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Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

By: Aaron Klein

Published: May 11th, 2011

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Former CIA Director

To White House: Stop Blabbering

White House officials should have “kept their mouths shut” about the reported treasure trove of material and intelligence seized from Osama bin Laden’s compound during last week’s raid, charged former CIA Director James Woolsey during a radio interview.

Woolsey further criticized the Obama administration for entering a debate about whether to release a photo of bin Laden’s body and advised the president’s representatives to “calm down” with conflicting narratives.

Woolsey made these comments during an interview on this reporter’s radio show on New York’s WABC Radio.

On the issue of the announced seizure of material from bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Woolsey said, “One of the things that I think the PR people in the administration should have kept their mouths shut about was our having collected a large amount of intelligence.”

Continued Woolsey, “The story we should have put out is that we tried to get [the material] but we were too rushed and there was a lot there, but we couldn’t get it out. And put that out from an unidentified official.

“Because one of the last things you want to do is tell people that you have captured a great amount of material,” he said. “I have no idea why they felt they wanted to make that public.”

The U.S. last week announced it seized a treasure trove of computer hard drives and discs from bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The seizure reportedly also included electronic equipment, personal computers and thumb drives during the lightning raid that killed bin Laden.

This past weekend, intelligence officials were quoted telling CBS News the captured materials yielded “positive intelligence” on the locations of key Al Qaeda leaders including the whereabouts of the jihad group’s number two man, Ayman al Zawahiri, who is widely regarded as the candidate most likely to succeed bin Laden.

Israelis Mourn, Palestinians Release Murderers From Jail

As Israelis solemnly commemorated their fallen soldiers on the country’s Memorial Day on Monday, the Palestinian Authority freed from prison terrorists responsible for murdering Jewish civilians.

The prisoner release is part of a unity deal prepared last week between the PA and Hamas.

According to sources in the PA speaking to this reporter, the PA released four Hamas members from prison in the West Bank city of Jericho as a sign of good will toward Hamas. One of the freed convicts is Hamas gunman Muatassam al-Natchem who led a series of shooting attacks at Israeli motorists last year that killed three civilians.

Sources further revealed that as part of the Hamas-Fatah truce prepared last week, the PA agreed to release all Hamas prisoners held in West Bank jails.

The crux of the prisoner release, which includes terrorists responsible for attacks against Israelis, is set to take place May 16, the day Arabs refer to as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding.

According to officials in both Hamas and the PA, the Islamist group was not asked to recognize the existence of Israel as a condition of signing the unity accords.

Aside from prisoner releases, the two sides also quietly agreed that the new Palestinian prime minister will come from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and will be assigned by Hamas, top Palestinian officials said.

According to sources in both the PA and Hamas speaking to this reporter, the unity deal not only leaves Hamas in full security control of the Gaza Strip, but it also paves the way for tens of thousands of Hamas security forces to be placed on the PA payroll.

The sources said a common apparatus will be created to pay both Hamas and Fatah forces after the first year of the unity deal.

This column reported in March that between 15,000 and 20,000 Hamas forces will be placed on the PA’s payroll if a unity deal were forged.

The technical explanation being given by PA sources is that the Palestinian leadership believes it is better to maintain one major financial apparatus to pay all security forces instead of having a separate governmental system in Gaza run by Hamas.

Monthly salaries of Hamas security officers in Gaza typically range from between 800 and 1,500 shekel, or between $244 and $421.

The Circle Of Radicals

Surrounding Obama Keeps Growing

President Obama’s faith adviser, Eboo Patel, once blasted what he called the “myths” of America – describing them as beliefs that the country is “a land of freedom and equality and justice.”

Patel, a Muslim activist from Chicago, also once implied that had he grown up in the 1960s, he may have joined the Weather Underground terrorist group led by William Ayers.

In February 2010, Obama named Patel to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Patel is the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, which says it promotes pluralism by teaming people of different faiths on service projects.

In a 2007 interview with NPRto promote a book he wrote that year, Patel was asked about his “affinity” toward the radicalism of Ayers, as described in the book.

Patel replied that his own life story “is much closer to Bill Ayers,” explaining he “grew up in the same hometown” that Ayers did.

Continued Patel: “I was kind of taught the same myths about America, a land of freedom and equality and justice, etc., etc.”

“And then, when I got to college, I saw people eating out of garbage cans for dinner, and I saw Vietnam vets drinking mouthwash for the alcohol, and I thought to myself, this is not the myth that I grew up with. And, in a way, I was so, I think, immature at that time politically that all I could do was rage.”

Patel explained how he used religion to channel his rage toward America:

“And it was a faith-based movement that came into my life that kind of directed that rage in a direction far more compassionate and far more merciful.”

Obama’s faith adviser went on to say how he may have joined Ayers’s terrorist group if he was around as an activist in the 1960s.

“One of the things that I write about in this book is, you know, had it been one of the people involved in the Weather Underground, who were sitting at my kitchen table when I was 18 years old and raging, my life could have been very different,” he said.

“That I really thank God that it was a set of people who came into my life with a very clear vision of justice. But a sense of justice emanating from Divine Mercy.”

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for Internet giant WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.

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About the Author: Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York's 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m (CHANGE TO 7-9 p.m.). His website is KleinOnline.com

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

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