Lis­ten: Side 1 | Side 2

Intro­duc­tion: Pun­ning on a 1950s sci­ence fic­tion movie title “This Island Earth” our pro­gram title refers direct­ly to Karl Haushofer and the Ger­man geopoliti­cians who advised Hitler, refer­ring to “the Earth Island.” The pro­gram sets forth var­i­ous aspects of the geopo­lit­i­cal strug­gle being waged by the Under­ground Reich and its Islam­o­fas­cist and sec­u­lar Arabo-fas­cist allies against the US. One might char­ac­ter­ize this as “Ger­ma­nia” ver­sus “Anglo-Sax­o­nia.”

Pro­gram High­lights Include: the pos­si­ble role of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the cov­er-up of the Okla­homa City bomb­ing; the recent guilty plea of the head of an Islam­ic char­i­ty linked to Al Qae­da; the fascist/SS her­itage of the gov­ern­ment of Bosnia-Her­zo­gov­ina; pos­si­ble EU fund­ing of Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ism; geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic impli­ca­tions of US anti-ter­ror­ism leg­is­la­tion for hedge funds; pro­posed US eco­nom­ic retal­i­a­tion against Ger­many for oppos­ing US pol­i­cy on Iraq; the indict­ment of a Pales­tin­ian close­ly linked to the GOP for alleged­ly sup­port­ing ter­ror­ism.

1. Return­ing to a sub­ject cov­ered in recent broad­casts, the pro­gram high­lights dis­clo­sures con­cern­ing Tim­o­thy McVeigh’s white suprema­cist asso­ci­a­tions. The broad­cast sets forth infor­ma­tion that the FBI was aware of these con­nec­tions. “FBI inves­ti­ga­tors in the Okla­homa City bomb­ing gath­ered evi­dence link­ing Tim­o­thy McVeigh to white suprema­cists who the gov­ern­ment had been told before the bomb­ing were threat­en­ing to attack gov­ern­ment build­ings, inves­tiga­tive mem­os show. Sev­er­al of the doc­u­ments were not pro­vid­ed to the bomber’s defense before he was con­vict­ed. And the FBI agent in charge of the inves­ti­ga­tion says he nev­er received one tele­type from his own head­quar­ters that raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty McVeigh was aid­ed by oth­er accom­plices.” (“FBI Linked McVeigh to Group After Bomb­ing” by John Solomon [AP]; 2/12/2003; p. 1.)

2. Pre­vi­ous analy­sis of the Okla­homa City bomb­ing high­lights the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed by ATF infor­mant Car­ol Howe, who passed a lie detec­tor test con­cern­ing her tes­ti­mo­ny. This pro­gram doc­u­ments the fact that Howe had been at Elo­him City after the bomb­ing and had uncov­ered fur­ther infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing that mem­bers of the white suprema­cist com­pound were involved with the attack. In the con­text of the geo-polit­i­cal strug­gle for con­trol of “the Earth Island,” Mr. Emory notes that the cov­er-up of the Andreas Strassmeir/McVeigh con­nec­tion may very well have occurred because of the fact that he US has the death penal­ty. Had Strass­meir been con­vict­ed of con­spir­ing with McVeigh, he would have been sen­tenced to death, exac­er­bat­ing ten­sions between Europe (which does not have the death penal­ty) and the US. This may well have been a con­sid­er­a­tion in the Under­ground Reich’s plan­ning of the bomb­ing. (Bear in mind that Strass­meir was the son of Hel­mut Kohl’s chief of staff and the archi­tect of Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion.) “Car­ol Howe, the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co and Firearms infor­mant who had pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion that Elo­him city mem­bers were dis­cussing an attack, was sent back to the com­pound in late April 1995. Howe talked with one mem­ber of the com­pound who dis­cussed ali­bis for April 19, 1995, and the com­po­nents of McVeigh’s bomb, inves­tiga­tive mem­os show. The same mem­ber had claimed, before McVeigh’s bomb­ing, that he had det­o­nat­ed a 500-pound fer­til­iz­er bomb, sim­i­lar to the one McVeigh lat­er used. That com­pound mem­ber also dis­cussed the name of a muni­tions deal­er that McVeigh’s phone records showed the bomber called more than two dozen times in the weeks before the attack. McVeigh had the dealer’s phone num­ber in his wal­let when he was cap­tured.” (Ibid.; p. 4.)

3. Next, the pro­gram returns to the sub­ject of Islamist forces in Bosnia—the Balka­ns being a key part of “the Earth Island.” Bosnia had been an ear­ly out­post of Islamism in Europe, and an Al Qae­da sup­port group—the Mus­lim char­i­ty Benev­o­lence Inter­na­tion­al—was very active in Bosnia. Revers­ing field on his ear­li­er dec­la­ra­tions, the head of that orga­ni­za­tion recent­ly “copped a plea” with regard to the ille­gal activ­i­ties of his orga­ni­za­tion. “Recent­ly unsealed court records note that the seized doc­u­ments indi­cate al Qae­da mil­i­tary lead­ers were at times paid salaries from Mus­lim char­i­ty pro­ceeds and bought weapons with mon­ey from char­i­ty lead­ers. Evi­dence seized last March from the Bosn­ian offices of Benev­o­lence Inter­na­tion­al Foun­da­tion, of Palos Hills, Ill., includes cor­re­spon­dence to and from Mr. Bin Laden and doc­u­ments detail­ing the ori­gins, growth and expan­sion of his al Qae­da net­work dur­ing the 1980s and 1990s, the court fil­ing said.” (“U.S. Says Doc­u­ments Show Char­i­ties Aid­ed Bin Laden, al Qae­da” [Asso­ci­at­ed Press]; The Wall Street Jour­nal; 2/20/2003; p. B8.)

4. “Though the orig­i­nal doc­u­ments remain secret, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors described their con­tents and Eng­lish trans­la­tions for the first time in the fil­ing unsealed this month in a case against BIF’s head, Enaam Arnaout. Mr. Arnaout plead­ed guilty last week to ille­gal­ly buy­ing boots and uni­forms for fight­ing forces in Bosnia and Chech­nya under a deal in which pros­e­cu­tors, in exchange for his coop­er­a­tion, dropped charges that he aid­ed Mr. bin Laden.” (Idem.)

5. Sup­ple­ment­ing pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion of the fas­cist her­itage of the gov­ern­ment of Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic (the first pres­i­dent of Bosnia-Herze­gov­ina), the broad­cast sets forth the back­ground of the first Deputy Defense Min­is­ter of Bosnia-Her­zo­gov­ina. Izetbe­gov­ic was a vet­er­an of the 13th Waf­fen SS Division—the Handzar Divi­sion. The excerpt alleges that Hasan Ceng­ic was also a mem­ber of the 13th Waf­fen SS Divi­sion. That may have been his father, as there are indi­ca­tions that the Izetbe­gov­ic selectee may have been too young at the time. “Indica­tive of Sarajevo’s inten­tions and pri­or­i­ties is the appoint­ment in Jan­u­ary 1996 of Hasan Ceng­ic to the posi­tion of Deputy Defense Min­is­ter: the man in charge of the imple­men­ta­tion of the reor­ga­ni­za­tion. A vet­er­an of the SS Handzar Divi­sion dur­ing World War II, Ceng­ic is a close per­son­al friend and con­fi­dant of Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic, espe­cial­ly since the time they served togeth­er in Yugoslav Pres­i­dent Tito’s prison. . .” (Some Call It Peace: Wait­ing for War in the Balka­ns; Yossef Bodan­sky; Copy­right 1996 [SC] by Yossef Bodan­sky; Pub­lished by Inter­na­tion­al Media Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd.; ISBN 0–9520070‑5–3; p. 39; Although this book has a dis­tinct ide­o­log­i­cal bias—Clinton bashing—its intel­li­gence data on Bosn­ian mil­i­tary for­ma­tions is very cred­i­ble.)

6. “Ceng­ic has repeat­ed­ly argued that the only key to the sal­va­tion of the Izetbe­gov­ic admin­is­tra­tion is by adopt­ing an unam­bigu­ous Islam­ic iden­ti­ty and wag­ing an Islamist strug­gle. Con­sid­er­ing Cengic’s strong and known posi­tions, his nom­i­na­tion to such a key post—Deputy Min­is­ter of Defense—means that his posi­tion has been adopt­ed by offi­cial Sara­je­vo.” (Idem.)

7. The pro­gram also reviews the recre­ation of the Handzar Divi­sion under Izetbe­gov­ic and Ceng­ic. Note that the divi­sion was trained and led by Afghan and Pak­istani vet­er­ans. The milieux of Al Qae­da and “Handzar II” over­lap. “Anoth­er major Islamist force remained: the Handzar Divi­sion, named after the 13th SS Handzar Divi­sion which served under the Ger­man flag in World War II. The cur­rent Handzar Divi­sion is Sarajevo’s Prae­to­ri­an Guards, and is com­prised of a 2,500 to 3,000 elite force deployed in Sara­je­vo and a 6,000 to 7,500 strong back-up force at a major train­ing base around Fojni­ca, but is moved around to aug­ment major fight­ing fronts. The major­i­ty of the troops of the Handzar Divi­sion come from the region’s non-Bosn­ian Mus­lim minori­ties, pri­mar­i­ly Alba­ni­ans, and are led by vet­er­an Pak­istani and Afghan experts.” (Ibid.; p. 15.)

8. Relat­ing more about “Handzar II,” the pro­gram notes that the foot sol­diers of the unit were large­ly of Alban­ian extrac­tion and that they were engaged in force pro­jec­tion into Koso­vo and Mace­do­nia. Anoth­er area of Islamist activism was Koso­vo, with the KLA being the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of Islamist activ­i­ty. Many of the com­bat­ants in the KLA were the sons and grand­sons of mem­bers of the 21st Waf­fen SS or Skan­der­beg divi­sion. “In mid-1993 Sara­je­vo revived the Handzar Divi­sion is the Prae­to­ri­an Guard for Pres­i­dent Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic and oth­er senior lead­ers in Sara­je­vo. The Handzar Divi­sion is com­prised of a 2,500 to 3,000 elite force deployed in Sara­je­vo and a 6,000 to 7,500 strong back-up force in Fojni­ca.” (Ibid.; p. 158.)

9. “Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the major­i­ty of the troops of the Handzar Divi­sion are not Bosn­ian Mus­lims. Instead, they come from the region’s oth­er Mus­lim minori­ties, pri­mar­i­ly Alba­ni­ans, and are led by vet­er­an Pak­istani and Afghan experts. ‘Sur­pris­ing­ly few of those in charge of the Handzars in Fojni­ca seem to speak good Ser­bo-Croa­t­ian. Many of them are Alban­ian, whether from Koso­vo or from Alba­nia itself,’ explained UN offi­cers in Fojni­ca. ‘The Handzars are trained and led by vet­er­ans from Afghanistan and Pak­istan. The strong pres­ence of native Alba­ni­ans is an omi­nous sign. It could be that the seeds of war are spread­ing south via Koso­vo and into Alba­nia, thence to the Alba­ni­ans of Mace­do­nia.’ These obser­va­tions, made in late 1993, proved cor­rect.” (Ibid.; pp. 158–159.)

10. “By 1995, the Handzar Divi­sion had been trans­formed into a zealot and com­bat proven spe­cial forces. In many cas­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the surge into west­ern Bosnia-Her­zo­gov­ina in the Sum­mer-Fall of 1995, they oper­at­ed in close coop­er­a­tion with the muja­hedin units. The deploy­ment of Alban­ian vet­er­ans and sup­port muja­hedin cadres to Alba­nia began in the Fall of 1995.” (Ibid.; p. 159.)

11. It is worth not­ing that Izetbe­gov­ic received aid from Sau­di-based Islam­ic char­i­ties impli­cat­ed in the fund­ing of Al Qae­da. One of these was the IIRO. “A sub­sidiary orga­ni­za­tion of the World Islam­ic League, the IIRO was deeply involved in Bosnia, and Pres­i­dent Izetbe­gov­ic reg­u­lar­ly trav­eled to Riyadh to request finan­cial aid from his co-reli­gion­ists.” (Dol­lars for Ter­ror: The Unit­ed States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copy­right 2000 [SC]; Algo­ra Pub­lish­ing; ISBN 1–892941-06–6; p. 239.)

12. Although the Bush administration’s advo­ca­cy of an Iraqi/Al Qae­da con­nec­tion was less than con­vinc­ing, there is sub­stan­tive evi­dence of some link­age. (This is NOT to imply that Iraq was nec­es­sar­i­ly involved with 9/11.) What is worth not­ing is the fact that Iraqi/Al Qae­da links run through the Syr­i­an branch of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Although the dif­fer­ences between the Islamist Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the sec­u­lar Arabo/fascist regime of Sad­dam Hus­sein are pro­found, a com­mon denom­i­na­tor between them is their his­tor­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion with fas­cism, the Third Reich in par­tic­u­lar. “US claims that this week’s taped mes­sage, appar­ent­ly from al-Qae­da leader Osama bin Laden, is proof of links between the ter­ror­ist net­work and Iraq, has obscured new evi­dence regard­ed by intel­li­gence offi­cials as a more accu­rate indi­ca­tion of such con­tacts. The state­ment in the tape made clear that al-Qaeda’s sup­port for Mus­lims in Iraq was a reli­gious ide­al and ‘not in the name of nation­al ide­olo­gies, nor to seek vic­to­ry for the igno­rant gov­ern­ments that rule all Arab states includ­ing Iraq.’” (“Al-Qae­da Con­nec­tion Not Ruled Out” by Mark Huband; Finan­cial Times; 2/13/2003; p. 3.)

13. “In 1991, Mr. bin Laden offered his Islam­ic fight­ers to the Sau­di gov­ern­ment in the hope they would be used to oust Iraq’s sec­u­lar regime from Kuwait, but his offer was reject­ed. Then in 1999, an al-Qae­da del­e­ga­tion sought to build ties with Bagh­dad, but was rebuffed. How­ev­er, Mr. bin Laden’s own crit­i­cism of Iraq’s regime has not pre­clud­ed ties in the past. Since the arrest of alleged al-Qae­da oper­a­tives in Spain in the wake of the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks in the US, evi­dence has revealed that ties between senior al-Qae­da oper­a­tives in Europe and Iraq go back as far as the ear­ly 1980’s Many of those arrest­ed in Spain are for­mer mem­bers of the Syr­i­an Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (SMB). Ties between for­mer SMB mem­bers in Spain and Ger­many extend­ed to the inner cir­cle around Mohammed Atta, the Ham­burg-based ter­ror­ist who led the Sep­tem­ber 11 hijack­ers.” (Idem.)

14. “Iraq is long known to have giv­en mon­ey to the fam­i­lies of Pales­tin­ian Hamas sui­cide bombers. But the new evi­dence of both Iraq and al-Qaeda’s ties with the SMB fur­ther under­mines the view that Iraq’s sec­u­lar­ism is a bar­ri­er to ties with Islamists. Key fig­ures with­in the SMB trained up until 1986 at the al-Rashdiya camp near Bagh­dad, where they were pro­vid­ed with lessons in sab­o­tage and basic com­bat tech­niques, accord­ing to tes­ti­mo­ny from detainees being held in Arab coun­tries.” (Idem.)

15. One of the SMB mem­bers who over­laps the milieu of 9/11 is Hay­dar Zam­mar. “Intel­li­gence offi­cials say Iraq intend­ed to use the SMB as a lever over the Syr­i­an lead­er­ship, with whom rela­tions were often poor. One key fig­ure in the SMB, who trained in the Iraqi camp and has sub­se­quent­ly been iden­ti­fied as an al-Qae­da oper­a­tive in Europe, is Imad Yarkas, also known as Abu Dah­dah. He was arrest­ed in Spain in Novem­ber 2001 and is known to have trained SMB mem­bers in Iraq in the ear­ly 1980’s. He spent time in Ger­many, where he shared an apart­ment with both Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binal­shibh, who admit­ted last year that he was a co-plan­ner of the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks. Anoth­er for­mer SMB mem­ber is Mohamed Hay­dar Zam­mar, who is now being held in Syr­ia. Mr. Zam­mar devel­oped close ties with al-Qae­da in Sudan in the mid-1990’s, accord­ing to one of his for­mer asso­ciates.” (Idem.)

16. Fur­ther devel­op­ing the strug­gle for the Earth Island and the Under­ground Reich’s use of proxy war­riors, the pro­gram notes the EU’s fund­ing of the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty and an inquiry by mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment about pos­si­ble use of EU funds to finance ter­ror­ism. The arti­cle accessed here notes the fact that the Israeli/Palestinian con­flict is anoth­er area embody­ing the grow­ing rift between Europe and the US. “The Euro­pean Union’s fraud watch­dog has decid­ed to inves­ti­gate EU pay­ments to the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty, fol­low­ing alle­ga­tions that these funds are being chan­neled into sup­port­ing ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties. The move fol­lows a call by 168 mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment this week to launch a sep­a­rate inquiry into the use of these pay­ments, which total 10m Euros ($10.8m) a month and make up 10 per cent of the PA’s gen­er­al bud­get. Should inves­ti­ga­tors find a link between the EU’s fund­ing and Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ism, they would deal a huge blow to Brus­sels’ stand­ing in the region and fur­ther under­mine the EU’s fledg­ling efforts to build a cred­i­ble com­mon for­eign pol­i­cy. It could also spark fur­ther ten­sion in the fraught rela­tions between the US and Europe. . .” (“EU to Probe Claims of Pales­tin­ian Funds Mis­use” by Tobias Buck; Finan­cial Times; 2/7/2003; p. 6.)

17. “ . . . Ilka Schroder, a Green MEP from Ger­many, said an inves­ti­ga­tion by Olaf [the orga­ni­za­tion charged with inves­ti­gat­ing mis­use of EU funds] would be unable to deliv­er the polit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion that the MEP’s were seek­ing. ‘Olaf can only look at whether funds were mis­used. Our accu­sa­tion is that the Com­mis­sion should have seen that EU funds have been used to fund anti-Semit­ic ter­ror orga­ni­za­tions.’” (Idem.)

17. Anti-ter­ror leg­is­la­tion direct­ed at inter­dict­ing the flow of mon­ey to ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions is caus­ing anx­i­ety among hedge fund man­agers. Many fear that the issue of client con­fi­den­tial­i­ty will alien­ate investors. One of the fac­tors to be con­sid­ered in this con­text is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that this may con­sti­tute anoth­er aspect of the eco­nom­ic com­po­nent of the Under­ground Reich’s war against the US. “US Trea­sury pro­pos­als designed to counter ter­ror­ist mon­ey laun­der­ing threat­en investor con­fi­den­tial­i­ty at most of the world’s hedge funds, insid­ers warn. It has drawn up rules that would com­pel any hedge fund with a ‘US nexus’—taken to mean a US investor, man­ag­er or sponsor—to give US author­i­ties access to files on its investors. Indus­try mem­bers said the pro­pos­al could threat­en client con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, which has been cher­ished by many wealthy indi­vid­u­als who make up the major­i­ty of hedge fund investors.” (“Anti-Ter­ror Plans Raise Fears for Hedge Funds” by Eliz­a­beth Rig­by and Robert Clow; Finan­cial Times; 2/11/2003; p. 1.)

18. “ ‘Our client con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is out of the win­dow,’ said one Lon­don-based man­ag­er. ‘If you have one US investor—and near­ly all funds do—you will have to dis­close all your investors to the US.’ ‘This will affect thou­sands of hedge funds,’ said one Euro­pean hedge fund man­ag­er. ‘The impli­ca­tions of this are scary. . .’” (Idem.)

19. “A Trea­sury offi­cial yes­ter­day stressed that extend­ing the act to off­shore hedge funds ‘was still a pro­pos­al.’ He added: ‘We take very seri­ous­ly the notion of not over-reach­ing when it is not appro­pri­ate.” (Idem.)

20. “The Trea­sury plans to con­sult the indus­try before mak­ing a final deci­sion. . . .” (Idem.)

21. “Off­shore man­agers who are con­cerned have every right to be con­cerned ‚’said Satish Kini, US-based part­ner at Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing.” (Idem.)

22. Symp­to­matic of the con­flict between “Ger­ma­nia” and “Anglo-Sax­o­nia” is a pro­pos­al by Defense Sec­re­tary Don­ald Rums­feld for eco­nom­ic retal­i­a­tion against Ger­many for fail­ing to sup­port the US stance on Iraq. “Amer­i­ca is to pun­ish Ger­many for lead­ing inter­na­tion­al oppo­si­tion to a war against Iraq. The US will with­draw all its troops and bases from there and end mil­i­tary and indus­tri­al co-oper­a­tion between the two coun­tries, moves that could cost the Ger­mans bil­lions of Euros. The plan—discussed by Pen­ta­gon offi­cials and mil­i­tary chiefs last week on the orders of Defense Sec­re­tary Don­ald Rumsfeld—is designed ‘to harm’ the Ger­man econ­o­my to make an exam­ple of the coun­try for what US hawks see as Chan­cel­lor Ger­hard Schroder’s ‘treach­ery.’ The hawks believe that mak­ing an exam­ple of Ger­many will force oth­er coun­tries heav­i­ly depen­dent on US trade to think twice about stand­ing up to Amer­i­ca in the future.” (“US to Pun­ish Ger­man ‘Treach­ery’” by Peter Beau­mont, David rose and Paul Beaver; The Observ­er Sun­day; 2/16/2003; pp. 1–2.)

23. “This fol­lows weeks of increas­ing­ly angry exchanges between Rums­feld and Ger­many, in which at one point he taunt­ed Ger­many and France for being an irrel­e­vant part of ‘old Europe.’ Now Rums­feld has decid­ed to go fur­ther by uni­lat­er­al­ly impos­ing the Pentagon’s sanc­tions on a coun­try already in the throes of eco­nom­ic prob­lems.” ‘We are doing this for one rea­son only: to harm the Ger­man econ­o­my,’ one source told The Observ­er last week.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

24. “ ‘Our troops con­tribute many mil­lions of dol­lars. Why should we con­tin­ue to sup­port a coun­try which has treat­ed Nato and the pro­tec­tion we pro­vid­ed for decades with such incred­i­ble con­tempt?” (Idem.)

25. “Anoth­er Pen­ta­gon source said: ‘The aim is to hit Ger­man trade and com­merce. It is not just about tak­ing out the troops and equip­ment; it is also about can­cel­ing com­mer­cial con­tracts and defense-relat­ed arrange­ments.’ (Idem.)

26. “The Pen­ta­gon plan—and the lan­guage expressed by offi­cials close to Rumsfeld—has hor­ri­fied State Depart­ment offi­cials, who believe that bul­ly­ing oth­er coun­tries to fol­low the US line will fur­ther exac­er­bate anti-Amer­i­can­ism and alien­ate those Euro­pean coun­tries that might sup­port a Unit­ed nations res­o­lu­tion autho­riz­ing a war.” (Ibid.; pp.2–3.)

27. “Ger­man Indus­try earns bil­lions of euros every year from sup­port­ing the US Army Europe which, although reduced from its Cold War Heights still totals 42,000 troops and785 tanks—almost three times as many as the British Army owns. Many of these sol­diers and their fight­ing equip­ment, includ­ing Apache heli­copters, have already been sent to the Gulf.” (Ibid.; p.3.)

28. “Ger­man indus­try is heav­i­ly involved in sup­port­ing the US pres­ence Among the defense com­pa­nies which stand to lose out are mis­sile-mak­er Diehl, aeropace and defense giant EADS Deutsch­land, arma­ments mak­er Rhein­metall and vehi­cle mak­er Krauss-Maf­fei Weg­mann.” (Idem.)

29. “There is also a US Air Force con­tin­gent of about 15,000 ser­vice peo­ple with bases at Bit­burg, Frank­furt-am-Main and neigh­bor­ing Ream­stein , where the com­man­der dou­bles as part of the Nato com­mand. This force includes near­ly 60 F‑16 fight­er-bombers and a squadron of A‑10 tank-buster air­craft.” (Idem.)

30. “Rums­feld and his staff have made no attempt to hide their fury at Schroder’s ‘treach­ery and inep­ti­tude over Iraq. Last week Schroder leaked to reporters a Fran­co-Ger­man plan for avoid­ing war by increas­ing the num­ber of UN weapons inspec­tors before inform­ing his Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts.” (Idem.)

31. “ ‘After this, Ger­many is fin­ished as a seri­ous pow­er,’ one of the sources added ‘This is sim­ply not the way to con­duct diplo­ma­cy at a moment of inter­na­tion­al cri­sis.’” (Ibid.; p.4.)

32. The pro­gram con­cludes with two arti­cles about the indict­ment of Sami al-Ari­an for alleged­ly sup­port­ing ter­ror­ism. This is note­wor­thy, because it was the hero­ic John Lof­tus’ law­suit against al-Ari­an that pre­cip­i­tat­ed the crit­i­cal 3/20/2002 Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids. One should not lose sight of the fact that—as these arti­cles indicate—the Al Qaeda/Al Taqwa milieu impli­cat­ed in the 3/20/2002 Green Quest raids had strong con­nec­tions to the Repub­li­can Eth­nic out­reach orga­ni­za­tion, as well as the Bush White House. “Fed­er­al author­i­ties accused a Flori­da col­lege pro­fes­sor and sev­en oth­er men of con­spir­ing to finance ter­ror­ist attacks that killed more than 100 peo­ple in Israel and the ter­ri­to­ries it occu­pies, includ­ing two Amer­i­cans. A 50-count indict­ment accused the pro­fes­sor, Sami al-Ari­an, of con­ceal­ing a ter­ror­ist cell with­in ‘the struc­ture, facil­i­ties and aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment’ of the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da in Tam­pa, using it to raise, man­age and chan­nel funds in a decade-long glob­al con­spir­a­cy. The charges car­ry poten­tial life sen­tences.” (“Flori­da Pro­fes­sor, 7 Oth­ers Are Accused of Ter­ror Fund­ing” by Jess Bravin and Glenn R. Simp­son; The Wall Street Jour­nal; 2/21/2002; p. A8.)

33. “Despite his noto­ri­ety, Mr. Ari­an has estab­lished ties over the years with promi­nent polit­i­cal fig­ures . . . he cam­paigned for George W. Bush.” (Idem.)

34. “The indict­ment alludes to efforts by the defen­dants to gain polit­i­cal clout, alleg­ing that they sought ‘to obtain sup­port from influ­en­tial indi­vid­u­als in the Unit­ed States under the guise of pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing Arab rights.’ It offers few details of such efforts, but like­ly will inflame a debate embroil­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty over efforts to court Mus­lim Amer­i­cans. The spat pits con­ser­v­a­tive activist Grover Norquist—a close ally of the Bush White House who has spent years woo­ing Mus­lims through a group he found­ed called the Islam­ic Institute—against pro-Israel con­ser­v­a­tives led by Frank Gaffney. Mr. Gaffney has accused Mr. Norquist of asso­ci­at­ing with Islam­ic rad­i­cals and bring­ing them into con­tact with the White House.” (Idem.)

35. “A group head­ed by Mr. Ari­an, the Nation­al Coali­tion to Pro­tect Polit­i­cal Free­dom, once gave an award to Mr. Norquist. Last year, Mr. Ari­an vis­it­ed the Islam­ic Institute’s Wash­ing­ton offices, which shares offices with Mr. Norquist’s Amer­i­cans for Tax Reform. The Islam­ic Insti­tute says the vis­it was brief and per­func­to­ry. The Islam­ic Insti­tute has received at least $31,000 from a net­work of Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions in Vir­ginia under inves­ti­ga­tion by fed­er­al author­i­ties for sus­pect­ed ties to ter­ror­ism, can­celed checks and tax records show. Inves­ti­ga­tors have said in court papers that the basis of that probe is a finan­cial rela­tion­ship between the Vir­ginia groups and Mr. Arian’s alleged Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad fronts.” (Idem.)

36. “A for­mer uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor indict­ed this week as a ter­ror­ist leader attend­ed a 2001 group meet­ing in the White House com­plex with Pres­i­dent Bush’s senior advis­er, Karl Rove, admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials said Fri­day. . . . Al Ari­an and his fam­i­ly also were pho­tographed with Bush dur­ing a March 2000 cam­paign stop near Al-Arian’s sub­ur­ban Tam­pa home, dur­ing a chance meet­ing between the can­di­date and the fam­i­ly. . .” (“Alleged Ter­ror­ist Met with Bush Advis­er” by Mike Allen and Richard Lei­by [Wash­ing­ton Post]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 2/22/2000; p. A4.)

37. “Al-Ari­an was one of 160 mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil who were briefed on Bush’s faith-based agen­da and oth­er issues by Rove and oth­ers in the Eisen­how­er Exec­u­tive Office Build­ing, which is adja­cent to the White House, on June 22, 2001. . . .Al Ari­an told the Wash­ing­ton Post in an inter­view last year that being cleared into the White House gave him con­fi­dence that he was no longer sus­pect­ed of being a ter­ror­ist sup­port­er or sym­pa­thiz­er. Al-Ari­an said he sat in the front row dur­ing the meet­ing.” (Idem.)

38. “The meet­ing was con­tro­ver­sial with­in the White House even before it took place. Sev­er­al pro-Israel and con­ser­v­a­tive activists had warned admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials not to meet with the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil con­tin­gent because the group had court­ed con­tro­ver­sy for years, knowl­edge­able sources said.” (Idem.)