Benjamin C. Works, Executive Director

--Celebrating Chaos Theory Since 1990--

Benjamin C. Works, Director

718 937-2092; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com

--Celebrating Chaos Theory Since 1990--

SIT 9-14; Monday Sept. 14, 1998

Strategic Issues Today:

"A conquering army on the border will not be halted by the power of eloquence."

- Otto Von Bismarck, Sept. 24, 1867

In a sense, this is an extension of last Friday's early warning report with some new items and details.

* Osama, Wag the Dog and Reactions:

A source on Capitol Hill alerted me to Egyptian press speculating on a "scheduled" Tomahawk shoot against Saddam for mid-October as another "Wag the Dog," sending me an August 31^st press clip from The Arabic News Daily:

Diplomatic sources in Cairo said they expect the U.S. to direct a military strike at Iraq in October should Baghdad continue its refusal to cooperate with the special international committee, UNSCOM, investigating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The sources told ArabicNews.com Saturday that the "U.S.A informed France, Russia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt that it expect to be supported in military operations against Iraq if Baghdad continued its current status."

The sources added that "Washington has reached an understanding with France and Russia concerning this matter after Washington's approval last February of changing its plan to strike at Iraq and allowing the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to meditate to solve the crisis peacefully."

The sources added, "In case of Iraq's insistence on its current status, the military operations will aim at weakening the Iraqi regime to the utmost degree in order not to defy the Security Council's resolution."

Arabic News Daily, August 31, 1998

Now truth is relative in our time and the Arabs love their gossip and speculation, too. But it is clear that Saddam is ramping up a crisis and mid- to late-October looks good for seriously teasing the US.

Oddly, in Harlem, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa, the bombings are creating a rift between Black American militants and the Muslim communities --both Black Muslims and immigrant Muslims. It seems our Blacks do not buy the Arab "Wag the Dog" claims as they focus on the blacks murdered in the two embassy bombings. I got an interesting explanation after church in Manhattan yesterday about this subject from a black radio talk show host (WLIB) who is a member of my congregation and is a maturing 60s activist. Black activists are warning the Muslims that they are Americans first and do not enjoy the possibility of Blacks being killed in NY City, and are angry about those Kenyans and Tanzanians murdered wholesale.

As to related matters, Crown Prince Abdullah is headed into NY City for the UN General Assembly and should be here and possibly in Washington, this week. He was in London with Prince Charles and Tony Blair over the weekend on his first trip into the West in 10 years. The Lewinsky affair is not the sort of thing Abdullah and his conservative faction need to have publicized throughout the Arab world.

Meanwhile, Taliban reports they have Osama under house arrest, not wanting any immediate problems with the US now that an Irani army is camped on their western border.

From Clinton's worsening situation and Saddam's increasingly overt resistance, it is clear we will be in another showdown by mid-Oct. Call it what you will, Bill is crippled and Saddam is going to squeeze the level of tension he wants to serve his purposes. He controls the initiative entirely and has since the cessation of hostilities agreement in 91. This may be read as a formal "early warning" of a probable strike by whichever President is in office then.

As to Ron Noble's essay recommending a greater Interpol budget for tracking terrorists such as Osama's followers, Roger Charles of "Soldiers for the Truth" promptly wrote:

Ben - you may recognize Ron Noble from his having presided over Dept of Treasury's criminal whitewash of the ATF's role at the Branch Davidian compound. I noted the NYT referred to his having been the US rep to Interpol but not what job he had that made him the US rep.

Imagine how accountable a UN POLICE force would be.

Rog

You just can't make stuff this good up, folks.

* Iran-Afghanistan.

Ayatollah Khamenei controls the Revolutionary Guards, which are now on the Afghan border, while the President --Khatemi-- "controls" the regular army. Today, Iran's Foreign ministry got a bit truculent regarding Taliban and indicated regular army divisions will join the RevGd on the border for those maneuvers. Strength is now estimated at 200,000-plus and there are threats of air strikes. Iran is concerned that Shiite minorities in newly captured towns are in peril of their lives from the Sunni Taliban.

There have been odd assassination attempts and bombs in Tehran in the last two or three days, and it seems somebody from the Sunni side wants to stir the Shiites up further.

If Iran wants to grapple that Tar Baby, let 'em, says I. Anyone who respects Rudyard Kipling would gladly pass the bitter cup that is Afghanistan on to the next sucker. Breznyev ignored the Tsarist experience and the Soviet Union's collapse was accelerated as a result. This would be a way of letting the council of Ayatollahs discredit themselves as a fourth branch of government. The shift also indicates a continuing threat of an Irani attempt to topple Taliban by invasion.

There has been an eruption of violence in the capital of Albania, over the weekend, as well. Supporters of the opposition Democratic Party set fire to prime minister Fatos Nano's office on Sunday following the murder on Saturday night of a leading Democratic politician, Azem Hajdari, and a bodyguard. Hajdari was a 35-year old youth leader of the Geg faction and Sali Berisha's Geg-based "Democratic" Party which looted the country through pyramid schemes and is in league with the KLA to prosecute the Geg war against Serbia and Macedonia.

Nano, leader of the Tosk peoples of the south and a multi-party coalition government, has received US assistance in trying to chase down Islamic bombers and to crack down on the flow of arms and men into Kosovo. But he has a weak grip in Tirana and no grip on the Geg tribal north as the last few days' events demonstrate. Today, of course, there was an attempted Geg coup, well covered in the evening news, and a bit of a close call. What is important to underscore is that the Tosk south does not support the Geg-KLA attacks in Kosovo and Macedonia and that that tribe-on-tribe struggle underlies the political battle between parties which are only nominally "Democrats" and "Socialists." This is another direct product of irresponsible and politically-motivate misrepresentations of the facts in Kosovo and Albania by Clinton Administration members (Albright, Holbrooke, et al) and by Robert Dole and other more easily-beguiled Republicans who have been too easy about accepting fascist-Croat and Geg money over the last 20 years or so.

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© Copyright 1998 Benjamin C. Works-SIRIUS