soaring with Osama

Here's a quote from Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2147499/):

Syria had hundreds of files on al-Qaida, including dossiers on those
who had participated-or wanted to participate-in the 9/11 attacks.
Syrian spies had penetrated al-Qaida cells throughout the Middle East,
and Syrian President Bashar Assad was passing on loads of data to the
CIA and the FBI. Some of these tips apparently foiled al-Qaida plots,
including a plan to fly an explosives-laden glider into the U.S. Navy's
5th Fleet headquarters.


Anyone know anything about this?

Johan Larson

wrote:
Here's a quote from Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2147499/):

Syria had hundreds of files on al-Qaida, including dossiers on those
who had participated-or wanted to participate-in the 9/11 attacks.
Syrian spies had penetrated al-Qaida cells throughout the Middle East,
and Syrian President Bashar Assad was passing on loads of data to the
CIA and the FBI. Some of these tips apparently foiled al-Qaida plots,
including a plan to fly an explosives-laden glider into the U.S. Navy's
5th Fleet headquarters.


Anyone know anything about this?

Johan Larson
Don't know about that, but the entry here is interesting
http://www.skylaunch.de/album/i.html

Frank Whiteley

Earlier, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Don't know about that, but the entry here is interesting
http://www.skylaunch.de/album/i.html

Ah, those oughta go well with the couple dozen or so AVA101 Nasim
gliders that Paravar Pars claims to have turned out. It looks like a
copy of the ASK-21, but I couldn't say for su

http://www.aii-co.com/en/ava101.asp

The Paravar Pars web site has typically been here, but it's currently
hosed:

http://www.paravar-pars.com/

Speaking of copies, does anyone else think tha the AVA202 looks exactly
like an RV-6?

http://www.aii-co.com/en/ava202.asp

Thanks, Bob K.

Could somebody please translate the performance comparison table found
about halfway down this page?

http://www.aii-co.com/en/marketing.asp

(direct link to the table http://www.aii-co.com/en/images/AVA.101.jpg)

Ole

Bob Kuykendall wrote:
Earlier, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Don't know about that, but the entry here is interesting
http://www.skylaunch.de/album/i.html

Ah, those oughta go well with the couple dozen or so AVA101 Nasim
gliders that Paravar Pars claims to have turned out. It looks like a
copy of the ASK-21, but I couldn't say for su

http://www.aii-co.com/en/ava101.asp

The Paravar Pars web site has typically been here, but it's currently
hosed:

http://www.paravar-pars.com/

Speaking of copies, does anyone else think tha the AVA202 looks exactly
like an RV-6?

http://www.aii-co.com/en/ava202.asp

Thanks, Bob K.
Clearly inspired by, but not a complete knock-off of the K-21. Nose
skid, main gear forward, horizontal has mass balance tips, and some
other finish details.

The 202 looks a whole lot like the RV6.

Frank Whiteley

wrote:
Here's a quote from Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2147499/):

Syria had hundreds of files on al-Qaida, including dossiers on those
who had participated-or wanted to participate-in the 9/11 attacks.
Syrian spies had penetrated al-Qaida cells throughout the Middle East,
and Syrian President Bashar Assad was passing on loads of data to the
CIA and the FBI. Some of these tips apparently foiled al-Qaida plots,
including a plan to fly an explosives-laden glider into the U.S. Navy's
5th Fleet headquarters.


Anyone know anything about this?



Sounds like a great movie plot -- we are about due for another film
with a glider in it. But, it's an old story now and numerous
references available on the Web have been made to Hersh's assertion,
referenced below.

-----------------

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conten.../030728fa_fact

THE SYRIAN BET
Did the Bush Administration burn a useful source on Al Qaeda?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-07-28
Posted 2003-07-18

[....]

Syria also provided the United States with intelligence about future
Al Qaeda plans. In one instance, the Syrians learned that Al Qaeda
had penetrated the security services of Bahrain and had arranged for
a glider loaded with explosives to be flown into a building at the
U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters there. Flynt Leverett, a former
C.I.A. analyst who served until early this year on the National
Security Council and is now a fellow at the Saban Center at the
Brookings Institution, told me that Syria’s help “let us thwart an
operation that, if carried out, would have killed a lot of Americans.”

[....]

----------------

Are you asking if a glider could do the job, or are you hoping to
confirm the plot by finding Flynt Leverett's telephone number here
on USENET? The Saban Center at the Brookings Institution might be a
better place to start.

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/sabancenter_hp.htm

Flynt Leverett , Foreign Policy Studies, 202/797-4389


The Internet can be a wonderful thing, if we learn how to use it.

You will have to make the call yourself.



Jack

I think that the chances of a glider being used for terrorist activity
are very remote. Far more remote than a light aircraft.
It probably would take most people 3-5 years to be capable of flying any
reasonnable distance cross-country etc etc.

However the Aviation Industries of Iran information looks interesting,
as it suggests active two seater gliding in Iran.
This might be a possible area for opportunities for cross-cultural
gliding exchanges. If those going to Iran had the blessing and
protection
of the Iranian authorities then it would be a wonderful opportunity to
fly in probably a superb gliding area.

Maybe Competition Enterprise ??

Rory

------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroup: rec.aviation.soaring
Subject: soaring with Osama
Author:
Date/Time: 01:40 11 August 2006
------------------------------------------------------------
Could somebody please translate the performance comparison table found
about halfway down this page?

http://www.aii-co.com/en/marketing.asp

(direct link to the table http://www.aii-co.com/en/images/AVA.101.jpg)

Ole


------------------------------------------------------------

Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad


Rory O'Conor wrote:
I think that the chances of a glider being used for terrorist activity
are very remote. Far more remote than a light aircraft.
It probably would take most people 3-5 years to be capable of flying any
reasonnable distance cross-country etc etc.

However the Aviation Industries of Iran information looks interesting,
as it suggests active two seater gliding in Iran.
This might be a possible area for opportunities for cross-cultural
gliding exchanges. If those going to Iran had the blessing and
protection
of the Iranian authorities then it would be a wonderful opportunity to
fly in probably a superb gliding area.

Maybe Competition Enterprise ??

Rory

------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroup: rec.aviation.soaring
Subject: soaring with Osama
Author:
Date/Time: 01:40 11 August 2006
------------------------------------------------------------
Could somebody please translate the performance comparison table found
about halfway down this page?

http://www.aii-co.com/en/marketing.asp

(direct link to the table http://www.aii-co.com/en/images/AVA.101.jpg)

Ole


------------------------------------------------------------

Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

Surreal Rules
The difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

By Victor Davis Hanson


Prior to September 11, the general consensus was that conventional
Middle East armies were paper tigers and that their terrorist
alternatives were best dealt with by bombing them from a distance -
as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, etc. - and then
letting them sort out their own rubble.

Then following 9/11, the West adopted a necessary change in strategy
that involved regime change and the need to win "hearts and minds"
to ensure something better was established in place of the deposed
dictator or theocrat. That necessitated close engagements with
terrorists in their favored urban landscape. After the last four years,
we have learned just how difficult that struggle can be, especially in
light of the type of weapons $500 billion in Middle East windfall
petroleum profits can buy, when oil went from $20 a barrel to almost
$80 over the last few years. To best deal with certain difficulties
we've encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United
States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian
or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on
morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way,
images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If
ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful
(inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to
some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes
into play. For the United States to have such power over life and
death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and
victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still
"constructed" as "the other" and thus are seen as suffering -
doctored photos or not - through the grim prism of Western
colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won't tolerate
many losses; it won't tolerate for very long killing the enemy either
- unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian
Europeans of Milosevic's Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically
correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember,
multiculturalism always trumps fascism; the worst homophobe, the
intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic
if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks
most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or
kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately
hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many
reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the
advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the
news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an
affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous.
Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a
well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash
Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the
road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is
always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose
sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that
exaggerates Israeli "war crimes" causes a mini-controversy for a
day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates
Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition - whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean
or an activist such as Cindy Sheehan - ultimately prefers the enemy
to win. In their way of thinking, there is such a reservoir of American
strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us at home and so take
away our Starbucks' lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But being
checked in "optional" wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in
Lebanon, has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are
humiliated; the military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit
more humble; and guilt over living in a prosperous Western suburb is
assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - unlike a Nixon,
Reagan, or Bush - sends helicopters or bombs into the Middle East
desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and so can
be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat
must wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of influence,
abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who helped
to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange
sweetheart oil concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian
and European machine tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo
list; much of the off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was
purchased through European arms merchants. And if they are consistent
in their willingness to do business with any tyrant, the Europeans also
know how to spread enough aid or money around to the Middle East, to
ensure some protection and a prominent role in any postwar conference.
Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum contracts in
Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can
always earn a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must
enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to fight
its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and
obliterated Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where
hundreds of civilians were lost to "collateral damage." Egyptians
gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds; Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians
murdered thousands of men, women, and children in Hama; Jordanians
slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None received much lasting, if
any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus of the world's
attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000
Tibetans. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to
those who can fight them with impunity.

6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are oblivious to criticism
if they wake up in the morning and learn their military has bombed a
Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan - and the war was begun and
then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks -
about the length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war - is the limit of
our patience. After that, Americans become so sensitive to global
criticism that they begin to hate themselves as much as others do.
To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours - but at all
cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are such fanciful rules? Of course - but not as
absurd as the wars now going on in the Middle East.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other, How the
Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution...

Yup. They don't call it an "institution" for nothing.