Re: RE: Badges?

The journalist backs away from his original story.

Several experts are casting doubt on reports that Iran had passed a law requiring the country’s Jews and other religious minorities to wear coloured badges identifying them as non-Muslims.

The part about the national "Islamic dress code," however, appears to be true.

So Chairman Mao, instead of Hitler. Choose your poison.

More thoughts here.

Re: What a Ride

1st Sgt Von Zehle is famous for a bit more than importing Saddam's Car.

Baghdad UN Bombing

How does the saying go - "No good deed goes unpunished"

The Contest Is ON

Via the Legion of Dumb, we get a call for magnets.

Lots and lots of magnets.

Enough to cover a Humvee. From Iowahawk:

Attention all members of the Legion of Dumb! Your first official mission has been assigned. Old Pal (and full Fellow in the Legion of Dumb) Dr Darren Lee has long supplied me with his special homemade Ozark "hair tonic", and believe you me, it is some of the mellowest, smoothest, low-hangover "hair tonic" you will ever comb. Now Doc is over in the Big Sandy making life miserable for Zarkman, so I'd like to return the favor. Doc writes:

...I need lots of refrigerator magnets to envelop my Humvee with. 
Naturally you will get the picture of the completed project.  I must not let the
evil Cavalry types get ahead of me on this one. Perhaps your readers would like to take part with a secret PSYOP decoder
ring going to the best magnet. 

This is exactly the type of surreal absurdist activity the LOD was founded to support. Thus you are  hereby commanded: Send your weirdest refrigerator magnets immediately to

Dr. Lee

TPT 1634 1-33 CAV

3rd BCT 101 ABN DIV

APO AE 09390

And while you're at it, you can support our other servicemen and women by supporting Operation Gratitude which is aiming to get 40,000 care packages together by the 4th of July.

re: re: What a Ride

Greyhawk - Perhaps the feds are low on luxurious armored cars?

The Elephant

At Blue Crab Boulevard, a letter from a son in Iraq. You really want to read this.

Re: What a Ride

Andi - the odd thing is he bought that car in 2003, and a year ago it got a lot of press attention.

And the feds are taking it from him now?

CONGRESSIONAL TEMPER TANTRUMS ARE NOTHING NEW

It might just maybe kinda sorta have something to do with you all not being able to keep your mouths shut about secret, critical intelligence gathering activities on which the lives of Americans at home and abroad rest? oh. okay

From our friends at the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, May 18 — There were two types of senators at Thursday's confirmation hearing for Gen. Michael V. Hayden: the briefed, and the briefed-nots.

The former were mostly polite. The latter, especially Democrats, threw the Congressional equivalent of a temper tantrum.

After Hayden explained that it was not his decision as to who did or did not get briefed:

That did not appear to satisfy Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. Earlier in the day she had complained that the small number of lawmakers who were briefed before Wednesday were "handcuffed" because they were not permitted to share information with colleagues.

"The notification to a very limited group — they could do nothing much with that information, essentially — is not the kind of checks and balances that I think our founding fathers had in mind," Ms. Snowe said.

Well, I think the founding fathers might have expected that if you said something was secret, it was secret..

Pomp, Circumstance, and pompous circumstances

Soldier's Mom, no one will believe we didn't coordinate those two posts below - but we didn't.

Two years ago when our son graduated from the on-base school here in Germany, closed circuit TV was set up to allow the deployed parents to watch. Early in the ceremony, those kids were called one by one to stand and wave at the camera, to cheers from the crowd. One shouting "Hi mom" is something I'll never forget.

Especially when I hear stories about pampered, spoiled, and ill-prepared little s#!ts like those the New School just ejected into the world.

Where Is 'merica's Leets?

Aparently not at the New School. These kids wouldn't know one of America's elite if he stood before them.

Do these people actually get jobs?

Read this too.

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Makes me teary-eyed just thinking about it...

Soldiers to Watch Graduations Online Associated Press | May 19, 2006 CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - In his 20-year career as a Soldier, 1st Sgt. Michael McElveen has missed a lot of important moments with his family - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. But on Saturday he will get to watch his daughter, 18-year-old Fatima, walk across the stage and accept her high school diploma - even though he is still thousands of miles away in Iraq.

Seven high schools near Fort Campbell, the home of the Army's storied 101st Airborne Division, will broadcast their graduation ceremonies live over the Internet for the first time for family members stationed overseas.

Is it Safe?

Is it safer to be a civilian resident in Iraq than in some U.S. cities and other countries?

There's them what sez it is, and there's them what sez it ain't.

Re: Two Reports on Guantanamo

Here's one Senator's response...

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) made the following statement in response to a United Nations panel report calling for the shutdown of the terrorist detainment center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Instead of finding new ways to criticize the United States, the United Nations should focus their attention on real human rights abuses. Iran is reportedly trying to revive Nazi tactics of discrimination against Jews and Christians and hundreds of thousands are dying because of genocide in Darfur,” said Senator DeMint. “In the meantime, America will not forget the lessons of September 11th, and will keep captured terrorists from killing more innocent Americans.”

AMEN, Senator.

From the ABCnews.com story (my emphasis):

U.N. investigators were invited to inspect the facilities at Guantanamo but chose not to, White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"It is important to note that everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully within the boundaries of American law," Snow said.

Further, Snow said the United States makes sure that prisoners are provided with food, clothing and other basic necessities and have the opportunity to worship.

"In short," Snow said, "we are according every consideration consistent with not only the law but the needs of safety and security at Guantanamo to the people who are there."

State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III, who led the U.S. delegation at the U.N. panel hearing, said the committee appeared not to have read a lot of the information Washington had supplied or had ignored it.

And the Catch-22 inherent in the UN report of closing the facility but not sending known, violent terrorists to places that might, ahem, ACTUALLY torture the detainees is not lost on Bellinger:

Bellinger added that the United States was working "very hard" to address concerns about Guantanamo, but that critics had failed to come up with suggestions on what to do with the detainees.

"If you add in the recommendation in this report that Guantanamo ought to be closed but large numbers of people can't be sent back to certain countries, there's not really a very good solution," he said.

Once again, all the "experts" and all the anti-US critics have all the answers... no solutions.

And I have just a two word response to this... ok, it's not a polite response.. but it's concise:

The panel asked the United States to report back within a year with its response to several of its concerns and recommendations

Photos from Iraq

Anyone who knows him will tell you that Doc is a real bookworm. So, it's no surprise that his latest recreational project has been to build, stock, and organize a library for his unit.

Doc's latest photo album update features care-packages, camel spiders, battle scars, scorpions, sandstorms, cute puppies, and lots of photos of Sailors and Marines goofing off.

What a Ride

Soldier at the FOB mail center: "How much to ship this?"

Hey! Pay attention to Turkey where the secularists are fighting back against radical Islam

Noted here yesterday:

Turkey, thanks to Ataturk has long been a secular republic with a Moslem population. Now the secularists take to the streets to protest the slaying of a judge by a "suspected Islamist gunman" and to show their support for Turkey to remain secular ... and more in the Corner today:

Erdogan’s and the AKP’s statements that all of this must be plots of outsiders are falling on deaf ears. Turks have had enough of their government’s unwillingness to take responsibility for its actions and its incitement. What some Turks are asking, though, is why the U.S. media is paying so little attention to the crisis. This isn’t just an instance of Turks being Turkey-centric. But it seems that when Islamists threaten to make inroads, U.S. media is all over the story. But when liberals fight back, there is silence. This is not only true in Turkey, but extends to general media sympathy toward Islamism.

More here.

Erdogan and the AKP are perceived as not as secular as some would like.

Posted at 2100Z

Collect Call from Jihad Central

Terrorists in some Middle Eastern jails are killing time by chatting on cell phones. Guess who's on speed dial?

With all those cell phones, terrorists in numerous prisons in the Middle East have been afforded the luxury of running veritable press centers. Each Al Qaida prison wing has its spokesman and the number most widely dialed is the newsroom of Al-Jazeera, where the entire Middle East can hear the latest pronouncements of jihad.

More from your intrepid EuroBureau chief

Mon Dieu! - Even as the beautiful people gather in Cannes, it seems that yet another wave of riots threatens to sweep Paris:

A group of French feminists wants to get rid of the word "mademoiselle", or "miss," saying the term turns a female into an inferior being defined by her marital status.

"When you get letters, the postman or anyone passing by your mailbox can see whether you are married or not. It's nobody's business," said Mathilde, an unmarried 40-year old, who has launched a petition for the government to abolish the term.

"The term mademoiselle puts a diminutive view on our girls, it turns them into incomplete 'little things', never really autonomous, who will not become real adults unless they find a husband or become mothers," says her petition, which has been signed by some 4,200 people.

RE: "Tiananmen Square...sex"

Sure, just throw me right in.

I'd much rather talk about Cannes, but I don't get the VIP invite that the Greyhawks receive.

And maybe it's just us fundies, but what on earth could "Tiananmen Square, where the politics are almost as hot as the sex" possibly mean?

Is it some kind of obscure reference to a sexual position or practice?

"Man, it was a hot scene. We all had our Tainanmen's Squared!"

And if so, how come Matt or Smash aren't talking about it?

Two Reports on Guantanamo

Give Them What They Want. The prisoners at Gitmo that is, not the UN.

Two reports from AP, of two curiously timed events:
Guantanamo Prison Guards, Inmates Clash
U.N. Urges U.S. to Shut Guantanamo Prison

Bottom line up front, buried 30 paragraphs down in the piece on the UN Report:

Andreas Mavrommatis, a Cypriot rights expert who chaired the committee's review of the United States, said the report should not be blown out of proportion because the United States has "a very good record of human rights" overall.

The AP characterizes the Gitmo prisoner “uprising” in a way that strongly suggests that prisoners made suicide attempts to draw in guards, conduct attacks and other harassing actions, and (thereby) gain media attention.

"Tiananmen Square, where the politics are almost as hot as the sex"

Silly little Dadmanly - babbling on about Iraq while the beautiful people are gathering at Cannes:

WITH the manufactured hysteria over "The Da Vinci Code" now little more than a fast-fading hangover, the 59th Cannes Film Festival has begun in earnest. And just as they do every year, the programmers have proved that in between the critical grandstanding and the public-relations hyperbole there actually is room for art, or at the very least some satisfying films. The first few days here have not yet produced any revelations, but filmgoers have again been able to tour the cinematic world, passing through Paris on the way to Paraguay and Tiananmen Square, where the politics are almost as hot as the sex.

In "Fast Food," Mr. Linklater and Mr. Schlosser, who wrote the screenplay together, trace a miscellany of characters from both sides of the American-Mexican border as they experience the perils of globalization. The most essential political film from an American director since Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," it may not turn you into a vegetarian, but it will definitely make your think twice about our fast-food culture.

Leslie Cauley

The USA Today reporter who broke the telecom/NSA story gave $2,000 to the Gephardt presidential campaign in 2003. That's not big news, since most reporters are staunch Democrats you'd likely find that with any story.

But this is:

Two of the three phone companies Cauley fingered, BellSouth and Verizon, have since denied the accuracy of the May 11 USA Today story, and BellSouth yesterday went so far as to demand the newspaper “retract the false and unsubstantiated statements” made by Cauley in her piece.

RE: Badges?

"Questions have been raised."

On the other hand, Amir Taheri describes the new law pretty extensively:

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).

The new law, drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, had been blocked within the Majlis. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from Khatami's successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The new law replaces the one passed in 1982 dealing with women's clothes. That law imposed the hijab and focused on the need to force women to cover their hair in public. The emphasis on the hijab was based on the belief that women's hair emanates an "evil ray" that drives men "into lustful irrationality" and thus causes harm to Islam. The new law cannot come into effect until consensus is reached on what constitutes "authentic Islamic attire."

There's much more at the link. I'm more inclined to believe Taheri's lengthy and detailed story, than Meir Javedanfar one-line dismissal. But I could be wrong.

On the other hand...

Or foot, as the case may be...

Iranian women soccer fans are devastated following a decision by Iran's Supreme Leader that women are not allowed to watch men's soccer games in person. This decision comes just a month after Iran's President said women are allowed to watch soccer matches at stadiums.

TEHRAN, June 8 -- One of the victories scored at Azadi Stadium on Wednesday evening was Iran's soccer triumph over the island nation of Bahrain, an easy 1-0 win that guaranteed Iran a slot in next year's World Cup tournament and set off dancing in the streets of the capital.

Another sort of victory came about 90 minutes before the game, when a crowd of female soccer fans pushed their way past guards outside the stadium. Defying a rule that has banned women from soccer matches for more than a quarter-century in the Islamic republic, the young activists demanded seats in the sports complex that Iran's religious rulers named Azadi, or "freedom."

No doubt some Americans would prefer not to listen to women prattle on during a game either - with or without a bag over their heads. But that's not the reason given for banning them in Iran.

Badges?

Questions have been raised:

The National Post is sending shockwaves across the country this morning with a report that Iran's Parliament has passed a law requiring mandatory Holocaust style badges to identify Jews and Christians.

But independent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, says the report is false.

"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told The New 940 Montreal.

Re: Is Iraq Old News

Reuters Alertnet doesn't list Iraq as a "Featured Emergency" anymore.

While there is still plenty of killing gong on in Iraq, the major "controversies" are pretty much either being addressed or resolved. The civil war hasn't materialized, at least not in a scale that would interest the media.

Thanks to the Hosts!

So it's been what, almost a week, and we have over 200 posts, representation from all the services, plenty of pics, milblog humor, and even some intraservice snarking. Sounds like it's been a great start!

Thanks to our hosts, Greyhawk and Mrs. Greyhawk, for all their efforts on our behalf, getting this started, making it a reality, and doing such a great job. You two are the best!

A View of Iraq

By now, Amir Taheri’s comprehensive assessment of Iraq in Commentary has received wide attention. Read the whole thing.

Taheri begins his report about the Real Iraq, describing the almost universal puzzlement of those who visit Iraq for any length, and return to compare their observations with mainstream media (MSM) reporting:

Within hours of arriving here, as I can attest from a recent visit, one is confronted with an image of Iraq that is unrecognizable.

it is no wonder the American public registers disillusion with Iraq and everyone who embroiled the U.S. in its troubles.

Re: The Hilton

Just for reference, the Hilton Family of Brands are:

Conrad Hotels
Doubletree
Embassy Suites Hotels
Hampton Inn
Hampton Inns & Suites
Hilton Hotels
Hilton Garden Inn
Hilton Grand Vacations Club
Homewood Suites by Hilton
Scandic

Tell your friends and family.

Veterans are going to forget about the Hilton...

...in the same sense they forgot about Jane Fonda and John Kerry. Blackfive with more.

Meanwhile, according to a Hilton Senior VP, the guys at Fran's not only refused to pay rent, their place was a dump:

The most salient point is that the proprietors of Fran O'Brien's had not paid their rent for four months. This is on top of numerous health an safety violations present in the restaurant that were in clear violation of the lease.

Russian ship to join NATO exercise

The Russian patrol ship Pytlivy will be joining a NATO anti-terrorist exercise in the Mediterranean it is reported here:

The fleet’s press service told ITAR-TASS on Friday that five-day exercises of the Russian ship and Britain’s frigate Nottingham would be held in preparation for joining NATO’s anti-terrorist operation Active Endeavour.

Officers of a NATO mobile training group have come on the board of the Pytlivy for preparing the joint drill.

“The programme of the exercises includes joint manoeuvres, familiarisation with standard procedures and work with secret documents of NATO,” the press service said.

NATO communications equipment SEMARCOM will be installed on the Russian ship for this.

A group of officers from the Pytlivy will pay a coordination visit to the headquarters of the command of the South naval component of NATO allied military forces during a brief stop at the Naples port on Saturday.

We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!

While Iran is still focused on Jews, Palestinian factions are realizing just how much they can hate each other within their own territory. Reference Palestinian Authority Infighting Escalates for context and witness events that seem to show a region increasingly ripping itself apart without the aid of the American 'War Machine'. There's enough hate to go around without attaching it to us Yanks.

Caliphate, anyone?

RE: Is "Never Again" Too Inconvenient Today?

Surely the Iranians understand the historical significance of this law. A finger in the eye of the West.

Better late than never...

A national unity government for Iraq will be unveiled this weekend.

A moment of Warrior Zen

I'm sure some of you have seen this before - but it was new to me.

A Moment of Warrior Zen. I like the music - the pictures are just value-added...

Update: Link removed. Sigh. Even when people admit to having a bandwidth issues, not attributing to them is inexcusable. And you should ask for permission.

Sigh. Thanks for pointing it out, Mike. I'll admit I don't remember everything I've ever seen everywhere. Still, if I take something and host it from someone who has low-bandwidth, I get permission and attribute it. Fooey. Go here - click "Until Then".

This presentation was originally created for and dedicated to a wonderful young lady who lost her husband in Afghanistan who we got to know over the internet. I posted this one for her but also as a reminder to those who live near families whose husbands have given their lives for their country and those who are currently serving. We must not forget the families of those who serve and sacrifice for the rest of us. Shortly I will be posting approved charities you can donate to if you would like to help these families in need.

Music - "Homeward Bound" from The Road Home by The Choirs of Brigham Young University - © 2003 Tantara Records
The Road Home CD is available for purchase at www.tantararecords.com.

Posted at 1412Z

Is "Never Again" Too Inconvenient Today?

Does anyone remember 1938?

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

Yes, I have a passion for covering the Iranian mullahcracy. I can offer no better example as to why. If the EU would kindly refrain from making the Clintonian NoKor offers of nuclear reactors to a fascist Iranian nuclear threat, it would be greatly appreciated.

I do not want a shooting war with Iran. But, if it were to ever come to that, there are clearly even fewer debatable objections of principle than those offered leading up to Iraq.

We often say "Never Forget" in reference to the murderous attacks on civilians on 11Sept01.

May we not forget that our fathers and grandfathers lived their lives saying "Never Again" in reference to the ignored rise of Nazi Germany.

Pay attention. It's free.

RE: Baghdad ER

I'd like to know what Doc or Chuck Z. think of this:

Before long, he said, the effort to document the daily activities became psychologically grueling because ''you just knew that every single day that door was going to open up, that the helicopter was going to land, and they were just going to bring in something that looked like hamburger instead of a human being.''

Doc has flown on many of those CASEVAC helo flights as a corpsman; Chuck has only flown on one, as a patient.

I'd also like to hear from Major Pain (if anyone has contact info), who served in Baghdad with the 21st CSH.

DoDCMA, vice DoD.

5/18/2006 - -- Joseph Stutzman and Robert Attard, contractors from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., switch an AGM-114 Hellfire missile from one MQ-1 Predator to another on May 16, 2006, at Balad Air Base, Iraq. Mr. Stutzman and Mr. Attard are aircraft mechanics assigned to the 46th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit. Contractors began replacing some military maintainers in February 2006, and recently took over as the primary mechanics for the Predator. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Brian Ferguson)

Heh. At what point do we just let the troops go, and DoD becomes DoDCMA? Department of Defense Contract Management Agency?

Not an idle question, as this paper discusses.

Hey - *I'm* a contractor. I have a dog in this fight. But as I look around and see where contractors serve, and the rules under which they serve - I question both the aptness of using contractors for certain mission-critical functions - and the codicils in the contracts under which they function - to include ones where truly mission-critical infrastructure personnel are designated as NEO evacuees in the event of conflict, their jobs putatively taken over by their uniformed supervisors. Supervisors who, when I was watching them perform *their* duties, didn't seem to have much slack time to take on another, full-time, mission-critical task set.

Contractors aren't going away - and for many tasks they shouldn't - but where does the mission creep end? I see the appeal of contracting out a lot of essentially war-time only jobs to this Secretary of Defense - he doesn't want the increase in end-strength and force expansion/contraction issues (and long term expenses) that go with it - he can just hire what he wants off the market and run with it, and not take on the long term burden of permanent full-time (or even part-time) troops. He offloads the pension/medical/overhead issues to industry, only having to partially fund them while contracts are in force.

Whattaya think? This is a smart group.

Cross-posted at Castle Argghhh!.

Friday already?

Time for the News from Afghanistan!

The flipside opinion on Baghdad ER

I think CDR Salamander and I both have strong feelings about Baghdad ER.

War should cause you to have strong feelings. It's a game of life and death. People should be forced to face that fact and all the ugliness that goes with it, especially the ones who want to continue having the right to vote for their leaders every few years. This doesn't just apply to what's happening on the ground here in Baghdad and around Iraq.

Islamist fanatics and the damage they cause should get equal airplay. It's time for the world to have an honest discussion about what life would be like under a Zarqawi or a Bin Laden instead of the Bush so many love to hate. You think it hurts to fight this war? Wait till a dirty bomb goes off in London or Los Angelese during rush hour. It's a very real threat, and the source of the threat isn't the U.S. Government, despite its propensity to act foolish, waste money and stagger around like a drunken idiot from time to time.

Should we be cautious about trading liberty for security. H**l yes. Should we watch our government carefully to make sure it doesn't get out of control. Absolutely. I'm worried. Should we all get honest with ourselves about Islam and its fundamentalist adherents. We d**n well better.

This war is a lot bigger than Iraq and Afghanistan. It's in your backyard, and a lot of you aren't willing to be honest with yourselves yet.

Baghdad ER (the HBO docu)

No, I am not happy. I feel better now after venting over at my blog, but looking back to what has been written over the last month by the usual subjects in the MSM, and the all the garbage from .mil sources that are being sent my way about "How I should see it...", I had to dig some more.

Here is my take. I may be on my own here, but this is going to be used like a club by the Left to hit the war. Count on it.

Veterans Job Fair

Not what I want to hear...

After being wounded in Iraq, Chris Dominick hasn't had much luck finding work.

"I'm really faced with a lot of brick walls. Nobody really, really, really wants to hire a person in a wheelchair," he said.

Other soldiers have faces similar job hunting dilemmas.

"They may have been a sniper in Iraq. [There] aren't many companies looking for snipers in this country," said Perry Borman with the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes.

So someone did something about it... They held a Veterans Job Fair in my hometown

Every city in America should hold one of these fairs...

ER (The Television Show)

So the ER Season Finale -- "Twenty-One Guns" -- was this evening. I haven't watched the show much the past few seasons, but saw last week's episode in which a soldier/Dr./character was killed in Iraq... and, in typical "ER" anti-everything fashion, other characters "went off" on the war... The funeral for the soldier was in the season's finale and I was hoping they weren't going to do anything but portray the funeral and burial with the dignity and solemnity it deserved...

If you care at all about a television show, you can read my thoughts here...

AP Telling "At Least" Some of the Story

Never have the words "at least" pissed me off so much.

2007 MilBlog Conference

It's time to get busy on the 2007 MilBlog Conference. Some preliminary plans are already underway, and I'll just tell you that it's going to be amazing. There are some fun surprises in the works. The MilBlog Conference is "our" conference, and that's where you come in.

The Border is Closed

A fatal shooting in San Diego closes the world's busiest international border crossing.

"From Ground Zero to the doorstep of al Qaeda"

Good story.

A Port Authority detective who carried his slain colleague's handcuffs all the way to Afghanistan so he could personally slap them on terrorists' wrists will get his department's highest honor today for taking the war on terror from Ground Zero to the doorstep of al Qaeda.

Detective Thomas McHale Jr. will get the PA's Medal of Honor for his heroic actions fighting to prevent another 9/11 during his two-month tour of duty in Central Asia with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2002.

In a dramatic tribute, McHale locked up would-be suicide bombers and al Qaeda bigs - including high-ranking al Qaeda fiends like Abu Zubaydah - with the handcuffs originally owned by fellow PA Police Officer Donald McIntyre, who died in the 9/11 attack.

Using the cuffs, which were pulled out of the rubble of the World Trade Center, was a way for the fallen officer to get justice, McHale said.