Dec 09 2005
The Right Rocks, The Duh! Files
From Editor & Publisher
NEW YORK In an argument sure to be challenged in certain sectors of the blogosphere, a story in The New York Times magazine coming up this Sunday declares that conservative blogs continue to best liberal blogs in political and electoral influence.
The title of the piece by Michael Crowley in the magazine’s 5th Annual Year in Ideas cover package says it all: “Conservative Blogs Are More Effective.â€
Well, duh!
UPDATE:
Tom Maguire has a great take on this, check it out.
AJ–
I have a suggestion that might be interesting for your site if you have the time. Why not have a discussion on the Oil-for-Food like you do for Able Danger and Plame? Of course, maybe you can only do so much.
Here is the Volker Report
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/final_off_report.pdf
Volker makes it pretty clear that people who would supported the Iraqi foreign policy and opposed the sanctions got special deals on business contracts. I am just starting to look at it.
It says that Iraq’s largest source of illicit income came from kickbacks paid by companies that Iraq selected to receive contracts for humanitarian goods. That means that some people got rich while the Iraqi people were ripped-off on their food, medicine and baby formula.
Now here is the thing that seems really shady to me. The UN let the Iraqi government pick who was going to get these contracts for humanitarian goods.
Even I can see that Iraq is going to cheat on that, and I can’t balance my checkbook.
Then the UN picked a FRENCH bank called BNP. This bank kept all these crooked financial arrangements confidential and of course made a lot of money.
AJ–Did I read somewhere that Curt Weldon knew about ABle Danger a couple of years before 9-11?
I think I recently read this, but I can’t find the article.
If he did know about Able Danger a couple of years before 9-11, why didn’t he make sure the information got to the 9-11 Commission?
AJ–One more question.
Brian Whitmore, who writes for the Boston Globe, wrote that Atta had businesses in the Czech Republic that he visited. Then I never heard any more about it. Was more information ever published about whether Atta had these companies in the Czech Republic and what these companies were up to.
The former United Nations weapons inspector Charles Duelfer called Prague and Czechoslovakia “one of the centers of the universe for Iraqi intelligence.” http://www.gvnews.net/demo/html/WorldReacts/alert289.html
I am not sure, but I think I first read this article in the Prague Post.
Later it was published in “Transitions,” which monitors media in the former communist countries. That is a premium site
The site this story is posted now on is not the original source of the story.
“Czech police, meanwhile, said they were investigating whether Atta, using an alias, had business ties in the Czech Republic and stealthily visited the country on several occasions. One of the aliases the FBI has listed for Atta–Mohamed Atta El Sayed–resembles two names listed in Czech records with ties to businesses in Prague, the Associated Press reported.
The Czech trade register has a Mohamed Sayed Ahmed listed as owner of a Prague-based firm called the Electric Construction Company. The register also lists a Sayed Mohammad Saeed Shah as having a stake in a trading company called ANS Holding, which has owners in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Pakistan, and Germany. “We are investigating this, but we cannot confirm or deny anything right now,” Gross said.
Brian Whitmore is a Prague-based correspondent for The Boston Globe
There is a former FBI guy on FOX named Gary Aldrich who is talking about uncovering the facts about Able Danger.
He is the president of the “Patrick Henry Center.” http://www.patrickhenrycenter.org/
He isn’t saying anything too new, but it is on TV.
I think he did say that “clearly” Able Danger did have some record on Atta. But Able Danger reportedly had a huge number of people in its data, and practically everybody who was important. Would Atta stick out?
I see that this guy has written a book and is on the radio. http://www.patrickhenrycenter.org/
This guy has a big site. He even has a link to a site about corruption in US Customs
http://www.customscorruption.com/
This link says to contact them in a special way so you can’t be monitored. That struck me as a little paranoid, but who knows.
Snapple,
Regarding OFF I have debated starting posts on hit, but you are right. Not enough hours in the day.
On Able Danger and Weldon – the earliest he could have known about Able Danger was fall 1999 when it started. Prior to that he was aware of data mining technology because of his trip to Serbia and how LIWA had supported his preparations. See here.
The Atta business connections I think are fuzzy. I do not think he owned any businesses. I think he came to Prague under the guise of business meetings. Much of that looks like trying to sort out aliases from like-named individuals.