This was sent to me yesterday and although it isn’t directly related to Israel, it is interesting what the writer has to say regarding security and the future bases for Islamic extremists. This blog was originally posted on http://bengalunderattack.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-dirty-bomb-meant-for-usa-uk-india.html, Enjoy!  

 

A couple of years back I was in Bangladesh on a business visit when the BNP government was in power. This party (BNP) is known for its anti-India and pro-Pakistan views and is very close to Jamaat and other religious bodies. Behind these are ex-Generals of Bangladesh Army that fought alongside Pakistan in the war of 1971. Tthey are extremely close to ISI and some of their MPs are known sympathizers.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Awami League party, which is essentially formed of ex-Mukti Bahini guirella soldiers who fought for the liberation of Bangladesh against Pakistan and earned their independence in 1971. India helped this group gain independence from Pakistan, hence supporters of Awami League are pro-India. (Bangladesh was part of Pakistan from 1947 to 1971 and was referred to as East Pakistan).

I had gone to a cocktail party arranged by one of my clients and in that party, a gentleman working in a very senior position in a private company in Dhaka came up and chatted with me. ( I DO NOT RECALL THE NAME OF THE GENTLEMAN OR THE COMPANY HE WORKED FOR - SO THOSE OF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BELIEVE THIS STORY - FINE). After initial introductions when we were suitably alone, he had something very interesting to state and it went like this:

“I am a supporter of Awami League and I do not want Bangladesh get into the Islamic morass. There is something very fishy going on and I thought of telling you this. My company’s work is near some remote granite mines and these are being excavated by the North Koreans. And I hear that some other “nationalities” to India’s west are there too. No one can go near the sites and something very wrong is going on there. The North Koreans are in the mines deep down doing something weird and not mining granite – which is just a front. I cannot do a thing about it, probably you should let your government know.”

I thought that this gentleman is perhaps testing me and thinks that I am an Indian agent and wanted to feed me “disinformation”. I did nothing with this information. I did have a bad experience with Indian embassy when I was in New York city as a student – that is for later in this blog. But I wanted to get this off my chest, however improbable this may sound.

But there are interesting things to tie the story down.

1. Right next to Bangladesh border, in North East India – there are uranium deposits. And there are enough and more stories that locals ferry this “yellow cake” illegally in local buses in jute bags and sell it to “dealers”. Where this ultimately goes, is anybody’s guess. My bet is that this is simply sent over the borders into Bangladesh. The border is open and porous in North East.

2. There are granite mines in Bangladesh and some in very remote places. And indeed there are North Korean companies working there.

3. The Chittagong port is a den of criminal activity and anything goes and lands there. “Smugglers were unloading the largest ever arms cache on the Karnaphuli coast in Chittagong on Friday with ‘help from local police’, a witness told journalists in a major twist to the seizure top intelligence officials credited to tip-off from their foreign counterparts.”

4. 2 (Two) Pakistani nuclear scientists close to Al Qaeda were sent to Burma (next to Bangladesh and shares open borders). In December 2001, the New York Times reported that while US authorities were investigating Mahmood and Majid, they found some links between al-Qaeda and two other Pakistani nuclear scientists, Suleiman Asad and Muhammed Ali Mukhtar. Both Asad and Mukhtar had long experience at two of Pakistan’s most secret nuclear-weapons-related installations. However, before US investigators could reach them, Pakistan sent the two scientists to Myanmar on an unspecified “research project“.

The New York Times also quoted Pakistani officials as saying that President General Pervez Musharraf personally telephoned one of Myanmar’s military rulers to ask him to provide temporary asylum for the two nuclear specialists. In January 2002, the Wall Street Journal reported that Asad and Mukhtar were possibly aiding Myanmar’s efforts to build a 10-megawatt nuclear “research reactor”. Asad and Mukhtar are still in Myanmar, well away from US reach. Read about their Taliban and Al_Qaeda links in this article: Pakistan’s forgotten al-Qaeda nuclear link.

Even though a blog is not a credible source, this is indeed interesting read.

If one were to piece together the points 1 though 4 above and add “North Koreans along with undesirable West Asian foreigners” doing “weird things in the pit of mines” - we need to be worried. Not to forget, ISI has home base advantage in Bangladesh.

My guess is : This is the perfect place for manufacturing a Dirty Bomb. Whoever will think of Bangladesh? And stolen uranium, pliant port and “North Koreans” and “West Asians”. A heady cocktail indeed !

BANGLADESH & DIRTY BOMB: A TRYST IN 2003. While writing this blog, I came upon the article written by Indian supercop KPS GILL - which is linked above “they are close to ISI” which states: “There were grave concerns about the possibility of Islamist extremists in the country acquiring radioactive materials and the technical know-how to build a ‘dirty bomb’, when on May 30, 2003, Bangladeshi police arrested four suspected members of a Islamist group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, at a house in the northern village of Puiya. Officers also seized a football-size package with markings indicating it contained a crude form of uranium manufactured in Kazakhstan. Subsequent tests at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission in Dhaka confirmed that the 225-gram ball was uranium oxide—enough to make a weapon capable of dispersing radiation across a wide area if strapped to conventional explosives.”

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About my bad experience with Indian embassy as a student and why I kept quiet. I was in New York city on a full Presidential scholarship during graduate studies. One of my friends from India who was not on full scholarship, was working part time, illegally in a lawyer’s office downtown Manhattan. That lawyer specialized in getting green cards done for illegals - by cooking up stories on farming etc. But alarming thing was there were blank Indian passports in that office which came from “Sikhs” in Canada and USA. One senior Indian diplomat came to our University to talk about India and after his power point and Q&A, I took him aside and showed him the blank Indian passport. He did not bat an eyelid and told me to report this to FBI as this was outside his jurisdiction. I thought - excuse me - don’t you want to know where this is coming from, don’t you want to alert RAW. But he just walked away, not bothering to even ask my name. I was actually stunned at the callousness. I kept quiet for a couple of weeks and after my friend left the job at lawyers’ office, I rang up the FBI from a payphone and gave details. They raided the place in a matter of days and closed shop and arrested the errant “lawyer”. FBI did its job but my country did not.

                                                                            

Hey Hey everybody and a big Shabbat Shalom L’Kulam. I wanted to add some photos to this post thanks to the Jerusalem Post. Enjoy!

       

 

Shabbat Shalom

Hello and Shalom to all you wonderful readers of the Zionist persuasion. I just want to say that last night’s episode of South Park was amazing because it proved a point. All this irrational fear from the right and grandstanding from the left should subside quickly to its ebb so we may get back to reality. The election is over and Barack Obama won the presidency. Now we must endure the next two months and hope that the line of it can’t get worse will hold. This election was not a referendum on Bush’s legacy, which will be studied and evaluated thoroughly by historians in the future, rather an opportunity to change things. But like the Mishna says in Pikei Avot, ”Say A Little Do A Lot.” We heard the talk, now lets see the walk.

Anyway, this post is not about politics but rather about a theme encapsulated so well in a poem a colleague sent me. The poem is by Yehuda Amichai and it is directed at all the tourists who come to Israel and go through the ephemeral experience. I think that it should be required reading for all Birthright alumni because it embellishes on their experience with a perspective from the inhabitants of the land.

Tourists

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.

They Squat at the Holocaust Memorial,                                         

They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall

And they laugh behind heavy curtains

In their hotels.

They have their pictures taken

Together with our famous dead

At Rachel’s Tomb and Herzl’s Tomb

And on Ammunition Hill.

They weep over our sweet boys

And lust after our tough girls

And hang up their underwear

To dry quickly

In cool, blue bathrooms.

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.”

“But he’s moving!” I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,

“You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.”

Birthright projected numbers for 2008 were close to 42,000 participants from across the world, mostly from the United States. This new type of tourism has become widespread bringing various Jewish groups (and non-Jewish groups) from across the globe. Instead of making “condolence” visits they should be seen as opportunities in building international bridges and relationships. These will be opportunities in meeting future brothers-in-arms, future business partners and future Olim who will carry the weight like the rest of the Israeli population. Instead of being out of sight and in mind, tourists who visit Israel should be fully acknowledged for their support and approached with friendship and a smile by all the locals. Another great saying in the Mishna goes that, “It is always best to greet with a smile even if you are poor, as opossed to being rich and greeting your guests with a snobbish attitude. 

If your interested I attached a link to a profile of the poem’s author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Amichai    

So, I hope all you out there are relaxing after the tense evening last night. However, I must say that I expected it to last longet but John McCain put up a good fight, and bowed out gracefully with his concession speech. But this post has nothing to do with the state of politics. I want to give a long overdue thanks and dedication to that which is most sacred to all men, WOMEN.

Due to the nature of this blog I want to single out Israeli women and the many thanks we owe them all. I recently came across a series of photos by the artist Rachel Papo who captures the lives of women in the Israeli army. It shows the rough gruff affairs of being a woman in a society where most are drafted to the army. It isn’t so much the hardships but rather the beauty of their truth that is overwhelming in her photos. These women are very tangible, breaking preconceived notions of being an Israeli soldier as well as being an Israeli woman. I highly recommend you look through the photos on her website: http://www.serialno3817131.com/index.html and take a gander at the unadulterated truth. They are citizens who are equal yet they are not in certain spheres and I recently read in the Jerusalem Post that upward mobility in the army is rather precarious for women. However, this is a dimension worth exploring for the sake of truth but also for the sake of good art.

These women are a segment of Israel who actively help their country anyway possible. Each Israeli woman has her own unique story to tell. Like my mother for example. Alison Cipriani made Aliyah with her husband and son in 1979. Her husband, Gene, worked with the Tel Aviv Orchestra so he traveled a lot leaving his wife and son for small durations of time. She became pregnant again a few years later and managed to raise all her three children while also working for a rape crisis center in Tel Aviv and running child birth classes out of their home at nights. When the marriage dissolved she took their three kids and brought them to the US, sending them all to school and working two jobs at times to make ends meat. I think she is a spectacular example, but the Israel experince both hardened her resolve and also broadened her horizons.

When I recently went on a Birthright trip our group had the luck of being blessed with wonderful tour guides, one being a woman who’s name is Ya’ara. Ya’ara was interesting because right off the bat I realized that she wore a prosthesis for her left hand. On our first stop in the City of David (Ir David) she sat us all down and spoke to the group about her hand. She said that contrary to popular belief she didn’t lose it during a terrorist attack rather she was born with an abnormality. Being very upbeat, and carrying her cheery demeaner through out the trip, she managed to use her handicap as an advantage teaching yoga and being a tour guide, and a very good one at that. She not only worked she also decided to volunteer for the IDF because originally she was exempt from army duty. She told me that after the trip she was going to relax, move into a modern post-kibbutz complex in the north and of course to look her up anytime I’m in the neighborhood. Amazing, these women are not only physically and spiritually beautiful, they also ooze lovingkindness out of their pores like it’s second nature. Poetry and the utterance of words could not describe the strength and beauty that these women possess.

All us men should pay our utmost respect to the women of the world, but for me I think we should give a big hand and more to the precious women of Israel. Thank you and of course this one’s for the ladies.

               

Hello Hello everyone.

Let’s not use euphemisms because today is the day where the future will be paved and history books will have to be recalled for new modifications. No matter who wins, this year’s election campaign has been very invigorating and all four people running are very interesting in their own right. The pundits are spewing their last amounts of vicious bile against the candidate of their choice and of course the media is soaking it all up like daytime vampires. We will expect each news channel to incessantly cover the events from morning until the final results are tallied, but remember that their projections will abound. Regardless of the poetry I’m spitting I want to vent on a group of people who boggle my mind to no end.

My Generation, Gen-X, Generation Next, etc. Whatever the pundits, media and cultural scientists call us in this age group is my victim today. Our age group ranging from 18-35 years old has been too lazy when it comes to exercising our political rights as citizens of the United States. Our age is an age of apathy that should be blamed on us and our parents. Our parents have lived in the ideal times of the counter-culture in the 1960’s, and protested to points making the 1968 Democratic Convention end up looking like an out of control circus. These were passionate times, however the break from idealism into the dark age of apathy was the election of 1972 and the ensuing events.

I think we have to thank Richard Nixon for this because his actions forever tainted our ideals of American politics and our politicians. The Watergate scandal set the mood for our parent’s generation to distrust politicians, and we followed suit. The apathy reached it’s lowest ebb in the 1990’s and persisted until this election season. I think that John McCain is an outstanding Senator who should stay in the senate, if he looses, because he is a bi-partison politician. However, Barack Obama has stirred the masses and our generation will hopefully vote in greater numbers. John Kerry mobilized us, but we spoke too soon because young voters turned out for him but potential voters decided to stay home. We have so much potential that will be squandered once we reach our parent’s demographic. I think we are apathetic but we also take our freedom for granted.

In other countries where oppression is the norm a small taste of democracy will water the mouths of its proponets. We have been born and raised in a safety net and we feel that our votes either don’t count or don’t matter. Wake up people because not only has this become a norm, other societies are picking this trend up as well. Western Europeans feel disillusioned with their systems due to the economy (Italy, Germany and Ireland) or to overall stagnation (Great Britain and France), or due to the rise of oligarchs as some Israeli adults told me. So, let us lead by example and show that if we invade countries so all the citizens can vote, all American citizens of voting age should GO VOTE.

So, get up off your fat rear, peak out of your window and realize that being American is both a duty and an honor, just like being an Israeli citizen.      

PS: I just want to add that people have been arguing which candidate would be “better” for Israel. I strongly believe that the candidate who will strengthen America, both internally (economy, housing crisis, jobs, immigration) and externally (Foreign Affairs, image of USA abroad, terrorism, global warming). Instead of easily falling into the rhetoric of each side Jews should do some research about each candidate. Just because someone’s middle name in Hussein doesn’t mean he’s a Muslim and just because the other is a Republican doesn’t mean he’s a carbon copy of the last Republican President. Enjoy the politics…….