Osama yo mama

From atol letters:



The man with the dyed beard returns [Sep 11] by Ramzy Baroud alludes to the group that translated the recent [Osama] bin Laden video, but no more. A little time spent searching for details about SITE [Search for International Terrorist Entities] finds the following info about SITE and one of its founders, Rita Katz. From Source Watch: "The Terrorism Library, on cursory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the US Department of State's Patterns of Global Terrorism - 2003, Appendix B. The list of publications often provides a very short synopsis of a news item, with a reference given for a translation from their premium service; [at] other times they offer full mirrors of news items, poorly marked up. Rita Katz is director and co-founder of the SITE Institute. Born in Iraq, her father was tried and executed as an Israeli spy, whereupon her family moved to Israel [the move has been described as both an escape and an emigration in different sources]. She received a degree from the Middle Eastern studies program at Tel Aviv University, and is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. She emigrated to the US in 1997. Katz was called as a witness in the trial, but the government didn't claim she was a terrorism expert. During the trial it was discovered that Katz herself had worked in violation of her visa agreement when she first arrived in [the United States of] America in 1997. She also admitted to receiving more than [US]$130,000 for her work as an FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] consultant on the case." It was telling that CNN, when airing the latest video from BL, never mentioned once who performed the translation. An article in the New York Times credits SITE with the translation. Guess they didn't want to get into sticky details, like the one that the head of SITE, Rita Katz's father, was executed for being an Israeli spy. Or that Katz has been receiving money from the FBI. But that wouldn't influence anyone's impartiality, now would it? And that bin Laden: the last time he appeared, the Republicans were needing help in the 2004 presidential elections. Now he appears just as the Republicans are needing help continuing the war against Iraq and selling the next war against Iran. Boy oh boy, is that BL clever or what? He should go to work for the CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency].
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Sep 12, '07)