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Dec. 2, 2008
Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
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Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?
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Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?
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Andrea Simantov:
Shades of life
Nov. 25, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence
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by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!
Nov. 24, 2008
Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'
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Nov. 21, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?
Caroline B. Glick:
Civilization walks the plank
Nov. 20, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto
Nov, 19, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality
Elliot B. Gertel:
'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?
Nov, 18, 2008
Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason
Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?
Nov, 17, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason
Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?
Nov, 14, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia
Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead
Nov, 13, 2008
Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic
The Kosher Gourmet
by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla
Nov, 12, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers
Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks
Nov, 11, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?
Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate
Nov, 10, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?
Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist
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Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality
Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy
Nov, 6, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism
The Kosher Gourmet
By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes
Nov, 5, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors
Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie
Nov, 4, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law
Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East
Nov, 3, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?
Jonathan Tobin:
Was He Wrong About Everything?
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
Oct. 3, 2005
/ 29 Elul, 5765
Defense speaks out on Able Danger
By
Jonathan Gurwitz
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Defense Department now acknowledges, counter to prior denials, the existence of the Able Danger program.
Begun in 1999 and run from the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, its purpose was to identify potential terrorist threats to the United States by mining data from public sources of information. It ceased operation in January 2001.
Five members of the Able Danger team have come forward in recent months to claim they identified 9-11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other participants in the al-Qaida plot during the summer of 2000.
Assuming their recollections are accurate, there's reason to treat the Atta correlation with skepticism. The Mohamed Atta who allegedly showed up on an Able Danger chart of 60 potential terrorists may not have been the 9-11 death pilot. Similarities and irregular transliterations of Arabic names in English have caused confusion in the past.
Federal authorities detained Dr. Al-Badr M.H. Al-Hazmi, a Saudi radiologist who lived in San Antonio, as a material witness shortly after the 9-11 attacks. The FBI eventually released him without charge. One of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 was Nawaf al-Hazmi. Another Saudi national named Sultan Salem Al-Hazmi received pilot training at Alpha Tango Flying Services in San Antonio.
In the case of Atta, the confusion may derive from similarities between his full Arabic name and that of an Egyptian arms smuggler whose brother allegedly had financial ties to Osama bin Laden and Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik who inspired the first plot against the World Trade Center in 1993.
If the mistaken identities are confusing, they also contain unusual parallels.
Abdul Hakim Murad, another terrorist with a critical link to the blind sheik, is serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up a dozen passenger planes over the Pacific and pilot a suicide attack on CIA headquarters. By coincidence, he also received pilot training at San Antonio's Alpha Tango Flying Services.
Members of the Able Danger team have publicly stated there is no confusion. According to them, they fingered Atta and three members of his team a full year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Moreover, Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, a leader of the Able Danger effort, claims he told the 9-11 commission about the Atta identification. The heralded commission report flatly states U.S. intelligence failed to identify members of the U.S.-based al-Qaida cell. It doesn't mention Able Danger, not even to dispel its findings in a footnote.
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the commission's chairman and vice chairman, issued a statement saying the Able Danger allegations lacked sufficient credibility and documentary evidence to be included.
About that documentary evidence well, it might have vanished.
At a Sept. 1 media briefing, a Defense Department spokesman acknowledged that at least some Able Danger documentation had been destroyed. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who has led the effort to shed light on Able Danger, says an Army officer will testify he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data related to the effort.
Well, he might testify.
The Senate Judiciary Committee tried to begin a public hearing on Sept. 21 to get to the bottom of the Able Danger mystery. But the Pentagon issued a gag order on five key witnesses, including Philpott, preventing them from testifying.
They'll have a second chance to testify on Wednesday, when the committee reconvenes. The Defense Department must let them speak, and not only to put a damper on the wild conspiracy theories circulating around Able Danger. The American people need to know if the findings of the 9-11 Commission Report are as thorough and accurate as they would like to believe.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
Jonathan Gurwitz Archives
© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz
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