Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.
There is an urgent need for full disclosure of what has become the Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up. The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI and the Pentagon, apparently watched and listened to the assault on the U.S. consulate and cries for help but did nothing. If someone had described a fictional situation with a similar scenario and described our leadership ignoring the pleas for help, I would have said it was not realisticnot in my America but I would have been proven wrong.
We now know why Ambassador Christopher Stevens had to be in Benghazi the night of 9/11 to meet a Turkish representative, even though he feared for his safety. According to various reports, one of Stevens main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafis military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 portable SAMs to Islamists and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria. In an excellent article, Aaron Klein states that Stevens routinely used our Benghazi consulate (mission) to coordinate the Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari governments support for insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Further, according to Egyptian security sources, Stevens played a central role in recruiting Islamic jihadists to fight the Assad Regime in Syria.
In another excellent article, Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org noted that there were two large warehouse-type buildings associated with our Benghazi mission. During the terrorist attack, the warehouses were probably looted. We do not know what was there and if it was being administrated by our two former Navy SEALs and the CIA operatives who were in Benghazi. Nonetheless, the equipment was going to hardline jihadis.
Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.
resident Obama has declined to answer questions about a report that Americans under attack in Libya on Sept. 11 were denied help, saying the entire incident is still under investigation. And will be forever...
When asked Friday by KUSA-TV of Denver if results of the investigation would be released after the election, Obama said: "The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened. These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do." [scoff]
Republicans have accused the Obama administration of trying to cover up details of the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Fox News is reporting that "an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11."
ABC News reports "President Obama told KUSA-TV's Kyle Clarke large that 'we want to make sure we get it right, particularly because I have made a commitment to the families impacted as well as to the American people, we're going to bring those folks to justice. So, we're going to gather all the facts, find out exactly what happened, and make sure that it doesn't happen again but we're also going to make sure that we bring to justice those who carried out these attacks.'
"Clark pressed again.
"'Were they denied requests for help during the attack?' he asked.
"'Well, we are finding out exactly what happened,' the president again said. 'I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.'
"In response (to the Fox report), CIA spokesperson Jennifer Youngblood said, 'We can say with confidence that the Agency reacted quickly to aid our colleagues during that terrible evening in Benghazi. Moreover, no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. In fact, it is important to remember how many lives were saved by courageous Americans who put their own safety at risk that night-and that some of those selfless Americans gave their lives in the effort to rescue their comrades.
Former United States Ambassador to the U.N. John R, Bolton also mentioned Mr. Chaffetz's account, and contrasted it with Mr. Panetta's statement that General Ham had been part of the team that made the decision not to send in forces. "General Ham has now been characterized in two obviously conflicting ways," Mr. Bolton concluded. "Somebody ought to find out what he actually was saying on September the eleventh."
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/30/2012 13:00
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#7
The question is will he retire before the election? If not then this is moot point since afterward I suspect we'll see all the Benghazi stuff tsunami out.
Posted by: Charles ||
10/30/2012 13:57
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You do both after 20. More commonly referred to as putting your papers in. Prior to twenty you resign, get out and move on. Unless one has a medical basis for exit, you've had to wait till twenty years to retire. At a certain point its FIGMO.
Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan said his prospective Cabinet, presented to lawmakers Tuesday, represents a coalition government and includes two women.
Zidan delivered his list of nominees for Cabinet positions to the General National Congress. A "coalition government" was presented that includes two women and nominates Libyan Ambassador to the United States Ali Aujali as the next foreign minister, the Tripoli Post reports.
Zidan said no region of the country received special consideration over the other in his list of 27 ministers. Zidan was named the country's prime minister early this month. He had resigned from the national assembly to run for the position, after serving as a rights lawyer prior to his appointment to the congress.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
11:06 ||
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Rescuers Tuesday searched for a missing crewmember of the tall ship HMS Bounty, which sank off the coast of North Carolina, officials said.
The 52-year-old reproduction used in several movies was headed for safe waters in Florida when it ran smack into Hurricane Sandy Monday, the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch reported.
Crewmembers abandoned the sinking ship and 14 were rescued by Coast Guard swimmers and helicopters within hours.
A 15th crewmember, Claudene Christian, 42, was recovered Monday afternoon but was unresponsive when taken to a hospital, the Coast Guard said.
Captain Robin Walbridge, 63, of Florida is still missing.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
11:03 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
10:58 ||
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#1
Until the "Hon." Langford begins trashing the president who was in office at the time of the Hurricane, the analogy is incomplete. Close though.....
See also: http://status.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/lorenzo-langford-atlantic-city-mayor-wants-to-confront-chris-c/
#3
Amazing article, the guy actually fought against a tourist enclave that might generate cash and jobs for his community because it was some kind of aparthide? Well at least it is likely the guy will be voted out at the next opportunity.
Good on Christie for being vocal so that blame can't be transfered to him after the fact as Nagin and others managed during Kartina with Bush.
#6
Christie should say to Langford - with me ' without me , -- with me ' without me , -- with me ' without me , -- if you saw the movie you understand --- if you didn't - without me , is your answer.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012 21:43
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An Afghan policeman opened fire on Coalition soldiers operating in Helmand province earlier today, killing two British soldiers. Today's killing of Coalition forces marks the 40th green-on-blue, or insider attack, in Afghanistan that has been reported so far this year.
"An individual wearing the uniform of an Afghan policeman turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two," the NATO command said in a press release. "The incident is currently under investigation."
Afghan officials said that the attack took place in Helmand province, and two British soldiers were killed, Pajhwok Afghan News reported. The Afghan policeman escaped after murdering the British soldiers.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
10:48 ||
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#1
Another day and another reason to leave this shit hole and the swine who inhabit it.
Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S. state of Tennessee have unveiled what could be the world's fastest supercomputer.
The new computer, named Titan, is capable of making more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second (20 petaflops), according to officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). That is roughly equivalent to each of the world's seven billion people being able to carry out three million calculations per second, according to ORNL. Titan also has more than 700 terabytes of memory.
"The numbers just end up so big that I struggle to come up with a way to explain it," said Buddy Bland, the project director of ORNL's Leadership Computing Facility. "It's unimaginable. Twenty petaflops is [the number] 20 followed by 15 zeros."
Titan is actually an upgrade to ORNL's previous world's best supercomputer, Jaguar. According to Bland, The new unit is roughly the same size as Jaguar, but is 10 times more powerful. Its components occupy a space about the area of a basketball court and are about two and a half meters high.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
10:46 ||
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>but is 10 times more powerful
If you code for the hardware architecture... Which if you look at the CUDA/DirectX 11 documentation isn't as easy you think...
#2
Multithreading semiphores, even with an executive, is tough. Interesting scale. roughly equivalent to each of the world's seven billion people being able to carry out three million calculations per second
Lets speculate on a 'Game of Life' model. Each cell focusing on Life's rules until a random breakout occurs, then clusters appear around that cell. Interesting to monitor the viability of that cell given certain interventions available to the executive.
Iran's state media reports two Iranian warships have docked at a Sudanese port to convey a "message of peace," a week after Khartoum accused Israel of attacking a Sudanese weapons factory. According to IRNA, a destroyer and a helicopter carrier were sent to ensure the protection of shipping lanes. A Sudanese military spokesman cited in local media says the visit is also a chance for Sudan to learn about advanced weaponry on the Iranian ships.
Sudanese Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Mohamed Osman Rahamtalla would not confirm any Iranian warships had docked in Sudan. In an interview with VOA, he said Sudan and Iran are not involved in any new discussions regarding the alleged Israeli attack on a Sudanese weapons factory.
"Why should we do that? This is an internal matter in Sudan and we know the source of that attack and we have sent a very strong message against those who attacked us and Iran has nothing to do with this," Rahamtalla said.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
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#1
Glad they finally found the place. I hear they were looking for weeks. :-)
In a race that both sides expected by-and-large to be about planned events, October has been a month full of unscripted twists and turns. From GOP nominee Mitt Romney's lightning strike of a debate performance at the beginning of the month, which upended the race and sent it careening back toward the challenger, to the failure of preplanned October "surprises" pushed by Donald Trump and Gloria Allred, to the escalating scandal over last month's Benghazi attacks, this month has defied expectations. And now, at the very end, perhaps the ultimate October surprise -- a natural disaster -- has hit the East Coast in the form of Hurricane Sandy.
So naturally enough, one question that's been asked is, how will this impact the election? The answer, thus far, is likely to give supporters of President Barack Obama nervous. More at site... There has been some talk on the networks about the possibility of postponement of the election? Any possibility this could happen? Has there been a precedent. Obama should take this up with Sandy and the heavens above.
#5
Obama can't postpone the election. It is run by the states and individual states and counties, working with the courts can hold injunctions and delay elections if people can't vote (like the power is out).
Congress sets the date of the federal election and can pass a resolution to move the date back, but that is not likely to happen this year.
#6
Sorry about the caps. The caps were as in the original artThe U.S. Constitution sets forth the following criteria for the date of presidential elections in Article 2, Section 1:
Clause 4: Election Day
"Our Founding Fathers specifically set forth a national Election Day not days. In the early days of national elections it was no easy logistical task to vote. People had to plan to cast their ballot. Many citizens had to endure long travel and hardship to cast their ballot on a single day.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Early Voting Violates Constitution
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!icle. Didn't know there was a policy against this. I will observe it in the future.
Nothing is said about hurricanes, national tragedies, or anything else.
#9
If Bambi were really the "messiah" he claims to be, he would have calmed the oceans hurricane so it wouldn't interfere with his worshippers acclaiming him again.
Too bad, buddy. You snooze, you lose.
Posted by: Barbara ||
10/30/2012 13:43
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Nope, But Hurricane Bernanke drowning the currency in "liquidity" will.
#13
Technically it wasn't a hurricane. Sandy was stripped of her hurricane designation shortly before making landfall. Something to do with temperature and such. Which is why some are calling it a 'Super Storm'. Which, of course, doesn't distract from the damage she caused.
Still, the {n|l}ightbringer should have walked right out there (on the water) and calmed the storm if he was what he's been claiming he is.
#14
This hurricane is a nightmare. Beyond the human and financial cost of the hurricane itself it provides and excuse for Obama's loss when we really want a full repudiation of his policies so that nobody will try anything similar ever.
#17
The 32-oz size cup would have been better for bailing...
Posted by: James ||
10/30/2012 16:23
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So yesterday I learned that Sandy became a superstorm not because it no longer qualified for hurricane status (it still did) but because it had merged with another storm system when it reached land.
Who knew? (Well, I'm sure many people did but it was new info for me ....)
#19
As an incumbent, powerful storms like Sandy occuring at or close to election can be a campaign godsend iff the Bammer plays it right, espec vee FEMA + other Recovery-centric Fed or Fed-Local cooperat public assistance.
"SANDY" read, NOT/ANTI-NOLA = NOT-KATRINA.
And whatever the Bammer doesn't do, Romney can.
KRAUTHAMMER said or inferred it, arguing that it took SANDY, but Not Libya = BENGHAZI-GATE, for the Bammer to finally act "presidential"???
#20
Speaking of Bloomberg, Dennis Miller had a brilliant snark. Something along the lines of "If things get so bad that New YOrkers resort to cannibalism to survive the mayor suggests they avoid salt because it is unhealthy" or something like that.
BEIJING -- Following a series of self-immolation protests, the U.S. Ambassador to China is speaking out on Beijing's policies toward Tibetans. In an online Town Hall Meeting with citizens in cities across the United States, Gary Locke also spoke about his trip last month to Tibetan monasteries.
"We implore the Chinese to really meet with the representatives of the Tibetan people to address and re-examine some of the policies that have led to some of the restrictions and the violence and the self-immolations, and we are very concerned with the human rights condition here in China," said Ambassador Locke.
Senior Chinese officials have rejected calls to meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama or with authorities from the Tibetan exile government based in northern India.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
10:41 ||
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Iff a shooting war breaks out between China + Japan in the East China Sea oer the Daoyus/Senkakus, or between China + US oer Taiwan or the Daoyus/Senkakus, Americans should not be surprised iff China decides to use the PLA to also settle its issues wid India.
Ditto as per the Philippines, Vietnam + ASEAN in the SCS.
--------------
ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > OVER 80% OF CHINESE HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF 1962 INDO-CHINA WAR, FINDS STATE-RUN "GLOBAL TIMES" SURVEY.
* SAME > [DNA India] MAO ORDERED 1962 WAR WID INDIA TO REGAIN CPC CONTROL: CHINESE STRATEGIST, i.e Wang Jsi, Dean of School of International Studies at Peking University.
Mao Tse-tung/Zedong did it three years after after the disaster of his 1959 "Great Leap Forward" Programme???
* SAME > CHINA RATIFIES BORDER AGREEMENT WID TAIJIKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN.
* SAME > PAKISTAN BACKS CHINA'S STANCE ON TAIWAN, SIACHEN [Glacier-Plateau], AND SINKIANG.
To which China suppors Pakistan's stance agz US Drone attacks inside their country.
The economic toll from the vast storm Sandy on the U.S. East Coast is expected to be massive, with billions of dollars in damages.
One catastrophe assessment company, Eceqat, predicted the toll could hit $20 billion, with perhaps half of that amount covered by insurance. Sandy spawned widespread flooding and wind damage especially in the northeastern state of New Jersey and New York City before moving inland and weakening on Tuesday.
Large industrial manufacturers and oil refiners shut their operations all along the country's eastern seaboard. Hundreds of small businesses are inundated with floodwaters.
The New York Stock Exchange called off trading again on Tuesday, the first time the exchange has been closed for two days in a row because of the weather since 1888. More than 14,000 airline flights have been canceled.
Some analysts said the storm's economic impact could diminish the country's already sluggish economic growth, perhaps subtracting a tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point from the U.S. economy in the last three months of the year. But other economists said the losses would be offset as communities affected by the storm spend large sums to fix their roads and other infrastructure and manufacturers repair their facilities.
While the damage from Sandy is substantial, it pales in comparison to Hurricane Katrina, the monster 2005 storm that hit the southern U.S. shoreline near New Orleans. It caused $108 billion in damage and killed 1,200 people.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
10:39 ||
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#1
I remember back with Hurricane Irene the democrates were quite pleased with the prospect of jobs created to fix the damage which would be created; even NC Gov. Bev "don't need no elections" Perdue had to come out and say, "shaddup."
#7
Would the Romney campaign be legally allowed to donate campaign money to the victims or not?
The Romney campaign is collecting canned goods and other non-perishables for those hit by the storm, European Conservative, which at this point is better than money.
I heard estimates today that about half the cost of rebuilding will be covered by insurance, for what that's worth.
Opposition activists say Syrian warplanes struck a strategic, rebel-held town on the Damascus-Aleppo highway Tuesday, killing at least six civilians, including three young girls, following a widely ignored four-day truce between government forces and insurgents.
The air raids and fighting in Maarat al-Numan continued as ground troops attempted to recapture the Sunni Muslim area recently taken by rebels. Their presence has disrupted the government's ability to send supplies and reinforcements to Aleppo, where the two sides are bogged down in a bloody fight for control of the country's largest city.
Tuesday's airstrikes came a day after the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the fiercest air raid campaign in Damascus since the uprising began 19 months ago, targeting a number of rebel-held suburbs.
Also on Tuesday, Syrian state television reported that an air force general was killed in a Damascus suburb, the latest in attacks against senior members of President Bashar al-Assad's administration.
The report blamed terrorists for what it called the assassination of General Abdullah Mahmoud Al-Khalidi.
Meanwhile, activists also said the Syrian army and rebels are clashing in a Palestinian refugee camp in the capital.
Palestinians have largely stayed out of the war in Syria. The country is home to nearly 500,000 U.N.-registered Palestinian refugees.
The fighting in Syria has continued uninterrupted despite a truce called for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which quickly broke down before ending Monday.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
10:36 ||
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The Palazzo Hotel and Casino boasts many features of Las Vegas excess -- an indoor waterfall, a smoke-filled gaming area, seven decorative fountains, and guest suites with three TVs and power-controlled curtains. Yet the 50-story complex achieved an unlikely and lucrative milestone after opening in 2008. A powerful private organization declared it an environmentally friendly "green" building, the world's largest at the time. Is Al Gore in here somewhere?
The designation won its owner, Las Vegas Sands Corp., a $27 million tax break over 10 years because a Nevada law puts the private interest group -- not the government -- in charge of deciding which buildings are green enough for a taxpayer subsidy.
A USA TODAY review of 7,100 LEED-certified commercial buildings shows that designers target the easiest and cheapest green points by trying to create pleasant and healthful office spaces; using common building materials; or taking steps with an unknown effect, such as providing preferred parking for fuel-efficient cars, bike racks and showers, and posting educational displays about the building.
Unexpectedly USA TODAY found that designers emphasize LEED points that can be won through simple purchasing decisions and shun labor-intensive options and cutting-edge technology. Yep, that's never happened before. Designers never before have designed to avoid expensive options...
Another "easy to achieve" point, earned by 91% of the buildings, is for using building materials with recycled content. That includes steel and concrete, standard building materials that usually yield a point for being made within 500 miles of a building site. Common sense. Not that it's common around progressives...
In total, a downtown office building can earn 32 of 40 points needed for LEED certification through measures that the user's guide calls easy or inexpensive. Which, apparently, is bad. Perhaps more sacrifices to cool the planet are in order, right Al?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/30/2012
09:30 ||
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#1
Anything green is s scam. It's a euphemism for "doesn't work."
And those last few LEED points involve rapidly diminishing returns. They get expensive really fast.
#2
Conservatives shouldn't sweat the 27 million in savings for the Palazzo. Since Sheldon Adelson owns it just imagine that money being funneled directly to Republican election efforts.
#4
I agree, Grom, but I also like to see a little balance...
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/30/2012 13:47
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#5
I travelled last week when this hit the dead-tree press. Two full days of front page (and secondary pages) of smashing the LEED certification process as a money-making scam. I was shocked that USAT would print such.....
I wonder how many others on travel last week saw this in their hotels/local news stand? Could get interesting for the whole green jobs push as well.
Posted by: BA ||
10/30/2012 15:30
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WASHINGTON -- In the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the Obama administration received intelligence reports that Islamic extremist groups were operating training camps in the mountains near the Libyan city and that some of the fighters were "Al Qaeda-leaning," according to American and European officials.
The warning about the camps was part of a stream of diplomatic and intelligence reports that indicated that the security situation throughout the country, and particularly in eastern Libya, had deteriorated sharply since the United States reopened its embassy in Tripoli after the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's government in September 2011.
Did Champ and Hillary know about all this? They should have, of course, but it would be nice to get them on the record. How could we leave an ambassador tooling around the country with no more than a small security detachment when it was 'deteriorating' like this?
By June, Benghazi had experienced a string of assassinations as well as attacks on the Red Thingy Cross and a British envoy's motorcade. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the September attack, e-mailed his superiors in Washington in August alerting them to "a security vacuum" in the city. A week before Mr. Stevens died, the American Embassy warned that Libyan officials had declared a "state of maximum alert" in Benghazi after a car bombing and thwarted bank robbery.
Again, did Hillary know this? Did the official at Foggy Bottom in charge of embassy/consulate security know this?
In the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, the circumstances surrounding the attack on the Benghazi compound have emerged as a major political issue, as Republicans, led by their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, have sought to lay blame for the attack on President Obama, who they argued had insufficiently protected American lives there.
Interviews with American officials and an examination of State Department documents do not reveal the kind of smoking gun Republicans have suggested would emerge in the attack's aftermath such as a warning that the diplomatic compound would be targeted and that was overlooked by administration officials.
Oh. Well. In that case. No 'smoking gun'. How rude of al-Qaeda not to give us a smoking gun...
What is clear is that even as the State Department responded to the June attacks, crowning the Benghazi compound walls with concertina wire and setting up concrete barriers to thwart car bombs, it remained committed to a security strategy formulated in a very different environment a year earlier.
So it was just the usual Foggy Bottom incompetence...
In the heady early days after the fall of Colonel Qaddafi's government, the administration's plan was to deploy a modest American security force and then increasingly rely on trained Libyan personnel to protect American diplomats -- a policy that reflected White House apprehensions about putting combat troops on the ground as well as Libyan sensitivities about an obtrusive American security presence.
In the following months, the State Department proceeded with this plan. In one instance, State Department security officials replaced the American military team in Tripoli with trained Libyan bodyguards, while it also maintained the number of State Department security personnel members at the Benghazi compound around the minimum recommended level.
But the question on the minds of some lawmakers is why the declining security situation did not prompt a fundamental rethinking of the security needs by the State Department and the White House. Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry
...but no major American newspapers...
are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.
"Given the large number of attacks that had occurred in Benghazi that were aimed at Western targets, it is inexplicable to me that security wasn't increased," said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, one of the panels holding inquiries.
Defending their preparations, State Department officials have asserted that there was no specific intelligence that warned of a large-scale attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, which they asserted was unprecedented. The department said it was careful to weigh security with diplomats' need to meet with Libyan officials and citizens.
Why would it be 'unprecedented' for al-Qaeda to attack Americans in a spectacular way?
"The lethality of an armed, masked attack by dozens of individuals is something greater than we've ever seen in Libya over the last period that we've been there," Patrick F. Kennedy, the State Department's under secretary for management, told reporters at a news conference on Oct. 10.
The question, Patrick, is whether it's something one could foresee. There are plenty of us who could and did...
But David Oliveira, a State Department security officer who was stationed in Benghazi from June 2 to July 5, said he told members and staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he recalled thinking that if 100 or more assailants sought to breach the mission's walls, "there was nothing that we could do about it because we just didn't have the manpower, we just didn't have the facilities."
In developing a strategy to bring about the fall of Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Obama walked a fine line between critics of any American involvement in Libya and those like Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who advocated a stronger American leadership role. Mr. Obama's approach -- a NATO air campaign supported by the United States -- was a success.
After Colonel Qaddafi's fall, Mr. Obama proceeded with equal caution. He approved a plan to send to Tripoli a 16-member Site Security Team, a military unit that included explosive-ordnance personnel, medics and other specialists. "Day-to-day diplomatic security decisions were managed by career State Department professional staff," said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
From the start, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security advised the embassy's security officer, Eric A. Nordstrom, that he needed to develop an "exit strategy" so that the Tripoli-based team could be replaced by Libyan guards and American civilian officials.
Why? There's mistake number one right there. The Site Security Team can stay as long as the ambassador damned well thinks he needs it. Rotate personnel if you must.
Charlene Lamb, one of the department's senior diplomatic security officials, told members of the House oversight committee last month that by June, one of her aides and Mr. Nordstrom had identified a need for 21 security positions and that 16 of them were to be filled by Libyan bodyguards. Americans were to fill the remaining slots, and two assistant regional security officers were also to be sent.
Why use Libyan guards at all? Tell the new government (politely) that until things settle down we're happy with our own people doing the security. If you must use Libyan personnel, keep the Site Security Team in the background, but don't send them home.
The security arrangements in Benghazi appeared to receive little scrutiny in Washington. During the Qaddafi government there had not been a mission there, and in December 2011 Mr. Kennedy issued a memo to keep the Benghazi mission open for only a year.
Housed in a rented compound, the mission and a nearby annex used by the Central Intelligence Agency enabled the United States to interact with Libyans in the eastern part of the country from a city that had been the cradle of their revolution.
So why close the consulate in a year? Sounds to me like we were doing what had to be done in Benghazi, in which case you need a compound and decent security.
But eastern Libya also had another face. Though the region had been a wellspring for the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi's government, it was also known as one of the major sources of militants who traveled to Iraq in 2007 to join the main terrorist group there, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
The number of State Department security agents at the compound in Benghazi fluctuated, sometimes dipping to as few as two. Five American security agents were at the compound on Sept. 11 -- three stationed there and two traveling with Mr. Stevens.
In addition to the Americans, there were several armed Libyans who served as a quick-reaction force.
Who quickly bugged out...
The Americans were also able to call on the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, a militia supportive of the Libyan government. Yet another small group of Libyan guards stood watch at the gates and perimeter of the compound, but this group was unarmed and equipped with only whistles and batons.
When it came to weapons, the American security team was outgunned. The Americans were equipped with M4 rifles and side arms. But Libya was rife with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, mortars and AK-47s.
Much of the security depended on maintaining a low profile. When venturing into town, the Americans drove a Toyota Land Cruiser, from which they removed the diplomatic plates and which they intentionally did not wash. At one point, Mr. Nordstrom, the regional security officer, proposed establishing guard towers, but the State Department rejected that on the grounds that it would make the compound more conspicuous.
Clue.
There was no doubt, however, that there were many in Benghazi who knew the compound's location. On June 6, a bomb was planted near the American Mission's outer wall, blowing out a 12-foot-wide hole. No one was injured.
Clue.
On June 11, the lead vehicle of the British ambassador's convoy was hit by an armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenade, wounding a British medic and driver. The British envoy left Benghazi the next day, and the British post in the city was closed on June 17.
Clue.
About the same time, the Red Cross in the city pulled out after it was attacked a second time. "When that occurred, it was apparent to me that we were the last flag flying in Benghazi; we were the last thing on their target list to remove," said Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, the head of the military security team in Tripoli.
Clue.
In the event of a significant attack, Mr. Oliveira noted, the Americans were counting on the February 17th Brigade to rush to their aid, as it had during the June 6 bombing. The embassy had also established a series of "trip wires," classified benchmarks about intelligence on attack preparations or escalating unrest that would prompt the United States to evacuate the Benghazi compound. But the trip wires were not set off.
New security cameras with night vision capability were shipped to the Benghazi compound but were still sitting in crates when the September attack occurred.
The situation in eastern Libya, meanwhile, remained perilous. Small-scale camps grew out of training areas created last year by militias fighting Libyan government security forces. After the government fell, these compounds continued to churn out fighters trained in marksmanship and explosives, American officials said.
Clue. How many clues did we need?
Ansar al-Shariah, a local militant group some of whose members had ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a local Qaeda affiliate, operated a militant training camp whose location was well known to Benghazi residents. On the Friday after the attack, demonstrators overran it.
American intelligence agencies had provided the administration with reports for much of the past year warning that the Libyan government was weakening and had little control over the militias, including Ansar al-Shariah.
By early September, some Libyan officials in Benghazi were echoing the same security warnings as Mr. Stevens was relaying to Washington.
Clue.
American officials continue to investigate the militants who carried out the attack. A Tunisian, who was apprehended by Turkish officials on a flight from Benghazi to Turkey and repatriated to Tunisia, was also involved, American officials said. It is not yet clear if the attackers who participated in the assault were trained in the camps.
Looking back, Mr. Nordstrom told a House hearing last month that a major question was the inability of the administration to react to the worsening environment on the ground.
"I was extremely pleased with the planning to get us into Libya," Mr. Nordstrom said. But after the initial security teams began rotating out of Libya months later, he said, "there was a complete and total absence of planning."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/30/2012
07:45 ||
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#1
Not specific enough? What does the NYTs want, an engraved message from Abdul and Ahmoud that they are going to assassinate the Ambo on 911?
#5
So I guess we need to know the names of the individual attackers, the models and serial numbers of any weapons they are carrying, attack plans, and the weather before we could possibly assign the proper force to defend ourselves? The Greatest Generation would be so proud.
#7
I seem to remember the Canadians having a plan...getting out of Iran. Perhaps there was a general understanding that there would be an Iranian backed attack (known known) against a Western embassy (unknown known)?
#8
KRAUTHAMMER stated this AM that the Benghazi attack went on for nine hours, which IMO means that the US had more than enough time to rescue the personnel or survivors of the diploamtic mission. An armed heliborne platoon or company of US Marines andor SPECOPS backed up by Helo andor AC-130 Gunships, etc. would have been more than enough.
The above may not had arrived in time to prevent the successful penetration of the consulate grounds by the attackers, but they should had arrived in time to prevent the violent deaths of Amb. Stevens + the others.
In a deadly two-prong strategy formulated by the al-Qaida think-tank, an all-women squad dubbed the Burqa Brigade has been formed to target military bases and official buildings in Western nations, even as al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has exhorted Muslims to kidnap Westerners to be used for swapping "jihadists" jailed in the West.
The female burqa-clad (black-veiled) cadres are being trained by al-Qaida and Taliban (allegedly) to infiltrate and attack the enemy targets in the West as they are less likely to draw attention to themselves than their male counterparts.
The chilling film posted on the Web by the extremists depicts the women in traditional garb being taught how to wield dangerous weapons like machine guns, Kalashnikov assault rifles, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades during training sessions at an undisclosed location.
Apparently these women have been inducted into the squad from the volatile, conflict-ridden Russian republic of Chechnya. The British tabloid, The Sun reported on Sunday Oct. 27 that the Chechnyan women are being recruited by an al-Qaida linked group having its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Emblazoned on the online videos is also the symbol of "Islam Awazi" (Voice of Islam), which is an al-Qaida linked terror organization based in Russia's Caucus region. Its a matter of grave concern now for anti-terror authorities and experts.
Counter-terrorism authorities are well-aware that the rationale behind forming such all-female squad by the global terror outfits is that the women would be less likely to raise suspicion than men, and it will be relatively easier for them to slip through security barricades.
The latest report is raising concerns also because in recent times several women terrorists have been arrested in the West. In different countries there are increasing instances of female suicide bombers successfully hitting targets causing wanton destruction.
#1
Thomas Sowell is a national treasure. "Telling the truth slowing and moving on"....should be translated into Latin and offered as this administration's motto.
Kenyan police officers continued their anti-terrorism operations on Sunday when they killed or arrested suspected members of a Somalia-based Islamist group, one of whom lived in the same western Kenya location as some family members of President Barack Obama who are alleged Muslim Wahhabists, according to sources.
That would be the family that had absolutely nothing to do with the stray baby one of them fathered on a foolish kaffir girl, then abandoned. The relationship is a curiosity, nothing more..
A suspect, Omar Faraj, who was allegedly involved in Wednesday's bombings that killed a police officer and two other suspected members of the Somalia-based al-Qaeda-affiliate, Al Shabaab, was killed by police officers who raided the suspect's home in Mombasa, Kenya, on Sunday morning, an Israeli police and counterterrorism source informed the Law Enforcement Examiner.
The source stated that the 29-year-old Faraj had been kept under close surveillance by a team of detectives from the police department's anti-terrorism bureau in Nairobi. Police were fearful that there would be retaliation from either Somali or Kenyan Muslims who dominate parts of Kenya.
The police also arrested a terrorism suspect in a nearby village on the Kenyan coast and confiscated several firearms and hand-grenades during their search for contraband.
The police identified that suspect as Titus Nyabiswa, 26, who had converted to Islam in the western part of that African country. Surprisingly, members of President Barack Obama's family are Muslims living in western Kenya, but the White House and the Obama national security team have been silent regarding al-Qaeda activity in the president's ancestral home, according to the Law Enforcement Examiner source.
Nyabiswa reportedly possessed several bomb detonators when he was arrested by highway patrol officers manning a police road block and he was handed over to the anti-terrorism police unit.
Police say the suspect and his accomplices were planning to carry out an attack in Kenya's second-largest city of Mombasa that has been the target of several grenade attacks in the past year.
#1
I read the article and it seems the link between the Kenya Obama family's fundamentalism and Obama (the about to be ousted president (wishful thinking coming out) are weak at best. It would be like saying some cousin of mine in San Diego committed a crime and I and my family are suspect no matter that I have had little or nothing to do with them my life.
That said, anything is possible and islamic family and tribal ties tend to be strong. The current POTUS has been duplicitous (his past, Fast and Furious and BenghaziGate for three examples) with the American people.
The wife of a senior Ethiopian politician was on Monday charged with funnelling money from the Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Islamist terror groups, at a hearing at the Ethiopian Federal High Court, on Monday.
Habiba Mohammed, wife of former Minister for the Civil Service Junedin Sado, was one of 29 Muslim activists accused of criminal conspiracy to commit unspecified acts of terrorism -- charges that could attract the death penalty.
Those arrested were accused of belonging to, or supporting, the "Solution Seekers of the Muslim Community's Problems", a group that the prosecution contended is a terrorist organisation. Lawyers for the accused denied the charges.
A predominantly Christian country, Ethiopia has positioned itself as a bulwark in the U.S.-led war on terror in East Africa and has promulgated laws, such as the anti-terrorism proclamation 652 of 2009, which have an unusually broad definition of terrorism.
According to the prosecution, Ms. Habiba allegedly tried to steal 1.5 million Ethiopian Birr (approximately Rs. 45 lakh) from the Islamic Council of Ethiopia. He also allegedly received more than 50,000 ETB from the Saudi Arabian Embassy to fund "illegal activities" amongst Ethiopia's Muslim population.
She was arrested in July this year and the money was recovered from her car, according to local media reports. The Embassy of Saudi Arabia could not be reached for comment.
#1
If evidence shows Panetta, Dempsey, et al recommended no action can their impeachment be far behind? Their best bet may be Barry's defeat and the fiscal cliff.
#2
(The) basic principle is that you dont deploy forces into harms way without knowing whats going on; without having some real-time information about whats taking place, Panetta told Pentagon reporters. And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.
But they did "know what was going on". Knowing "what is going on", maintaining tactical and strategic situational awareness is part and parcel of their jobs. Not knowing is an admission of incompetence, of failure!
It was unmistakenly, a US Embassy take-down. They had more than "real-time information", he had live video INTELLIGENCE feeds amd reporting! Forces have been..."at risk" in Afghanistan and Iraq for decades. It's what soldiers, airmen, and Marines do. The "risk" he was concerned about was not to "forces" but to a man.
At a minimum, Penetta and the generals sensed a reluctant, dithering POTUS and simply provided him the recommendation he needed. The bulk of the mission, reportedly some 30 personnel (the exact figure has still not been released), had been successfully extracted. This would have been celebrated in the situation room. The plan may have been for everyone to EXFIL (exfiltrate) Benghazi on the OGA bird, but the two former SEALS decided to return to search for their boss the Ambassador. This proved their undoing.
The question of why Ambassador Stevens would have traveled to Benghazi on such a potentially dangerous date (9/11) remains unanswered. You may notice that the ribbon cutting ceremony reason for his travel, is no longer mentioned by the press or government officials.
Although the truth has been obstructed by bad weather and a shocking (black and white video) Joseph Stalin era campaign song sung by zombie children, this story is far from over. A far greater storm awaits this administration.
#4
What I find interesting is the theory that they were denied the right to go into Libya by the Libyan government, which is the only thing that makes sense... but the fact that Libya hasn't been thrown under the bus by now confounds me.
I didn't believe the gunwalking theory initially but it's starting to look better and better when no other plausible explanation is forthcoming.
#5
My ignorance in anything about intelligence/combat, etc. is nada, none, zilch I admit.
without having some real-time information about whats taking place
But, if you've got live video feeds while under attach, you got eyes above watching, you got top of the line communications which that CIA station probably has, ("Our eyes got poked out," I recall reading to quote a CIA guy), people whose job it is to put that altogether and you got a SEAL on the ground directing traffic, what more do you need?
In a radio interview with a former CIF operator, he said they had been sent in when sometimes all they had was a piece of paper with coordinates on it -- he said they would then go in, not knowing about the terrain of the location, what kind of building/s, even to not knowing how many people would be involved.
#7
I've heard a bunch of places that the seals on site had painted the mortor that killed them with infrared targetting. Anyone know how we know that? It would seem that the only ones that would know are (a) dead (b) enemies (c) in an aircraft and probably forbidden to speak.
If that fact is true someone was watching and talking.
A surprise to who? Maybe to the Prez who did't attend his daily intelligence briefings prior to the attack. But it surely was not a surprise to Ambassador Stevens who "repeatedly sounded alarms to his superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died."
#13
It would've been much more better for the Admin to have sent in a rescue team that wasn't needed than to allow the mission to be violently or militarily besieged for nine hours wid US rescue assets only 30 minutes -one hour away.
Lest we fergit, the factionalism widin the post-Ghaddafi transitional govt. is such that Libyan Politicos were calling on the Bammer Admin = USA to assert more effective leadership or influence ala ending the intra-TRNC impasses. NOTHING SAYS "THE US/OBAMA IS HERE" THAN LIBYAN FACTIONS SEEING ARMED COBRAS, APACHES,OR "SPECTRES" FLYING OER THEIR HEADS, + HEAVILY ARMED US MARINES ANDOR SPECOPS ON THE GROUND.
We have not heard much on the MSM-Net or the WH about the Libyan rescue force that allegedly ran into ambush on the way.
Two women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution after seven rooms were found in a building close to Sretensky Monastery where sexual services were offered from 1,750 roubles (£35) per hour.
Father Tikhon, the abbot of the monastery, is said to be a religious counsellor to Mr Putin, who is a confirmed Russian Orthodox believer.
There were conflicting reports over the ownership of the brothel, found in one of a chain of mini-hotels called Podushkin.
Life News, a popular muckraking website with close ties to the police and security services, said the building where the brothel was located on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard had been rented out by the monastery.
However, an attendant at the monastery was quoted as saying: "Some time ago we rented premises for our seminary. The bordello was only found then, when we started to check which rooms had become temporarily ours, and which hadn't. This establishment had been there for a long time; it belongs to someone and has absolutely no connection to us."
#1
Life News, a popular muckraking website... Oh, like the MSM in the U.S. In trying to judge the moral equivalence between a brothel in a monastery and our state-sponsored media in the U.S., I'll take the brothel as being morally superior.
There is the one map you will see today that does not include rain, flooding or wind figures.
With one week to go, states that were once considered Obama strongholds now look less solid. Republican groups are putting resources into Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Team Obama brushes off these incursions as wishful thinking by Republicans, but noticeably they are putting money and muscle into both states. Minnesota has been added to Bill Clintons schedule. And, Obama campaign officials admitted that they will once again start running ads in Pennsylvania.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
00:47 ||
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#1
But I have to wonder if ABC is being a bit optimistic.
One can't help but notice the many liberal newspapers jumping off the Obama bandwagon. Many are hitching their crumbling credibility to Mitt Romney's wining steed: the Des Moines Register; the Tennessean; the Orlando Sentinel; and the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel to name a few.
But Obama can take comfort that the Big Three remain steadfast in their support: the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune executive producer still hasn't answered me about why the Trib isn't running any news about Benghazi...
The Times claims "Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression" and "prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent." Tell that to the 23 million unemployed that currently make up the 14.7% of Americans who have run through their unemployment benefits and still cannot find work.
The Post, on the other hand, expressed "disappointments of Mr. Obama's time in office. He did not end, as he promised he would, 'our chronic avoidance of tough decisions' on fiscal matters. But Mr. Obama is committed to the only approach that can succeed: a balance of entitlement reform and revenue increases." In other words, as long as the president calls for higher taxes, he has a friend in the Post.
The Tribune eerily praised Romney while endorsing his Democratic rival, "On questions of economics and limited government, the Chicago Tribune has forged principles that put us closer to the challenger in this race, Republican Mitt Romney. We write with those principles clearly in our minds. Romney advocates less spending, less borrowing -- overall, a less costly and less intrusive role for government in the lives of the governed." However, the Tribune then says, "His [Romney's] proposals to achieve a balanced budget, and to begin reducing taxpayer's huge debts, rest on questionable math and rosy assumptions."
The Tribune conveniently forgets Obama's rosy 2009 "stimulus" assumption to "create three to four million jobs over the next few years ... That's why this is not just a short-term program to boost employment. It's one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century."
The Trib isn't the Colonel's newspaper anymore...
Four years and nearly six trillion dollars later, America slides into a double-dip recession -- or worse.
In a conference call with reporters, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod was asked by a Des Moines Register reporter (whose editorial board endorsed Romney) if the Chicago fixer thought newspaper endorsements were worth the paper they are printed on. "I guess we'll find out," said Axelrod, "and we're very comfortable with what the result will be."
Axelrod took the words right out of Romney's mouth.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
00:42 ||
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#1
But Obama can take comfort that the Big Three remain steadfast in their support: the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.
Except few others give the big three any credibility and that number is growing daily. Once you forsake the truth for partisanship you are screwed. It is impossible to go back to truth without the legacy of the taint of lies. Maybe they will catch on before they go the way of the dinosaurs but if not so what--no great loss--we are better off without the damned propagandists.
The nation's oldest nuclear power plant, already out of service for scheduled refueling, was put on alert late Monday after waters from Superstorm Sandy rose 6 feet above sea level.
Conditions were still safe at and around Oyster Creek, a plant in Lacey Township, N.J., and at all other U.S. nuclear plants, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees plant safety. No plants that had been up and running before the storm were planning to shut down.
High water levels at Oyster Creek, which generates enough electricity to power 600,000 homes a year, prompted safety officials to declare an "unusual event" around 7 p.m. About two hours later, the situation was upgraded to an "alert," the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system.
The plant's owner, Exelon Corp., said power was also disrupted in the station's switchyard, but backup diesel generators were providing stable power, with more than two weeks of fuel on hand.
A rising tide, the direction of the wind and the storm's surge combined to raise water levels in the plant's intake structure, the NRC said. The agency said that water levels are expected to recede within hours and that the plant, which went online in 1969 and is set to close in 2019, is watertight and capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds.
The heightened status at Oyster Creek aside, most nuclear plants in the Sandy's path were weathering the storm without incident.
Inspectors from the NRC, whose own headquarters and Northeast regional office was closed for the storm, were manning all plants around the clock. The agency dispatched extra inspectors or placed them on standby in five states, equipped with satellite phones to ensure uninterrupted contact.
Nuclear power plants are built to withstand hurricanes, airplane collisions and other major disasters, but safety procedures call for plants to be shut down when hurricane-force winds are present at the site, or if water levels nearby exceed certain flood limits.
At the Salem and Hope Creek plants in Hancocks Bridge, N.J., which together produce enough power for about 3 million homes per day, officials were watching for sustained winds of 74 mph or greater that would trigger taking the plants offline. The nearby Delaware River posed another hazard if water levels exceed 99.5 feet, compared with a normal level of 89 feet.
Joe Delmar, a spokesman for Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., said that only essential employees had been asked to report to work but that current projections were that the plants would not have to close. One of the units at Salem had already been offline due to regular refueling and maintenance.
In Lusby, Md., the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant was operating at full power enough to power more than 1 million homes. Additional staff, both onsite and off, were called in to prepare for the storm. Safety officials there will take the plant offline if sustained winds exceed 75 mph or water levels rise more than 10 feet above normal sea level.
Seventy-five was also the number at Indian Point in Buchanan, N.Y., where officials said they were fully prepared to withstand surging water levels from the Hudson River. At Pennsylvania's Susquehanna plant in Salem Township, officials were ready to activate their emergency plan, a precursor to taking the plant offline, if sustained winds hit 80 mph.
"Our top concern is ensuring that the plants are in a safe condition, that they are following their severe weather procedures" said Diane Screnci of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She said that even though the agency's headquarters and regional office had been closed, its incident response center was staffed, with other regions ready to lend a hand if necessary.
At the Millstone nuclear power complex on Connecticut's shoreline, officials said they were powering down one of the two reactors to 75 percent of maximum output to maintain stability of the electric grid. Millstone spokesman Ken Holt said the grid's stability could be affected if the unit was operating at 100 percent and suddenly went offline, which isn't expected to happen.
Some 60 million people in 13 states plus the District of Columbia get their power from PJM, the largest regional power grid in the U.S. Contingency plans call for power to be brought in from other areas to replace power lost if a nuclear plant reduces output or goes offline.
"It's done instantaneously," said Paula DuPont-Kidd, a spokeswoman for the grid. "Even if multiple plants go offline at the same time, we'd have to see how adjustments would be made, but for the most part we plan for that scenario."
In August 2011, multiple nuclear plants shut down due to Hurricane Irene, with others reducing power.
Although nuclear plants are built for resilience, their operations get more complicated when only emergency personnel are on duty or if external electricity gets knocked out, as often happens during hurricanes.
"When external power is not available, you have to use standby generators," said Sudarshan Loyalka, who teaches nuclear engineering at University of Missouri. "You just don't want to rely on backup power."
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
00:41 ||
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In an effort to cut defense spending, the Obama Administration plans to cut health benefits for active duty and retired military personnel and their families while not touching the benefits enjoyed by unionized civilian defense workers.
The move, congressional aides suggested, is to force those individuals into Obamacare, Bill Gertz reported at the Washington Beacon.
Gertz added: "The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon's $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017."
Not everybody is happy with the plan, however.
Military personnel would see their annual Tricare premiums increase anywhere from 30 - 78 percent in the first year, followed by sharply increased premiums "ranging from 94 percent to 345 percent--more than 3 times current levels."
"According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048," Gertz wrote.
Active duty military personnel would also see an increased cost for pharmaceuticals, and the incentive to use less expensive generic drugs would be gone.
Health benefits has long been a prime reason many stay in the military - but some in the Pentagon fear the new rules will hamper recruitment and retention.
"Would you stay with a car insurance company that raised your premiums by 345 percent in five years? Probably not," one aide said.
John Hayward of Human Events adds:
"Veterans will also be hit with a new annual fee for a program called Tricare for Life, on top of the monthly premiums they already pay, while some benefits will become "means-tested" in the manner of a social program -- treating them like welfare instead of benefits for military service. Naturally, this is all timed to begin next year and "avoid upsetting military voters in a presidential election year," according to critics.
There will be congressional hearings on the new military health care policies next month. Opposition is building in Congress, and among veterans' organizations, including the VFW, which has "called on all military personnel and the veterans' community to block the health care increases."
Others are concerned about the double standard being set between uniformed military personnel - who are not unionized - and civilian defense workers who belong to public sector unions.
Gertz wrote: "A second congressional aide said the administration's approach to the cuts shows a double standard that hurts the military.
"We all recognize that we are in a time of austerity," this aide said. "But defense has made up to this point 50 percent of deficit reduction cuts that we agreed to, but is only 20 percent of the budget."
The administration is asking troops to get by without the equipment and force levels needed for global missions. "And now they are going to them again and asking them to pay more for their health care when you've held the civilian workforce at DoD and across the federal government virtually harmless in all of these cuts. And it just doesn't seem fair," the second aide said.
At least one Congressman is standing with the military on this issue.
"We shouldn't ask our military to pay our bills when we aren't willing to impose a similar hardship on the rest of the population," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.
"We can't keep asking those who have given so much to give that much more," he added.
McKeon will be joined by some 5 million members of 32 military service and veterans groups, according to retired Navy Capt. Kathryn M. Beasley of the Military Officers Association of America, who called the plan "a breach of faith."
The Beacon also noted the curious timing of the plan, which is set to begin next year - after the 2012 elections. Critics say this is designed so as not to upset military voters.
It's one more reason Barack Hussein Obama does not deserve to be re-elected in November.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012
00:39 ||
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#1
"We shouldn't ask our military to pay our bills when we aren't willing to impose a similar hardship on the rest of the population," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA)
It is infuriating to have watched Obama hustle future union votes and pay off his 2008 IOUs to the unions for their vote by giving them sweetheart deals at the expense of everyone else.
#2
They tried increasing Tricare over a decade ago. The usual suspects convened a panel of retired generals to rubber stamp a similar increase in the annual fee, around 300 percent. It died rather quickly in Congress. Now if they had just pushed forth a simple increase of 50 dollars a year for the next 10 years, we'd be at the spot they wanted today rather than no increase to cover the expanding medical costs.
Yep, I was in during the 70s. The officers lived in gentile poverty and the married enlisted on food stamps. The usual suspects played the 'medical care for life' card to induce people to stay in as part of the retention system. It was another game of kicking the can down the road to leave someone else with the problem when it arrived, since they wouldn't have to deal with it later. However, everyone didn't envision the advances in medical care and science from the 70s either.
I suspect that current funding can cover the costs of 70s/80s era medical care. The problem is that most people want 2012 era medical care, protocols, procedures, and pharmaceuticals. I can't hold them to really cover stuff that didn't exist when the 'promises' were made. I, for one, have no problem forking over more to cover an increase in the annual charge. Based on the warning of that aforementioned GO board, I've budgeted annually for such an increase over the years. It's been a nice piece of savings when the old rates continued, but its something that, just like the national debt, has to come due. Both sides of the aisle in Congress have been playing the unfunded commitment game on this issue for decades and it's now eating money from other military functions.
#4
Lovely. I just made the decision to switch from my employers healthcare plan to Tricare for Life. TfL was about half the price Now it doesn't look like such a bargain.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/30/2012 14:51
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[An Nahar] Tunisia's security forces union called on its members to wear red armbands for three days starting Monday, in protest against a suspected Islamist attack on a police officer.
Wissam Ben Slimane, the security chief of the Tunis suburb Manouba, told state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
he was attacked by a hatchet-wielding assailant overnight Saturday to Sunday.
Speaking from his hospital bed where he is recovering from a cut to the head, the officer said the attack took place as coppers tried to stop a fight between illegal alcohol sellers and a group of Salafist Islamists in Manouba.
"The attacker is still on the run and an investigation is underway to determine those responsible and arrest them," interior ministry front man Khaled Tarrouche told AFP.
"The interior ministry is determined to follow up the excesses committed by these groups who wish to take the place of the state," he added, alluding to the radical Islamist groups.
The national security forces union released a statement denouncing the attack on Slimane and called on the civil society ministry to "support the security forces and condemn acts of violence committed against security agents."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Microsoft ...producers of Windows, Office, and the late Microsoft Bob, contributed $852,167 to the 2008 Obama campaign... bills Windows 8 as a "re-imagining" of the personal computer market's dominant operating system, but the company still has a lot of work to do before the makeover captures the imagination of most consumers, based on the results of a recent poll by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named and GfK.
The phone survey of nearly 1,200 adults in the U.S. found 52 percent hadn't even heard of Windows 8 leading up to Friday's release of the redesigned software.
Among the people who knew something about the new operating system, 61 percent had little or no interest in buying a new laptop or desktop computer running on Windows 8, according to the poll. And only about a third of the people who've heard about the new system believe it will be an improvement (35 percent).
Chris Dionne of Waterbury, Connecticut, falls into that camp. The 43-year-old engineer had already seen Windows 8 and it didn't persuade him to abandon or upgrade his Hewlett-Packard laptop running on Windows 7, the previous version of the operating system released in 2009.
"I am not real thrilled they are changing things around," Dionne said. "Windows 7 does everything I want it to. Where is the return on my investment to learn a new OS?"
Microsoft usually releases a new version of Windows every two or three years, but it's different this time around. Windows 8 is the most radical redesign of the operating system since 1995 and some analysts consider the software to be Microsoft's most important product since co-founder Bill Gates won the contract to build an operating system for IBM ...contributed $532,372 to the 2008 Obama campaign... Corp.'s first personal computer in 1981. Microsoft is hoping the way Windows 8 looks and operates will appeal to the growing number of people embracing the convenience of smartphones and tablets.
The consumer ambivalence, however, was even more pronounced when it came to Microsoft's new tablet computer, Surface, which was built to show off Windows 8's versatility. Sixty-nine percent of the poll's respondents expressed little or no interest in buying a Surface, which Microsoft is hoping will siphon sales from Apple Inc.'s pioneering iPad and other popular tablets such as Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire and Google ...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign... Inc.'s Nexus 7.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
What, exactly, does the average or even above average person need from an OS? The ones that exist now are capable of so much. Other than the fact that as other software, particularly browsers, became slower due to their size and complexity, I could use my version of Windows until they plant me and be very satisfied.
I'm guessing that way over 95% of people will never, ever use the bulk of the features that exist in the operating systems we already have. The only changes that would be in demand are ones that make an OS speedier.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
10/30/2012 5:37
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#2
I know "8" was only recently released but has anyone had any experience with System 8 at this time that would indicate a change from "7"?
#3
This is a pretty vacuous article. Most people with existing computers won't upgrade their OS's. However, people who want to run the latest software will buy a new computer because of more stringent HW requirements, and that new computer will come with Windows 8.
As Zhang Fi says, it'll be a new computer upgrade. However, most computers outside of gaming rigs and number crunchers are already adequate for day to day operations. Given how the economy is running, I suspect most business customers with volume purchases are going to hold off as long as possible before thinking of any new upgrades in hardware or software.
#5
Hey, Microsoft - I'll buy Win 8 when you make Win 7 drivers that work with HP printers (including the 'universal driver) that don't hang in the middle of a print run. Deal?
#7
I've been using "8" for a month or so now (MSDN Subscription). There really doesn't seem to be much change from 7 except for the new user interface with Metro. I say new because the old 'desktop' is still there, and you can write and run apps on it (Microsoft isn't that stupid) and you can run with the desktop and even (I've heard) restore the old start menu (unlike, for example, some other OSes which insist that everyone use their new tablet-like interface with HUGE icons, sliding and flicking.)
Metro is the 'tablet-like' user interface and can be handy - if you have a multi-touch screen or a tablet where you can slide and flick things around.
If you have a tablet or a slate you might be tempted to get windows 8. Or if you want to get one of the new web-applications which are designed to work with metro - much like a facebook 'app' works with android.
One of the problems I see for Microsoft is that Windows 7 works well. When 7 came out it was well tested, had very good reviews, and well working - people jumped to switch from Vista or the 'old' XP. Also most people don't need what 8 offers - windows 7 works just fine.
#8
So I should buy a new computer now, to avoid getting stuck with Windoze 8?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/30/2012 13:08
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#9
I'm not switching to Windows 8 until some concerns are addressed. Among them the security increase that seems to keep track of users just like outside threats.
Posted by: Charles ||
10/30/2012 14:02
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#10
Win 8 is designed to support both tablets and desktops. Can't speak about tablets, but the user interface on the desktop is horrible. Very inconsistent, counter-intuitive, and slow.
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili ||
10/30/2012 14:42
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#11
I thought Metro was dropped from windows 8 release...
In any case I also heard Metro didn't like to play nice with other non-metro apps.
#12
Most non-Metro applications seem to work ok under the 'Desktop' - they just don't benefit from the newfangled metro interface.
I've heard you can configure it with the Desktop as the 'standard' - lifehacker.com has some articles on it (but their servers are down right now due to Sandy).
#13
We are migrating 20K computers to Win7 after 2014.
Windows 8 is not spoken of except for current toyage and a general deployment no sooner than 2020.
#14
I understand Stardock has some suitable start-menu substitutes, but I haven't researched it further.
If I had to buy a computer tomorrow (and believe it or not, I do, because both of my parents' computers broke this week) I'd probably scrounge until I found a refurbished one with Windows 7. Although getting Kindle Fires until Things Are Better is looking both cheaper and better at the moment.
On my personal machine I'm currently running xfce on linux, it gets out of the damn way.
[An Nahar] Gazoo fighters on Monday fired 18 rockets at southern Israel, ending several days of calm, with the armed wing of the ruling Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement saying it was Dire Revenge™ after an air raid killed one of their men.
It was the second straight day in which fighters had fired rockets at Israel in a confrontation which began early on Sunday, and effectively ended three days of calm after an Egyptian-brokered truce went into force at midnight on Wednesday.
"At least 18 rockets were fired at Israeli territory, without causing injuries or damage," police front man Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, saying the count was from midnight.
Monday's barrage of rocket fire followed hot on the heels of two late-night Israeli air strikes which did not cause any injuries, Paleostinian security sources said.
Although the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades did not say how many rockets it had fired, it named at least five areas in southern Israel where it had targeted "military sites" -- Sufa, Kissufim, Beeri, Yad Mordechai and Nahal Oz.
And it posted a grainy video on their website which appeared to show fighters launching nine rockets in the early morning.
"This shelling was in response to the continuous Zionist bombing and terrorizing of peaceful citizens, which most recently killed Suleiman Kamel al-Qara, as well as in response to the repeated incursions and attacks carried out by the occupation," the group said referring to one of its own fighters.
The firing was the latest show of force from Hamas fighters who have traditionally respected a de facto truce on firing at Israel, but who have in recent weeks, claimed several rocket attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Egypt's Coptic Christians voted on Monday for a new leader to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who died in March leaving behind a community anxious about its status under an Islamist-led government.
Nearly 2,500 eligible voters made up of Coptic public officials, MPs, journalists, local councillors were casting their ballots in Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral, seat of the Coptic papacy, to choose from among the five candidates.
Shenuda III, a careful, pragmatic leader, died at a critical time for the increasingly beleaguered minority which faced a surge in sectarian attacks after an uprising overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.
The next patriarch will be the main contact of the community with Egypt's new Islamist president.
The Coptic pope serves as the spiritual leader of the country's Christians, who make up between six and 10 percent of Egypt's 83-million population.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. demanded a halt to US drone attacks in Pakistain, adding that, the attacks were rendering Pakistains efforts to countering terrorism ineffective, DawnNews reported on Monday.
In an interview to a US-based television channel, Malik said that despite having all the resources, the United States was not making sufficient gains in Afghanistan.
Moreover, the minister said a military operation was not a solution to the problem of militancy in any region in the country.
On a question about Malala Yousufzai, the teenage Pak activist shot in the head by the Pak Taliban, Malik said she was the pride of Pakistain and that the people awaited her return after a full recovery.
Malik said the police had offered protection to Malala on three separate occasions, adding that, her father had refused security.
The minister said Malala was attacked by two men who were both Afghan nationals, adding that, they had come to Mingora with the help of a man named Ataullah, a resident of Swat.
He said the police was looking for both the attackers, adding that, Malala and her family would be provided with maximum security upon their return.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[Dawn] At least ten suspected cut-throats were killed and six others injured Monday when Pak gunship helicopters pounded suspected bully boy hideouts in Bara Tehsil of Pakistains restive Khyber tribal region, officials said.
The assault followed an earlier clash in the Akakhel area of Bara Tehsil which had left one soldier dead and three injured, the officials added.
According to the officials, armed cut-throats ambushed a security convoy leading to a deadly clash between the cut-throats and security forces. The clash resulted in the death of a soldier while thee others were maimed.
Following the clash, security forces assisted by gunship helicopters targeted bully boy hideouts in Akakhel area, killing ten cut-throats and injuring six others, the official sources said.
Officials said security forces also destroyed four bully boy bases and claimed to have cooled for a few years Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! 15 suspects as the offensive continued.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... another soldier was also killed in a road side bomb kaboom in Tehsil Baras Shalobar area during a search operation, the officials added.
The reports could not be independently verified as journalists have limited access to Pakistains remote tribal areas.
Khyber is among Pakistains seven tribal districts near the Afghan border which are rife with homegrown Orcs and similar vermin and are alleged to be strongholds of Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Sudan's foreign ministry on Monday denied that Iran had any involvement in a military factory which Khartoum says was attacked by Israeli aircraft last week.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms what is known by all: that Iran has no need to manufacture weapons in Sudan, for Iran or for its allies," the ministry said in a statement.
"We want to deny any relation between Sudan's military manufacturing and any foreign partner."
Sudan's links to Iran have come under scrutiny after Khartoum accused Israel of sending four radar-evading aircraft to strike the Yarmouk military factory in the heart of the capital at midnight last Tuesday.
Israeli officials have expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about arms smuggling through Sudan and have long accused Khartoum of serving as a base of support for snuffies from the Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement that rules the Gazoo Strip.
Israel refused all comment on Khartoum's allegations about the factory blast.
But a top Israeli defence official, Amos Gilad, said last week that Sudan "serves as a route for the transfer, via Egyptian territory, of Iranian weapons to Hamas and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terrorists."
Sudan's foreign ministry called Israel an "outlaw state... trying its best to pass fabricated information through different sources that have a link with Israel, in an effort to provide reasons for its aggression.
"This includes talk about claimed relations between the al-Yarmouk compound and Iran and Syria, and the Hamas Islamic struggle movement in Paleostine, and Hezbollah in Leb."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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The violence took place as Muslim villagers attempted to block access to the church as the Coptic faithful arrived from throughout the area to attend Sunday mass
Such sectarian clashes are quite frequent between the Copts, who make up 6-10 percent of Egypt's 83 million population, and Muslims, particularly in rural areas
Egypt's Christians have regularly complained of discrimination and marginalisation, even under the secular regime of president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled last year
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
Ah, slow news day...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/30/2012 10:50
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#2
Is it like "6 million Jews injured in interracial violence"?
[An Nahar] Explosions shook Syria's capital on Monday as warplanes launched their heaviest air raids yet and two car booms struck, with the U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... peace envoy saying the conflict was going from bad to worse.
The air raid blasts, heard coming from several outlying districts, rattled windows in the city center and were among the most intense in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... since the beginning of Syria's 19-month conflict, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent said.
They were followed by two car boomings in and around the capital.
The first struck the predominantly Christian and Druze area of Jaramana, just outside Damascus, killing 11 people, according to state news agency SANA.
The second hit several hours later in the southern al-Hajar al-Aswad district, which has seen heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or desultory fighting... , causing an unknown number of casualties, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.
The violence came as world powers looked to pick up the pieces of a failed effort for a Mohammedan holiday ceasefire, with envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in Moscow and due in China on Tuesday as he prepares to present new ideas to the U.N. Security Council.
"I have said and it bears repeating again and again that the Syrian crisis is very very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting worse," Brahimi said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
On Monday, the final day of the four-day Eid al-Adha holiday, the Syrian military launched more than 60 air strikes around the country, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"These are the heaviest air strikes since warplanes were first deployed over the summer," the watchdog's director, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
"The regime is looking to make real gains. There are battles in all of these areas being hit," he said.
Warplanes struck targets around Damascus, the Observatory said, with attacks focused on rebel positions in a northeastern belt where Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... 's regime has been battling to take opposition strongholds.
Dozens of soldiers were maimed and 11 killed in fighting in the area, it said.
The Observatory reported other air raids on villages and towns across the northwestern province of Idlib, where regime forces and rebels have been locked in fierce fighting over the Wadi Deif military base.
The army's general command in a statement blamed "terrorists" for violating the failed Eid truce.
"On the fourth and last day of the declared truce, armed terrorist groups continued to launch attacks on unarmed citizens, and targeted army and security checkpoints," it said.
The truce proposed by Brahimi for Eid, which started on Friday, fell apart amid festivities, shelling and car boomings only hours after it had been due to take effect.
More than 400 people have died since the start of Eid, according to the Observatory, including at least 80 on Monday.
The Britannia-based group relies on a countrywide network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals, and says its tolls take into account civilian, military and rebel casualties.
U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... said on Monday he was "deeply disappointed" by the collapse of the truce and urged all sides "to live up to their obligations and promote a ceasefire."
U.N. diplomats say Brahimi was realistic about the ceasefire's chances and is now looking ahead to new efforts to tackle the crisis.
Diplomats told AFP that he will go back to the Security Council with fresh proposals in November after the visits to Russia and China -- which have repeatedly vetoed resolutions threatening action against Assad's regime.
In a statement Monday, Syria's foreign ministry partly blamed the Security Council for the ceasefire's failure, saying it should have condemned a car boom in Damascus Friday that killed at least eight people and maimed more than 30.
"The Council's inability to condemn this attack encouraged the beturbanned goons to continue their crimes," it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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Yesterday a reader/commenter queued up an article for the Burg. It consisted of a link to an unclassified but For Official Use Only (FOUO) DOD document.
Rantburg respects the importance of sensitive information. FOUO means what it says: for use by agencies/officials who need the info to execute their duties.
Please do not post such materials, or links to them. They will be deleted.
#1
me·a cul·pa [ mày ə kl p ]
1.expressing guilt or fault: used to express an admission of your own guilt
2.formal apology: a formal apology or acknowledgment of responsibility or guilt
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012 0:31
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#2
So, avoiding the obvious risk of federal indightment...what was the content you thought germaine AA?
#7
Now, if we had personages of equal integrity to quit over using the classification system to hide stuff rather than deal with it, this would be a better world for it.
#8
No doubt P2K, but in the meanwhile, since I've worked with some of the dots which it truly would not be good to have connected, I take this seriously.
And .... let's not expose Fred to various complaints/charges, 'kay?
#9
I have no problem with the Rant handling of the issue. It's the boys [and girls] on the other side who abuse the system. There are real penalties for those who compromise the system. There are no real penalties for those who abuse the system.
#10
The document was a Field Manual (FM), outlining attack strategies employed in Afghanistan by the joint military operations against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
The document is posted at an open website, which posts materials on military, security and intelligence.
I appreciate and accept the guidance of Rantburg's Editorial Staff and will not submit any material nor links to this type of material in the future.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/30/2012 9:39
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#11
Thank you for not posting FOUO or other material of that sort. Regardless of how out-in-the-open the material it is, folks with clearances have sworn to view such material only with a need to know. I'd imagine there are some folks here to whom that would apply.
#13
You would be amazed at how easy it is to find classified material on the net. An indictment of how sloppy the Obama Regime's handling or such material?
Or.
On purpose, since Hussein and his admin leans in favor of America's enemies.
#15
If people continue to post classified or FOUO material, I shall be forced to avoid this site.
An UNCLASSIIFED//FOUO document or portion is unclassified; It may have personally identifiable information like social security numbers, or it may have info about personnel decisions. In any case, if it is classified correctly, it has information you don't need to see and would not want others to see about you. If it is classified incorrectly, it isn't your job to disseminate it incorrectly. And public disclosure of a classified document does not declassify it.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/30/2012 19:42
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#16
I support the editorial policy here, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the classification system is used wisely by our public servants. Read Senator Moynihan's book on the topic if you doubt me.
Also, read this article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/lincolns-p-r-coup/) in the NY Times of all places, that describes how President Lincoln published the U.S. Government foreign correspondence during the Civil War.
Ofttimes the things we wish to keep secret are better off shared.
[An Nahar] The Kurdish rebel sits fiddling with his Kalashnikov looking bored when a comrade suddenly breaks into screams of "holy shit! Allahu akbar" as a series of kabooms reverberate from the front line.
"Take it easy, take it easy, he can't hear you," says the Kurd, sitting next to a pile of broken glass on the street, his jeans rolled up to reveal knock-off black plimsolls with the word "PRADA" written on the label.
From where he stands checking the IDs of civilians crossing the front line of the Syrian war in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... he can see the checkpoint of the Kurdish militia reviled by many of his comrades in the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab, Free Syrian Army (FSA).
But although he and his comrades say they are brothers fighting together to bring down Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... , at their post in the neighborhood of Bushtan al-Basha they disagree on what a new Syria would look like.
"We need an Islamic government," says 20-year-old Mutassim, before his Allahu Akbar chants, his beard wispy and a crocheted white prayer cap rammed on top of his head.
But the Kurd, who does not want to give his name, says he joined the rebels to avoid national service in President Bashir al-Assad's army, and not to be a "mujahid" like Mutassim.
Asked whether he wants an Islamic government, he gives an emphatic "No".
"We need a government for everyone," he added. After chatting a bit longer, his commander barks across the street for him to go back to his checkpoint. He doesn't move.
One day earlier, festivities broke out nearby between the FSA and Kurdish beturbanned goons as Mohammedans celebrated Eid al-Adha, in which one watchdog said 30 people were killed.
The fighting in Ashrafiyeh on Friday was the deadliest such incident between Kurds and the armed opposition of the 19-month uprising against Assad and came one day after the rebels moved into the mixed neighborhood.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the leftist and secular Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that controls the area and which professes to be neutral, blamed both the regime and the FSA for the violence.
There are deep tensions between the PYD, which has been seen as doing the regime's bidding, and the rebels, seen by the Kurds as being influenced by an Islamist agenda.
But the FSA, which is already overstretched and under armed, can ill afford to take on the Kurds, no matter how much their foot soldiers bray for Dire Revenge™.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[Dawn] UN chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... renewed an appeal Monday for global nuclear disarmament, with a special plea to North Korea to divert its scant resources from nuclear weapons to improving living standards.
Some say nuclear disarmament is utopian I say the illusion is that nuclear weapons provide security, Ban said in Seoul where he was accepting a peace prize from his home country.
Stressing the inability of nuclear weapons to defend against the threats of crime, terror and disease, the secretary general argued that their inherently destabilising presence was unwarranted in the post-Cold War era.
How, then, do we explain that amidst a global financial crisis, the nuclear-weapon states seem intent on modernising their arsenals for decades to come?
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
Fred, you are the master of understatement.
Ban said he was accepting a peace prize from his home country.
He is in illustrious company of recent. Some would consider this faint or none-at-all praise.
[Dawn] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... will build a massive Islamic centre complete with a university and a mosque in Afghanistan, an Afghan minister said Monday, describing the project as grand and unique.
Estimated to cost up to $100 million, the centre on a hilltop in central Kabul will house up to 5,000 students, Dayi-Ul Haq Abed, the acting Hajj and religious affairs minister told AFP.
It will be named after King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands Abdullah ... Fifth out of 37 sons of King Abdulaziz to ascend to the throne. He is, after his half-brothers Bandar and Musa'id, the third eldest of the living sons of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. Abdullah's mother is from the Rashid clan, longtime rivals of the Saud. He has 6 sons and 15 daughters and about $20 billion. His youngest son is just seven years old... bin Abdulaziz, the minister added.
The agreement was signed last week in Jeddah. The construction will start next year, in couple of months or so, Abed said.
The mosque, similar to the Faisal Mosque in the Pak capital of Islamabad that was also built by oil-rich Saudi Arabia in 1980s, will hold 15,000 worshippers at a time.
The minister said the centre will be run jointly by the Saudi and Afghan ministries of religious affairs. Other universities in Afghanistan are run by the higher education ministry.
Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries along with Pakistain and the United Arab Emirates that recognised the hardline Islamist Taliban regime during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
This here is a great move, given how irreligious the average Afghan is.
#2
Is this one of those victory mosque things such as the one in Manhattan? My pooch used to pea on fire hydrants--after that he thought he owned them.
#3
Fire hydrants serve a practical purpose. What's the practical purpose of what the Saudis are peeing on?
Posted by: American Delight ||
10/30/2012 13:34
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#4
Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries -- along with Pakistain and the United Arab Emirates -- that recognised the hardline Islamist Taliban regime during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001
How many of them are still supporting the Taliban?
#5
"How many of them are still supporting the Taliban?"
All of them, silly.
Next question?
Posted by: Barbara ||
10/30/2012 13:50
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#6
That is the symbol of what is going wrong in Afghanistan: when Kabul fell we should have been airing non-stop the stories about Al Queda people (Arabs) looking down on Afghans or raprting Afghan women. Resentùent twoard Arabs was the fortst step for resentment against Islam. Insteadd we rolled the red carpet to the Arabs on their way back: we funded the Hadj for the Afgahsn, awarded the contract for a network for cell phones to an Arab company. And of course we let them fund new mosques for preaching hate againt us. Now the old pig will build a mega-mosque and we will do nothinbg at ikt be it blowing it or telling the old pis woulmd not give a cent ifb they were starving but he ver has money for mosques. Or more exactly agencies for releiveinbg the Afgans of theior money through the Hadj.
#7
JFM, I know a woman of Pashtun ancestry who says we should have aired lots of pictures of Arabs with their faces covered by a kaffiyah and the words:
"Look at them - they are cowards! They cover their faces like girls!!!"
#8
Still, this will give plenty of Afghans the opportunity to learn that the only thing lovable about the Saudis is their money...something only the Pakistanis, for some reason, do not understand.
The wonders of US shale gas continue to amaze. We receive fresh evidence by the day that swathes of American industry have acquired a massive and lasting advantage in energy costs over global rivals, demolishing assumptions about US economic decline.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
FTA: The gas differential with Europe and Asia will narrow gradually over time but there is no genuine global market for [natural] gas. Prices are local, dictated by pipelines.
Maybe US lawyers can still put a stop to all this nonsense, and shut those pipelines down, to save endangered dung beetles or whatever.
#3
I knew it was the Telegraph when I read the headline.
This is nonsense. Germany for example has never lost its industries and is in fact moving head. Jobs return home from China. Green energy is on the rise (not so much solar, but wind). Coal is getting "cleaner". Energy costs are rising but large energy consuming industries get tax exemptions in order to stay competitive.
The U.S. need to push for the return of highly-skilled manufacturing jobs.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2012 9:37
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#4
..for that it needs highly skilled workers which our union based education system does not generate. No/low standards, punish the gifted and reward the unmotivated, stovepipe the system for college rather than vocational training, and orient the system for rewarding the administrators are the orthodoxy of the 'professional' educators.
#5
Procopius, you nail it.
And instead of millions of undocumented immigrants who get a free pass, highly skilled people from non-Muslim countries find it hard to move to the U.S., legally.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2012 14:52
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#6
"millions of undocumented immigrants who get a free pass"
Please don't go all PC on us, EC.
The words you're looking for are ILLEGAL ALIENS.
Posted by: Barbara ||
10/30/2012 16:04
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[Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... Post] The Red Thingy organization says that the humanitarian situation for the people of Bani Walid in Libya remains difficult. To help those who fled the city after heavy festivities last week, the International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC), working with the Libyan Red Islamic Thingy, distributed food, drinking water, medicine and other essential items to more than 10,000 people in the nearby cities of Tarhuna and Orban.
Many people had to get out of Bani Walid during the fighting in the city almost a month ago. The number of displaced people has been increasing, especially since festivities intensified about a week ago. Many of them have taken refuge in nearby towns, including Tarhuna (100 kilometres northwest of Bani Walid) and Orban (90 kilometres northwest).
Asma Khaliq Awan, the ICRC delegate who is coordinating aid in the area said that these people are distressed, confused and angry. They left their homes with very few belongings and need help, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Spanish shepherds led a flock of more than 2,000 sheep through central Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.
Many tourists and residents were surprised to see traffic cut to allow the ovine parade to bleat its way across some of Madrid's most upscale urban streets.
The right to use droving routes that wind across land that was open fields and woodland before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great metropolis it is today has existed since at least 1273.
Every year, a handful of shepherds defend the right and, following an age-old tradition, on Sunday paid 25 maravedis coins first minted in the 11th century to city hall to use the crossing.
Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles (125,000 kilometers) of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer and more protected lowland grazing in winter.
The movement is called transhumance and in Spain up until recently involved close to a million animals a year, mostly sheep and cattle.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
From the headline, I thought this was a demonstration against govt. austerity and cutbacks. Never mind.
[An Nahar] Turkish artillery struck back on Monday after a shell fired from neighboring Syria ploughed into Turkish territory without causing any casualties, the state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... reported.
The shell struck near the village of Besaslan in southern Hatay province amid escalating festivities between Syrian loyalist troops and rebels in the Syrian town of Haram, just across the border, Anatolia said.
Turkey has systematically retaliated to every cross-border shelling since Syrian fire killed five Turks on October 3.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[Tolo News] Sectarian bloodshed has left at least 88 people dead in Myanmar this month, the authorities said Monday, with more than 26,000 others forced to flee a wave of rioting and arson.
Hundreds more homes were burned down over the weekend as security forces struggled to quell festivities between Buddhists and Mohammedans in western Rakhine state that have seen whole neighbourhoods razed.
Four more deaths were reported, although they were believed to be from earlier festivities.
"Altogether 49 men and 39 women have been killed," a government official told AFP, bringing the total corpse count since June to about 180. Rights groups fear the actual number of people killed could be much higher.
"About 300 houses were burnt down in Pauktaw town on Sunday but there were no casualties in that incident," said the official, who did not want to be named.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
Bloody borders.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/30/2012 9:05
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#2
Christians in Nigeria and Buddhists in Thailand feel your pain. /sarc off
[Tolo News] The NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -led international forces (Isaf) in Afghanistan cannot take military action against any cross-border incursions into the country because this was excluded from the Isaf mandate at the start of the Afghan war in 2001, an Isaf front man said Monday.
Brig Gen Gunter Katz said that the proposal of the Afghan delegation at the first Bonn Conference in 2001 which sought to obligate Isaf to defend Afghanistan from any foreign threats was never accepted by the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... "In the first Bonn conference in December 2001 there was a proposal of the Afghan delegation to include the protection of the border of Afghanistan in one of the annexes.
Actually this annex was part of the Bonn proposal however, this annex never made it into our mandate that we received from the United Nations," Katz said at the presser in Kabul.
The Isaf mandate obliged the NATO-led forces to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for hard boyz again, Katz said.
His comments come after both countries have increasingly blamed each other of harbouring Death Eaters who conduct attacks on the other side of the border.
The Afghan government has also accused Pakistain military of shelling some of its eastern provinces and has requested Isaf's assistance in stopping the attacks.
Katz emphasised that the ongoing cross-border attacks between both Afghanistan and Pakistain is a matter of concern for Isaf and negotiations are underway to tackle the issues.
"It remains a matter of concern that there is cross-border of activities on both side of the borders and we understand that there is a need to step up the fight against the terrorism and extremism in the border area," Katz said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
seeing as how that border isn't defined by an established picket fence line, things can be kinda fluid
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/30/2012 9:44
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The Durand Durand line is anything but fluid, it's totally sacred, no one messes with the Durand Durand line expect for maybe Humbert Humbert and 20 million Pashtuns everywhere.
[An Nahar] Syria's conflict is going from bad to worse, the U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... peace envoy said Monday after key talks in Moscow on finding a solution, expressing disappointment that his four-day truce plan had failed.
"I have said and it bears repeating again and again that the Syrian crisis is very very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting worse," envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"If it's not a civil war, I don't know what it is," Brahimi said after describing a Syrian woman whose two sons were fighting in opposing armies in the conflict. "This civil war must end," he said.
Russia had thrown its support behind Brahimi's call for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... 's army and the rebels to lay down arms during the Eid al-Adha holiday.
However shelling and car boomings resumed hours after the ceasefire had been due to take effect on Friday, with each side blaming the other for breaking it, and the envoy admitted that they may have been done by rogue groups.
Brahimi said that some kabooms "during the Eid period in the civilian population area are definitely terrorist acts by groups we have no contact with," calling them "definitely condemnable".
The envoy said the failed appeal will not discourage him from looking for a solution to the crisis in Syria, calling on the international community to "come together and help the people of Syria find a solution to their crisis."
Posted by: Fred ||
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Jordan's announcement that it has foiled an al Qaeda plot to bomb the capital highlights the threat to Washington's ally from Islamist fighters hardened by conflict in neighbouring Syria, and the danger of Damascus trying to export its crisis. Keep in mind last week's San Diego Union-Tribune story of a "secretly deployed" Marine ground-attack squadron....
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Government troops and unidentified rebel forces clashed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... Sunday, military officials said.
Heavy weapons fire could be heard after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) at Sake in North Kivu region, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the city of Goma, officials and residents said.
A regional military official confirmed the fighting to AFP but could not identify the rebels.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The M23 rebel group controls part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's restive east.
Army tanks left Goma for Sake late in the evening.
The M23 was formed in May by former fighters in an ethnic Tutsi rebel group that was integrated into the military under a 2009 peace deal whose terms the mutineers claim were never fully implemented.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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As usual, Bing West is spot on:
Our ambassador to Libya was killed in our own consulate in Benghazi on the night of September 11. For the next six weeks, President Obama repeated the same talking point: The morning after the attack, he ordered increased security in our embassies in the region.
Suddenly, on the campaign trail in Denver on October 26, he changed his story. "The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive," he said, "to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe."
Notice the repeated use of the present tense, implying that he gave the order during the attack. Mr. Obama met with his national-security team, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 5:00 p.m. Washington time. For over an hour, the consulate staff had been constantly reporting that they were under assault by terrorists and Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing in action. In the White House, group-think leads to the mistaken assumption that the attackers are a spontaneous mob.
An hour after the attack has begun, the president orders the CIA and the military to do "whatever we need to do." Yet the CIA and the military do nothing, except send drones overhead to watch the seven-hour battle. A CIA employee and former Navy SEAL, Tyrone Woods, twice calls for military help. He has a laser rangefinder and is pinpointing enemy targets, radioing the coordinates. The military send no aircraft to attack the designated targets. Special Operations forces standing by, 480 miles away -- less than a two-hour plane ride -- are not deployed. Secretary of Defense Panetta later explained that this passivity was in keeping with a rule of warfare. "A basic principle," he said on October 25, "is you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on -- without having some real-time information about what's taking place."
Rarely has a spontaneous mob so thoroughly intimidated our nation. And so much for sending our squads out every day in Afghanistan on patrol, when they don't know what's going on. The next time a platoon is told to take an objective, some corporal will say, "SecDef says we don't have to go into harm's way without knowing what's going on."
Apart from the questionable philosophy of turning battle into a poker game where all cards are face up before anyone places a bet, Mr. Panetta ignored the fact that the former SEAL on the ground was giving real-time information to everyone listening in at least eight operations centers (the embassy in Tripoli, State, White House, Pentagon, CIA, Special Operations Command, Africa Command, and the National Ops Center).
The SecDef and the president have issued contradictory explanations. Either Mr. Obama ordered the Secretary of Defense to "do whatever we need to do," or he didn't. And either the secretary obeyed that order, or he didn't. And he didn't. It is also not clear whether the SecDef countermanded the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who is the direct military adviser to the president. Did the president as commander-in-chief issue an unequivocal order that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs received but chose not to execute? Or did the chairman reply that he would do nothing?
Yet the general in charge of the Africa region has allegedly said he received no directive from Washington to dispatch military aid. Members of the mutual protective society of generals are offering the bizarre defense that our Africa Command could do nothing because it has no military assets; it's some sort of ghost command. Even if that is true, the most powerful nation in the world has sufficient forces and flexibility to send fighter aircraft over a consulate in flames, or to land some troops at the secure airport east of Benghazi. After all, our embassy in Tripoli, 400 miles away, sent an aircraft with six Americans to fight in Benghazi. But our base in Sigonella, 480 miles away, sent no help.
If General Dempsey had concluded that the U.S. military should do nothing, he would have reported his decision not to act back to his commander-in-chief before the latter went to bed to rest up for his campaign trip to Las Vegas the next day. After all, the ambassador was still missing. And brave Tyrone Woods was to die in a mortar attack five hours later. President Obama would naturally be more than a bit interested in why the military and the CIA did nothing after he explicitly ordered them "to make sure we are securing our personnel."
Surely it is in the president's best interests to release a copy of his order, which the military would have sent to hundreds in the chain of command. And if the president did not direct the NSC "to do whatever we need to do," then who was in charge? When the American ambassador is attacked and remains out of American hands for over seven hours as a battle rages -- and our military sends no aid -- either the crisis-response system inside the White House is incompetent, or top officials are covering up.
#3
"Notice the repeated use of the present tense, implying that he gave the order during the attack."
The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive, he said, to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe.
Obama also uses the personal pronouns I, me, my and mine more than most--the language of the full blown narcissist.
#5
Obviously the fault lies with the phone system and the millionaires who run it profiting while our troops are in need of fresh information and morale boost from their government during tough times. Reelect me and you can be sure that the phone company involved and everyone deemed to have a phone will be made to pay for this action (or lack of action).
Posted by: The Prez ||
10/30/2012 8:48
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[An Nahar] Ammar al-Dadikhi, aka Abou Ibrahim, the infamous abductor of the Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz, has been killed during an attempt to storm a town in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... 's countryside, the Beirut-based, pan-Arab television al-Mayadeen reported on Monday.
Kurdish popular committees killed Abou Ibrahim and four members of his group as they were trying to storm the town of Qastal Jindo in Aleppo's countryside, al-Mayadeen said.
Abou Ibrahim, the head of the so-called Northern Storm Brigade, shot to notoriety in mid-summer when his group grabbed credit for kidnapping a group of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Aazaz.
Anti-regime activists in Aazaz and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have denounced Abou Ibrahim as a criminal.
The man was reportedly maimed in a Syrian Arclight airstrike on Aazaz on August 16.
Eleven Lebanese pilgrims were kidnapped by rebels in Aazaz on May 22 as they were returning home from a pilgrimage in Iran.
One abductee was released in August in what his captors said was a goodwill gesture and another was released in September.
The kidnappers had repeatedly linked the release of the Lebanese captives to Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , a close ally of the Syrian regime, apologizing over his stances on the Syrian revolt.
On Saturday, the Northern Storm Brigade said it had enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! Lebanese journalist Fidaa Itani.
Itani has reassured that he is in good health in a YouTube video, clarifying that he is under house arrest.
In a statement published on its website, the Aazaz Northern Storm Brigade said that Itani was in its custody due to security reasons.
The statement pointed out that Itani was not incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! because of his nationality or political affiliation and that he will be asked to leave Syrian territory after a few days.
Itani, who works for LBCI television and other news channels, was enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! because his work is incompatible with the path of the Syrian revolution and rebels, the rebels posted on their page.
They pointed out that reports and videos have not proven yet Itani's involvement with any party that works against the revolution, but his presence as a journalist no longer receives approval in areas controlled by the rebels.
When contacted by LBCI, Abou Ibrahim confirmed that Itani is in the custody of Aazaz rebels, and that he was enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! while accompanying a group of fighters in Aleppo.
Itani was taking photos of a lot of military operations which made us suspicious and therefore we took him to Aazaz, Abou Ibrahim said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... al-Jadeed television quoted sources informed on the negotiations to free Itani as saying that al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... bloc MP Oqab Saqr is exerting "strenuous efforts" to free him.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[Tolo News] Reaction to Friday's suicide kaboom in Faryab province continued Monday with international leaders sending letters of condolence to President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... as the head of the religious Ulema Council blamed Pakistain.
Karzai's office on Monday released a statement that it had received official letters of condolence from Turkey, Spain and La Belle France which strongly condemned the attack and conveyed their support at Afghanistan's efforts for peace.
It came after the head of Afghanistan's National Ulema Council, who went with Karzai to Faryab on Sunday to meet the families of the bombing's victims, accused Pakistain of planning such suicide kabooms.
"We spread the Islamic religion to the others and they announce Jihad against us. They themselves have said that Jihad in Afghanistan is the defense of Pakistain," Qeyamudin Kashaf said Sunday, adding that suicide attacks went against the tenants of Islam.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart... Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission chief Mohammad Musa Mahmoodi said a complete investigation was needed.
"We want a full investigation of the incident and punishment of the perpetrators so that people know who was behind the attack," he told TOLOnews on Monday.
"The government should exclude any parties trying to misuse the peace efforts of the Afghan government for launching such deadly and horrifying attack," he added.
International Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... (HRW) concurred with Mahmoodi, saying the incident might even be considered a war crime.
"This is a troubling incident obviously, and especially troubling because it comes on a religious holiday," HRW researched in Kabul Heather Barr told TOLOnews.
"The incident absolutely should be investigated to determine whether what happened was a war crime. Even during a war, people have a responsibility on both sides to protect civilians, to not intentionally target civilians. If there is going to be harm to civilians it should be less the military objective which is achieved by this attack than what happens during war," she said.
"So, it's very important that not just the Afghan government but also the international community, the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... and the Human rights commissions should try to understand what happened and see if there are people to blame that should be punished," Barr added.
Afghan politicians also condemned the attack on Monday with the Second Vice Speaker of Parliament Nehmatullah Ghafari saying they denounced the bombing in the strongest possible terms.
Paktika ...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo... MP Nader Khan Katawazi reiterated calls for an investigation and suitable punishment.
"We seriously ask the Afghan government to do the same to those who launch such attacks," he said Monday.
Karzai also addressed a gathering on Sunday in his visit to Faryab, saying that whoever carried out the attack was the enemy of Islam and the enemy of the Afghan people's happiness.
Karzai mentioned that among the families he met was a child who lost a number of family members in the attack, pledging to support the surviving members of the family.
The child said to him that six of this family were killed and two children were maimed, with him being the eldest now at home.
"How do I find food or an education?" Karzai said the child asked him.
But some Faryab residents criticised Karzai during his visit, saying that various gunnies had been released from prison and they had returned to carry out attacks, killing the innocent people.
Over forty people were killed and around fifty others injured in Friday's single-bomb suicide attack at the Eid Gah mosque in Faryab's capital Maimana city.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Thousands of pro-secular Turks marched Monday in Ankara to mark Republic Day, defying a ban by the supposedly moderate Islamist government. Carrying national flags, demonstrators shouted slogans, "Fully independent Turkey," and "We are soldiers of Mustafa Kemal," referring to the republic's founding father.
The rally organized by dozens of civil society organizations and backed by some opposition parties began outside the first parliament building in the historic Ulus district.
Police used pepper spray after a group of protesters screaming and hollering attempted to break a police barricade, a witness told AFP.
Some 3,500 coppers were deployed in the area, according to media reports.
The Ankara governor's office has banned the Republic Day rally, arguing that the state's security services received intelligence that groups might be planning "provocative" actions. Republic Day is a national holiday in Turkey but it has in recent years become a platform for opposition groups worried that the current regime is expunging the country's secular tradition.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and other government opponents have voiced outrage that celebrating the republic's 89th anniversary should be made into a criminal act.
CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who attended the Ankara rally, said: "We will mark the Republic Day despite the pressure."
The Turkish republic was founded on October 29, 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, which spanned six centuries and at its peak stretched from southeast Europe to the Middle East and North Africa.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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[An Nahar] Republican White House candidate Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O... canceled campaign events on Monday and Tuesday as a show of sensitivity as millions of Americans hunker down as Hurricane Sandy approaches.
The decision, announced by his campaign, means that Romney will not appear in Wisconsin later on Monday and he will also postpone events elsewhere on Tuesday, complicating his bid to maintain momentum a week before election day.
Romney communications director Gail Gitcho said that the former Massachusetts governor and his running mate Paul Ryan ...U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party. He proposed an alternative to President B.O.'s 2011 budget and made himself the target of both Democrat and Republican verbal pies... would cancel events "out of sensitivity for the millions of Americans in the path of Hurricane Sandy."
"Governor Romney believes this is a time for the nation and its leaders to come together to focus on those Americans who are in harm's way," Gitcho said, as Romney followed through on plans to hold one event in Ohio on Monday.
Romney's move followed President Barack Obama I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money... 's decision to halt campaigning and return to Washington to manage the U.S. government's effort to deal with the storm, expected to roar ashore in northeastern states later Monday.
Obama had been due to campaign in swing states Florida, Ohio and Virginia on Monday and to travel to Colorado and Wisconsin on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/30/2012
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#1
Stuck in the WH with Mooch, golf out of the question, he's gonna be one cranky SOB
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/30/2012 8:31
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#2
Important not to look like he's trying to make political gain out of a tragedy. At least he's not trying to solve the hurricane as McCaine tried when he threw away his campaign at the last minute.
#3
I'd like to see Romney keep kicking butt up until Tuesday but if he doesn't have it sewn up now a few days probably won't make that big a difference. McCain was McCain's biggest problem. He didn't take the fight to Obama during his campaign. He still got a fair amount of the vote.
#4
Agree on mccain but if you look at polls it was very close until he shut down to fix the economy. Thats when hus numbers dumped. Could be folks finally saw him, or tgey mistook him for an opportunist or whatever. After that it was pin the blame on Palin time as Mccain advisors tried to avoid blame
#6
I'm a fan of Palin. I think she was dragged into the big game before she had been seasoned enough and absorbed the Bush Derangment syndrom of the left with a smile only to find McCain's advisors trying to blame her for their own failure when it was all over. I would love to see Romney put her in charge of the RNC.
[Dawn] Pakistain's interior minister and the foreign ministers of Britannia and the UAE visited the English hospital treating shot Pak schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai on Monday, Britannia's Foreign Office said.
Britannia's Foreign Office said the trio also met with the father of 15-year-old Malala, who was shot in the head by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) gunnies earlier this month for campaigning for girls' education in an attack that shocked the world.
She was flown from Pakistain on October 15 for treatment at a specialist hospital in Birmingham, central England, in an air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"I visited the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham today to enquire after the health of Malala and to convey messages of good health and best wishes on behalf of the government and the whole Pak nation," said interior minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. "We are grateful to the hospital authorities, especially the doctors treating Malala, for taking care of her in a most professional manner. As a result, she has made very good recovery in the past few days."
He expressed gratitude to Britannia and the UAE for their support for Malala, who needs reconstructive surgery after a bullet grazed her brain, coming within centimetres of killing her.
"Malala's incident should not be seen in isolation," Malik said. "She is a symbol of courage and determination against the forces of Death Eater ideology.
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[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq grabbed credit on Monday for a series of shootings and bombings over the Eid al-Adha holiday that killed dozens of people nationwide.
The Islamic State of Iraq said the attacks over the four-day Moslem holiday from Friday were in response to the purported arrest of Sunni Arab women by Iraqi security forces in an effort to locate their wanted male relatives.
"The Islamic State alerted a part of its security forces in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... and elsewhere to send a quick message to the apostate beasts and their government," said an ISI statement.
"They will pay dearly for what they have done, and they will not dream securely in the night or day, during Eid or not."
Attacks over the Eid al-Adha holiday have so far claimed 44 lives and left more than 150 people maimed, with the worst of the violence striking on Saturday when 31 people were killed.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
An Afghan policeman opened fire on Coalition soldiers operating in Helmand province earlier today, killing two British soldiers. Today's killing of Coalition forces marks the 40th green-on-blue, or insider attack, in Afghanistan that has been reported so far this year.
Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S. state of Tennessee have unveiled what could be the world's fastest supercomputer.
Iran's state media reports two Iranian warships have docked at a Sudanese port to convey a "message of peace," a week after Khartoum accused Israel of attacking a Sudanese weapons factory. According to IRNA, a destroyer and a helicopter carrier were sent to ensure the protection of shipping lanes. A Sudanese military spokesman cited in local media says the visit is also a chance for Sudan to learn about advanced weaponry on the Iranian ships.
The Palazzo Hotel and Casino boasts many features of Las Vegas excess -- an indoor waterfall, a smoke-filled gaming area, seven decorative fountains, and guest suites with three TVs and power-controlled curtains. Yet the 50-story complex achieved an unlikely and lucrative milestone after opening in 2008. A powerful private organization declared it an environmentally friendly "green" building, the world's largest at the time.
The wife of a senior Ethiopian politician was on Monday charged with funnelling money from the Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Islamist terror groups, at a hearing at the Ethiopian Federal High Court, on Monday.
[An Nahar] Tunisia's security forces union called on its members to wear red armbands for three days starting Monday, in protest against a suspected Islamist attack on a police officer.
[An Nahar] 
[An Nahar] Egypt's Coptic Christians voted on Monday for a new leader to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who died in March leaving behind a community anxious about its status under an Islamist-led government.
[Dawn] Interior Minister 
[An Nahar] Explosions shook Syria's capital on Monday as warplanes launched their heaviest air raids yet and two 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands Abdullah
[An Nahar] Syria's conflict is going from bad to worse, the U.N.-
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Government troops and unidentified rebel forces clashed in eastern 
[An Nahar] Ammar al-Dadikhi, aka Abou Ibrahim, the infamous abductor of the Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz, has been killed during an attempt to storm a town in 
[Dawn] Pakistain's interior minister and the foreign ministers of 
[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq 
