Israel's Lebanese Spy

Many intelligence agents are said to operate in the civil chaos of Lebanon, but Mr. Jarrah’s arrest has shed a rare light onto a world of spying and subversion that usually persists in secret...
One of Mr. Jarrah’s cousins, Ziad al-Jarrah, was among the 19 hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001

Wherever one looks, Israel spying apparatus's imprints are on September eleven. Don't call me conspiratorial !

Adam Pearlman Gadahn, ex mossad agent and a Jew who converted to Islam, is behind the latest Bin Laden video

Adam Pearlman, the Jewish Mossad agent who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists", has been singled out as the creator of the suspicious "new" Osama Bin Laden video.

From the Telegraph

"American spy chiefs were quick to name Adam Gadahn, the head of al-Qaeda's English language media operations, as the author of large sections of bin Laden's broadcast.

Last October, the 28-year-old "loner" became the first American charged with treason since 1952, for appearing in a succession of al-Qaeda videos under the guise of "Azzam The American"

On this blog: The convert phenomenon

Thanks Dr. Nasir Khan

September 11th, Bush, Petraeus, and The Spin From Iraq

"The general's campaign in the Senate will continue Tuesday, on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He will appear in the morning before the foreign affairs committee, in the afternoon before the military committee, and finally Wednesday before the press. The talk in the White House is of "closing arguments."

The date for Tuesday's appearance was selected completely consciously. Bush's strategists probably know that each senator will refer to 9/11 today and thereby help to link the 2001 attacks and Iraq together in people's minds -- despite the lack of any proven connection."

Spiegel interview with US military historian Gabriel Kolko: "The US will loose war regardless what it does"

SPIEGEL: How would you describe the situation of the Bush White House today? What options does it have?

KOLKO: The Bush Administration suffers from a fatal dilemma. Its Iraq adventure is getting steadily worse, the American people very likely will vote the Republicans out of office because of it, and the war is extremely expensive at a time that the economy is beginning to present it with a major problem. The president's poll ratings are now the worst since 2001. Only 33 percent of the American public approve of his leadership and 58 percent want to decrease the number of American troops immediately or quickly. Fifty-five percent want legislation to set a withdrawal deadline. In Afghanistan, as well, the war against the Taliban is going badly, and the Bush Administration's dismal effort to use massive American military power to remake the world in a vague, inconsistent way is failing. The US has managed to increasingly alienate its former friends, who now fear its confusion and unpredictability. Above all, the American public is less ready than ever to tolerate Bush's idiosyncrasies.

SPIEGEL: What went wrong? Was the war doomed from the very beginning? How can the US military and the US government which is spending $3 billion per week in Iraq be losing the war?

KOLKO: ... Political conflicts are not solved by military interventions, and that they are often incapable of being resolved by political or peaceful means does not alter the fact that force is dysfunctional. This is truer today than ever with the spread of weapons technology. Washington refuses to heed this lesson of modern history.

Also, Juan Cole's lenghty analysis on how the present situation in Iraq will affect US politics for a long time to come and block any reasonable alternative to stagnation in a state of war or escalation.