s speech and therefore wants to prevent the alien from sharing this speech with a willing American audience.

Via Moorishgirl.

High school student fails exam for criticizing Bush

Remember when George Bush highlighted reforming education in the region, as a way of fighting “terror,� giving young Arabs a chance for a bright future and bla bla bla bla bla? Well, it seems to be working.
A high school student in a Nile Delta province failed her Arabic language exam two weeks ago for criticizing the US in a composition piece! Yes, I’m not joking wallahi.
Al-Wafd initially ran the story on Thursday, then the Qatari Al-Raya, and other media outlets picked it up. Alaa Farag Megahed, a student at the Sherbeen Modern Girls School, was taking her Arabic exam, when she was asked to write an essay on the “economic problems facing Egypt.�
It seems the girl wrote an essay, critical of Bush, and discussed the support given to corrupt dictators without much concern for their people’s needs.
As soon as her teacher at the “Control Room� (where exam papers are graded) read her essay, he went directly to his boss, who took her paper to the ministry of education branch in Dakahliya. The undersecretary for education, together with other ministry officials, sent for the girl, from her home, and brought her to the ministry for interrogation.
Her father was not allowed into the room, according to press reports, where Alaa was interrogated by three ministry and governorate officials, who accused her of belonging to a “secret organization.� Alaa could not understand half of the questions they asked. She was clueless, in tears. The ministry officials decided in the end to fail her in the exam, and ban her from taking the second term final exams!!!
The world is sure a safer place now, without terrorists like Alaa in our schools… Alhamdolillah!

Al-Jazeera targeted?

The Committee to Protect Journalists has issued a statement today expressing its concern over the new information–regarding the November 2001 bombing of Al-Jazeera office in Kabul– that accuses the US army of deliberately targeting the Arab satellite channel office. The information has come out in Ron Suskind’s new book, The One Percent Doctrine.

“On November 13, a hectic day when Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance and there were celebrations in the streets of the city, a U.S. missile obliterated Al-Jazeera’s office,� Suskind wrote in the book, which was released yesterday. “Inside the CIA and White House there was satisfaction that a message had been sent to Al-Jazeera.� Continue reading Al-Jazeera targeted?