Terror Trends BulletinThe soon-to-be constructed Ground Zero mosque has generated a lot of controversy. There seems to be a general level of confusion as to what this is all about.
There shouldn’t be.
The Ground Zero mosque is about Islamic supremecism and conquest. It’s really quite that simple–and this is not a new phenomenon, as evidenced by these videos posted on YouTube by an individual going by the alias “mujahadeen911.”
By now, TTB readers already know that Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shahab operating out of Somalia is taking responsibility for the bomb attacks in Uganda which have so far claimed 74 lives. This TTB posting will include links to various updates and analyses of the attacks.
Newsweek has a pretty good, concise summary of the attack, with a video report embedded:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/12/jihad-moves-into-africa-s-breadbasket.html?
Dan Morrison has a particularly lousy analysis over on Slate, in which he essentially says that Uganda brought this on itself. He has fallen into the usual trap which says that the Jihadists act in response to actions of others. The fact of the matter is, Uganda had already been impacted by the Jihadist violence in Somalia as refugees spilled over their border before they sent troops to Mogadishu to attempt to bring some semblance of stability to the failed state. For that matter, Uganda had also been impacted by Jihadist activity in Sudan similarly…
http://www.slate.com/id/2260235/?
The Telegraph points out that the Uganda attacks initially targeted Ethiopians in Uganda. It also mentions that Somalia seems to be turning into a petrie dish of Jihadi activity with terrorists streaming in from Iraq and Afghanistan. (We might also add that there is at least one Jihadi from the exotic, far-off land known as Alabama as well.) That Somalia may turn into a staging area for Jihad was a concern as long ago as 2002-2003 when US amphibious forces and German naval units initially set up offshore but did not take action and eventually withdrew from the area…
Bloomberg mentions that Burundi may be the next nation on Al Shahab’s hit list, since that nation has 2500 peacekeepers in Somalia…
It should come as no surprise that an Al Qaeda affiliate targeted World Cup fans. There have been plots and rumors of plots to target the World Cup for a few months…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2537585/posts#worldcupihad2010
Speaking of soccer, back in Somalia, Al Shahab is a serious threat to Somalis who simply want to play soccer…
As long ago as 2004, Faisal Shahzad was being checked out by federal investigators.
Then along comes the Obama administration and he gets removed from the terror watch list…
The anti-American, leftist regime in Bolivia is growing closer to US adversaries Venezuela and Iran. Yesterday it was announced that Venezuela and Iran will bankroll new state run media outlets in the impoverished Latin American nation:
President Evo Morales says Bolivia will launch a state newspaper soon and also plans to create a television station with Venezuelan and Iranian backing.
The leftist president says he has asked the government’s communication department to inaugurate the newspaper on Jan. 22, with the objective of “reporting the truth.”
Morales also said Sunday that Bolivia plans a new state television station with financial backing from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinijad.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-bolivia-state-media,0,3125504.story
At what point does someone who was a complete screw-up become a recognized expert in the field in which he proved a failure?
This question might seem subjective, but we now have concrete numbers with which to answer this question. The answer is 28 years. How do we know?
Because former US national security adviser in the Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is now dispensing advice to Israel and America on how to deal with Iran.
When this man starts giving advice on Iran, RUN AWAY!
In this case, “Zbig” has offered his customary wrongheaded advice to Israel and the United States when it comes to dealing with Iran, as quoted by Iranian PressTV News:
“[The military option] is not a real option for the US and it is not a real option for Israel because Israel doesn’t have a capability to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities,” Brzezinski said in a weekend interview with Ha’aretz.
He added that such an attack would wield together ‘Iranian nationalism and Iranian fundamentalism.’
The former aide to US President Jimmy Carter also advised Israeli officials against pressuring the US for a military strike against Iran, because it may affect the relations between Washington and Tel Aviv.
“One [piece of] advice that I would give the Israeli government is not to engage in this campaign for an American attack on Iran, because I don’t think America is going to attack Iran, and if it did, and the consequences would be disastrous,” said Brzezinski.
These comments no doubt give great comfort to the genocidal maniacs who are running things in Tehran.
No one is saying that the US or Israel should overtly threaten Iran, much less launch an attack of some sort on its nuclear facilities, but the LAST thing we want to do is to remove the military option from the table. We are all better off if a rogue nation like Iran, which, by the way, has been killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan by arming our enemies, has a glimmer of doubt as to our capabilities and intentions.
The folks who ran foreign policy for Jimmy Carter, the worst president of my lifetime, never learned this lesson and their dismal performance is increasingly forgotten as the years march on. Most troubling is that Brzezinski was one of the closest foreign policy and national security advisors to Barack Obama during the election campaign. It’s never a good thing when your adversary’s state-run media is quoting your president’s top foreign policy advisors. Let’s hope that there are others who are giving Obama better advice, but I doubt it.
By now everyone knows that the US conducted a crossborder air assault from western Iraq into Syria on Sunday. Reports indicate that the leader of Al Qaeda in Syria was the target and he was in fact killed, which is good news indeed. Additionally, it has been reported today that two enemy were taken prisoner in this operation.
Hopefully this will produce a treasure trove of intelligence for future operations.
Even absent future intelligence, this shows the extent to which Syria was aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, which the US military has been saying for at least 3 years.
Given this cooperation and sheltering of Al Qaeda, combined with Syria’s direct sponsorship and aid for Hezbollah and HAMAS, two other major Jihadist terrorist organizations, it is plain that Syria is a serial terrorist sponsor, along the lines of Iran. The major difference between the two is that Iran is awash in petrodollars and Syria is not.
On Thursday, 1 May, the U.S. struck a blow against Al Qaeda by killing the terrorist network’s leader in the beleaguered nation of Somalia.
Now, Al Qaeda is retaliating, not with violence, but retaliating nonetheless in the war of ideas. And they are doing so with an able assist from elements within the Western media:
AFP Dutifully Reports for Al Qaeda
The article at the link is interesting and disturbing for 3 reasons:
1. The reporter was NOT on the scene of the so-called protest.
2. His main source for details on the protest has ties to Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups.
3. The reporter parroted Al Qaeda disinformation claiming the US used some type of chemical or biological agent in its strike killing the leader of Al Qaeda in Somalia.
It would be hard to imagine this kind of “journalism” in World War II. The equivalent at that time would have the reporter interviewing Nazi collaborators for information on an event that occurred in a city 250 miles away from an event.
This is not objective journalism. The objective journalist has a necessary level of skepticism and is naturally inquisitive. The author of this article is content to just report what Al Qaeda and its mouthpieces tell him.
This is the launch of the TerrorTrendsBulletin blog to accompany the e-letter that has been published for the past 2 years.
Terror Trends Bulletin 