Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Sunday, September 1, 2002

15:14 - Who is Johnathan R. Galt?
http://www.islamic-news.co.uk/

(top)

I've been hearing a fair amount about "cyber-terrorism" lately, on NPR and elsewhere-- in the context of a different way groups like al Qaeda could attack Western interests, ranging in severity from defacings of websites (which mostly amount to sending the message "Hey, if we can do this, think of what else we can do! Mwa ha haah!"-- even though the ability to deface a website implies nothing about someone's ability to access completely unrelated national-security resources; this isn't a movie) to being able to shut down power grids and access missile launch systems and so on.

At the very least I've expected to see some scrawlings on websites here and there, perpetrated by those doe-eyed Clear Guidance youths or some such. What I didn't see coming, though, was defacements of Jihadi websites-- like this one, which I saw linked from Tal G's blog, of www.islamic-news.co.uk.

(It's apparently remained like this for at least a day or two. If it's put back the way it was soon, I've saved a web archive of it.)

The defacement is signed by a Johnathan R. Galt, with a link to his own site, which appears to be a surprisingly comprehensive lising of Jihadi websites all over the world-- including references to their contents prior to 9/11, and lots of fascinating stuff like Egyptian year-2001 calendars printed months prior to the fact, with September's featured picture being of a jetliner crashing into Manhattan. And a ton more.

There's a worrisome angle which implicates the CIA in a lot of what's been going on, which sends off a few "conspiracy theorist" warning bells in my head:

America's CIA helped Osama and the Taliban overthrow the Soviets in Afghanistan. Maybe Osama bin Laden is still on the CIA payroll? And perhaps they arranged for him and the higher-ranking Taliban to escape .

...But the links are fairly damning, as are dozens more that involve the CIA later in the site, and I'm left wondering why we haven't heard more about this guy? I can't even find a reference to his name in the InstaPundit archives.

As for the Islamic News defacement itself, it appears to be an appeal directly to Muslims, though it's far from clear how Muslim Mr. Galt is. Interspersed with quotes from what appear to be Islamic scholars doing things like debunking the Palestinians' right to the land in Israel and calling for Muslims everywhere to stand up against the hijacking of their faith by fanatics who appear to want to destroy Islam by fighting for it are lines like:

Is it any wonder that the people of the world have developed a fear and sometimes open hatred for Muslims when they see: terror videos for sale at a mosque . This is madness, it's a blasphemy against Allah, and it must be stopped.

We have decided to cooperate with the authorities here in Britain andin the USA. Britain must not be used as a base for world-wide Islamist terrorism. The evidence we have of Islamists activities against India regarding Kashmir will be given to the Indian authorities. We will help the Russians battle the evil of the Saudi-Wahhabi sponsored Chechen Mujhadeen. We will help the Israelis overcome Arafat and his goons .

(I'm not sure what all the weird extra characters are about. Maybe it's steganography. I dunno.)

I'm still looking through these links. And here I thought I'd be able to get some work done today.