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#1441 Re: The Garden » Former Congressman charged in terror conspiracy » 911 weeks ago
would he be considered a traitor if found guilty?
I hope so, he needs to be hung if he actually knew all of what was going on.
#1442 The Garden » Former Congressman charged in terror conspiracy » 911 weeks ago
- Tommie
- Replies: 3
Ex-lawmaker charged in terror conspiracy By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jan 16, 6:23 PM ET
A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.
Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.
A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying '” money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Siljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.
He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. His attorney in Kansas City, J.R. Hobbs, had no immediate comment.
The charges are part of a long-running case against the charity, which had been based in Columbia, Mo., and was designated by the Treasury Department in 2004 as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists.
In the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The indictment charges IARA with sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.
Authorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who has participated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Justice Department said Hekmatyar "has vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan."
The charges paint "a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said.
Siljander founded the Washington-area consulting group Global Strategies Inc. after leaving the government.
The indictment says Siljander was hired by IARA in March 2004 to lobby the Senate Finance Committee in an effort to remove the charity from the panel's list of suspected terror fundraisers.
For his work, IARA paid Siljander with money that was part of U.S. government funding awarded to the charity years earlier for relief work it promised to perform in Africa, the indictment says. Under the grant agreement, IARA was supposed to return any unused funds after the relief project was wrapped up in 1999.
Instead, Siljander and three IARA officers agreed to cover up the money's origins and use it on the lobbying effort, the indictment charges.
In interviews with the FBI in December 2005 and April 2007, Siljander denied doing any lobbying work for IARA. The money, he told investigators, was merely a donation from IARA to help him write a book about Islam and Christianity, the indictment says.
In 2004, the FBI raided the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA group's headquarters and the homes of people affiliated with the group nationwide. Since then, the 20-year-old charity has been unable to raise money and its assets have been frozen.
The charity has denied the allegations that it has financed terrorism. IARA in Columbia has argued that it is a separate organization from the Islamic African Relief Agency, a Sudanese group suspected of financing al-Qaida. A federal appeals court in Washington ruled in February that there was a link between the two groups.
In an indictment handed down in March, the charity and four of its officers were charged with illegally transferring $1.4 million to Iraq from March 1991 to May 2003 '” when Iraq was under various U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
The indictment also alleges that on 11 separate occasions the defendants transferred funds from the United States to Iraq through Amman, Jordan, in order to promote unlawful activity that violated Iraq sanctions.
In all, Siljander, IARA and five of its officers were charged with various counts of theft, money laundering, aiding terrorists and conspiracy.
"By bringing this case in the middle of America, we seek to make it harder for terrorists to do business halfway around the globe," said John Wood, U.S. attorney in Kansas City.
#1443 Re: The Sunset Strip » Tom Cruise On Scientology » 911 weeks ago
DoubleTalkingJive wrote:I wanna know what he means by we are the authorities?
He means we are all masters of our own destiny. There are no excuses in life.
I'm actually surprised people think this video is evidence of him being nuts, despite the editing. In my eyes he's just a dedicated person with a lot of feelings. It's like describing that you're in love, it can very easily become a little incoherent.
Very good point.
My question is though, would people still say he's crazy if instead of scientology, he was talking about Christianity?
#1444 Re: The Sunset Strip » Screencap Game » 911 weeks ago
2 is Terminator 3
3 is silent hill?
I have no idea what 1 is though.
#1445 Re: The Sunset Strip » Tom Cruise On Scientology » 911 weeks ago
Oh come on, I just watched this, and its been so heavily edited that you really shouldnt jump to any conclusions. I mean its almost a parody b/c of all the editing. But the sad part is, most people wont look at it that way. They'll just think "oh yeah, he's fucking crazy".
I'd be interested to see the complete unedited version of this. You cant blame them for getting pissed off about this.
#1446 Re: Guns N' Roses » "Mystery" Band to reunite in Sweden » 911 weeks ago
hmm 20 years? Unless they are rounding the number up by about five years, theres no way this is GnR.
#1447 Re: The Garden » The NFL 2007-08 Season thread » 911 weeks ago
Cowboys coach says Romo re-injured thumb in loss to Giants
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ESPN.com news services
Just like last season, the Dallas Cowboys' early ousting from the NFL playoffs might be due to Tony Romo's hand.
A Cowboys coach told ESPN's Ed Werder that Romo re-injured his right thumb in the team's 21-17 NFC divisional playoff loss to the New York Giants, causing swelling in the thumb for much of the game. Romo's thumb was hurt on his second throw when blitzing Giants' safety Michael Johnson swatted at the ball as he ran past the quarterback, causing a strange incompletion for Romo.
Romo finished the game 18-of-36 for 201 yards with a touchdown but was sacked on each of the Cowboys' two final drives. The Cowboys' season ended with Romo throwing a fourth-down pass into the end zone and cornerback R.W. McQuarters stepping in front of Terry Glenn for the interception. It marked Romo's second straight disappointing finish to a playoff game, following his flubbed hold of a short field goal in Seattle a year ago.
Romo first injured his thumb in the Cowboys' 10-6 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Dec. 16. Romo finished 13-of-36 for 214 yards in the loss, with a career-low rating of 22.2. It came in front of his parents and his newest A-list girlfriend -- Jessica Simpson, who tugged the front of her pink No. 9 jersey, then mouthed the word "Romo!" when cameras spotted her.
"If we go on and win the Super Bowl, the loss is a good thing," Romo said after the Eagles' game. "If we lose first round of the playoffs, the loss is not a good thing."
Romo played in the Dec. 22 game against the Carolina Panthers and was 28-of-42 for 257 yards with a touchdown and an interception as Dallas won 20-17. But he was 7-of-16 for 79 yards and an interception in the Cowboys' last regular-season game, a 27-6 loss to the Washington Redskins.
Romo was also pulled in the third quarter with Washington up 20-3 as the Cowboys rested anyone who was questionable with an injury because it had clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
In his playoff debut last season, Romo bobbled the snap on a 19-yard field goal attempt with 1:19 left that would have lifted the Cowboys past the Seattle Seahawks. Instead, Romo's bobble led to a scramble that ended 2 yards shy of the end zone and a yard short of a first down, preserving the Seahawks' 21-20 wild-card win.
"I know how hard everyone in that locker room worked to get themselves in position to win that game today and for it to end like that, and for me to be the cause is very tough to swallow right now," Romo said after the loss to Seattle. "I take responsibility for messing up at the end there. That's my fault. I cost the Dallas Cowboys a playoff win, and it's going to sit with me a long time."
The Cowboys' latest playoff loss was bigger because "America's Team" seemed pointed toward a ninth trip to the Super Bowl, maybe even a sixth championship.
"It hurts," Romo said after the loss to the Giants. "It's tough right now."
Dallas tied the most wins in team history with 13 but followed it by tying an NFL record with a sixth straight playoff loss. Romo fell to 0-2 and coach Wade Phillips finished his first year with the Cowboys by falling to 0-4 in his playoff career.
There are other dubious footnotes for Dallas, like being the first No. 1 seed in the NFC to lose in this round since the NFL went to the 12-team playoff format in 1990 and being the seventh team to lose a playoff game against a team they'd beaten twice in the regular season; the '98 Cowboys did it, too.
Romo came in looking to make up for last season's finish, to prove his sluggish December was no big deal and to quiet everyone who accused him of mixed-up priorities for Simpson on the beach in Mexico last weekend.
He couldn't do it, but it wasn't all his fault.
The offense stopped drives with penalties, while the defense kept New York drives alive by drawing more flags. There also was sloppy tackling on defense and special teams, dropped passes and wasted timeouts.
Despite the mistakes, the Cowboys had the ball with 1:48 left and only had to go 48 yards.
A Brett Favre-esque scrambling shovel pass by Romo to Jason Witten got the Cowboys to the 22 with 31 seconds left, then came more mistakes -- another false start, a short pass that forced Dallas to use its final timeout and a pair of poor throws, a ball in the end zone that Patrick Crayton seemed to give up on before futilely speeding up and the final play, caught by McQuarters.
Still, Romo is the marquee man and the most likely to be blamed, though not by Terrell Owens.
Owens, who made good on his vow to return from a high ankle sprain sustained three weeks ago, cried behind dark sunglasses with a quivering bottom lip while declaring, "You can point the finger at him, you can talk about the vacation, and if you do that, it's really unfair. That's my teammate. ... We lost as a team."
#1448 Re: The Sunset Strip » What's Your Favorite Movie Of All Time? » 911 weeks ago
Fav action movie - The Rock
Fav stupid comedy - Dirty Work
Fav sci fi - The Abyss
Others are, Pi, Phonebooth, Flatliners, and many many more.
#1449 Re: The Garden » 9/11 » 911 weeks ago
I have no idea, its been way to long since I've read anything to do with 9/11. I wouldnt even know where to start.
#1450 Re: The Garden » 9/11 » 911 weeks ago
Nah for the most part they are all over the planes. I remember when I went to Vegas, we had 6 different planes (round trip) and there were phones right on the back of each seat.
