Cohen, Siddiqui, and Plum Island: A Tale of Wolves and Sheep

Joseph Cohen

Aafia Siddiqui

The Story

Al-Qaeda Targets Lethal Disease Research Facility on NY Island
Cross posted from Deb Hamilton's Right Truth
24 Sep 2008

Until her arrest in Afghanistan this summer, Aafia Siddiqui was the FBI’s most wanted woman in the world. Now the U.S.-educated, Pakistani mother of three is being held in New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center facing attempted murder charges.
Aafia Siddiqui holds biology and neuroscience degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Brandeis University. In 2003, she vanished from Pakistan and reappeared on July 17, 2008, outside the governor’s compound in Ghazni, Afghanistan. According to the FBI indictment against her, Siddiqui was carrying “various documents, various chemicals, and a computer thumb drive.”Aafia Siddiqui is believed to be an al-Qaeda operative.

Among the documents in her possession were handwritten notes referring to a “mass-casualty attack” listing locations commonly known to be targets: Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building. But one target, Plum Island, remains virtually unknown to the American public. If Siddiqui really is an al-Qaeda operative, the consideration that this government facility (officially known as the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center) is a target is unnerving.

Located approximately eight miles off the coast of Connecticut, the 840-acre research facility is home to the most virulent zoonotic diseases in the world. The lethal diseases stored and studied on Plum Island are transmitted to humans by animals. The only U.S. strains of foot-and-mouth disease (eradicated from American soil in 1929) are secured in freezers on Plum Island, as are strains of polio, hog cholera, and African Swine Fever. None of the animals on the island ever leave; those that come uninvited, like deer that sometimes swim there from the mainland, are shot.

The island, located in the Long Island Sound, is 85 miles north of Manhattan. It was purchased as a government facility in the late 1800s and used as a defense fort during both world wars. After World War II, Plum Island became a bio-warfare lab — with its set-up and operation spearheaded by former Nazi scientist Eric Traub, who had been Hitler’s bio-weapons doctor before he was captured.In 1954, the Department of Agriculture took over control of Plum Island, transforming the facility into “America’s first line of defense against foreign animal disease.”

By 1999, outspoken scientists and government officials called for the facility to be closed down, saying the study of obscure zoonotic diseases did not warrant the $16.5 million that taxpayers were spending on it each year. Further, many felt the risks associated with a category-five hurricane hitting the laboratory outweighed the benefits of the research going on there. A hurricane in 1991 knocked power out on the island and threatened the release of deadly germs; there was another power outage in 2002. Along came the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Control ceded to the Department of Homeland Security and the government shifted its focus from closing the facility to expanding it.

In a recent op-ed piece for the Hartford Courant, Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal outlined some of the dangers associated with the “monstrous risks” of the Plum Island facility — should it be compromised. Among them:
* The proximity of Plum Island to New York City, one of the nation’s most populous cities and a repeated target of terrorist attacks.
* The fact that 20 million people live within 50 miles of Long Island Sound.
* The proximity of Plum Island to a nuclear submarine base, a nuclear submarine construction facility, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and a major nuclear power plant.
* The special security risks of protecting and providing emergency response services to an island.

A final decision about whether or not to expand the current island facility or move it will be reached before the administration change on January 20, 2009. Until then, the debate as to where the facility should go continues.One fact is not up for debate. Al-Qaeda’s desire for a mass-casualty attack on American soil isn’t going anywhere. That an al-Qaeda operative — a scientist with a biology degree from M.I.T. — was arrested overseas with a U.S. biological and agro-defense facility listed in her own handwriting as being on a “wish list” of attacks only underscores this fact. No wonder the FBI considered Aafia Siddiqui one of the most wanted women in the world.

Note: Siddiqui failed to show up for her arraignment in federal court in Manhattan on September 4. Her attorney cited poor health as she recovers from a gunshot wound. During an interrogation in Afghanistan last July, Siddiqui commandeered a weapon and fired at U.S. Army officers, FBI agents, and her interpreters. One agent returned fire and Siddiqui was shot in the torso.In August, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed five mainland locations (other than Plum Island) it is considering to house a new, Biosafety Level 4 laboratory: Flora, Mississippi, is at the top of the list. Other sites include Athens, Georgia; Manhattan, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; and Butner, North Carolina.

From International Analyst Network
Annie Jacobsen

This article originally appeared at PajamasMedia.com
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Of course, for some, the Government's case against the hapless Ms. Siddiqui is just the latest example of the ongoing American/Zionist oppression of innocent Muslims. The merely coincidental facts that she is charged with attempted murder and assault for allegedly trying to kill an American interrogator in a gun battle after she was arrested outside an Afghan government compound with a handbag full of chemicals and information on chemical, biological and radiological weapons, as well as descriptions of “various landmarks” in the United States, are just further examples of American paranoia and racism.
No one has more conspicuously championed Aafia Siddiqui's cause than the Islamist Website Revolution Muslim.com. For those of you who may be unfamilar with this abomination, here are some samplings of their fare.




From Revolution Muslim:

After Dr. Siddiqui was shot, she was flown to the U.S. in the custody of FBI agents, in agony and confused. Her lawyer, Elizabeth Fink, explained at a trial on Sept. 4 in Manhattan that Dr. Siddiqui could not appear for trial because the strip search she must undergo each time she leaves her cell is physically unbearable. When Fink last saw her, on Aug. 11, Dr. Siddiqui was disoriented and begged Fink to send food shewas given to her son in his prison in Afghanistan.
Hundreds came to the trial on Sept. 4 and gathered afterward to protest the unjust treatment of Dr. Siddiqui. Chanting, “Free, Free Aafia Siddiqui!” Pakistani, African-American and north American speakers called for an end to CIA torture prisons in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo in Cuba, and Somalia. They denounced the policies of the U.S. that have placed this young mother literally in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism.

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So who is Joseph Cohen? And what is RevolutionMuslim?
Would you be surprised to learn that that Yousef al-Khattab, the Web site creator, is in reality an American-born Jew, formerly known as Joseph Cohen? And would you be even more surprised to learn that RevolutionMuslim.com isn't maintained in some remote safe house in Pakistan, but instead is run from al-Khattab's home in the New York City Borough of Queens? Yousef al-Khattab converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox Rabbinical school, which he later described as a “racist cult.” And, because al-Khattab enjoys the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, all the authorities can do is watch.
• Click here to view photos.
• Click here to view video mocking the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl
• Click here to view puppet show lampooning U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Read this whole disgusting story at Fox News.com
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Some final thoughts. I don't know about you, but after contemplating the horrific possibility of al Qaeda actually acquiring biological weapons such as those described in this alarming article, and acknowledging the treachery of yet another American-educated jihadist operative, welcomed to our shores by our own criminally naive State Department, and once again preparing to use our own technology against us, the most disturbing element to emerge from this whole affair is our very own, most cherished First Amendment right to freedom of speech. This giant loophole in our system which has effectively tied the hands of our anti-terrorism agents, and allowed these vicious traitors to flourish in our midst. I can think of no Muslim-dominated nation which would permit such a travesty. But we do. And until we grow up and are willing to face this crisis squarely, and actually take the necessary legislative steps to fix this leak in the dyke, we will remain helpless sheep to these hungry Islamist wolves. - rg