Must read: a two-part article from the Observer on terrorist cells operating in Europe (part one, part two). The most explosive revelation is that US intelligence agents had Mohammed Atta under surveillance in Hamburg last year because he was buying chemicals for explosives and biological warfare. The article also further confirms my suspicions that these extremist cells are cults. They prey upon vulnerable people, often far from home, and indoctrinate them in an extreme, anti-Western form of Islam. They’re then sent to terrorist boot camps and fully brainwashed, and finally are put back in circulation to carry out attacks and recruit new members.
You may or may not know about the Carlyle Group (here’s a link to an earlier article), an investment group that employs a bunch of retired politicians, including James A. Baker and the elder President Bush. The group specializes in buying out defense and aerospace contractors, and counts among its investors the bin Laden family. So as Osama drives up defense spending in the United States, the family business benefits financially. I obviously don’t think there’s a conspiracy of any kind here, I just find it perpetually interesting what a small, strange world we live in.