http://www.911myths.com/index.php?title=Randy_Glass&feed=atom&action=historyRandy Glass - Revision history2024-03-29T13:20:14ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.22.7http://www.911myths.com/index.php?title=Randy_Glass&diff=10014&oldid=prevMike: /* Rajaa Gulum Abbas */2012-07-05T19:13:24Z<p><span dir="auto"><span class="autocomment">Rajaa Gulum Abbas</span></span></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{TOCnestright}}<br />
==Background==<br />
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[[Randy Glass]] is an ex-conman who worked as an FBI informant, and claims to have had advanced knowledge of 9/11. Xymphora summed up the story here:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||One of the clearest incidents of foresight of September 11 has come back into the news. A sting operation involving an undercover FBI agent and a man about to go to jail for fraud who wanted to help the government in order to reduce his sentence resulted in the ensnarement of two New Jersey men, Diaa Mohsen and Mohammed R. Malik (the whole story is summarized here). The man about to go to jail for fraud, Randy Glass, knew Mohsen, and Mohsen knew Malik, and Malik was able to bring prospective buyers to the sting operation. These prospective buyers included men from Pakistan (not to mention someone referred to as "high-ranking Egyptian official Shirin Shawky") who wanted to buy various weapons, including stinger missiles (they also claimed to be in the market for heavy water, a component of a system to manufacture plutonium). Mohsen has been convicted and is in jail (with a surprisingly short sentence of probably 30 months - it is impossible to be sure for the sentence itself is sealed - considering the possible maximum sentence for what he did), but the prospective purchasers from Pakistan were never apprehended, and Malik's file was sealed and he was never tried. For reasons that remain mysterious, the arrest warrants for the Pakistani purchasers were sealed, and the identity of these purchasers was only confirmed when the warrants were recently unsealed, with the FBI now apparently actively seeking their apprehension. At one of the meetings to discuss the purchase in 1999, at the TriBeca Grill in New York, one of the Pakistanis, called 'Abbas' (or 'R. G. Abbas'), said, pointing to the World Trade Center, that "those towers are coming down". What has been obscured for much of the case is that the prospective purchasers were Pakistani, and even more shocking, that Abbas claimed to be working for the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI. This raises a number of issues...<br><br><br />
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9. The man about to go to jail who operated the sting, Glass, attempted to pass the information about the World Trade Center threat on to Florida State State Sen. Ron Klein, and more intriguingly, to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. Graham acknowledged at a news conference in Boca Raton that Glass had contact with his office before September 11 about an attack on the World Trade Center, saying (or here), "I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the summer of 2001." Later, Graham said he was unaware of the infomation supplied by Glass until after the terrorist attacks! Graham is the guy who: 1) was meeting with Lt. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed on the morning of September 11; and 2) said (or here), in an interview with Gwen Ifill of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: ". . . I was surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States" and "I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing - although that was part of it - by a sovereign foreign government . . . . "<br>http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2003/05/one-of-clearest-incidents-of-foresight.html}}<br />
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(As you can see, we've snipped 8 points here as it's a long article, and this page is focusing on Glass. But if you want the context, or more thoughts on possible Pakistani involvement in 9/11, then by all means follow the above link to check it out.)<br />
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There are two major charges here, then.<br />
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First, that [[Rajaa Gulum Abbas]] said "those towers are coming down" and this means he knew about the attacks in advance.<br />
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And second, Glass later gained more specific foreknowledge of attacks on the World Trade Center, and made several efforts to convey this to the Government prior to 9/11.<br />
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Let's take a closer look at each.<br />
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==Rajaa Gulum Abbas==<br />
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Perhaps the earliest claimed example of supposed 9/11 foreknowledge comes from a man called [[Rajaa Gulum Abbas]], who is often quoted as saying in 1999 that "those towers [the WTC] are coming down". The blog Xymphora said it was [http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2003/05/one-of-clearest-incidents-of-foresight.html "one of the clearest incidents of foresight of September 11"], and History Commons covers the story here:<br />
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<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="" style="{{divstyleamber}}"><center><b></b></center>'''July 14, 1999: Pakistani ISI Agent Promises Attack on WTC in Recorded Conversation'''<br><br><br />
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US government informant Randy Glass records a conversation at a dinner attended by him, illegal arms dealers Diaa Mohsen, Mohammed Malik, a former Egyptian judge named Shireen Shawky, and ISI agent Rajaa Gulum Abbas, held at a restaurant within view of the WTC. FBI agents pretending to be restaurant customers sit at nearby tables. [MSNBC, 8/2/2002; WPBF 25 (West Palm Beach), 8/5/2002] Abbas says he wants to buy a whole shipload of weapons stolen from the US military to give to bin Laden. [Cox News Service, 8/2/2002] Abbas points to the WTC and says, “Those towers are coming down.” This ISI agent later makes two other references to an attack on the WTC. [Cox News Service, 8/2/2002; WPBF 25 (West Palm Beach), 8/5/2002; Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002] Abbas also says, “Americans [are] the enemy,” and “We would have no problem with blowing up this entire restaurant because it is full of Americans.” [NBC, 3/18/2003] The meeting is secretly recorded, and parts are shown on television in 2003. [MSNBC, 3/18/2003]<br>http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=rajaa_gulum_abbas</div><br />
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It sounds very clear. But is this exactly what Abbas said? Everyone talks of this tape, but where is it? The MSNBC special here said they'd obtained an audio copy of the meeting, but there's no mention of this comment, or even the World Trade Centre [http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2003/msnbc031803b.html (source)]. It seems we're relying entirely on the word of (former conman) [[Randy Glass]]. And what sites like Xymphora and History Commons aren't telling you is that an early account of the Abbas comment was slightly different:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||Within a few months the sting operation went into even higher gear. Shawkey came to the U.S. to inspect the Stinger missiles which he thought were on sale and Malik told Glass he had a Pakistani associate named Mohammed Abbas who wanted to purchase nuclear materials. Abbas was quickly identified as an ISI agent.<br />
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Abbas travelled to the U.S. with two associates. They met Glass at the Tribeca Grill, just 12 blocks from the World Trade Centre.<br />
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Over an expensive lunch Abbas said he was associated with Bin Laden and wanted nuclear weapons because he intended to 'kill all Americans'.<br />
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He then waved at the street outside, from which the WTC could be seen towering above, and said he would like to see it 'reduced to rubble'.<br>'''DAILY MAIL, September 17, 2001'''}}<br />
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Here it's not a definitive "those towers are coming down", which implies specific knowledge of an event, just a more general desire to see it "reduced to rubble", which could simply be a wish for a more successful attack on the lines of the 1993 WTC bombing (and keep in mind that not even this version of the Abbas comments has been independently verified).<br />
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There may be reasons for this, of course. <br />
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Perhaps "those towers are coming down" and "reduced to rubble" are part of the same comment, or maybe two separate statements. History Commons tells us that "this ISI agent later makes two other references to an attack on the WTC", after all (although no-one seems to be able to tell us exactly what they were). <br />
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And maybe there's an explanation for why the tape of this meeting seems to have reached the media, but no-one has yet commented on this particular part. <br />
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But another possibility is that Glass has made this appear a slightly clearer example of foresight than it really was at the time. Without more evidence, it's hard to tell what the truth might be.<br />
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==Advance Warning==<br />
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[[Randy Glass]] has said he had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and attempted to pass these on to the US government through several high-level contacts. Cooperative Research discuss the issue here:<br />
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<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="" style="{{divstyleamber}}"><center><b></b></center>'''Early August 2001: Government Informant Warns Congressmen of Plan to Attack the WTC'''<br><br><br />
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Randy Glass, a former con artist turned government informant, later will claim that he contacts the staff of Senator Bob Graham [D] and Representative Robert Wexler [D] at this time and warns them of a plan to attack the WTC, but his warnings are ignored. [Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002] Glass also tells the media at this time that his recently concluded informant work has “far greater ramifications than have so far been revealed,” and, “potentially, thousands of lives [are] at risk.” [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8/7/2001] Glass was a key informant in a sting operation involving ISI agents who were illegally trying to purchase sophisticated US military weaponry in return for cash and heroin. He later claims that in July 1999, one ISI agent named Rajaa Gulum Abbas pointed to the WTC and said, “Those towers are coming down.” [Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002] Most details apparently remain sealed. For instance Glass will claim that his sealed sentencing document dated June 15, 2001, lists threats against the WTC and Americans. [WPBF 25 (West Palm Beach), 8/5/2002] Florida State Senator Ron Klein, who had dealings with Glass before 9/11, later will say he is surprised it took so many months for the US to listen to Glass: “Shame on us.” [Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002] Klein will recall getting a warning from Glass, though he cannot recall if it mentions the WTC specifically. He will say he was told US intelligence agencies would look into it. [WPTV 5 (West Palm Beach), 10/7/2002] Senator Graham later will acknowledge that his office had contact with Glass before 9/11, and was told about a WTC attack: “I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the summer of 2001.” However, Graham will say that he personally was unaware of Glass’s information until after 9/11. [Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002] In October 2002, Glass will testify under oath before a private session of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, stating, “I told [the inquiry] I have specific evidence, and I can document it.” [Palm Beach Post, 10/17/2002]<br>http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=randy_glass</div><br />
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Most 9/11 researchers focus on the information Glass may have passed Senator Bob Graham, perhaps because it's easier to fit him into some ISI-related plot; he was meeting with ISI chief General Mahmood Ahmed on the morning of 9/11, after all. But as Cooperative Research points out, there were others involved here, including Democrat Ron Klein. Here's how their position was represented in the Palm Beach Post article they reference:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||...State Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, was the first to take Glass seriously when he sat down with him shortly after Mohsen and Malik were arrested in June 2001. The lawmaker said he is surprised it has taken so long for Washington to listen to Glass.<br />
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"Shame on us," Klein said. "Whether Randy Glass is credible or not, he has some information that should be evaluated."<br />
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Klein said he doesn't recall any talk from Glass about the World Trade Center but does recall specific national security information. He forwarded Glass' information to Graham's office, and followed up on it to make sure it was processed.<br />
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Glass' reputation as a convicted con artist didn't help and no federal agency would corroborate his story.<br />
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Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the World Trade Center. "I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the summer of 2001," the senator said.<br />
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Graham later said he was unaware of Glass' information until after the terrorist attacks. Glass did speak to a Tallahassee staffer before the attacks but the impression was that Glass wanted Graham to intercede in his criminal case, Anderson said.<br />
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Eric Johnson, Wexler's chief of staff, said Glass contacted the office by phone before the terrorist attacks but there is no record of what happened to that information. Since then, other information provided by Glass has been passed on to the FBI.<br />
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Glass angrily denies he contacted the lawmakers so they could intercede in his criminal case. He said he wanted only to relay information on plans for an attack in which the World Trade Center had been mentioned. He does say he wanted his prison sentence postponed so he could continue his work.<br />
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When the attacks occurred, Glass was in federal prison at Eglin Air Force Base.<br />
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"When it happened I literally fell to my knees and started to cry," Glass said. "The frustration level that I had. Who could I tell?"<br>http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/palmbeachpost101702.html}}<br />
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Klein was the first person to speak to Glass. It appears that upcoming attacks on the World Trade Centre were the main focus of what Glass had to say, yet Klein "doesn't recall any talk from Glass about the World Trade Center". How can this be? Klein did his bit in passing the information on to Graham's office, so is he now covering for him? Why?<br />
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Things might be clearer if we knew exactly what information Glass passed on, of course. [http://www.sanderhicks.com Sander Hicks' book "The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistle-Blowers, & The Cover-Up"] claims to tell us just that, by reproducing a fax that Glass said he sent to Graham's office. Here's a scan we found on an Internet forum:<br />
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[[Image:Glassfax.jpg|thumb|630px|none]]<br />
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Here's the text, as close as we can tell:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||7/16/01<br />
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U.S. Senate,<br />
Washington, D.C, <br />
Senator Graham - Charlie Yonts<br />
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CHARLIE,<br />
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PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON. I'VE TOLD YOU REPEATEDLY ABOUT MY TERRORIST CASE - THE SOPHISTICATED WEAPONS SYSTEM - NUCLEAR COMPONENTS - THE THREATS OF BLOWING UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE. THESE PEOPLE HATE AMERICANS. THIS INFORMATION I'VE GOTTEN FROM THE STATE DEPT. ABOUT THE AIRPLANES BEING USED AND [SANITIZING DOCUMENT ??] I KNOW OVER MY HEAD - EVEN THE AGENTS I'M WORKING WITH ARE REALLY CONCERNED. THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANY OF THIS I TOLD YOU WHO I SPOKE WITH ALREADY. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE THE SENATOR CALL ME OR AT LEAST LET ME KNOW SOMEBODY HAS A HANDLE ON THIS. I KNOW YOU TOLD ME YOU HAVE PASSED THIS INFORMATION ON TO WASHINGTON , BUT YOU ARE NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MY CASE REOPENED SO I CAN GO BACK TO WORK. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SEVEN MONTHS EXCEPT I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO SPEND IT AT HOME WITH MY FAMILY. I AM CONCERNED FOR THEIR SAFETY. I AM GOING TO SEND A COPY OF THIS LETTER TO SENATOR GRAHAM'S OFFICE IN WASHINGTON - I WANT SOME ANSWERS - PLEASE! THANKS CHARLIE. <br />
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RANDY GLASS.}}<br />
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It hasn't been verified that Glass did actually send this to Graham, but even if he did, and he was believed, the information is hardly precise. "Airplanes being used" - what sort of planes? Used in what way? When? What's all this about nuclear components? <br />
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Glass did tell Hicks elsewhere that "I provided [Yonts] with all of the information and material that I had about airplanes being flown into the World Trade Center", though. Where did his come from? The key line here is "information I've gotten from the State Dept. about the airplanes being used", and that forms the LIHOP scenario in Hicks' book. Hicks reports Glass saying that he called a State Department contact, bluffed him by saying he knew all about the World Trade Center, and was told "Randy, listen, you cannot mention any of these things, especially airplanes being used to fly into the World Trade Center". The explanation was this:<br />
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<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="" style="{{divstyleamber}}"><center><b></b></center>Musharraf just took over and our position is that they're a nuclear power and they've been flexing their nuclear muscles with India and we are trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. And we know about the threat, the terrorist threat, from Al Qaeda and bin Laden flying air planes into the World Trade Center. And Musharraf has guaranteed us - because it's his ISI behind it - that he can stop it if we support him publicly.<br><br><br />
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Look, Randy, we know you're a straight guy, so we're going to give you some information. You cannot go to the media under any circumstance. This is - we're playing in a nuclear minefield now. Secondly, you can't tell the agents that you're working with now because they're cut out of the loop. They know nothing."</div><br />
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Remarkable. This most secret information just happens to be available to this State Department official, who happily passes over all of it to a convicted fraudster, because he is a "straight guy". But even more amazingly, Hicks says Glass has this conversation on tape. He goes to listen to it on March 18 2005, but then Glass decides he doesn't want to play it after all, it would be too dangerous. Uh, so it's not dangerous to make these accusations in the first place, or reveal to the conspirators that you have strong evidence that could expose the plot? Anyway, the position appears to be that Glass does have this evidence, but we just can't hear it. <br />
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It's much the same story elsewhere. Hicks reports Glass saying he has a tape of a meeting with Bob Graham and Charlie Yonts, but can we hear it? No. He also says he taped his October 16 2002 appearance before the Senate/ House Joint Inquiry into 9/11, but we can't hear that, either. The rationale is identical: it would be "suicide" to go public with the tape, but apparently isn't suicide to make these accusations in the first place.<br />
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==Conclusion==<br />
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The Glass story has received plenty of attention from 9/11 researchers, and it's not difficult to see why. After all, he claims to have taped evidence showing his own and State Department foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. But what support do we have for this?<br />
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The Abbas comment that "those towers are coming down" was earlier reported as a far less definitive comment that he'd like to see them "reduced to rubble", for instance.<br />
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Audio tapes of that meeting have apparently been released, yet no-one has mentioned any such threat against the WTC. Sander Hicks says this was a "curious omission", that the same producer Richard Greenberg "then did related follow-up stories that also left out evidence of FBI foreknowledge of 9/11" and that the media seemed to be "deliberately treading lightly around an established CIA/ISI client relationship". The [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33797-2002Aug1?language=printer Washington Post] said audio tapes had been shared with them, though, and they also made no reference to the comment. And if the tape contained such embarassing evidence then why would it be released to the media at all? Surely another possibility is that the audio contains no clear threat against the World Trade Centre at all.<br />
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Glass spoke of his concerns first to Ron Klein, who said "he doesn't recall any talk from Glass about the World Trade Center".<br />
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The supposed fax to Graham is unverified, and in any event contains only limited information on the attacks.<br />
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And although Glass says he has various tapes that can support his claims, he seems unwilling to play them to anyone.<br />
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Right now everything is dependent on the word of [[Randy Glass]], then, and with various reasons to question his version of events, we don't think that's good enough. We predict this story will go precisely nowhere unless and until it receives some corroboration, either from the tapes Glass claims he has, or another source.<br />
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Still, plainly you don't have to take our word for it. Go read more on Glass at [http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=randy_glass History Commons], [http://spitfirelist.com/f500.html Dave Emory], or [http://web.archive.org/web/20060112221815/http://www.yirmeyahureview.com/archive/911/randy_glass_and_operation_diamondback.htm The Yirmeyahu Review], see if they fairly reflect the evidence, or have anything new to add of their own, something more substantial than just reporting what Glass says. And then make your own mind up.</div>Mike