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Insider Report: Pakistani General: U.S. Will Attack Iran and Syria Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
1. Pakistani General: U.S. Will Attack Iran and Syria
1. Pakistani General: U.S. Will Attack Iran and Syria The United States will launch an attack on Iran and Syria in October, a former top official in Pakistani intelligence claims. Retired Maj. Gen. Hameed Gul, former chief of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence, told reporters that the United States. would definitely attack the two Muslim countries and condemned his own country's weak reaction to Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. He also predicted that after Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan itself would be targeted by the United States.
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A frightening report written by another retired Pakistani military officer, Maj. Tahir Ahmad, appeared in the Pakistani newspaper Khabrain and suggested that the Muslim nation might use its nuclear capability to attack Israel: "[Gul] could confidently say that Pakistan was the only country in the Islamic world that could give a befitting response to Israel and defeat its designs. "What could Lebanon or Hezbollah do against such awesome firepower? God had blessed Pakistan with nuclear capability; therefore, it should play a part in defending the Muslim world. Hezbollah's and Iran's leaderships were bold, but they were unable to respond to the attacks of a nuclear Israel. However, by the grace of God, if Pakistan made bold decisions, it could defeat Israel." 2. Look Who's Slamming Mel Gibson Some in the media who have been sharply critical of Mel Gibson for his disparaging remarks about Jews during his July 28 arrest are not without baggage themselves. A police report leaked by a Web site disclosed that during Gibson's arrest on suspicion of drunk driving, he told an officer, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked him, "Are you a Jew?" Gibson issued an apology. Nevertheless, on July 31, several prominent voices in the media sought to lambaste the star.
Donohue concluded in a release from the Catholic League: "While Mel is deeply apologetic for his offensive remarks, these people brazenly wear their anti-Catholic bigotry on their sleeves." 3. New Bioterror Fear: Custom-Built Microbes Terrorists planning an attack with biological weapons might not have to steal stores of deadly pathogens thanks to an emerging technology, they could simply "build" them in a lab. And ominously, the building blocks for these new custom-built microbes are already easily available. Five years ago, Eckard Wimmer a German-born microbiologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook stunned the scientific world by creating the first live, artificial virus in a lab. It was a variation of the polio virus, and he built it from scratch. First Wimmer obtained the entire genetic code for the polio virus; which, along with dozens of other pathogens, is readily available for free on the Internet. He then placed an order with an American company that makes fragments of DNA, called oglionucleotides. The fragments arrived by mail in tiny vials, according to a report by Joby Warrick in The Washington Post. Wimmer and his graduate assistants assembled these snippets of material into larger fragments, then they spliced these together until the entire genetic code was complete. The finished DNA was placed in a culture and began making proteins then assembled "the trappings of a working virus around itself," Warrick explained. Wimmer said he regarded his work as a "wake-up call" about the dangers of manufactured pathogens. "We consider it imperative to inform society of this new reality, which bears far-reaching consequences," he stated. The technology could create new tools for overcoming disease. But it could also be used to transform common microbes into killers, make deadly strains even more lethal or resurrect killers from the past, such as the 1918 influenza virus. They could constitute a "class of new, more virulent biological agents engineered to attack," according to an unclassified CIA study from 2003. "The effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse than any disease known to man." Last year the Bush administration appointed a panel of scientists to begin a study of the potential problem, and a large laboratory for studying bioterror threats is under construction in Maryland. Al-Qaida has reportedly sought to obtain biological weapons and has recruited microbiologists. But the ability of terrorists to pursue this form of bioterror "in the near- to mid-term is judged to be low," Charles E. Allen, chief intelligence officer for the Department of Homeland Security, told a House committee. He warned that a more likely source of such a biological weapons attack would be a "lone wolf" a scientist working alone or in a small group and motivated by ideology or personal demons, the Post noted. "All it would take for advanced bio-weapons development," according to Allen, "is one skilled scientist and modest equipment an activity we are unlikely to detect in advance." 4. Pope Benedict Shaking Up Vatican Leadership Pope Benedict XVI is increasingly putting his own stamp on the Church by replacing top Vatican officials appointed by his predecessor. On June 22, the Pope announced that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa, would be the next Vatican secretary of state, replacing Cardinal Angelo Sodano. The same day, Pope Benedict also named Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo who had served, in effect, as the Vatican's foreign minister to become the president of the Vatican City governate, replacing American prelate Edmund Szoka. The change in the secretary of state post is especially important, since he serves as the "prime minister" of the Holy See and is the second-ranking Vatican official. During the final years of John Paul II's pontificate, outgoing Secretary of State Sodano often accompanied the Pope on foreign trips and occasionally replaced the ailing Pontiff in performing public ceremonies and managing meetings, according to The Catholic World Report. Cardinal Sodano's replacement was anticipated, since at 78 he is already beyond the ordinary retirement age of 75. But in announcing the shift, the Vatican said the Cardinal would remain in his current position, "with all the faculties inherent to that role," until Sept. 15, when Cardinal Bertone would take over. Cardinal Bertone has worked closely with the Pope in the past. In 1995, he was named secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, serving under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current pontiff. He is "regarded as conservative on issues of doctrine," the World Report noted, and gained public prominence earlier this year with his outspoken criticism of "The Da Vinci Code." Cardinal Bertone outlined his views in a paper prepared for a June conference in Rome, which was released by the Vatican press office. The paper emphasized the defense of human dignity and explored the relationship between democracy and Christianity. Christian moral principles "can seem inhuman when they are separated from their context," he wrote, noting that the Church's social doctrine envisions "a democratic humanism of Christian inspiration," which should be "a civilization of love." The Church's solutions for society's problems are in contrast to the proposals offered by secularism, according to Cardinal Bertone. He criticized a political outlook that is "economic and technocratic, which concedes an absolute primacy to secularism," and assumes that government leaders are "the only experts capable of organizing society properly." 5. Sen. Dodd: We Are Now a Two-Cult Family' A recent poll delivered some bad news to Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his potential 2008 bid for president when it revealed that nearly 40 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. It's not known how they would feel about having a Mormon first lady in the White House. But that could come to pass if Sen. Chris Dodd succeeds in winning the presidency. The Connecticut Democrat, a Catholic, is married to Jackie Clegg, a Mormon from Utah. "That could pose a problem for some religious conservatives," according to Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah," the Washington, D.C.-based publication The Hill reports. At a recent gala dinner, Bennett said a tongue-in-cheek Dodd told him, "At Bob Jones University, we are now a two-cult family." Some evangelical Christians view both Mormonism and Catholicism as cults, according to The Hill, and Bob Jones University a fundamentalist Christian school in South Carolina has been criticized for past hostility toward some denominations. Dodd said in May that he was assembling a team to prepare for the 2008 presidential campaign, and in June he held his first major presidential fund-raiser. 6. We Heard . . . THAT the violent mayhem in the Middle East is not without its comic moments. NewsMax contributing editor Kenneth R. Timmerman reports from Israel: "A few days ago, I took two hours off and went to the beach. Luck was with me, and there were no rocket attacks while I was there [since the beach is completely out in the open]. "The beach and the boardwalk were deserted. All of a sudden, a naked man comes out of nowhere and slowly strolls down the boardwalk. Then two policemen also come out of nowhere and start chasing him. I'm thinking, here we are in the middle of a war, and the police are worried about a nudist?"
THAT an airline price war is looming in Texas as Congress is expected to lift restrictions that have hampered Southwest Airlines' ability to compete with American Airlines. A 1979 law gave Fort Worth-based American an edge in the Dallas area by allowing then-upstart Southwest to fly only to cities in Texas and a few nearby states from its home base, Love Field, which is closer to downtown Dallas than American's home base, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. A bill now making its way through Congress would permit Southwest to sell one-stop tickets from Dallas to the rest of the country, Business Week reports. In eight years, the discount carrier would be allowed to fly nonstop to any domestic destination. A recent study estimated that fliers in Texas will save around $260 million a year thanks to the increased competition between Southwest and American. THAT more than 107 million telephone numbers had been registered with the national do-not-call registry by the end of fiscal 2005, a Federal Trade Commission report discloses. The report cited a survey indicating that 76 percent of U.S. adults had registered their main phone numbers as of December 2005, and 92 percent of those who placed their numbers on the registry reported receiving fewer telemarketing calls. The report stated: "This is indicative of both a high degree of compliance by telemarketers and a meaningful reduction in unwanted telephone calls for consumers who have registered their telephone numbers." Editor's Notes:
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