Category Archives: Whistleblower

Saudi Holding Main Suspect in 1996 Khobar Bombing

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Fascinating timing of this arrest and this has several important points.

- UNDATED FILE PHOTOS - showing four men listed as ''most wanted terrorists'' and released by [Former President George W. Bush] at FBI headquarters in Washington DC, in this file picture from October 10, 2001. The men indicted in this case are from left to right: Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Mughassil, Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Houri, Ibrhim Salih Mohammed Al-Yacoub and Abdelkarim Hussein Mohammed Al-Nasser.

Reuters:

The main suspect in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers residence at a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia has been captured after nearly 20 years on the run, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Asharq al-Awsat said Ahmed al-Mughassil, leader of the Hezbollah al-Hejaz who had been indicted by a U.S. court for the attack that killed 19 U.S. service personnel and wounded almost 500 people, had been captured in the Lebanese capital Beirut and transferred to Riyadh.

Saudi authorities were not immediately available to comment.

Saudi Arabia and the United States have accused Iran of orchestrating the truck-bomb attack. Iran has denied any responsibility for the attack.

Asharq al-Awsat quoted official Saudi sources as saying Saudi security personnel had received information about the presence of 48-year-old Mughassil in Beirut.

“The discovery of Mughassil and his arrest in Lebanon and his subsequent transfer to Saudi Arabia is a qualitative achievement, for the man had been in disguise in a way that made it hard to identify him,” Asharq al-Awsat said, without elaborating on when he was captured and who captured him.

In 2006, a U.S. federal judge ordered Iran to pay $254 million to the families of 17 U.S. service personnel killed in the attack in a judgment entered against the Iranian government, its security ministry and the Revolutionary Guards after they failed to respond to a lawsuit initiated more than four years earlier.

The 209-page ruling had found that the truck bomb involved in the attack was assembled at a base in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley operated by Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards, and the attack was approved by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

FBI Bulletin:

Conspiracy to Kill U.S. Nationals; Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Employees; Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction Against U.S. Nationals; Conspiracy to Destroy Property of the U.S.; Conspiracy to Attack National Defense Utilities; Bombing Resulting in Death; Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction Against U.S. Nationals; Murder While Using Destructive Device During a Crime of Violence; Murder of Federal Employees; Attempted Murder of Federal Employees

AHMAD IBRAHIM AL-MUGHASSIL

Subject Image
Multimedia: Images

Alias:

Abu Omran

DESCRIPTION

Date(s) of Birth Used:
June 26, 1967

Place of Birth:

 Qatif – Bab Al Shamal, Saudi Arabia

Height:

 5’4″

Weight:

 145 pounds

Build:

 Unknown

Hair:

 Black

Eyes:

 Brown

Complexion:

 Olive

Sex:

 Male

Citizenship:

 Saudi Arabian

Languages:
Arabic;
Farsi

Scars and Marks:
None known

Remarks:

 Al-Mughassil is the alleged head of the “military wing” of the terrorist organization, Saudi Hizballah.

CAUTION

Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mughassil has been indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia for the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

REWARD

The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mughassil.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS

If you have any information concerning this person, please contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.

Field Office: Washington D.C.

Review This 45 Item List from 1963

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Chilling and a real conversation starter, most provocative.

Communist Goals (1963)
Documention below
Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

[From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Note by Webmaster: The Congressional Record back this far has not be digitized and posted on the Internet.

It will probably be available at your nearest library that is a federal repository. Call them and ask them.

Your college library is probably a repository. This is an excellent source of government records.

Another source are your Congress Critters. They should be more than happy to help you in this matter.

You will find the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto interesting at this point.

Click here to see them listed with brain-challenging comments.

Documentation

Webmaster Forest Glen Durland found the document in the library.
Sources are listed below.
The quote starts on page 259.
Microfilm:

California State University at San Jose
Clark Library, Government Floor
Phone (408)924-2770
Microfilm
Call Number:
J
11
.R5
Congressional Record, Vol. 109
88th Congress, 1st Session
Appendix Pages A1-A2842
Jan. 9-May 7, 1963
Reel 12
The book was found in the off campus stacks, was ordered and checked. The quote below was checked against the original and is correct. The few errors in the copy from the Congressional Record are shown in [ ] .
The quote starts on page 259.

California State University at San Jose, Clark Library stacks call number:
Naked Communist
HX
56
S55

Book title page:
Skousen, W. Cleon. Naked Communist
Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Co.
C. 1961 , 9th edition July 1961.

Obama’s Motivation for the Iran Nuclear Deal

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Obama’s Motivation for the Iran Nuclear Deal

This may be somewhat conspiratorial, so critiques and commentary is invited. The common question has been for several months, why is Barack Obama so pro-Iran in order to get a final deal signed with regard to their nuclear weapons program.

No one seems to be able to suggest a viable reason, personally I went so far as to track down and interview Ambassador Mark Wallace, CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran.

 

Still without any meaningful answer as to why, it was prudent to search far and wide for clues and suddenly a real story began to develop on its own.

 

 

Plans for an Iran strike by Israel has been on the table and in 2011, Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared the time would be delayed for a future time. In 2012, Israel was poised to attack Iran, and the Obama National Security Council ensured that operation was terminated.

 

In summary, the United States and Israel have cooperated for decades on defense, military aid, arms sales, joint exercises and intelligence. This stems from a 1981 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that established cooperation on national security of both countries. In 1983, both sides signed a Joint Political Military Group implementing the MOU and in 1984 those activities commenced. In 1987, the United States constructed facilities to stockpile advanced military gear and munitions. In 1996, Congress codified this standard that included defense contracts, weapons systems, interagency strategic cooperation, diplomatic and intelligence operations and ballistic missiles. Countless laws/acts have been passed and signed in the United States where the U.S. and Israel together preserve and enhance Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.

 

Barack Obama is bound by agreement, law and treaty history yet he takes this history and text to the line where his policy does not support or stand with Israel in fully defending Israel in military hostilities or engagements as noted in the most recent conflicts in Gaza. Having a JPOA, a nuclear agreement has for the most part thrown sand in the gears keeping his own anti-Israel cultural and lifelong behavior intact, all at the expense of stability in the Middle East. Barack Obama’s background demonstrates he would rather have a failed nuclear agreement that satisfies his Muslim doctrine against Jews and Israel than to militarily stand with Israel even as new alliances and relationships have been established, isolating the United States. The same theory here is also applied to the balance of the Middle East with emphasis on Iraq and Syria.

Abbas Living in Luxury, the PLO pays well?

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Living Large

Abu Mazen’s (Mahmood Abbas) new palace

Life is so, so hard in the ‘occupied territories.’

From here (comments are mostly in Hebrew). According to the person who posted it, it’s Abu Mazen’s ‘guest palace.’

By the way, there are many luxurious homes in Judea and Samaria. Back in the old days, before the existence of the ‘Palestinian Authority’ necessitated bypass roads in order to prevent Jews from being murdered, we used to play a game when we road through the ‘Palestinian’

*** How did he get here?

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas resigned on Saturday as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee in a bid to force new elections for the top body, says Wassel Abu Yousef. Yousef also goes on to report that more than half of the 18-member committee have also stepped down, according to Israel National News. However, the 80-year-old Abbas still retains his post as Palestinian president.  “The resignation of the president of the executive committee Mahmoud Abbas and more than half of its members have created a legal vacuum, and therefore the Palestine National Council (PNC) has been asked to meet in one month to elect a new executive committee,” Yousef said in a statement.

Yousef, a senior PLO committee member, added that the resignations will not take effect until the PNC meets. The PNC is the 740-member Palestinian Parliament. Members live in the Palestinian territories and have not met in 20-years.

Abbas took up the position of the Ramallah-based government in 2005, a year after he became the PLO’s chief. On several occasions, he has threatened to resign or dissolve the Palestinian Authority.

The PLO’s chief negotiator and well-known political figure Saeb Erekat will probably replace Abbas, according to Al Arabiya News, reporting on previous rumors of the Abbas resignation. Saeb Erekat is a close aide to Abbas and had replaced Abed Rabbo as secretary after Rabbo was ousted by Abbas for becoming an increasingly vocal critic of the leader.  Abbas has faced questions about his legitimacy to rule within the Palestinian territories, where he was elected to what was originally meant to be a four-year term in 2005, according to The New York Times. New presidential and legislative elections for the Palestinian Authority have been prevented by an internal rift between Abbas’s Fatah party and the rival Islamic group, Hamas, which won the last legislative elections in 2006 and seized control of Gaza the next year. Read more here.

Other facts on Abbas:

  • During the 1948 Palestinian war, his family fled to Syria
  • Abbas studied at the University of Damascus and later went to Moscow and studied at Patrice Lumumba University (KGB)
  • He has a son named after Yasser Arafat
  •  He was a member of the Fatah, which funded the attack of the 1972 Munich Massacre
  • The U.S. Congress knew about his corruption and skimming off big money

Like Father, Like Son

the other home

Son of Mahmoud Abbas caught up in corruption scandal

The son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been tied to a corruption scandal involving leaked documents that appear to show attempts by Palestinian officials to misuse public funds.

An invoice published by a protest group on the Internet apparently shows that Yasser Mahmoud Reda Abbas made a payment of $50,000 as part of his acquisition of apartments in a luxury complex in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government.

Earlier revelations from paperwork leaked online have triggered outrage, highlighting the corruption and mismanagement critics say remain rampant in the Palestinian government.
A senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t allowed to discuss the leak, confirmed the documents’ authenticity to The Associated Press. They have offered a rare glimpse into the wheeling and dealing of the Palestinian government, long bogged down by rivalries.
One document signed by Majdi al-Khaldi, a diplomatic adviser to Abbas who accompanies him on his trips to world capitals, asked Bahrain’s foreign minister for $4 million to fund the private neighborhood complex for Palestinian officials in Ramallah. He insisted the complex was “meant to resist the Israeli settlements,” even though there are no settlements where the complex was built.
The other document by Nazmi Muhanna, general director of the Palestinian Crossing and Borders Authority, requested the government pay for his daughter’s schooling as well as medical treatment for his family in Jordan for a total of $15,000, a hefty sum for many Palestinians. Muhanna defended his demand, saying it was permitted by the Palestinian government. The government later said it did not cover those expenses.
Outrage over the documents quickly spread on social media, where Palestinians challenged everything from their leadership’s finances to its political legitimacy in the face of repeatedly delayed elections, last held in 2005.
The furor over the documents comes as the Palestinian economy is stagnating and Palestinians grow increasingly displeased with government services. Palestinian Authority officials have defended their record on stamping out corruption, saying they’ve recovered millions of dollars in misspent funds.

 

Sue Compete America, a Good Place to Start

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Imagine your own government working against it’s own citizens. Now as you read on, listen for what all politicians have to say on the matter of college educations, employment and then immigration.

Pursuit of Happiness for who exactly, worse U.S. students cannot even get a seat in a college class as foreign students have them.

Compete America posts their principles on their website. The page is titled “Compete America’s 2011 Principles for U.S. Job Creation, Innovation and Economic Growth Through Employment-based Visa Reform”, so admittedly this demonstrates the efforts against U.S. citizens. Want to know what companies participate and are members? Click here and you will see corporations you know well like Boeing, Microsoft, Coca~Cola, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

                                            

Okay now read on to learn how bad this is and what questions and actions we need to take.

NationalReview: American technology workers won a big victory in the federal courts this month. The D.C. District Court ruled that a STEM-related visa program created by the Department of Homeland Security was potentially damaging to the domestic labor market and also in violation of federal rule-making procedure. For the plaintiffs in the case, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, however, the fight against BigTech lobbyists and Homeland Security has only just begun. DHS’s so-called Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign nationals to live and work in the U.S. on a student visa even after graduation. In a rule promulgated by DHS in 2008, foreigners graduating in a STEM field at a U.S. school had these authorizations extended to nearly two and a half years after their graduation. U.S. employers love this because, on top of the longer work period, they have a greater chance to transition them into the H-1B program, a “professional specialty worker” visa that can last up to an additional six years. Also, employers receive a tax benefit for hiring OPT participants over Americans, as they do not have to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes for aliens on student visas.
Plaintiffs’ counsel, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (which I work for), argued in court that the OPT extension, created not by statute but entirely by DHS, was really just a way to circumvent the existing H-1B cap of 65,000 annual visa grants set down by Congress years before.
Helpfully for us, DHS had already admitted that this was the purpose for the extension. As it explained in the agency rule creating the extension, “the H-1B category is greatly oversubscribed,” which, as a result, has “adversely affected the ability of US employers to recruit and retain skilled workers.” With the H-1B cap having been held up by Congress over the last few years, DHS did the next best thing. As H-1B guru Norm Matloff describes in a blog post discussing our case, the agency simply went ahead and created “a de facto expansion of H-1B.”
Let me digress for a moment on the H-1B lottery and the “oversubscription” issue. Unlike other visas, the fees for H-1B applications are refundable; there is no penalty for oversubscribing. As a consequence, heavy H-1B users, such as the outsourcing firms that supply BigTech companies as well as BigTech companies themselves, always apply for more visas than they really want in order to get close to their target. David North at the Center for Immigration Studies explains the process here. So when you hear in the press and elsewhere that “petitions have outstripped slots yet again by two-to-one,” the numbers are merely a reflection of companies’ trying to game the lottery system.
As Matloff explains, OPT is “just as harmful as H-1B.” The two programs are now similar in size, and the benefits to BigTech are also similar. Like H-1B holders, OPTs are younger than most American technology workers, and therefore cheaper. Citing the “prevailing wage” rules that technically exist for H-1Bs, Matloff notes that “the legal wage floors for H-1Bs depend on experience” (the worker’s age, in other words), “so hiring young H-1Bs in lieu of older Americans is legal.” As he says with cases such as SoCal Edison and Disney, “age was the key factor underlying the wage savings accrued by hiring H-1Bs.” See this link for information on a similar suit against Google based on age discrimination (which the company has since settled).
In the case of OPTs, however, this “wage floor” isn’t even available; being recent graduates, they’re all young (and cheap). Further, OPT participants are even cheaper to employ because, as stated earlier, aliens on student visas are exempted from Social Security and Medicare.
Fundamentally, the OPT program, like H-1B, allows BigTech firms to flood the labor market, creating artificial competition and pressuring the standard of living we’ve earned through decades of hard-fought democratic and labor reforms. The cost savings, meanwhile, get siphoned up by private technology firms, many of which grew out of taxpayer-funded military programs. Thankfully, much of this wasn’t lost on the judge. DHS had asserted that our plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue because (a) they couldn’t prove an OPT participant actually took one of their jobs (an impossible and unfair demand) and, in the alternative, (b) the plaintiffs were currently employed and so couldn’t show any injury — all are employed, mostly in contract positions. The judge knocked down both arguments by pointing out that “an influx of OPT computer programmers would increase the labor supply, which is likely to depress plaintiff’s members’ wages and threaten their job security, even if they remain employed” (emphasis added).
More concrete evidence was also offered. Plaintiffs showed examples of job advertisements where only OPT participants were requested to apply. As Matloff likes to note, these companies are not just using H-1Bs and OPT participants to replace American workers, as in the SoCal Edison and Disney cases; they’re also hiring them instead of American workers. And many times, it isn’t “highly skilled” types that are being imported but simply “ordinary people, doing ordinary work.” The benefits of circumventing the H-1B program are apparently big. Arguing that DHS’s chosen 29-month extension period was an arbitrary and therefore invalid decision, plaintiffs showed the court that industry lobbyists CompeteAmerica, lobbyists from Microsoft and the Chamber of Commerce, and others had all been in contact with DHS requesting the same 29-month extension. And showing just how eager it was to comply, DHS implemented the rule without going through the statutorily mandated notice-and-comment period, a window of time in which the public can criticize agency action.
DHS tried to argue in court that skipping the process was necessitated by a looming “fiscal emergency” in the U.S. economy that could be ameliorated only by letting “tens of thousands of OPT workers” join the tech industry. Whose economic analysis did DHS cite to back this up? Studies from the technology industry itself. Ultimately, although the court knocked down the OPT extension on procedural grounds, the victory is only temporary. DHS can open up the rule to notice-and-comment and try again.
Further, the judge rejected our argument that the program violates the law on other, more substantive (and less procedural) grounds. According to congressionally made statute (Immigration and Naturalization Act § 1101(a)(15)(F)(i)), student visas cannot be allocated for working purposes and may be allocated only to “bona fide students . . . solely for the purpose of pursuing such a course of study . . . at an established . . . academic institution” (emphasis added). But again, OPT, entirely a DHS creation, purports to let student-visa holders join the workforce. By ignoring the stipulations of Congress, the program exceeds DHS’s statutory authority.
By giving DHS the authority to redefine what a “student” is, the court is allowing the agency to set the duration and conditions of a student’s stay, potentially letting them occupy the labor market for years upon years. Good for the foreign “student,” good for the trillion-dollar

tech industry, but bad for the American worker. — Ian Smith is an attorney who works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute.