Hell's Only Half Full
CNN is running with Detainees reveal bin Laden's reaction to attacks:

On September 11, 2001, as his followers carried out a series of attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden knew the attacks were coming, how many there were supposed to be, and when they were supposed to happen.

And, in between each attack -- according to accounts gleaned from men who were with him -- bin Laden indicated to his followers in chilling fashion that another one was about to take place.

The new information, intelligence sources said, came from two men who were with bin Laden that day who were later interrogated by a coalition intelligence agency. The agency provided the information to CNN.

According to the accounts provided by these men, the al Qaeda leader spent much of September 11 in prayer and meditation, pausing only to praise Allah after news of each new horror carried out by his followers came over the radio.

When combined with remarks about September 11 that bin Laden made in a previously released videotape made in November 2001, the new information provides a new glimpse into the mood and attitude of the terrorist leader on that day.

For a blow by blow account of the goat boy's antics see the article, but the following gives the idea.

When the second tower was (is) hit, according to the intelligence sources, Bin Laden again prays and weeps, shouting "Allah Akhbar." Then he lifts three fingers and it becomes clear to the people in the room that he is signaling that a third attack is still to come, the sources said.

It does: American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

Bin Laden recounted what happened next on the November tape. "The difference between the first and second plane hitting the towers was 20 minutes. And the difference between the first plane and the plane that hit the Pentagon was one hour."

Again bin Laden prays, weeps and shouts "Allah Akhbar." This time he lifts four fingers.

How did you like the USA's single digit, pissant? Payback's a bitch.

Mighty Iraqi Air Force Alert
ABC reveals all in In Hot Pursuit:

For the second time in the last five days, the United States has seen Iraqi fighter jets cross into the southern no-fly zone in hot pursuit of U.S. unmanned Predator surveillance planes, ABCNEWS has learned.

Today's activity, sources said, involved two Russian-made MiGs flying 50 miles south of the no-fly zone boundary. The Iraqis wait until U.S. and British "manned" aircraft have cleared the area, then they take the risk and go after the drones, sources said.

In today's incident, video shot from cameras mounted on the Predator captured the MiGs firing cannons at the plane. In this case, the Predator was untouched and there was no immediate U.S. response.

In a similar incident last weekend, coalition forces returned to the zone quickly and took out an Iraqi command bunker.

Ignore that whistling sound, boys. It's just some AIM 54's with your names on them.

Grayout Davis Alert!
The Mercury News shocks with Davis' fervor to raise funds irks many backers:

SACRAMENTO - They commiserate about Gov. Gray Davis and his zealous fundraising the way veterans share war stories.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch tells of being pressed for more money when he called Davis to push a bill to combat global warming.

California Teachers Association President Wayne Johnson remembers being squeezed for $1 million during a meeting on education in the governor's office.

Energy company executives recall being told that they would need to raise $100,000 to get an audience with Davis -- and then having to make up the difference when they failed to hit the target.

Each case was an instance when it became clear how important money is to Davis -- and how far the Democratic governor would go to get it.

Politicians often pressure supporters for contributions, and Davis officials say they have done nothing wrong. But the governor has taken it to a new level by sending a clear signal that donations are essential to getting in the door, many of his backers say. In the process, he has alienated a growing number of Democrats who are beginning to question whether he has sacrificed core values in an almost-compulsive pursuit of cash.

``It's hard to tell if the guy's a Democrat or a Republican because he's anything you want him to be if you're writing the biggest check,'' said one disgruntled Democratic supporter.

In more than three dozen interviews with the Mercury News, many Democrats, donors and former Davis fundraisers said they were shocked when discussions with the governor and his staff were clouded by questions about how much money they had given to Davis.

Robert M. Stern, executive director of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, said Davis has created the impression that ``he has put government up for sale.''

No excrement, Sherlock. Copious dirty details are in the article.

Of course, the one stop Grayout shopping solution is www.e-gray.com.

Your Tax Dollars At Work
(Via Dawson Speaks) The Lebanon Daily Star reports Syrian comic describes Bush as "modern-day Hitler"

An honorary UNICEF ambassador, Syrian comedian Duraid Lahham, said Friday he was proud of his friendship with Hizbullah and described US President George W. Bush as a "modern-day Hitler".

Speaking to reporters during a visit to the South at the invitation of Hizbullah and the Martyrs Welfare Foundation, Lahham defended Hizbullah and said that he hopes "Bush, the modern-day Hitler, puts me on his black list."

Hey Duraid, I've got one for ya!

An airplane was about to crash; there were 5 passengers on board but only 4 parachutes.

The first passenger said, " I'm Kobe Bryant , the best NBA basketball player, the Lakers need me, I can't afford to die." So he took the first pack and left the plane.

The second passenger, Hillary Clinton, said, "I am the wife of the former president of the United States, I am also the most ambitious woman in the world and I am a New York Senator and a potential future president." She just took the second parachute and jumped out of the plane.

The third passenger, Bachar Al-Assad, said: "I'm President of Syria, I have a great responsibility being the leader of a superpower. And above all I'm the cleverest leader in Syrian history, so Syria's people won't let me die." So he put on the pack next to him and jumped out of the plane.

The fourth passenger, the Pope, says to the fifth passenger, a 10 year old school boy, "I am old and frail and I don't have many years left, as a Catholic I will sacrifice my life and let you have the last parachute. The boy said, "it's OK, there's a parachute left for you. Syria's cleverest leader has taken my schoolbag."

Try telling that one down at the palace!

I wonder if UNICEF still tries to brainwash kids into collecting pennies at Halloween?

Kumbaya Alert!
Tim Blair has his World Hug Day party hat on. The fruit loops even want samples of your verse for their poetry page and Tim's been helping out:

If I could meet Osama
I'd ask if it was brave
To kill so many people
And why he lives inside a cave

If I could meet Osama
I'd say, "Please be nice instead."
Then I'd whip out my revolver
And shoot the motherfucker dead

-- by Timmy T. Timson, age 5

I'd participate too, but I'm poetry challenged:

I see London, I see France
All that's left of Osama is his soiled underpants

Daisycutters will do that.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!
The Telegraph (UK) stuns our senses with a bulletin from Scotland, Epileptic ordered to pay £3,500 for contorted face:

A man who suffers from epilepsy has been ordered to pay compensation to a student who was upset by his contorted face during a seizure.

In a case described by an epilepsy charity as "like something you would see on the Ally McBeal show", Edwin Young has been told to pay £3,500 to Yvonne Rennie for the mild post-traumatic stress that she suffered.

Mrs Rennie sued after Mr Young suffered an epileptic fit while driving four years ago and crashed into her car at traffic lights in Perth.

In a written judgment, Sheriff Michael Fletcher, at Perth sheriff court, accepted that she was upset by the look on Mr Young's face.

He said: "The defender suffered an epileptic fit and lost control of his vehicle. As a result of the fit, his face was contorted and this led the pursuer to believe that he was having a heart attack and was dying.

"Passers-by removed the defender from his car and placed him on the pavement to render him assistance. The sight of the defender lying on the pavement upset the pursuer."

The sheriff awarded a total of £6,000 compensation, including £1,500 for Mrs Rennie's slight injuries and £1,000 for the fear of driving that she had developed.

I wonder much she gets if you barf on her?

On this basis, I think the Islamists have run up quite a tab for 9/11.

No More Mr. Milquetoast
(Via Instapundit via Junkyard Blog) Martin Walker of the UPI lays it out nicely in a lengthy opinion piece, Sept. 11: US Nice Guy says 'enough' . The closer:

"When the Europeans demand some sort of veto over American actions, or want us to subordinate our national interest to a UN mandate, they forget that we do not think their track record is too good," a senior U.S. diplomat said recently in private. "The Europeans told us they could win the Balkans wars all on their own. Wrong. They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong. They said the Russians would never swallow NATO enlargement. Wrong. They told us 20 years ago that détente was the way to deal with what we foolishly called the Evil Empire. Wrong again. They complain about our Farm Bill when they are the world's biggest subsidizers of their agriculture. The Europeans are not just wrong; they are also hypocrites. They are wrong on Kyoto, wrong on Arafat, wrong on Iraq -- so why should we take seriously a single word they say?"

If the Europeans are in for a rude awakening as America takes its own decisions over the War on Terrorism and dealing with President Bush's "axis of evil," then the Arab world is in for an even deeper shock. The United States has spent 30 years trying to play by what we might call European rules, seeking to play the role of honest broker between Arabs and Israelis, while paying them both handsomely for the privilege. (Israel and Egypt are the first and second recipients of U.S. aid). America has watched while the Saudi "allies" use their petro-dollars to buy off internal dissent against their indefensibly sexist and undemocratic feudal regime by exporting their intolerant and puritan Wahabist creed throughout the Islamic world.

Whether Europeans and Arabs like it nor not, Iraq will be getting not just a change of regime, but a change of system. There is a post 9-11 mood in Washington to ask why, with the kind of American resolve and wisdom that turned the World War II enemies of Japan and West Germany into peaceful and prosperous democracies, an Iraq liberated from Saddam Hussein, or a Palestinian state liberated from the corrupt incompetence of the Arafat gang, or an Afghanistan liberated from the Taliban, might not enjoy a similar transformation. The Saudi monarchy might hate such an emergence of democratic and representative government in its wretchedly ill-ruled region, but Washington understandably cares less and less for the concerns of a dubious ally whose nationals formed the bulk of the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Note that this is not the case of an enraged and vengeful America telling the world "no more Mr. Nice Guy." It is America saying "Enough" to the European "internationalism" of compromise and appeasement, and holding true to its core principles -- that democracy is in itself a good thing for all states and all peoples. The most valuable export America can send out to the world is its values and its freedoms and its readiness to devote blood and treasure to the mission. That would be the real memorial to the victims of 9-11.

Read the full article for a great deal of insight.

Good Riddance
I noted previously that the world class whiner, Mary Robinson, was leaving her post as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her insufferable arrogance was only matched by her complete cluelessness. But before she actually vacates the premises on Wednesday, she let loose yet another malodorous emission:

GENEVA - In a bleak assessment of the state of human rights a year after the Sept. 11 attacks - and in a last stand before she leaves her United Nations post on Wednesday, U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson accused governments of hiding behind the war on terrorism to trample on civil liberties and crush troublesome opponents.

"Suddenly the 'T-word' is used all the time," Robinson said, referring to terrorism. "And that's the problem."

No Mary, you and your wingnut pals are the problem.

Tracing developments over the past 12 months, Robinson said that the Bush administration had set the tone for the rest of the world by disregarding international conventions in its treatment of prisoners held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - not to mention its efforts to torpedo the International Criminal Court.

"The world needs leadership in human rights and the United States could give great leadership. It's not giving it at the moment, unfortunately," she declared.

...

Despite the current gloom and her regret that she wasn't more effective in stopping gross violations, Robinson said she took heart from progress in promoting acceptance of human rights as a fundamental part of development.

But she said the United States, in particular, needed to show more recognition of economic and social rights.

"Extreme poverty," was her blunt reply when asked what she considered to be the worst human rights violation.

Zzzzzz. Those dogs won't hunt outside the select circle of your pals, Mary. There's more Robinsonian blather in the article, but a better perspective is provided by Michael Rubin in Mary Robinson, War Criminal? whose punchline is

The European Union and the United Nations are sick with self-righteousness, moral equivalence, and appeasement, but Mary Robinson is just one symptom. Worthy international causes have been hijacked for narrow political agendas.

Accountability has become a dirty word. And looking the other way, especially regarding terrorism, has become a form of art. But then again, why reform if bashing Israel and sponsoring forums to promote anti-Semitism can reinforce your credentials in the eyes of your peers?

Sending hack socialist politicians off to international organizations has no magic effect. They are still hack socialist politicians.

Some Additions to Saddam's Resume
The AAP (Australia) is reporting that Atta 'met Saddam' before attacks:

MOHAMMED Atta consulted Saddam Hussein prior to leading the suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, according to Richard Perle, an adviser to the US defence secretary.

"Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn't just there for a holiday," Perle told Italy's business daily "Il Sole 24 Ore".

And then Saddam's Alleged Mistress Says He Met Bin Laden:

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) met Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) on two occasions and gave money to the al Qaeda leader in 1996, a woman who claims to be a long-time mistress of the Iraqi leader told ABC News.

Parisoula Lampsos, who claims to have been Saddam's mistress on and off for 30 years, told ABC she personally observed bin Laden in one of Saddam's palaces in the late 1980s. She said Saddam's oldest son, Uday, told her Saddam also met with bin Laden in the 1996 and game him money.

ABC News interviewed Lampsos, now 54 and hiding out in Lebanon, for its "Primetime Thursday" news program to air later this week. The network released excerpts of the interview on Sunday.

And Cheney says Saddam is actively and aggressively seeking nuclear weapons:

Saddam Hussein is aggressively seeking nuclear and biological weapons and "the United States may well become the target" of an attack, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday as the Bush administration pressed its case for toppling the Iraqi leader.

Cheney and top administration officials took to the Sunday talk shows as part of President Bush's effort to convince the public, Congress and other countries that action against Saddam is urgently needed. The officials cited the Sept. 11 attacks in making the case that the world cannot wait to find out whether the Iraqi president has weapons of mass destruction.

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN's "Late Edition."

"How long are we going to wait to deal with what is clearly a gathering threat against the United States, against our allies and against his own region?"

Added Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on CBS's "Face the Nation": "Imagine, a Sept. 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000; it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

Saddam's 15 minutes of fame have been unduly prolonged by the handwringers at the UN and in Europe. It's time to put down the rabid dog.

Target Rich Environment
According to the Telegraph (UK), British peace activists to serve as human shields for Baghdad:

British peace protesters plan to go to Baghdad to act as voluntary "human shields" during a war against Iraq.

The activists, who have received President Saddam Hussein's blessing for the mission, want to try to deter attacks by "showing solidarity" with the Iraqi people and witnessing "their suffering".

...

The "Iraq peace team", from the group Voices in the Wilderness, intends to go to Iraq as early as this month alongside volunteers from the United States.

More "volunteers" are being signed up through the good auspices of Dr. Weevil.

Voices in the Wilderness, founded in Britain in 1998, grew out of the peace protests during the Gulf war, when British activists camped in the desert on the Iraqi border.

The group's website admits that members are involved in breaking "criminal" international sanctions against Baghdad. It says they "risk persecution and imprisonment" in doing so.

The "peace team" idea has been welcomed by the Iraqi regime. Kathy Kelly, the US co-ordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, secured agreement for the mission from Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, in Baghdad in May.

She said: "We will tell everybody that goes over that they should be prepared to say that they have had a good life and this could be the last year of their life."

From your lips to God's ears.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, troops seized about 1,200 expatriate Britons. On Saddam's orders they were placed at key installations as "human shields". Their presence, Saddam reasoned, would deter allied air strikes.

The tactic prompted worldwide revulsion, especially when Saddam was filmed trying to create favourable propaganda by urging a five-year-old boy, Stuart Lockwood, from Worcester, to sit on his knee. The terrified boy refused.

Diplomatic efforts eventually led to the hostages' release, but many have suffered continuing psychological trauma. Two killed themselves.

Bernard Jenkin, the shadow defence secretary, criticised the planned peace mission. He said: "These people are what the communist Soviet Union used to refer to as useful idiots. They will simply be serving the propaganda interests of an evil dictator."

Don't tell Saddam about the radio tracking beacons sewn into their shorts!