IRAQ: Real WAR on REAL time

The fatwas and canonical edict played about of Iraq's conversion to an Islamic state should the US withdraw is again a trap bordering on the quixotic, as much as saying that 'Arab fighters are pouring in' to fight for its independence an intended slur on the bravery of the Iraqi people. If Iraq can reject the mighty US as 'Liberators', they can tell all else to 'bugger off' as they stand their ground to fight their war on their terms Little understood is who is carrying out these attacks on the Coalition; WHAT after all is this 'Iraqi resistance'? Homegrown resistance of indigenous fiercely independent Iraqis is a reality - they have no need for mercenaries from anywhere in the world to do them a 'quick-fix'.

IRAQ: Real WAR on REAL time

As things stand, the world was neither deaf nor blind. In one giant state of mindless arrogance Bush and his cronies activated the world's biggest military machine for a surge on Iraq. Intentions were as obscured on the 20th of March as much as realities of situation on the ground is today - some seven months down the line - each passing day brings us closer to an Armageddon, not of our making.

Predictions of thinking people around the world were rubbished, millions demonstrating to vent their anger were left with no mercy - beaten, gassed and thrown into jail. 'We will go it alone' warnings were sounded when other nations refused to fall in to the sheer madness of a war on the desert where the 'outcome was not in doubt' - to any sane person other than Bush, Blair and the Rumsfeld trio.

Meantime the world was left deciphering the REAL intentions of the so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom (originally Operation Iraqi Liberation, discarded because the acronym would read OIL). Muslims debated in earnest that this was a war on Islam, the US on the other believed that they would be accepted as 'liberators and not occupiers'. Clear message to the Muslims, the US was doing some kind of great favor, and Islamic financing was thus 'obligatory'. Monies and reluctant support for the Coalition rolled in from Muslim neighbors of Iraq. Had it not been for rigidity of the European stand, other Muslims would have happily committed troops, and armaments.

Ironically every effort by the beleaguered Saddam regime at its dying hours to tell the world that it was the Americans and not them that are lying - was bombarded by media onslaught that came in understandably in the wake of the war machines move. Over time and with no discovery of WMD's or the promised capture of Al-Qaeda fighters and leaders - the 'real villains' - the Iraq scenario looks like another mirage in the Arabian Desert.

It now seems the joke was on the West and not Comical Ali, that Iraq had no WMD's and that all have been destroyed years ago!

And now with daily tolls in American casualties, bombings and the relentless guerilla campaign waged by 'unseen' enemies getting more and more sophisticated, the word 'quagmire' is an acceptable icon - something that was not, even a few months back. With each death comes frightfully newer resolve to get to the bottom of it, to 'finish what we had started' - as also to 'throw out the occupiers'. More horrendous 'the millennium Jihad in the desert worth being a martyr' media speculation leaves us no more smarter to have a firm handle on a situation that is increasingly getting desperate.

While pacifist and thinking people around the world were certain as to the US follies i.e. things wont work out, they will be trapped in a quagmire worse than Vietnam etc - where we went wrong thanks to the din of the high decibel propaganda of the 'embedded kind' in the pre-invasion days, is to have a 'fair fix' on exactly how, the Iraqi people for one were viewing the whole episode breaking in to change their destiny.

The Third World and Islamic phenomenon of standing firm for the 'underdogs' happily kept us focused to the impossible - a possible Iraq military success - as also the media played a large part in keeping those fallacies alive. Expert after embedded Military experts inside CNN studios prophesied ever so virulently that there will be a Stalingrad-ish last ditch attempt by the mighty Iraqi Army, and street fighting's will ensure the US is done with - for good!

Most of us fixed to TV screens waited to see a slaughter of US forces, then count the human toll on Iraqi citizens who we decided were expendable. If it was not - the merciless bombings on Baghdad prior to its fall made every 4th of July firework display pale in comparison, because the US was not punishing Saddam Hussein in its madness and sheer impatience to 'get this over and done with' with quickly but, the Iraqi people who it had promised to 'Liberate'

For every bomb that fell on the historical city, for every time the sirens were sounded of an imminent salvo of death on its way, was also a time for the nucleus of the Iraqi resistance to be sowed. Anybody witnessing the assault with the slightest of gray matter in a skull full of dung heap would have realised that Baghdad was going to be a walk-in, not a 'WALK-OVER' - if only for the bargaining chip left dangling in our imagination of a 'chemical attack' of the 45 minutes variety! Never ever in the annals of military warfare have billions been duped to a more effective ruse - a LIE that seem to have beaten hands down the millions of lies that Saddam and his henchmen apparently so craftily invented, but on reflection was the unadulterated TRUTH.

And there we were, the 'regime' toppled, statue and all - as much as Saddam survives, as much as Osama Bin Laden survives - and will continue to survive 'so help us Allah' - would be a passionate balm on bruised egos of Muslim's the world over, as also the stupidity of the so called 'Coalition of the Willing'; willing to kill, maim and destroy - so 'help us God'.

Iraq was the worlds first overt international coup detat, and the results will be no less horrifying for the 'new General's', brimming in ecstasy of their half-filled hourglasses of professed successes of ghastly mediocrity. Tragedy is, one can tell the time with such a devise, but cannot for once count the grains of sand it contains. In the shifting quicksands of Iraq, 'bogged down' is an understatement. Getting sucked in with lives getting sucked out - is more appropriate.

Whatever may have been the US intentions for war, to expect a people who have become used to living under an attributed 'Hitleristic demonic dictatorship' for over thirty years, to embrace overnight the unknown and uncharted psalm of Western democracy, replete with Sunni triangles or Shiite quadrangles in the only former secular state in the region, is stretching impatience and seminal oligarchy to its limits.

The fatwas and canonical edict played about of Iraq's conversion to an Islamic state should the US withdraw is again a trap bordering on the quixotic, as much as saying that 'Arab fighters are pouring in' to fight for its independence an intended slur on the bravery of the Iraqi people. If Iraq can reject the mighty US as 'Liberators', they can tell all else to 'bugger off' as they stand their ground to fight their war on their terms

Little understood is who is carrying out these attacks on the Coalition; WHAT after all is this 'Iraqi resistance'? Homegrown resistance of indigenous fiercely independent Iraqis is a reality - they have no need for mercenaries from anywhere in the world to do them a 'quick-fix'.

Common sense should guide us to events before the fall of Baghdad. It is more than likely that Iraqi General's were 'bought off' to ensure a 'knife through butter' entrance of the Coalition into the capital and their will be more theories available as the days wear on. However what should not delude us is, this perhaps is the only instance in the world where more than a million man Army, a complete administration of decades, a bureaucracy and civil service, indeed a very well greased machine decided to go underground - and disappear without a trace. While Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld did a quick jiggle and twist routine on the world stage, proclaiming a resounding victory - somewhere down the bleary sands of Iraq an entirely new maneuvering of forces is all set creating a resistance, that history is destined to marvel.

The Occupiers in their sheer humbuggery and not really having a definitive enemy set about erasing the 'Baathist remnants' they identified were the real adversaries. Forgotten was unemployment among hungry millions, following years of economic sanctions and ravages of a war, raises the spectre of arguably hundreds of thousands volunteering for guerilla warfare for no other reasons, but because they have nothing better to do?

The age old and by now hackneyed 'divide and conquer' regime of the British fell vulgarly flat with blatant American misuse at attempting a split among Sunni's and the Shiites. Forgotten were lessons from Iraq's recent history that people from both Muslim sects fought shoulder to shoulder with Shiite Iran for nearly a decade - and that was NOT a sectarian war by any account, but a secularist war against 'fundamentalists'.

There is simply no easy way out for the Coalition other than having to fan out the hatred that started the war process in the first place. Moving in on a 'regime change' in Saudi Arabia will be received with polemical accolades from many anti-royalists, democracy aspiring Muslims worldwide. The nail of Al-Qaeda blame on the Saudi Royal family (Bin Laden is after all a product of the House of Saud - albeit a poor cousin of the current rulers) would be an acceptable 'coffin' to satiate the curiosity of the Western media, for finally there will be 'proof' of an institutionalized Al-Qaeda lurking below the newly discovered term 'Wahabist', the apparent demons in the Islamic Diaspora that the Saudi royalty ascribe to.

The major problem the US has to contend with in Iraq is that, we have a classic guerilla war with a difference. While there is a lot of Western heroism attached to military convoys rolling out miles after miles of desert strips, it is quite another to confront urban guerillas in streets and shanties of towns and capital's. While guerillas can attack with ease as they have a huge support and re-supply base within the population where they can evaporate without a trace, Coalition fire can and will endanger civilians and the conflagration in days ahead will reach catastrophic proportions.

Unlike the massive bombings before the fall of Baghdad where the world had no clue as to the suffering of Iraqi people, in the next 'virtual reality show', there will be a fair chance for us to find out what 'unrestrained fire power' (the symbol of American strength) can do to soldiers on the ground

For the Iraqi's this time around the enemy will be close at hand, and not from some 30,000 feet above the ground with 'laser guided pin-point accuracy'.

Tune in to Real War on REAL time ladies and gentleman!

'Outsourcing' Arab woes and the Islamic Republic of Israel

"Lucifer that handsome devil, ransomed love for a piece of heaven, where he raised a temple more fundamental than the ancient faith of angels, and he bred a clergy, quite allergic to the quality of mercy, addicted to vindictive justice, with the worship of the frightfully self-righteous, and the holiest of Holier than thou." [1]

If there is a chance for anybody to score debate points - the ideal option is to offer the classic 'chicken or egg and what came first' analogy. If the topic is the sordid state of the world today or the perplexing definition of the word 'terrorist' of the Western kind and one is in a spot- 'left-right dribbling' should help and lobbing the ball into the field with a closed question is our next best bet:

'Is Israel the 51st State of the US, or is the US the second state of Israel?'

Historically the latter would seem true if one weighs Mahathir Muhammad's 'Jews need to be fought with brain and brawn' statement at the OIC in Putrajaya, Malaysia that received rapturous applause all across the spectrum of the so-called 'Muslim' world!

Moving on, Mahathir is 'bang on the nose correct' that Muslims have more brawn than brains, as also 'bang on the brain incorrect' that the Jews since the holocaust have used their 'brains to think'. A few 'million' taking on billions of apparently 'brainless Muslims' would have anybody's thought process supplicated to those lines, however number games have always been dubious for revolving around divisive double speaks and Mahathir is no exception to that 'rule'.

The 'brainless applause' all across would indicate that Mahathir is perhaps the only Muslim with 'brains' in the Muslim world, but what he said was nothing new. Such utterances are routine every five times a day, everyday of the week for three hundred and sixty five days of the year, and especially in Friday sermons by Mullahs in all Allah fearing Islamic nations of the world.

The difference if only, while Mullahs scream themselves hoarse on public address systems as if their Allah is hard of hearing, Mahathir spoke in measured English for the benefit of a Western audience and the whole world stopped to watch and hear him 'strike fear into the hearts of infidels'.

Deceptive flair - maybe, suave - perhaps, but doubtful if Allah heard him out!

All of this from a departing leader who in the past has, and will continue to remain provocative, for Malaysia being economically stable can afford to live without the largesse of the West or threats of US sanctions for having spoken thus. He nonetheless seriously compromised the interest of Muslims in South East Asia for he has only chosen to reinforce Israel's infallible 'super-human' edge into 'brainless' Muslims that warlords like Arial Sharon desperately wants to drive home, and it is a shame that in the hapless scenario - each and every applauding Muslim out there is no more than an avid promoter of this Israeli 'super-hero' or 'super-demon' image.

Either ways Muslims seem to have been paralyzed by the fear of their cousins - the Jews, and the days ahead will only consolidate that fear, thanks again to Mahathir.

The 'proxy war' that he talks about is an interesting trance.

It is true that those wars have been extended to Muslim's and not any other religion, and while the US rubs in its apparently "Trust in God - rest all cash" secular status much as George Bush talks about a millenium 'crusade', it would seem and quite rightly so that the Jews are the real behind the scene manipulators to divide and disenchant the Muslims, forever and for good.

Sadly recent history suggests that the only recorded Muslim 'jihad' of the last century i.e. the one in Reagan-era Afghanistan abjectly to defeat and dismember the Soviet Union was waged on the 'clarion calls' of the US and Jews - then on the Muslims list of 'axis of good'. The word 'Mujahideen' gained surreal currency and Hollywood had Rambo going out to fight for them. Yet when a Rambo wannabe like Walker Lind finds himself with the Talibans in 'the millenium jihad' - woe behold, the word 'jihad' and his involvement in the wrong side of such 'pagan' rites of war lands him in a jail in the US!

"Christ the Jew has become me and you, the Serb, the Croat the Muslim Bosnian, cut to pieces with a burst of hideous laughter from a heartless machine gun. From the Dome of the Rock to the Babri Mosque shot down like a dog in the name of countless gods, Christ cried at the cross and died of shame, for the Judas in all of us." [2]

It doesn't need a Jew to kill a Muslim - for Muslims are their own worst enemy. They have no 'brains' to figure out the almost mythical status of a certain Osama Bin Laden and how his villain pre-eminent halo in the world arena evolved. No Muslim will ever investigate Bin Laden's links to the Bush family or the CIA during the Afghan 'jihad'. It had to rest with the Christians and Jews, not the Muslim's to lay bare that 9/11 was a cruel hoax on the world - with Muslims having to pay an umpteenth price in its lunatic fringes de-facto acceptance and approval the action of the Global Jihadist - Bin Laden - some savior of Islam?

No Muslim for instance will ever tell you that Taliban was an American invention to lay waste all possibilities of the birth of an egalitarian Afghanistan after the route of the Soviets. Rambling on to the core of the current Muslim anti-Jew peeve, that God forsaken land Iraq: no Muslim will ever tell you that the CIA for years trained Saddam Hussein - even helped him seize power, or that it provided him with the ingredients and implements to gas his people to death.

For every bull-headed Muslim 'jihadist' out there are dozens more on the pay roll of the Jews and the US - double agents in the cause of eradicating Islam from the face of the earth. The worst of them have Arab backgrounds - yet Muslims worldwide seem to have forgotten the treachery of the Arabs in the history of political Islam. Reason: a fixation for Saudi Arabia where only the rich can embark on a Haj pilgrimage after a life of thievery, to ensure a guaranteed entry into Heaven - while the conceivable alternative for the poor Muslim is to blow oneself up as a human bomb on any target considered real or imagined - Jewish. The 'poor mans F 16' is a rich Muslims 'investment' - not a COST.

The Muslim world looks up to US garnered repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia as an ideal for their faith. True, Islam was born in the arid deserts of that land, true the Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] preached his religion from this geographical location - but 1400 years later what is Saudi Arabia, other than a Muslim pilgrimage-cum-tourist locale for the world's richer Muslim's who merely congregate to retrace the steps of the children of Abraham?

Pilgrimage to Muslim 'holy cities' of Makkah and Medina are no more than marketing and profiteering opportunities and accepted symbols of the insatiable greed in descendants of robbers placed on the throne by Anglo-US-Jews post World War II axis. The pompously vulgar 'House of Saud' replete with their coat of arms - is designed for no other purpose but help in the loot and plunder of Muslim wealth, in a religious garb - all in the name of ISLAM.

The Muslim God Allah moved out of Saudi Arabia years ago in disgust, and is probably a lot closer to the Jews living in and air conditioned condominium in Haifa, than we can imagine!

"War is peace in our times, replete with peace times war crimes, which are the exclusive franchise of no single nation, but an inhuman heritage we regenerate with each new generation." [3]

The Muslim world as we know it today - other than the Arabs - have no quarrel with the Jews. They are victims of the 'outsourced' problems and hate that again is the creation of spin doctors in the Arab heartland who find it profitable to succumb to the US-Jew agenda when the going is good - and launch their hateful attacks when outgunned and outsmarted. In between we have the jihadist in South East Asia who would inevitably be linked by the Press to Al-Qaeda (read 'outsourced' Arab hazards) with fascinating names like Jemaah Islamiyah or what have you. These are half literate morons unable to comprehend that they are mere stooges in the hands of Jews and the Bin Laden combine to forever derails the economic possibilities and the ruins it will cause South East Asian Muslims in general.

The treachery of the Arabs is the root cause of the Muslim's 'state of siege' mentality today, and it is a shame that the worlds second largest religion in which Arabs constitute a very small percentage remains a domineering force in determining the destiny of Muslims and Islam worldwide. End result; we have jokers like Mahathir Muhammad assailing the Jews only to appease the Americans by playing upon an 'outsourced proxy war' as also appeasing his Arab benefactors of the so-called "Islamic Ummah" - the brotherhood that proselytizes anything and everything under Allah's sun - other than the fact, that individual poverty is not tolerated in Islam.

Mahathir Muhammad in the meantime has no clue that among the hundreds of people forming a human shield around Yasser Arafat are Jews from Israel and the rest of the world, and such over exuberance all under the roof of a so-called organization of Muslim Unity will ensure - Muslims loose more friends.

Inevitably the OIC carnival will not escalate to any firm or far reaching Muslim 'position' against the US or the Jews. Economic realities of the Muslim world will bring about a quick change in the 'zeal' displayed and deliberations consigned to the heap of historical Islamic absurdities in fancy get-togethers where speeches are made - and actions never taken until the next 'birds of same feathers flock together' ritual.

While the European Union debates the formation of its own defense, outside of the NATO, where an attack on one nation is considered an attack on the other - Muslims have no plans for a common defense or even a common market. An attack on another Muslim State is not considered an attack on Muslims by the heads of these so-called Muslim countries - but an attack on Islam.

Why?

Herein lies the dribble, for there is a marked difference in the term Muslim and ISLAM. End of the day Muslims has learnt nothing more from the West than to be consumers and greedy ones at that. The only thing they have been able to produce is a religion, which is more misunderstood than understood and they have profited from the innate misunderstandings.

Muslims would much prefer to sit it out as poodles at the shenanigans of the UN, which is again the world's premier debating society at the US expense. There are no proverbial 'hawks' or 'bulldogs' among Muslims for both are lesser creatures of Allah in the Islamic scheme of things - despite the OIC best efforts.

Coupled with all of that, the notion of Allah coming to the aide of Muslim mysteriously and miraculously is a point, which inculcates blatant fatalistic tendencies amongst its members. Little do Muslims realize that Allah does not want to involve himself in man's quarrel, and leaving the defense of Muslims solely in the hands of Allah is akin to expecting the Americans and the Jews to sweep clean the garbage of accumulated stupidity heaped in our backyards.

While the Muslim world debates foaming in the mouth as to 'who's next' - Syria, or Iran, that Saudi Arabia is the NEXT target for no other reason but to wipe clean all macabre evidence of the US-Jew design in dividing the possibilities of Islam with Saudi's being the oldest collaborators are matters that eludes all Muslims. The recent demands for democracy and deletion of records about Saudi Arabia's involvement in the 9/11 report are clear indicators that the day is not far when the war will be extended to the Muslim 'holy-land'.

"Mohammad the Apostle of Allah, neither raised the dead, nor fed a multitude with a loaf of bread, he did not walk on Galilee, his only magic was a tragic sense of history. Mohammad's was no mystic Ministry, wrapped in timeless trinity. Al-Ameen had never seen a burning brand, nor led his people to a Promised Land - Mohammad was the son of a man." [4]

It might actually be worthwhile for rich Muslims around the world to mull over possibilities of performing their Haj pilgrimage under the boots of Jews for a change. For once Muslims will have realized that Allah helps only those that help themselves.

The sacred hands of Allah coming to aid Muslims will perhaps be demystified; the Islamic Republic of Israel will be reality.

Any bets?


Acknowledgement: [1] The First Fundamentalist [2] Under Fire [3] War [4] Al-Ameen Faith, Hope and Ecstasy - 1996, Nadeem Rahman, Academic Publisher's, Bangladesh. ISBN: 984-08-0138-X


First Published 19th October 2003

The Daily Star's 'snooping in on our privacy' hoax

On the 4th of September the Daily Star in Dhaka, made a major front page story Move on to tap phone calls, bust e-mails of Intelligence agencies in Bangladesh lobbying the Government for a new law authorizing monitoring of electronic information - all the way from emails to eavesdropping on phone conversations. Other than among handful of privacy conscious citizens of this country, the story failed to create an intended stir, and deafening also was the silence from the Government.

Like every other sensational story, the information was from 'reliable sources' within intelligence agencies and 'spokesmen' from ministries that for long has a reputation for being thoroughly 'unreliable' and matters seemed to pass - not until somebody convinced the local BBC correspondent to cover the episode.

The headline was Anger at Bangladeshi snooping plans, and the anger appears to have been no more than that of the Daily Star, it had sadly nothing new to offer, neither could it name one official of the Home Ministry in the government nor the cabinet. So much for BBC's credibility.

Attempts at an upward spiral of gaining 'international credibility' on the hoax nonetheless continued unabated, and saw similar stories being carried by other 'foreign' news agency - but once again, other than spiced up views of some notorious English language journalists with known connections to foreign intelligence to well meaning telecommunication experts in the field offering for public consumption a succession of expressed disgust to the government plans, to legal opinion on the Telecommunication Act of 2001 - the stories by and large fell flat. Privacy being a sensitive matter and one that everybody is entitled to, the irony is, as of now we do not know exactly what our stand as citizens ought to be.

The Daily Star's fuss that intelligence service are seeking a law, making eavesdropping legal - at least on the surface, the admissibility of such collated information in a court for criminal prosecution, would interalia indicate that Bangladesh is a Police state, and democracy as such is non existent was very worrying. It's failure however to come forward with serious investigative and verifiable evidence of the Government move, and other than a hackneyed 'big brother is watching you' undertone, evidently failed in its professed objective, i.e. creating an unnecessary public cyber panic, at a time when IT as such is at its infancy in Bangladesh and communications technologies by and large not extending beyond hobbyist curiosity.

Intrusive intelligence gathering is a norm in any security setup of a state, and exactly how this is carried out remains necessarily classified. The Daily Star story only exposed its sheer limitation and inadequacy in fathoming the delicate balance between freedom of information, in direct contrast to the freedom of misinformation or disinformation, and a 'freedom' that is often abused with the Daily Star being a champion abuser.

The intelligence services in Bangladesh do not need a law to monitor emails or phone calls - that would be a foolish thing to do, because essentially it is no rocket science, indeed no technology intended for generic consumption is as such.

For instance, illegal or otherwise teenagers in Bangladesh cyber cafes have access to technologies that allow for interception of emails on most addresses. In fact one of our brightest living in the US developed and markets a legal customized program that allows parents to keep tabs on their children's email while they are at work!

While ISP's go hoarse threatening the Government with strikes to implement Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIPs), our children talk to their friends and cousins in the US every night over Yahoo voice chat. Even if the ISP's have their way with the Government, the money they will make is out of the call centers that hopefully will come in its wake - NOT in domestic usage. Net2Phone is by the way going out of fashion as user friendly voice chat options are so freely available. One enterprising teenager in Dhaka even hosts LIVE rock bands performance to an Internet audience via Paltalk - meaning the days of satellite TV is perhaps numbered?

As for land phones - till such time we do not have privatized land phone access, the bare truth: BTTB is a Government key point installation and no amount of wishful thinking on our part can keep away intelligence agencies from snooping. It has always been the case regardless of who is in power, and it is an open secret that anywhere between 500 to1000 phones are tapped every day in Bangladesh.

On a 'private' level snooping is cheap if not totally free. A few hundred Takas paid to a friendly local telephone linesman can provide just about anybody willing to seek misadventures, to have any call made or received on a land phone to be redirected to your phone for monitoring.

The Daily Star when it speaks of 'intelligence' speaks of it only in terms of spying or espionage in relation to the Government per se, general political or national security destabilization efforts etc. Little known or understood is Business intelligence and it is perfectly possible within the existent telecommunications infrastructure for a business competitor of Daily Star for instance, to have access to phone call made by its managers to say advertisers - i.e. via courtesy of the local linesman!

When it is once too often that we end up with what is termed 'ghost bill' - i.e. you were out of town for a month, your telephone set properly code locked, and sealed inside your bedroom, yet on your return find a bill of Taka 100,000 hanging like a Damocles swords over you - well how the hell did your line get pilfered?

Answer: Some lineman - redirected your line to somebody in another end of town - and who made all these calls to the US or wherever, on your account!

A lot of people tend to think that cell phones are by far a lot safer, but other than the hazards of low level radiation that each cell user is exposed to - it is actually a lot easier for intelligence services or even private individuals to monitor calls. All one needs is a frequency scanner, the low end ones cost less that $ 200 and one can not only check if the girlfriend is cheating by scanning on her cell frequency, one can have unrestricted access to ALL police and private frequencies including the movements of V1 (The President) or V2 (The Prime Minister), on the Army frequencies.

As is that is not enough - it is also possible to monitor frequencies of foreign commercial airliners at 30,000 feet while they are making a bee line to land at ZIA Airport from this hand held device no larger than your average cell phone. Top end frequency scanners have the capacity to monitor a mind boggling 3 million frequencies - and cost just over $ 1000.

Consequently a Government that finds itself vulnerable to only emails and cell phone users might as well take a hard look into its own telecommunication backbone to see how easy it is for anybody to breach the proverbial 'security'. No leader or VIP as such is safe, and suave terrorist groups like the Al-Qaeda certainly will exploit such loopholes, in the event things go drastically wrong for Bangladesh in the 'war on terror'.

Meanwhile the failure of the Daily Star to go beyond what their 'source' or Ministry 'spokesmen' told them leaves us with three intelligence indicators to seriously ponder.

1. The Daily Star report was a ruse by a foreign counter-intelligence agency to pre-empt the imminent unearthing of an electronic espionage ring already abusing rights of the citizens of Bangladesh.
2. It is likely that Bangladesh intelligence was on the verge of cracking down on, and apprehending foreign C2 (communication and computer intelligence) operatives in Dhaka who were already deployed in the various ISP's and domain providers, having free and unrestricted access to emails and other sensitive files of Bangladesh Government officials.
3. The Daily Star report and false alarms by 'foreign' news service, was a decoy allowing these operatives time enough to make a convenient get away.
   

Some people watch things happen, some people make things happen, some people do not make things happen and a fourth category, and the most dangerous are those - that wonder how things happen after failing to make thing happen!

The level of intelligence that Daily Stars displays is of the fourth category.

Exoneration from Case by The Court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate