Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm.

Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net.

Holmquist's full archives are listed here.

Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)

Aljazeera.Net English
AlterNet (War on Iraq)
Alternative Press Review
Always Low Prices -- Always
Another Irani online
antiwar.com (blog)
Asia Times Online
Axis of Logic
Baghdad Burning (riverbend)
BBC News
blogdex.net ("track this weblog")
bobanddavid.com
BuzzFlash
The Christian Science Monitor (Daily Update)
Common Dreams
Cryptome
Cursor
Daily Rotten
DefenseLINK
Democracy Now
The Drudge Report
Eat the Press (Harry Shearer, The Huffington Post)
Empire Notes (Rahul Mahajan)
frontpagemag.com (HorowitzWatch)
globalsecurity.org
greenandwhite.com
Guardian Unlimited
Haaretz
The Independent
Information Clearing House
Informed Comment (Juan Cole)
Iranians for Peace

Iraq Dispatches (Dahr Jamail)
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report (Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice)
MetaFilter
MLive
Mr. Show and Other Comedy
The Narco News Bulletin (blog)
NEWSMAKINGNEWS
The New York Times
Occupation Watch
Political Theory Daily Review
Press Action
Project Syndicate
Raed in the Middle (Raed Jarrar)
random-abstract.com
Reuters
Salon
The Simpsons Archive
Simpsons Collector Sector
Slate
Sploid
Technorati ("search for mth.blogspot.com")
thi3rdeye
United States Central Command
U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq
venezuelanalysis.com
War Report (Project on Defense Alternatives)
The Washington Post
Wildfire (Jo Wilding)
wood s lot
www.mnftiu.cc (David Rees)

Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development)

Thivai Abhor
As'ad AbuKhalil
Ken Adrian
Christopher Allbritton
Alli
Douglas Anders
Mark W. Anderson
Aziz Ansari
Atomic Archive
Bagatellen
James Benjamin
Elton Beard
Charlie Bertsch
alister black
Blame India Watch
Blixa
Blog Left: Critical Interventions Warblog / war blog
Igor Boog
Martin Butler
Chris Campbell
James M. Capozzola
Avedon Carol
Elaine Cassel
cats blog
Jeff Chang
Margaret Cho
Citizens Of Upright Moral Character
Louis CK
Les Dabney
Dack
Natalie Davis
Scoobie Davis
The Day Job
Jodi Dean
Dominic Duval
Steve Earle
Eli
Daniel Ellsberg
Tom Engelhardt
Lisa English
Faramin
Barbara Flaska
Brian Flemming
Joe Foster
Yoshie Furuhashi
Al Giordano
Glovefox
Rob Goodspeed
Grand Puba
Guardian Unlimited Weblog
Pete Guither
The Hairy Eyeball
Ray Hanania
Mark Hand
harveypekar.com
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log Jim Henley Arvin Hill Hit & Run (Reason) Hugo Clark Humphrey Indri The Iraqi Agora Dru Oja Jay Jeff Lynne d Johnson Dallas Jones Julia Kane Blues Benjamin Kepple Ken Layne Phil Leggiere Brian Linse Adam Magazine Majority Report Radio Marc Maron Josh Marshall Jeralyn Merritt J.R. Mooneyham Michael Scott Moore Bob Morris Bob Mould Mr. Show and Tell Muslims For Nader/Camejo David Neiwert NewPages Weblog Aimee Nezhukumatathil Sean O'Brien Patton Oswalt The Panda's Thumb Randy Paul Rodger A. Payne Ian Penman politx Neal Pollack Greg Proops Pro-War.com Pure Polemics Seyed Razavi Rayne Simon Reynolds richardpryor.com Clay Richards Mike Rogers Yuval Rubinstein
Steven Rubio
Saragon Noah Shachtman Court Schuett The Simpsons Archive Amardeep Singh Sam Smith Soundbitten Jack Sparks Ian Spiers Morgan Spurlock Stand Down: The Left-Right Blog Opposing an Invasion of Iraq Aaron Stark Morgaine Swann Tapped (The American Prospect) tex Matthew Tobey Annie Tomlin Tom Tomorrow The University Without Condition Jesse Walker Warblogger Watch Diane Warth The Watchful Babbler The Weblog we have brains Matt Welch
Alex Whalen
Jon Wiener
Lizz Winstead
James Wolcott
Wooster Collective
Mickey Z

 
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Hamas

In today's Washington Post Dan Eggen and Richard Leiby write:

The FBI used an operative as an intermediary in 1998 to contribute as much as $5,000 to Palestinian charities with the aim of tracking whether the money would end up in the hands of terrorist groups, according to the bureau and the former operative.

FBI officials would not disclose yesterday whether any of the money was traced to suspected terrorists. But the operation raises the possibility that a small amount of U.S. money could have made its way to Palestinian militants at around the same time the Clinton administration was pursuing Middle East peace talks.

The operative, Harry Ellen, is an Arizona businessman who converted to Islam. He received financial assistance from the FBI in exchange for help in identifying and monitoring suspected Palestinian militants.

The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating a number of complaints from Ellen, who in 1999 had a falling-out with the FBI.

The Associated Press broke this story and their report by John Solomon goes even further:

In an undercover operation run in the shadow of Mideast peace talks, the FBI secretly sent money to suspected Hamas figures to see if the militant Palestinian group would divert it from charitable purposes to terrorist attacks, according to interviews and court documents.

The counterterrorism operation in 1998 and 1999 was run out of the FBI's Phoenix office in cooperation with Israeli intelligence and was approved by Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI officials told The Associated Press.

The money, usually just a couple of thousand dollars, was sent to suspected terror supporters during the operation as the FBI tried to track the flow of cash through terror organizations, the FBI said in a rare acknowledgment of an undercover sting...

The FBI said the money was given through one of its operative's charities to see if it would be diverted for terrorism and the amounts were kept small so it couldn't be used to fund a major attack. Court testimony indicates in one case a Hamas figure used the sting money to help orphans.

One of the FBI's key operatives, who had a falling out with the bureau, provided an account of the operation at a friend's closed immigration court proceeding. AP obtained and reviewed the court documents.

You can view some of the documents the AP used here.

***

On a related note, there is this news from the Committee On Government Reform's House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations:

The General Accounting Office (GAO) will testify regarding new findings about the lack of oversight by DOD in monitoring Internet sales of equipment that could be used in the production of chemical and biological weapons. According to GAO, due to poor controls, there is little assurance excess CB equipment has not already fallen into the wrong hands...

At the Subcommittee’s request, GAO purchased a number of surplus items through a shell corporation, acquiring operating lab equipment and other items at less than one-tenth of the original acquisition cost to DOD. GAO was also able to purchase protective suits and other ensemble items, despite a January 2003 DOD policy prohibiting the public sale of such items.

Some protective suits purchased by GAO had previously been identified by DOD as defective. Those suits were still circulating in the surplus supply chain, with some issued to state and local law enforcement units.

I would be interested in finding out what the "equipment that could be used in the production of chemical and biological weapons" actually was and whether or not it could be commonly bought on the civilain market. So far the report hasn't been posted, but that could change.
posted by micah holmquist at 10/07/2003 12:07:00 PM