In God We Trust

People and Places

NY Times Profiles (Portraits of Grief)

The White House says that the military tribunal (Background) will provide a legal framework for trying Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida associates. This is wartime, the President reminds us. The usual rules do not apply. What does the President's order mean for the 1,100 people detained or arrested since September 11th? The standards of guilt are different in a military tribunal than they are in a civilian court or even at a traditional military trial.

Vice President Dick Cheney said that terrorists "don't deserve the same guarantees and safeguards" of the American judicial system. Attorney General John Ashcroft also voiced his support for the decision, saying there was no reason a terrorist captured in another nation such as Afghanistan has to be brought back to the United States for trial.

Decisions about where a proceeding would be held and whether it would be secret would be made on a "case-by-case basis," depending on a range of factors, including intelligence information and the nature of the threat that the accused posed, a senior administration official said.

HIGHEST ALERTS

Osama bin Laden may already has nuclear suitcase bomb capabilities. He may strike with for example, a truck bomb like the one used in Oklahoma City. The radioactive material would spread over a large area. The al Qaida may attempt to use radioactive bombs that have an explosive core that is encased in radioactive material. The CIA had intelligence reports from senior Arab intelligence officials alleging that in October 1998 bin Laden had obtained one or two nuclear suitcase weapons. Stories of al Qaida meetings in numerous countries include spy material about plans to destroy American structures, natural gas supplies, nuclear reactor sites, bridges, and to terrorize Americans at every opportunity by systematic and random events of terrorist strikes here and abroad.

The US continues to investigate nuclear and other possible forms for terrorism that are emerging from recent discoveries of large networks of terrorist organizations, many directly tied to the extremist jihad movements (see Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam and the bin Laden profile).

RECESSION

The US labor market suffered one of its worst months on record in October and again in November, according to official figures, deepening the country's economic crisis and increasing the probability of a global recession. The Financial Times explain that based on the US economy, the locomotive of the world economy has gone off the rails.

The latest figures show that the US economy is to a recession that probably began in February or March of 2001. Congress is working to pass an economic recovery package by the end of this month... with no substantial progress it seems. Substantial recovery is expected to delay well into 2002.

The latest economic slip is still tied to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. For now, only brief rallies occur as progress on the Afghan battle lines is perceived as positive.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's relations with the American administration were at an "all-time low," over the past weeks as President Bush put the move for statehood into a perspective of that it may follow clean-up of terrorist activity. Meantime, Israeli forces are moving swiftly in Palestinian in actions to deal directly with perpetrators, after Palestinian radicals assassinated Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in October. Terrorist claimed his life in retaliation for Israel's killing of their leader in August. The retaliations were to eliminate terrorist threats after Palestine would not retain nor deliver the terrorists. Several were identified by eyewitness accounts at the brutal murders and bombings that proceeded Israeli action.

Israeli Minister Ariel Sharon postponed a trip to the United States that would have led to a confrontation with President George W. Bush. He and Bush are not in agreement on the problems and possible solutions for the conflicts of Israel with Palestine. Bush openly is concerned that Israel's military advances could undermine Arab and Muslim backing of Washington's campaign against militant Osama bin Laden. Bush and Sharon had been forging agreements for a possible Palestinian state. This of course is not possible while the terrorist activity and occupation continue.

Colin Powell announced a "fresh" policy on the Middle East that is underlines US commitment to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Palestinians, Secretary Powell said, must eliminate doubt and come to accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. They must set a clear objective that Palestinian can be a state alongside Israel, not in place of Israel.

Secretary Powell, in recent statements, has indicated that the administration has absorbed the lesson that without American involvement, violence prevails.

The next morning in the Middle East, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces, tanks and bulldozers rumbled into a Palestinian-ruled area of the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza under cover of darkness and demolished 18 houses. Three Palestinians were wounded. The moves came hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a peace mission to end nearly 14 months of the latest violence.

Presently, the situation appears to be slowing British and US progress to globalize the war on terrorism. America sent envoys to the Middle East and began other measures in secret to begin a war on terrorism in perhaps Iraq... or maybe Somalia or North Korea... Yemen may work... we'll see... its a secret for now.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister has been the go-to-guy for our two most recent presidents -- a staunch, articulate and persuasive ally in times of international crisis.

Three years ago the Clinton administration's response for Iraq rejecting weapons inspectors on the ground there was to call for bombing. The inspections, to which Saddam Hussein agreed, were aimed at proving whether Iraq was manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. So, bombing raids didn't even make sense as substitute for the inspectors. The only way bombs could solve the problem is if we knew both that the outlawed weapons were being amassed and precisely where. But in that case, we wouldn't need inspectors.

Moreover, it seemed that years of on-the-ground inspections had turned up little evidence to support our suspicions of what Saddam Hussein was up to. Clinton's administration thus began to fail at its initiative... BOMB THEM!

That's when Tony Blair told us at a press conference with Clinton, that Britain just had published a document detailing everything the inspectors had uncovered in a half-dozen years of work. The document listed what Saddam Hussein was known to have produced or imported that hadn't been found: 17 tons of "growth media" for biological spores, 4,000 tons of "precursors" (components) of chemical weapons and 600 tons of "potential precursors" for VX nerve gas.

He then explained why the British had released the document: "We had, first of all, to make sure that our own public opinion was properly educated as to why it is so essential that the U.N. inspectors are able to do their work."

American public opinion was, after that press conference, a little less against Clinton's outlook. Yet, Clinton did nothing with the information to assist in the US taking action to keep inspectors in IRAQ.

You will recall the early assurances that Osama bin Laden was the master hand behind the September 11 terrorist attacks and a demand that Afghanistan's Taliban turn him over. Eventually, the response from Kabul was that if we supplied proof of bin Laden's involvement, the Taliban would surrender him to a neutral country.

Bush said no deal. How much proof did he have? Didn't you wish we could have been shown a little of it? The proof was never offered. What we got instead were increasingly confident assertions, including from NATO Secretary-General George Robertson beginning on September 26:

"It becomes clearer and clearer that all of the roads being pursued lead toward Osama bin Laden and the al Qaida network. The United States has not yet made any definitive conclusion, but the bulk of the evidence that has been collected seems to be clearly pointing in that direction."

The bombing started 10 days later -- without any additional evidence.

As support began wavering, Tony Blair produced a video that Britain intelligence says was made on October 20 for distribution only among al Qaida members in which bin Laden claimed responsibility for 9/11.

"It is what we instigated, for a while, in self-defense," bin Laden says, "and it was revenge for our people killed in Palestine and Iraq. . . . Every time they kill us, we kill them so the balance of terror can be achieved."

The war cry in favor of the Taliban is still being raised among the tribes of Pakistan's borderlands. In November and October, more than 20,000 Pakistani, some armed with nothing more than single-shot hunting rifles and swords, crossed into Afghanistan over the high mountain passes near Bajour, north of Peshawar, to join the Taliban. Those with combat experience were rushed up to Mazar-i-Sharif. Pakistani officials at the Bajour checkpoint made no effort to stop the holy warriors.

Mullah Ghazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of Jamiat-Ulama-i-Islam, made demands for the Pakistani army to overthrow General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader. Musharraf has until now been a backer of the US and British in war against Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Muslims led by Islamic fundamentalists are seeing that Musharraf is supporting a cruel war against Muslims. The pressure is incredible... now, Musharraf is backing down on military support for the Allies in Pakistan.

Anti-US rage daily boils in radical in the Pakistan mainstream. Protesters often number into tens of thousands in a show of anti-American rage.

They say the the army will overthrow the government to turn the war against the US by whatever means necessary!

The US is pressuring the Pakistani government to control the border and to keep men from joining the Taliban. The Taliban is thought to be receiving supplies, weapons, and food from Pakistan as zealots cross over the border into Afghanistan to join the Taliban.

Here, Pakistani protesters are waving posters showing Osama bin Laden, chanting 'Kill Bush' and calling the United States the world's 'No. 1 terrorist'.

Afghani Refugees too many!

Waves of Afghans still are on the move and there is little comfort awaiting them any place. Tent cities house millions.

The pro-Taliban say it is atrocious to allow American troops on Pakistan soil much less allowing planes to fly into the airports. Many are starting to despise Musharraf. The view is that America is a godless land run by Jews.

This talk is not just from the fanatical jihad Islamic, but from business owners, medical personnel, and academics too.

Most Pakistan's newspapers are anti-US slant and openly anti-Jewish.