Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for June 2010

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The new drug route: Liberia?

Cocaine originating from Venezuela and Colombia is being routed through Liberia, reports the Wall Street Journal,

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday brought narcotics-trafficking-related charges against nine men who prosecutors allege were attempting to use bribes to build a new West African smuggling route to Europe, in a case that involved top Liberian officials going undercover.

Prosecutors in New York accused the nine of attempting to bring more than $100 million of cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia to Liberia, with most of it destined for Europe and some for the U.S.

Remarkably, a relative of the the Liberian president herself aided the DEA on the operation,

Drug Enforcement Administration agents had the help of Fombah Sirleaf, stepson of Liberia’s president and director of the country’s national security agency, who went undercover and wore eavesdropping equipment for the investigation, according to indictments filed in U.S. District Court in New York.

FARC involvement:

According to prosecutors, the men claimed that the cocaine would be supplied by members of the rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.S. authorities say the group has used drug trafficking to sustain its operations.

The trend remains, however, that the new drug route is through Africa, and part of the money goes towards financing terrorism:

U.S. officials say Colombian and Venezuelan traffickers in recent years have shipped billions of dollars of cocaine to Europe and the U.S. with the help of corrupt officials in African nations such as Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Togo and Nigeria.
…
A 2007 U.S. government assessment said that Colombian and Venezuelan traffickers were becoming entrenched in Western Africa, and were estimated to be shipping between 180 and 240 metric tons of cocaine annually, mostly aimed at the European market. In recent years, cocaine prices in Europe have yielded better profits than those in the U.S., American officials say. Some of the proceeds end up funding terror attacks by Colombian rebels, officials say.

In December, federal prosecutors in New York accused three alleged al Qaeda associates of attempting to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Europe via North Africa to raise money for terrorist groups.

In Latin America, drugs, crime and terrorism are all threads of one fabric.

This was the subject of this morning’s podcast.

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The 40 Al-Qaeda “peace activists”

At the IDF website,
Attackers of the IDF soldiers are Al Qaeda mercenaries

On board the Mavi Marmara ship that arrived as part of the flotilla to Gaza was a group of approximately 40 people with no identification papers, who are mercenaries belonging to the Al Qaeda terror organization. This was disclosed by the Israeli Security Cabinet, which gathered on Tuesday evening (June 1) for a special meeting.

MEMRI translated Arab-language media reports on flotilla participants: Writing Wills, Preparing for Martyrdom, Determined to Reach Gaza or Die

The Egyptian flotilla delegation included two members of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the Egyptian parliament: Muhammad Al-Baltaji and Hazem Farouq.
…
The Lebanese flotilla delegation, with six members, was headed by attorney Dr. Hani Suleiman, who also participated in a February 2009 Gaza flotilla. He was pro-bono attorney to Japanese terrorist Kozo Okamoto.[2] In 2006, he signed a communiqué supporting armed resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq.[3]
…
The Jordanian flotilla delegation included Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan activists such as delegation head Wael Al-Saka, a veteran Muslim Brotherhood member,[7] and Salam Al-Falahat, who was general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan from 2006 to 2008.[8] In an interview last year, Al-Falahat said: “We in the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan see Palestine as part of the Islamic and Arab land that must not be relinquished – on the contrary, defending it is a national and jurisprudential obligation… We see Hamas movement in Palestine as standing at the head of the project of the Arab and Islamic liberation for which the Muslim Brotherhood calls… The Muslim Brotherhood supports Hamas and every Arab resistance movement in the region that works for liberation.”[9]
…
Prominent activists in the Yemeni flotilla delegation were three MPs from the Al-Islah party, an Islamist party that is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. One, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hazmi, was photographed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara brandishing his large curved dagger.

And let’s not forget a Catholic priest,

Another passenger on the Mavi Marmara was Bishop Hilarion Capucci, who in the 1970s was convicted and imprisoned in Israel for smuggling weapons from Lebanon to the PLO, but afterwards was freed at the request of the Vatican. According to Algerian flotilla participants, Hilarion said that he was “waiting for the day when he could return to Palestine and hear the church bells and the muezzins’ calls of ‘Allah Akbar,’ under the skies of a free Palestine.”

What was their goal?

Attorney Fathi Nassar of Jordan, said: “The Freedom Flotilla members are filled with determination to reach Gaza or die.”

Go read the rest.

Gateway Pundit wants to know,

So, this begs the question… Why is the Obama Administration condemning Israel and siding with Al-Qaeda?

In the news this morning, Israel deports activists from Gaza-bound flotilla.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Sunk in Guatemala

In the middle of the devastation caused by Hurricane Agatha,

Hardest hit was Guatemala, with 152 people killed, dozens injured and at least 100 people missing following the floods and mudslides that swept away ramshackle homes along hills and destroyed bridges and roads.

As many as 22,000 dwellings were destroyed in Guatemala and 155,000 people forced from their homes, about half of whom remained in shelters, officials said.
…
Guatemala City’s response was hampered by a separate emergency: the eruption of a nearby volcano whose ash forced the closure of the capital’s international airport since last week, when two people were also killed and three went missing.

one extraordinary disaster stands out:

The apparently bottomless sinkhole that swallowed a three-story building,

ruptured sewer line is thought to have caused the sinkhole that appeared in Guatemala City in 2007.

The 2010 Guatemala sinkhole could have formed in a similar fashion, Currens said. A burst sanitary or storm sewer may have been slowly saturating the surrounding soil for a long time before tropical storm Agatha added to the inundation.

Dot Earth’s also posting on it.

Will the sinkhole get larger?

UPDATE
Obi’s Sister calls it “Guatemala’s hole to China.”

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The church of Nancy

It takes a special kind of moral obtuseness to come up with Nancy’s particular brand of theology. Nancy professes to be a devout Catholic.

First, the statement that she follows Jesus Christ’s public policy (emphasis added):

“And that Word,” Pelosi said, “is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

Hey Nancy, ever hear of separation of church and state? As Sister Toldjah put it,

First, I don’t have to tell you how flaming red the OutrageOmeter would be right now if Pelosi’s words were instead uttered by George “Dumbya” Bush during his two terms. There’d be so much fretting, sweating, handwringing, mouth foaming, demands for “clarification” – and that’s just from the MSM.

Let’s listen to Nancy,

Ed asks,

What Would Jesus Abort? That should be the question Nancy Pelosi answers after assuring voters that she must craft her public policies to meet with the approval of Jesus Christ when He returns at the end of time. Pelosi must be hoping that she’ll have enough time to figure out an explanation for voting against a ban on partial-birth abortions

Never mind that the Pope took Nancy to task over the issue of abortion. In the Church of Nancy, it’s all about a good Word.

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Chavez backs Mexican leftist guerillas

As if the Mexicans didn’t have enough problems, Hugo Chavez is financing the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario,
Venezuela’s Chavez backing leftist guerrillas in Mexico

A leftist guerrilla movement responsible for many kidnappings and attacks inside Mexico is secretly receiving funding from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, U.S. and Mexican intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner.

The group, called the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR), is “a terrorist organization bent on destabilizing Mexico. … Splinters of the group are also adding to the problem,” said a Mexican official who requested anonymity. The group, which announced its existence in 1996, claimed responsibility for the 2007 bombings of the Mexican government’s Pemex oil pipelines, along with several other bombing attempts of a bank and Sears department stores in cities throughout Mexico.

“Chavez has been funding groups like these in Mexico and throughout Latin America,” said a U.S. official with knowledge of the group and its operations. “These groups are nothing more than terrorist organizations and members have connected to other narco-trafficking organizations in Mexico, creating a very dangerous matrix.”

Funding from drug cartels and leftist governments like the one in Caracas has enabled the group to mount a significant threat to Mexico and to become a concern for the United States, officials said.

A U.S. military official who has worked in the region said Chavez is using the EPR and other leftist organizations as proxies in an ideological struggle with the United States. One goal is the destabilization of the Mexican government.

“EPR has members that are former Cuban agents, Colombians, as well as others with an agenda to see a shift to the left in Mexico,” the official said.

The EPR may be behind the Fernandez de Cevallos kidnapping,

Members of EPR, in conjunction with narco-traffickers, are suspected of organizing the recent kidnapping of President Felipe Calderone’s close friend and former leader of Mexico’s National Action Party, Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, Mexican and U.S. officials told The Examiner

Imagine now a Communist narco-state bordering the US. Can you now understand why a secure border is a matter of national security?

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First the “aid” flotilla, then the demonstrations

John Hinderaker writes about phase two:

Now that the thugs on board the Mavi Marvara have gotten the violence they wanted and instigated, the second stage of Hamas’s operation has begun: protests against Israel around the world. In Paris, peace activists throw rocks and “rip up gratings to be used as projectiles.” Later, they tried to break into the Israeli embassy.

John has several photos of the “peaceful” demonstrations around the world.

Make no mistake: Turkey is firmly on the side of terrorism;
The Terror Finance Flotilla
The convoy of ships allegedly trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip was organized by a group belonging to an officially designated terrorist organization.

The Turkish IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish) was founded in 1992, and reportedly popped up on the CIA’s radar in 1996 for its radical Islamist leanings. Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world.

However, the organization is not a force for good. The Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas.

In 2008, the Israelis banned IHH, along with 35 other Islamist charities worldwide, for its ties to the Union of Good. This was a follow-on designation; Israelis first blocked the Union of Good from operating in the West Bank and Gaza in 2002.

Interestingly, the Union of Good may not only be tied to Hamas. Included in the Israeli list of 36 designees was the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). In 2006, both the U.S. government and the United Nations designated the IIRO branch offices in Indonesia and the Philippines for financing al Qaeda. French magistrate Jean-Louis Brougiere also testified that IHH had an “important role” in Ahmed Ressam’s failed “millennium plot” to bomb the Los Angeles airport in late 1999.

Jennifer Rubin:

When will the Obama team speak up about this? “Ten thousand Turks marched in protest from the Israeli consulate to a main square on Monday afternoon, chanting, ‘Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed!’ The protesters had earlier tried to storm the consulate building but were blocked by police. Earlier on Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan condemned the seizure of the Gaza flotilla ship, Mavi Marmara, as ’state terrorism,’ saying that Israel had violated international law and shown that it does not want peace in the region. The Mavi Marmara was flying a Turkish flag and most of the activists injured on board were Turkish members of the Islamic NGO IHH, which Israeli officials have said is linked to terrorist organizations.”

When the BBC runs amok and the world is at Israel’s throat, Melanie Phillips explains what’s afoot: “And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion — backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine — was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. As I write, reports are coming in of Arab rioting in Jerusalem. The notion — uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media — that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous.”

Phase three?
Another flotilla, with Turkish Navy escort.

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