
The 'jihadist', al Qaeda and the Rushlicans, enemies of the State!!

Today in History: October 6, 1976
An airliner, Cubana Airlines Flight 455, exploded in midair, killing 73 mostly young passengers including the entire Cuban youth fencing team. The plot was engineered by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban former CIA agent, who was based in Venezuela at the time.
The Posada Carriles file from the National Security ArchiveUpdate - May 18, 2005 - Documents featured on May 17, 2005 edition of ABC's Nightline
Washington D.C. May 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner. The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI's attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.
Both documents were featured last night on ABC Nightline's program on Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained in Miami yesterday by Homeland Security.
In addition, the Archive posted the first report to Secretary of State Kissinger from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on the bombing of Cubana flight 455. The report noted that a CIA source had overheard Posada prior to the bombing in late September 1976 stating that, "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner." This information was apparently not passed to the CIA until after the plane went down.
There is no indication in the declassified files that indicates that the CIA alerted Cuban government authorities to the terrorist threat against Cubana planes. Still classified CIA records indicate that the informant might actually have been Posada himself who at that time was in periodic contact with both CIA and FBI agents in Venezuela.
SNIP Files can be found at above link
At noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we're releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis"
On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive (NS Archive) suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.
A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report on bin Ladin { this is a big pdf download }, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imag[ed] aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks" [see pp. 18-22 {pdf}]. A State Department cable {pdf} argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.
Following the August 20 U.S. air attacks, Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed told U.S. Department of State officials {pdf} "If Kandahar could have retaliated with similar strikes against Washington, it would have." Such an attack, although unfeasible at the time, was at least in part actualized by al-Qaeda on 9/11.
Following the 1998 embassy bombings, the U.S. sought to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia or possibly Egypt, but failed to get bin Laden out of Afghanistan because, at least according to the U.S. Department of State {pdf}, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were unable or unwilling to apply enough pressure to coerce Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Omar to surrender bin Laden.
The lengthy Sandia report compiled by Dr. Gary W. Richter {pdf} synthesizes an impressive volume of public-source information available on bin Laden into a coherent summary of the al-Qaeda terrorist threat following the August embassy bombings. The report concludes that the bombings did not take U.S. intelligence and diplomatic services by surprise, as the U.S. in 1998 had capable counterterrorism intelligence gathering and interdiction capabilities. However, according to the report, in retrospect, the August 20 retaliatory cruise missile strikes may have caused long-term political harm to U.S. national security and counterterrorism interests [see pp. 18-22 {pdf}]. The report contains extensive timelines, biographies and issue summaries and is useful for researchers interesting in the evolution of al-Qaeda and the American response.
* The "war" against terrorism will never be "won," as terrorism will always be a global problem.
* The August 7, 1998, embassy bombings should not be taken as an indication that U.S. counterterrorism efforts are entirely ineffective.
* The August 20, 1998, retaliatory cruise missile strikes did little to help solve the problem posed by bin Laden and may ultimately prove to have done more harm than good.
* The risk of future attacks by Osama bin Laden or his associates using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is not insignificant.
* The root cause of the militant threat is the widespread and deep-seated discontent among a large segment of the Islamic world, as opposed to the actions or agitation of any one individual or group of individuals. As such, diplomatic options are likely to be the most effective strategies at reducing the threat.
And:
* The U.S. was not "blindsided" by a new threat, as much was already known about al-Qaeda, including its anti-American aspirations and the existence of an East African al-Qaeda cell. [page 18]
* Members of this East African cell had been identified before August 7, and were under "intense scrutiny." It is likely "that this campaign of disruption had done much to dissipate the threat." [page 18]
* In response to the ongoing surveillance, threat evaluation and disruption operations, the members of this cell "felt themselves to be at "100% danger." [page 18]
* "In retrospect there were also specific indications of a bomb plot," however "it seems as if threat assessment personnel in Washington did not take the warning signs as seriously as did the embassy personnel in Nairobi." [page 19]
* The number of bombings prevented far exceeds the number of bombings that were not stopped by U.S. security efforts. [page 18]
And:
* High cost
* International criticism
* Questionable justice in that the strikes "killed only (or nearly only) individuals who were innocent of the embassy bombings"
* Reputational damage from disregarding alliances
* Questionable effectiveness in destroying or disrupting al-Qaeda or perspective terrorists
* Possible diminished impact for any future U.S. strikes by "demonstrating how little [the U.S] could achieve (e.g., limited physical damage)," by depleting ammunition, providing adversaries with an opportunity to observe and reformulate strategies based on observed vulnerabilities, and convincing bin Laden that the U.S. is unwilling to use higher-cost forms of force that would put U.S. personnel at risk
* "The attack provoked a new round of terrorist bombing plots."
* Bin Laden received a good deal of publicity and "appeared to many as an underdog standing firm in the face of bullying aggression."
* The Taliban's poor control over Afghanistan "may mean that they shouldn't bear responsibility for the acts of those on their soil."
* The U.S. may have given away the moral high ground by mirroring certain aspects of bin Laden's strategy with the attacks, and the U.S. bombed targets in independent third-world countries without concern for the sensitivities or sovereignty of those nations.
And:
* Justified under domestic law
* Calling attention to the bin Laden-Taliban connection, which complicated the Taliban's ability to gain international recognition as well as their future ability to justify support for Muslim fundamentalist groups
* Demonstrated U.S. resolve, dedication to dealing with terrorism as a matter of national security, and the reach of U.S. military power
* Provides incentives for nations to cooperate in U.S. counterterrorism activities, if for no other reason but to avoid unilateral action
* May deter terrorists and nations from harboring terrorists