Thursday, August 04, 2011

Fake Freedom Fighter Works for North Korean Dictatorship


Brenda West

You, American taxpayer, were robbed of your money and your honor when Congress wasted time in 2007 passing House Resolution 64 endorsing a Bangladeshi fraudster named Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. He is a journalist who fooled many people into thinking he was persecuted for fighting for democracy in his country. Choudhury calls himself a “peace activist” and a “Muslim Zionist” and appeared to embrace Western values.

As it turns out, this fake friend of the West has been working for the military dictatorship of North Korea for more than three years.

Choudhury publishes an online newspaper called the Weekly Blitz. Since January 1, 2010, he has published nearly seventy propaganda pieces for dictator Kim Jung Il’s House of Horrors. Here are a few quotes,

“…the US imperialists, under the name of "counterterrorist war," are flagrantly violating the sovereignty of those countries and nations that follow the path of independence against imperialism.” click here “The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet military warmongers perpetrated such reckless military provocation as firing thousands of bullets and shells from the sensitive area of Yonphyong Island in the West Sea of Korea for an hour from 14:30 Monday despite strong warning of the KPA and condemnation of the public at home and abroad, far from drawing a lesson from the disgraceful defeat they suffered in the last Yonphyong Island shelling.” click here

“The DPRK is winning victory after victory in the showdown with the US because it is led by Kim Jong Il, who is a man of will, courage and pluck.” click here

Most of the propaganda articles in the Blitz are paid advertisements, identified as “special supplements.” Choudhury thereby lets the world know that he is being paid by the dictatorship of North Korea to promote it. A recent Wall Street Journal article discloses the pay rate.

Some of the advertisements for North Korea are not called special supplements, however, perhaps because North Korea asked for an appearance of greater sincerity from the Blitz. Another rubric the Blitz uses for its articles singing the praises of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea is "International News". Yet another category Choudhury uses is the oxymoronic “Op-ed and Editorial.” Writing under the name of Anita Mathur, a sock puppet Choudhury has used to promote himself elsewhere, he composed an editorial that says in the matter of the Yonphyong shelling incident in November, 2010, “the U.S. was the arch criminal who deliberately planned the incident and wire-pulled it behind the scene… The U.S. instigated the south Korean puppet forces to perpetrate an armed provocation against the territorial waters of the DPRK…”

The Blitz says nothing good whatsoever about South Korea. The only mention of them is a recent complaint that they tried to hack into the Blitz computer and another piece jeers at them for having lots of brothels.

A creature called Sunita Paul is another Choudhury sock puppet. “She” has been clearly identified as an Internet mask for Choudhury by anti-Islamist Bangladeshi bloggers Sajjad Jahir and Mashuqur Rahman and his commenters, and at the ShadaKalo blog.

Sunita Paul started pumping for North Korea on July 1, 2008, while it was still on President Bush’s Axis of Evil list. In an article titled North Korea's Beloved Leader Sunita Paul gives an improbably technical lesson on Kim Il Sung’s obscure political Juche philosophy and concludes with these words, “Today, tomorrow and till the world lasts, people in the Korean peninsula will hold President Kim Il Sung in their heart with all their love, respect and affection. The nation will remember his contributions on every sun rise (sic).” Choudhury continued to write under Sunita Paul’s name until “she” was outed in April, 2009 by the Bangladesh bloggers mentioned above.

When a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean warship Cheonan killing 46 sailors on May, 2010, there was not a peep of protest out of Choudhury, who calls himself a “peace activist.” Choudhury has clearly taken sides with our warlike enemy and against our ally in the region.

We must not forget that we are in North Korea’s gun sights too. According to the Washington Times, North Korea has Taepodong-2 missiles that can reach United States territory. It has been conducting underground nuclear tests, in violation of U.N. regulations. Belligerently, North Korea declares that any attempt to interdict its ships would be regarded as an act of war, even though such an action is authorized in a limited way by a U.N. resolution.

President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address in 2002 named Iran as another member of the "Axis of Evil" threatening US security. Iran and North Korea have formed an unlikely alliance in an attempt to escape their growing isolation from the outside world. They regularly exchange ballistic missile technology, defying UN regulations.

Iran’s Shahab-3 missile is a modified version of North Korea’s Nodong missile. The Shahab-3 can reach Israel. Iran, as we know, has vowed repeatedly to destroy the “little Satan,” Israel, and the “big Satan,” the United States.

Wikileaks reveals that Iran has missiles produced by North Korea that can hit cities in Western Europe.

Also, North Korea is supplying banned nuclear technology and missiles to Syria and Burma and is believed to have chemical warfare weapons.

North Korea devotes most of its resources to building up its military while starving its population, often forcing them to eat grass. The World Food Program estimates between 5 and 6 million were starving in May, 2011. One of the periodic famines that Kim Jong-Il could have ended but did not killed three million people. Orphans beg in the streets for scraps of food that are not available; even soldiers, previously well-fed by the dictator, are becoming weak with hunger, right now. While paunchy Kim Jong-il grows fat on lobster and caviar, he spends the country’s money forcing his starving subjects to build a private train line for his son, and presumptive heir, Kim Jong-un. Yet there has not been a word of protest from the chubby, double-chinned Mr. Choudhury.

North Korea is possibly the worst dictatorship on the planet at this time, and yet its horrors receive little press coverage, saturated as we are by very bad news from other parts of the world. Satellite images show that as many as 200,000 people are living in concentration camps for political prisoners where they work as slave labor, all the while being starved, raped, and tortured. Their crimes were trying to escape the hell hole of the “Dear Leader” or uttering any kind of criticism of him.

The dictatorship makes money from state sponsored slavery. Workers are shipped out to toil in other countries, sometimes with only two days of rest a year. Their earnings are confiscated by the state, with little given back to them. Protests imperil the relatives who remain at home.

North Korea floods the world - and fills its coffers - with poisonous drugs: heroin, amphetamines, and the date rape potion, ryhopnol. They are believed to be manufactured in state run factories, given their high quality.

Counterfeiting American currency is also a big business for North Korean official enterprise. Huge amounts of $100 bills have been traced to the Pyongsong Trademark Printing Factory, the state run national mint. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Kim Jong-il regime resembles a cult-based, family run criminal enterprise rather than a government.

We should not ignore a possible connection between North Korea’s crimes and Choudhury’s anti-social activities. A 2007 Congressional report states that many North Korea diplomats are involved in drug trafficking and we also know that Choudhury had direct dealings with North Korea through its embassy in Bangladesh since the embassy is named as the author for some of the Blitz articles. Illegal drugs were found in Choudhury's desk draw at his Blitz office in a 2008 police raid but Choudhury was not prosecuted for this. Was Choudhury selling illegal drugs he got from the North Korean embassy? If so, his cover as a mascot of the West would have protected him. At the time, Choudhury was getting a great deal of good press and enjoyed much favor with the American public as a persecuted dissident standing up for democratic values. Is he engaged in criminal drug deals even now, still protected as he is by Resolution 64?

Choudhury was charged with Grand Larceny via Fraud by the New York Police Department for swindling two of his supporters. He invented a fake business with fictitious associates that he asked his supporters to invest in to keep his anti-Islamist work going, and then he bounced checks to the supporters who trusted him. He emailed one of the investors a counterfeit check, indicating she would be paid after he was paid – by his fictitious associate. That is to say, never.

During his long career as an Islamist, Choudhury worked for a mobster called Aziz Mohammed Bhai, who used his ties to Iranian organized crime to become a billionaire by smuggling high-powered weaponry and narcotics into Myanmar and India. Based on what is available about Choudhury’s work history, he clearly knows his way around the world of gangsters. However, very alarmingly, there are thirteen missing years on Choudhury’s resume, and we need to know if he was involved with mobsters at that time too.

Let us put together the pieces of this puzzle. Underworld figures often find each other in grey or black market endeavors where mobsters, dictators, and terrorists interact. North Korea operates a variety of front companies around the world through its embassies, many of which are involved in buying and selling goods for Pyongyang. Choudhury runs an online export/import business, Jethro Conglomerates, that has been flagged as a scam operation by an industry regulator, and is also tied to a larger operation, Noca. Noca seems very shady too, with a list of representatives that should be concerning to law enforcement and Homeland Security authorities. Is the WeeklyBlitz a front group for Choudhury’s nefarious activities? The extent of Choudhury’s illegal activities is not fully known yet. It must be explored. To whatever extent Resolution 64 inhibits Bangladesh from investigating Choudhury’s fraudulent and dangerous activities, it must be lifted.

In a previous article, I revealed a repulsive and frightening side of Choudhury. His online C.V. shows that he worked for the mad Mullahs of Iran, translating a book for them. These are the same men who are now calling for the annihilation of Israel and the U.S. He promoted and protected the sadistic Islamist war criminals who were responsible for the murder, rape and displacement of millions of their fellow citizens during Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence, and even went to prison in defense of his Islamist convictions. He lied to the world about his education, his employment, the depth and intensity of his involvement as an Islamist, and he obscured his ties to mobsters. Now, after his so-called conversion to anti-Islam in 2003, he is publishing Islamists in the Blitz. Some of his authors, apart from the North Korea articles, have ties to caliphate seeking Hizbut Tahrir and are openly anti-democracy and anti-America. The arrest at the Bangladesh airport that catapulted Choudhury to international fame as a supposed martyr for Israel was staged by him to win attention and donations.

North Korea is one of the most hellish dictatorships the earth has ever known. Yet Choudhury sings its praises. He was actively involved in shilling for North Korea when he visited the United States in October and November, 2009. Do we know the full story about what he was doing here? No, we do not. We took him at his word that he was dedicated to our values and that he came here solely to give talks about his devotion to Israel as a persecuted ‘Muslim Zionist.’

Everything we admired about Choudhury turns out to be a scam. We were punked and we need to admit it.

Choudhury is a menace to the United States. He must be denied re-entry and fully investigated. Congress needs to revoke the Resolution it passed in 2007 urging the Bangladeshi government to stop making Choudhury return to court on a charge of sedition. Under cover of enormous diplomatic approval from the United States and other countries’ legislative bodies as well, Choudhury has been carrying on all manner of evil. Bangladeshis with whom I have communicated said that they knew he was a fraud and that he might be a spy, but they were either afraid to speak out or their voices went unheard because of Choudhury’s great favor with the U.S.

Choudhury’s former fans must speak out against him, rescinding their approval. To continue to extend American support to this man is morally disgusting. It is a disgrace. And it is dangerous.

Family Security Matters Contributor Brenda West is an occasional commenter on the political scene. She can be reached at BrendaWestNYC@aol.com.

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