COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Assassinated in Dubai



February 17, 2010
Assassins had Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in sight as soon as he got to Dubai
Hugh Tomlinson, Dubai
Times on Line

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh took no notice of the two men who joined him in the lift of his hotel in Dubai during the short ride to the second floor on the afternoon of January 20.

One was short and portly with a moustache, the other tall. Dressed in sports gear and carrying tennis rackets, they looked like any other European tourists visiting the Gulf state for some winter sun.

He did not realise that the two men were part of an 11-strong team that had come to kill him. In just over five hours he would be dead.

Stepping out of the lift, al-Mabhouh was escorted to room 230 by a member of staff at the Al Bustan Rotana hotel, near Dubai airport. Unnoticed, the taller man followed him down the corridor, clocking his room number and that of the room opposite, 237. In the hours that followed, room 237 became the staging post for the audacious murder of the senior Hamas official.

Within an hour of al-Mabhouh checking in his killers had established that room 237 was unoccupied and moved in across the hall. By that evening seven of the team were gathered in the room, waiting for their opportunity.

The killers had lain in wait for al-Mabhouh, whom Hamas admits was involved in the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989, since the previous night. Flying in from Paris, Frankfurt, Rome and Zurich, the team of ten men and one woman arrived within three hours of each other. The alleged mastermind of the operation, a Frenchman using the name Peter Elvinger, was the last to arrive at 2.30am on January 19. The team dispersed for the night to hotels near the airport and to the Al Bustan Rotana.

The following morning, several members of the team including Elvinger and the Irish woman, whose passport bore the name Gail Folliard, met at a shopping centre to discuss final preparations for the murder. Nothing was left to chance.

Security footage of the killers’ movements during the afternoon, released by police in Dubai yesterday, underlines the professionalism of the operation. The group switched hotels several times and wore disguises including false beards and wigs, while surveillance teams rotated in pairs through the hotel lobby, never hanging around for too long and paying for everything in cash.

Folliard and another member of the party carrying an Irish passport in the name of Kevin Daveron were operating as spotters on the second floor of the hotel when the murder was committed. Both switched hotels that afternoon and dressed smartly to pose as hotel staff. The bald Daveron donned a dark wig and glasses, while Folliard appears to have removed a blonde wig to reveal dark hair.

Throughout the operation, none of the suspects made a direct call to any another. However, Dubai police traced a high volume of calls and text messages between three phones carried by the assassins and four numbers in Austria where a command centre had apparently been established.

To co-ordinate their movements on the ground, the team used discreet, sophisticated short-range communication devices as they tracked their victim.

Al-Mabhouh touched down in Dubai at around 3pm from Damascus to arrange a shipment of weapons to Gaza. Hamas has not explained why one of its senior commanders, a marked man with several assassination attempts against him already, should have arrived alone without any security.

Clearly, though, his mission was compromised long before his arrival in Dubai. The assassination team were waiting for him at the terminal. CCTV footage shows al-Mabhouh passing within metres of one of his killers. As the Hamas commander approaches the taxi rank outside the terminal, a spotter from the team can be seen sidling into shot behind him, speaking on a mobile phone to confirm the Palestinian’s arrival.

Al-Mabhouh checked into the Al Bustan Rotana at 3.25pm with the surveillance team in close attendance. After they followed him to his room, a call was made and Elsinger booked room 237 from the business suite of another hotel. With the trap set, he then booked a flight to Munich via Qatar at 7.30pm that evening, an hour before the killing.

Security footage gives a macabre inevitability to the hours that followed. When al-Mabhouh made a short visit out of the hotel, apparently to meet a contact, the killers moved swiftly into place. Four burly men arrived at room 237.

Whether through good fortune or design, no security camera covered the door to al-Mabhouh’s room and there is no footage of how the team gained entry to the room. Hotel records show that at 8pm an attempt was made to re-programme the lock to his door and Daveron, waiting in the second floor lobby, is seen to distract a hotel guest who appears from the second floor lifts for a few vital seconds to give the killers time to gain access.

When al-Mabhouh returned to the hotel at 8.24pm his killers were in place. Police believe that he was asphyxiated. By 8.46pm, less than 20 minutes after their victim entered the hotel, the four killers are shown leaving the second floor, followed closely by their spotters in room 237. The surveillance team in the hotel lobby also disbands.

Less than two hours later Daveron and Folliard are shown boarding a flight to Paris. Others took flights to Hong Kong and South Africa before doubling back to Europe.

Al-Mabhouh’s body was not found until 1.30pm the following afternoon. His room showed no signs of forced entry. The cause of death was initially believed to be an increase of blood pressure in the brain.

The murder was only uncovered days later, when local security services were told who the victim was. Al-Mabhouh had also been travelling on a false passport.

As an international manhunt began for the 11 suspects yesterday, one particular anomaly in the case remained. Folliard is the only woman named so far, but footage of the final surveillance shows a second woman arriving at the hotel accompanied by a man in a Panama hat and a beard. It is not known whether this woman is one of two Palestinians arrested in Dubai last week in connection with the murder.

As the hunt for the killers begins in earnest and the finger is pointed at Mossad, room 230 remains empty. “Closed for emergency repairs”.


65 comments:

  1. Another one bites the dust.

    No arrest, no police involvement, no Courts.

    It is rumored to have been the Mossad, that did the deed.

    I truly doubt if it was the ISI.

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  2. WiO,

    You're coming down pretty hard on MLD.

    Do you take every tax deduction due you such as exemptions for your children, deductions for business expenses, etc? Are you aware that many people think your mortgage interest deductions are "looting"?

    MLD and her husband did their part to stimulate the economy and aid Detroit. They broke no law nor took anything that they weren't entitled to.

    So why be so harsh?

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  3. Congress recently passed legislation allowing the deductions to be claimed this tax season (see Senate Unanimously Approves Bill to Speed Haiti Tax Deductions). However, CCH principal federal tax analyst Mark Luscombe acknowledged that while deducting eligible contributions on 2009 returns offers a quicker tax benefit, deducting the contributions on a 2010 return may offer a larger benefit, at least for the well-heeled.

    ...

    The exception indicates that Congress may have made the law for some cash contributions too restrictive, with the language of the statute denying a deduction for contributions that are clearly legitimate and verifiable. The IRS has already said that it will accept payroll records and pledge cards as substantiation for charitable donations made through payroll deductions, even though these don't meet the exact requirements of the new law.

    “Perhaps the exception made for Haiti earthquake relief will be expanded to other situations in which there is a third-party record that a donation has taken place, even though the record comes from a store, not the charitable organization, such as donations to literacy programs or food pantries made by adding a few dollars to your bill at the bookstore or grocery,” Luscombe said in a statement. “This may come through an IRS ruling or from clarifying legislation, but I think it will come one way or another.”


    Haiti Contributions

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  4. Mitt Romney ties to exercise US Law in Canada




















    "The man sitting in front of Mr. Romney’s wife dropped his seat back and when Mr. Romney asked him to move it upright for takeoff, the man became “physically violent"






    careful there Mitt!!

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  5. I tried to take advantage of the cash for clunkers, but my clunkers were either too old or not old enough, or weighed too much, like my 1960 Ford.

    If there is a government program, take advantage of it.

    If you don't like it, politic against it.

    If you can't find a government program for you, you're not trying these days.

    There is nothing wrong in that.

    And then about education, how many have been helped by some government program or other? Of all races, colors and creeds.

    My brother went to Med school mostly on the taxpayers dime, no Med school here, he's paid it back to society a thousand fold.

    Could make this sound a lot tougher but won't.

    We argue too much as it is.

    It just sounded so damned self-righteous.

    Melody 1 Wio 0, on that exchange.

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  6. Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.

    ...

    The case against the stimulus revolves around the idea that the economy would be no worse off without it. As a Wall Street Journal opinion piece put it last year, “The resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic — not the fiscal stimulus program — deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement.”

    ...

    The last year has shown — just as economists have long said — that aid to states and cities may be the single most effective form of stimulus. Unlike road- or bridge-building, it can happen in a matter of weeks.


    Reveals Success

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  7. Whit, since he's not going to answer you I'll tell why he's so hard on me. He doesn't like the fact that I come into a political bar and not contribute one thing, not one thing, about politics.

    Why that bothers him so, is beyond me because I really can't think of a time when I interrupted a serious discussion. I always wait until there is no one around or the conversation is geared to something other than politics.

    He's a cranky old Jewish man with so much hatred and trying to change something he can't that he feels I'm the only one he can take it out on. He knows I'm the only one here he can feel superior to.

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  8. He didn't do cash for clunkers. He just went out and bought a new car.

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  9. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investments Board held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, and members got detailed insight regarding participant behavior during the economic slump of 2008.

    Tom Trabucco, Director of External Affairs for the Board, explained how they gathered their information and why behavior impacts the TSP.

    ...

    "We did see a couple of bumps in the loans, but those happened at just about the same time as the Cash for Clunkers and the first time homebuyers programs became available. . . . We suspect -- it's speculation -- but I think it's fairly sound that we may have had some of that.


    Steady During Crisis

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  10. I'm glad that you, Trish and Teresita are here. It would be a pretty sorry establishment otherwise.

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  11. Thanks guys, that means a lot.

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  12. The victims had already been dead over two days. Muslims believe in prompt burial, but the family had no way to carry the bodies through the battlefield to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, 17 miles away.

    Would the Americans take them?

    Within hours, a Marine Corps Osprey, a transport aircraft that can take off and land like a helicopter, put down nearby, taking enemy fire as it came in, and the Marines grimly loaded the bodies aboard for the trip to the cemetery.


    Civilian Deaths

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  13. Honestly, though, I am glad that all the regulars are here. After several years, the 'ol EB has grown on me.

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  14. Now Sam there is my polarity. He walks in on a heartfelt conversation and every ten minutes posts 50 geopolitical posts. ;)

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  15. Brought a little light and life into a sometimes dark dungeon I'd say.

    And not doing politics may be the best politics of all, in the long run.

    Humans being the argumentive sort we are--homo argumentatis, or something

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  16. It's like working, if you were a Gardener you wouldn't want to come home and garden. You need a break somewhere.

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  17. Sam, you said you were going to be back in the United States for awhile if I recall. When was that? Maybe I could figure out a float trip or something.

    I'm gonna go gamble for awhile. Wampum Day.

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  18. what pile of shit reporting...

    ONE: Assassins had Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in sight as soon as he got to Dubai, to be assassinated one must be a PUBLIC FIGURE, and Mahmoud, the murderer, was traveling incognito, hiding his ID, is Mahmoud al-Mabhouh really a PUBLIC FIGURE, or just a highly ranked murderer?

    How do we know the 11 are guilty? Is there no presumed innocent until tried?

    definition: An assassination is the targeted killing of a public figure.

    TWO: "audacious murder of the senior Hamas official"

    Is that not oxymoronic? Is not being a Senior Hamas Official make him terrorist by very definition?

    Three: The killers had lain in wait for al-Mabhouh, whom Hamas admits was involved in the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989

    Can you be called a killer if you kill a murderer, who is seeking illegal weapons from iran, in violation of international norms and laws, to seek murder of israelis. Sounds like a good law enforcement, and far less bloody than America does in Afpakistan....

    stated: The murder was only uncovered days later, when local security services were told who the victim was. Al-Mabhouh had also been travelling on a false passport.


    So the Hamas MURDERER, traveling on a false passport, himself an international terror figure, arms dealer and all around international piece of shit was killed... SO?

    ;;;;;As an international manhunt began for the 11 suspects yesterday,


    why do they get a reward?

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  19. WiO,

    You're coming down pretty hard on MLD.

    Do you take every tax deduction due you such as exemptions for your children, deductions for business expenses, etc? Are you aware that many people think your mortgage interest deductions are "looting"?

    MLD and her husband did their part to stimulate the economy and aid Detroit. They broke no law nor took anything that they weren't entitled to.

    So why be so harsh?



    Mostly because of the way she presented it....

    But if you want to argue the tax code as a whole and it's ethics it would be a complex

    but the cash for clunkers program simply pisses me off...

    the whole destroy the shareholders equity and give ownership to the unions....

    the whole cost of each clunker, to the total dollars spent of NON-American cars, just bugs the crap out of me...

    the whole cost of the clunkers that are now debt...

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  20. Bob only comes to MLD's defense when he thinks I'm attacking her based on something he misread, such that Whit has to delete his response. WiO tears off a piece, and Bob shrugs.

    McCain wants to do for the Senate what Gingrich did for the House in 1994, now with "Ten Republican Promises"...thing is, McCain doesn't have the conservative cred to pull it off. Is he going to promise no pork? He added $140 billion in pork to TARP. Is he going to secure the borders? We remember McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Feingold, what's next, McCain-Reid? McCain-Franken?

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  21. Melody : He's a cranky old Jewish man with so much hatred and trying to change something he can't that he feels I'm the only one he can take it out on. He knows I'm the only one here he can feel superior to.

    Fuck you....

    I am a cranky old person you dumb shit...

    Being JEWISH or MALE has NOTHING to do with it...

    As for your martyr complex?

    You value yourself way to much...

    but you are correct, you add NOTHING to the political discussion....

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  22. While I find no fault in the accusation that WiO may be a "cranky old man", what does his Jewishness have to do with it?

    BAD FORM and highly political as well. A cheap shot by someone claiming no biases or interest.

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  23. I wonder if the avenging angels were also cranky Jews?

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  24. WE DID NOT DO CASH FOR CLUNKERS.

    What part of that do you not understand? My husband wanted a new dodge challenger so he went a bought it.

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  25. I use the word Jewish because of the crusade you seem to be on with your comments about the Torah and Israel.

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  26. Bullshit: an assassination is a political or religious act. It is murder but with a political or religious motivation.

    al-Mabhouh was a senior Hamas military commander. He was taken out by non-middle eastern appearing people with fake European passports. If it had been another Islamic group, they would be howling about their authorship.

    You don't have to be a genius to make an educated guess that this was a very competent and deniable political assassination by a state player that favors blue and white in their national colors of choice.

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  27. Deuce said...
    Bullshit: an assassination is a political or religious act. It is murder but with a political or religious motivation.


    I prefer the term "liquidation"

    or Justice...

    after all the "senior hamas commander" was a self admitted murderer, an illegal arms dealer at a minimum...

    is it any difference than what America does with predators but without the collateral damage?

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  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  29. I have no theory on avenging clunkers for old jewish angry men. I have enough problems of my own.

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  30. What do American predators have to do with it?

    Personally I like the idea of assasinations in theory but when implemented by gung-ho government employees my ardor weakens.

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  31. I didnt like the angle of the story...

    It was written as if a Senior Hamas Terrorist, traveling on a false passport, guilty of murder, buying illegal weapons for terrorism has any rights at all....

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  32. I reread the article and it seems like fairly neutral, straightforward reporting. No slant towards one side or the other.

    Personally, I prefer to think the man was killed rather than murdered.

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  33. I must step out of the shadows.Don't you think that "Liquidation" has a whiff of nazism attached to it. Why do you prefer it?

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  34. We shall see how the 'dispatching' gets responded to and then have a clearer understanding of who did it, nuances and euphemisms aside.

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  35. Stella, don't be such a stranger.

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  36. It was a very competent piece of work. They did it in such a way that they would probably have plenty of time to escape.

    There might be a couple of security forces in the world with the competence to do a job like that, but, likely, very few with the motivation.

    Gotta give'm an A+.

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  37. Terminated, with extreme prejudice.

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  38. Missed the whole initial Melody/WiO exchange, Melody. So staying out of it. But yep, easily swayed.

    Will be in Seattle 1 July - 10 August, Bob. I'm going to see if I can't get my brother to oragnize a float down the Yakima while there. Re-live one of those regular childhood summer excursions. If I remember correctly, I think I mentioned, through a drunken haze, something about picking you up on the way through to Priest. Will be doing that also.

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  39. Yeah, Stella, this place needs more estrogen.

    But as WiO points out, it was what we do with Hellfire missiles launched from Predators, only with fewer women and children killed as human shields.

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  40. Sam, if you're talking about the Yakima through the canyon from Ellensburg, that's class 1, for kids.

    Try the Green River, class 4 in places, and very close to Seattle.

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  41. Stella B. Starlight said...
    I must step out of the shadows.Don't you think that "Liquidation" has a whiff of nazism attached to it. Why do you prefer it?

    Those that murder Jews and brag about it need to be "liquidated"

    Hamas senior commanders that murder Jews and try to murder scores of Israelis need to be erased, snuffed out, liquidated, removed from the gene pool...

    call it whatever...

    erasing evil is good......

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  42. Yeah, but you can't get a lot of beer drinking time in while shooting a class 4.

    Is that the Green River where you can go out and jump off the cliffs into the river below? Kind of near Tiger Mt., I think. There's a name for that place. Can't remember now.

    Been there, done that.

    Floated the Cedar once. That was fun.

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  43. Used to live on the hill just above the Cedar. Address was Renton. Just above Maple Valley Rd.

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  44. Bob only comes to MLD's defense when he thinks I'm attacking her based on something he misread, such that Whit has to delete his response. WiO tears off a piece, and Bob shrugs.


    Nah, just trying not to slip the separator belt again.

    Could make this sound a lot tougher but won't.

    I damn near got banned, last time around.

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  45. Sam, I almost bought a very cute blue house exactly there, perched on the rim of the Cedar River valley, where there's woods and trails, I'd be able to jump off from my backyard and go hiking any day. But it was too far from where both of us work....you have to get through Renton traffic, and that sucks these days.

    The Green River Gorge runs like a snake right through the exurbs, you're thinking of the area around the one-lane Franklin Bridge. This place. You know you miss it.

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  46. I nearly froze my ass off floating the St. Joe one time. Those rubber rafts lose a lot of heat. But this was in late April, with the melt.

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  47. Evan Bye!

    But I know he's not running for President, because if he was, he would have quit the Senate right away instead of just declaring no sixth term. And if he rolled out a book and a new MSNBC show with Keith Olbermann that would be an even bigger indicator. Sure as shootin' caribou!

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  48. I'm not sure American Audiences are ready for this commercial yet!

    Fleggaard Holding A/S, through its subsidiaries, markets electronic appliances. The company specializes in selling televisions and radio sets.

    ...

    Here is a link to simply the best advertisement ever made.


    Fleggaard

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  49. Green River Gorge!

    That's the one!

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  50. Traffic must be the shits there now.

    Maple Valley Rd. was a nightmare during rush hour when I was commuting there back in '94.

    They was a lot of construction work going on widening the bridge on Maple Valley Rd. that goes over the Cedar just east of 405 at the time.

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  51. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  52. What's wrong with 'they was'? Understood it perfectly--I use it all the time.

    Good commercial.

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  53. viktor silo said...
    From Inglourious Basterds:

    "My name is Lt.Aldo Raine, and I'm puttin together a special team. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwackin, guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin one thing, and one thing only, Killin Nazi's.

    The Members of the National Socialist Party, have conquered Europe through murder, torture, intimidation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. Now I don't know
    bout y'all? But I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily, and then jump out of a fuckin air-o-plane, to teach the Nazi's lessons in humanity.

    Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers
    of a Jew hatin, mass murderin manic, and they need to be destroyed. That's why any and every son-of-a--bitch we find wearin a Nazi uniform, they're
    gonna die."

    Substitute Hamas for Nazi and you get the picture.

    BTW, for any of you youngsters, Aldo Ray was a famous tough guy in the 50s and 60s. I'm pretty sure that the character Lt. Aldo Raine is a homage to him.

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  54. MOSSAD and JEWS HELPING JEWS

    ...Mossad is one of the world's smallest intelligence services. But it has a back-up system no other outfit can match. The system is known as sayanim, a derivative of the Hebrew word lesayeah, meaning to help.

    There are tens of thousands of these "helpers". Each has been carefully recruited, sometimes by katsas, Mossad's field agents. Others have been asked to become helpers by other members of the secret group.

    Created by Meir Amit, the role of the sayanim is a striking example of the cohesiveness of the world Jewish community.

    In practical terms, a sayan who runs a car rental agency will provide a kidon with a vehicle on a no-questions basis. An estate agent sayan will provide a building for surveillance. A bank manager sayan will provide funds at any time of day or night, and a sayan doctor provides medical assistance.

    Any of these helpers could have been involved in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Mossad has recently expanded its network of sayanim into Arab countries.

    A sayan doctor in the West Bank provided details of the homoeopathic concoction Yasser Arafat used to drink. When he died in 2004, his personal physician, Dr al-Kurdi, said "poisoning is a strong possibility in this case".There have been reports that more than a dozen terrorists have died from poisoning in the past five years,.

    Within the global intelligence community, respect for Mossad grew following the kidon assassination of Dr Gerald Bull, the Canadian scientist who was probably the world's greatest expert on gun-barrel ballistics. I

    srael had made several attempts to buy his expertise. Each time, Bull had made clear his dislike for the Jewish state.
    Instead he had offered his services to Saddam Hussein, to build a super-gun capable of launching shells containing nuclear, chemical or biological warheads directly from Iraq into Israel. Saddam had ordered three of the weapons at a cost of $20 million. Bull was retained as a consultant for a fee of $1 million.

    On the afternoon of March 20, 1990, the sanction to kill Bull was given by the then prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. Nahum Admoni, the head of Mossad, sent a three-man team to Brussels, where Bull lived in a luxury apartment block. Each kidon carried a handgun in a holster under his jacket.

    When the 61-year-old Bull answered the doorbell of his home, he was shot five times in the head and the neck, each kidon firing their 7.65 pistol in turn, leaving Bull dead on his doorstep. An hour later they were out of the country on a flight to Tel Aviv.

    Within hours, Mossad's own department of psychological warfare had arranged with sayanim in the European media to leak stories that Bull had been shot by Saddam's hit squad because he had planned to renege on their deal.
    Telegraph

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  55. What do killers look like? Not what you would think, I suspect.

    Pictures of the 11 suspects

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  56. CNN Poll says 52% of Americans feel Obama does not deserve to be re-elected.

    Latest CNN Poll


    .

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  57. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  58. Obviously, the Arabs are profiling Europeans. I pity the poor Euro man who just happens to be in a hotel where a Hamas terrorist arms buyer is offed.

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