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18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai
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-Election 2012
Iowa to Int'l Election Observers - GTFO
Iowa has joined Texas in warning international election observers of possible criminal prosecution if they violate state laws and get near polling places on Election Day.

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz — like Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott last week — on Tuesday threatened Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe election observers with arrest if they came within 300 feet of a polling place’s entrance, in violation of state law. (In Texas, it’s 100 feet.)

“My office met with two delegation representatives last week to discuss Iowa’s election process, and it was explained to them that they are not permitted at the polls,” Schultz said in a statement. “Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.”

The OSCE — comprised of 56 countries, including the United States — is chiefly a crisis mediation and conflict resolution group in Europe, Asia and North America. Since 2002, the organization’s poll watchers have observed six U.S. elections, without incident, said Janez Lenari, the OSCE’s director for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Lenari wrote, “The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable. The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokesman, said last week the group assured Texas authorities and the State Department that observers will respect Texas laws.

“To my knowledge, [Texas] is the only state that came forward and said ‘please reassure us that you’re going to follow our state electoral law.’ And they have now been reassured,” Nuland said.
Posted by: Raj || 10/31/2012 14:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Since 2002, the organization’s poll watchers have observed six U.S. elections

Why?

Drunk/car keys/light pole + the food is better here.
Posted by: Thusort Ebbomoting1144 || 10/31/2012 17:11 Comments || Top||

#2  I think my girl from Planet fYROM had Iowa...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 19:58 Comments || Top||

#3  One of the reasons the OSCE observers go to the U.S. as well is that it makes their life easier in less democratic states since they can always say: Look, we do even watch the U.S. elections...
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/31/2012 20:42 Comments || Top||

#4  the food is better here.

And cheaper. Ditto for the VAT-less shopping.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/31/2012 20:50 Comments || Top||

#5  But I gotta say that the weenie boy's "you MUST do this" attitude is really pissing me off.
Walk into my office with that attitude and I'd tell you to fuck off too..
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 21:03 Comments || Top||

#6  The obligation is just to invite them, not the breaking of local laws to accommodate them.
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/31/2012 21:13 Comments || Top||

#7  Forgive us, EC. The letters U N make a lot of Americans rather twitchy. Was not always like that. My junior high school shop teacher once gave an impassioned speech about how the UN was the last, best hope of Mankind. Quite remarkable since he usually just yelled and threatened us. This was back in the Jurassic Era when U Thant was Secetary General (if memory serves). Times have changed.

Since then, we have seen Arafat armed with a pistol in the General Assembly, child-molesting peace keepers, the egregious Human Rights Council... I could go on, but basically the UN has turned into the Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/31/2012 22:47 Comments || Top||

#8  Europeans are always getting their asses kicked, twice during the past 90 years, and now their economy is like water in a bath tub: steep decline, stagnation, then down the drain due to socialist corruption.

And now they are coming to the United States hoping that watching Americans vote gives them some sense of legitimacy.

Losers...
Posted by: Thrert Creresh3656 || 10/31/2012 22:50 Comments || Top||

#9  Come on down to Ward 4 in Quincy - I'll give ya a personal tour of Wollaston Harbor!
Posted by: Raj || 10/31/2012 22:52 Comments || Top||

#10  I think I shed a small tear of joy for my state.
Posted by: Charles || 10/31/2012 23:23 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Wolfowitz: US Did Almost Everything Possible, After The Attacks
From what I can determine from talking with someone who has spoken directly with key general officers and others involved in the US response to the Benghazi attacks, it would appear that – contrary to Panetta’s “basic principle” – the US did almost everything possible to protect our people once the attacks had started, though not in advance:

The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.

A team that appears to have been CIA personnel deployed quickly (and bravely) from the Annex to the Consulate and rescued everyone they found alive there. (It’s not clear whether Ambassador Stevens had already been taken by Libyans to the hospital or whether they simply failed to find him.)

A mainly CIA response force deployed quickly from Tripoli to reinforce the Annex and facilitate its successful evacuation.

Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but – given the distances involved – arrived at Sigonella only after the crisis was over.

Also, the European command (EUCOM) deployed its number one counter terrorism force, which was training in central Europe, as quickly as possible, but it arrived in Sigonella after the evacuation of the Annex was complete.

Other special forces deployed to Sigonella but arrived on the 12th after it was too late to make a difference in Benghazi.

There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.

The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.

The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that. In any case, the decision not to do so was made by the tactical commander, General Ham, as it should have been.

In any case, there are many other things about administration policy, behavior, and conduct that deserve to be challenged.

Worth the click
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 14:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Consulate overrun in minutes? What happened to a 7 hour long battle? I thnk Wolfwitz is fudging something.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 14:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Also, the European command (EUCOM) deployed its number one counter terrorism force, which was training in central Europe, as quickly as possible, but it arrived in Sigonella after the evacuation of the Annex was complete.

This signaled ENDEX! Anyone left on the ground was SOL. Picture finally becoming more clear.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 14:55 Comments || Top||

#3  rjschwarz -- the seven hours included at the Ambassador's location and the CIA annex -- two attached occurred.
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 15:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Then why all the fudging and lying from this regime? I don't buy it. Something is still very fishy about this.

What about the meeting with Panetta and Biden DURING the attack. If it was all over why talk about not sending troops into harm's way without enough intelligence? Are "key general officers and others" playing CYA games? Is Wolfowitz, a consumate insider, covering for his buds?

This stinks.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/31/2012 15:11 Comments || Top||


Obama Met With Panetta and Biden at WH As Benghazi Terror Attack Unfolded
President Barack Obama met with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Sept. 11, 2012 at 5:00 PM—just 55 minutes after the State Department notified the White House and the Pentagon that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was under attack.

The meeting between Obama, Panetta and Biden had been scheduled before the attack took place, and the Department of Defense is not commenting now on whether the three men were aware when they met that day of the ongoing attack or whether Obama used that meeting to discuss with his defense secretary what should be done to defend the U.S. personnel who at that very moment were fighting for their lives in Benghazi.

“Secretary Panetta met with President Obama, as the White House-provided scheduled indicates,” Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday. “However, neither the content nor the subject of discussions between the President and his advisors are appropriate for disclosure.”
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 13:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Benghazigate would be getting traction if the MSM were not abetting a coverup:
Benghazi blackout and Benghazi much worse than a 3rd rate burglary Via Instapundit and RealClearPolitics
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  The only American that died at Watergate was a Streetlight.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:41 Comments || Top||

#3  but why Biden?
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/31/2012 23:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Benghazi-gate keeps getting better-n-better - NOT - for the Bammer + Admin.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/01/2012 0:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Have America's Generals dropped in Quality?
"American generals were managed very differently in World War Two than they were in subsequent wars," writes Thomas E. Ricks, the former Pentagon correspondent of the Washington Post. "During World War Two, senior American commanders were given a few months in which to succeed, be killed or wounded, or be replaced."

Mr. Ricks rightly puts this policy down to Gen. George C. Marshall, U.S. Army chief of staff from 1939 to 1945 and one of the chief architects of the defeat of the Axis. During World War II, 16 generals were relieved of their command out of the 155 who commanded divisions, as well as no fewer than five corps commanders.

By contrast, the most senior soldier to be relieved during the eight years that the United States fought in Iraq after 2003 was a colonel, Joe Dowdy. "As matters stand now," Mr. Ricks quotes another colonel saying, "a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses his part in a war."
Posted by: Frozen Al || 10/31/2012 12:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, lots and lots of McClellans.

It's what happens when the peacetime system of promotion and selection trumps any attempt to introduce a wartime system of promotion and selection. Wartime performance, for which the organization exists in the first place, should override all else. There is no fairness in war. There is no box checking in war. There is only skill and leadership on the battlefield which is all that should matter.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 14:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Ask the British about General Clark. Most of them know the story better than the Americans. Can't believe that tool is still running around being a foreign policy advisor.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 14:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Mark or Wesley?
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:35 Comments || Top||

#4  ..if you ask people from Texas, the former. They've never forgotten the Rapido River.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 18:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Mark Clark vs. Smiling Albert... has there ever been a bigger mis-match?

Sad, stupid and expensive.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 18:45 Comments || Top||

#6  I believe it was Wesley.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 21:36 Comments || Top||

#7  American forces have been hobbled by political constraints since WWII. The commanders are better, but the inability to fight wars as all-out affairs where civilian casualties are an afterthought has led to a lot of inconclusive engagements, leaving the enemy with the resources to rebuild his forces. The rank incompetence of WWII commanders was eye-opening, ranging from Mark Clark's disastrous river crossing to Doug MacArthur allowing his air units to be destroyed on the ground *after* receiving news of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/31/2012 21:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Right. Our Generals are probably better than they ever have been. Still, just as in 1862, you could fire 90% of them and be no worse off.
Posted by: rammer || 10/31/2012 21:51 Comments || Top||


Africa North
To Live and Die in Benghazi
By Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (ret.):

What is it like to spend your last moments on earth fighting for your life?

To have devoted your life, and your life's work, to a great nation -- to serve it well and honorably -- and serve for it with courage and distinction, to all come down to a last, frantic few seconds, spent defending you and your fellow Americans and call for the cavalry to come help, and no cavalry comes--and you die.

This is what the two former Navy SEALs, under the employment of CIA, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, faced in their final moments in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 10/31/2012 12:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
Taliban can run for Afghan president: election chief
KABUL: The Taliban and other insurgent leaders could stand as candidates in Afghanistan's next presidential election, to be held in April 2014, the country's top poll official said Wednesday.

President Hamid Karzai, who is serving his second term as leader of the war-torn nation, is constitutionally barred for the moment from running in the election and no clear candidate to succeed him has yet emerged.

The vote, scheduled for April 5, 2014, is seen as crucial to Afghan stability after the withdrawal of Nato troops
Nothing like having an election in which murderous thugs stand for office to lend stability to a failing country...
and Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) insisted his body would act impartially.

"We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates," Manawi told a news conference.

"There will be no discrimination," the IEC chief added, defending the body in response to a question about its impartiality.

Hezb-i-Islami is the faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Who throws grenades like a Nancy boy...
which wages an insurgency along with the Taliban against Karzai's Western-backed government.

Under the IEC timetable, initial results of the election will be announced on April 24 and final results on May 14, with May 28 set aside for any potential run-off vote.
This article starring:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 10:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Patriotism and the 'Modern World'
...
Posted by: Dale || 10/31/2012 09:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 

Only 20 views. Interesting video.
Posted by: Dale || 10/31/2012 9:52 Comments || Top||

#2  bit of a tidy up.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2012 9:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry about that.

Posted by: Dale || 10/31/2012 13:11 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
You know who, blames Sandy on Global Warming
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 08:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yawn. I did a little research yesterday and equated the rainfall event for D.C. to about a ten-year return period (frequency).

Compare with some New York clown on the news who said, "We seem to be getting a hundred-year storm every two years now." I bet he has all of Al's books.

Take a look at this: Rainfall chart.

The difference between a ten-year event in Chicago (hello,Doc White!) and a 100-year event is about 1.75" of rain in a 24-hour period - 4" for the 10-year and 5.75" for the 100-year. In a 24-hour period.

Al's trying to distract the folks from Benghazigate.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/31/2012 9:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Cause nothing says global warming like snow.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 9:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Al's trying to re-capture his glory days of global warming. Puts one in mind of this quote:

"You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."


Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 10:09 Comments || Top||

#4  In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in New England. 47,000 people died - an entire coast wiped out.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/31/2012 11:18 Comments || Top||

#5  And who else is blaming global warming but Chris Matthews
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well Professor [Michael] Oppenheimer, back in the 60s, we calls such people pigs. Pigs. No, really. They don’t care about the planet, they don’t care about the destruction of war. All they want is what they got, their stuff, and they want more of it. Is that what we’re facing here, just greed? I’m not talking about the guy at the coal mind, that’s hard work. I’m talking about people who won’t listen to you, won’t listen to science because they want more stuff.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 12:10 Comments || Top||

#6  The Global Warming industry scam makes a lot of money for its promoters. Moreover, it gives a great deal of control to big government over huge segments of our economy--as much as ObamaCare does or more. All that is needed are useful idiots.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 12:54 Comments || Top||

#7  The alternative to "Anthropogenic Climate Change" is "Non-Anthropogenic Climate Change."

No warmist has so far put forward an argument why removing humanity's influence on earth's climate system would make the present interglacial phase permanent.

Not perturbing a complex system is not the equivalent to stabilizing said system.
Posted by: Unereng Ulaper4796 || 10/31/2012 13:13 Comments || Top||

#8  No warmist has so far put forth an argument that any proposed amelioration of AGW will actually make a difference on a time frame of less than 200 years.
All their action proposals are designed to cripple Western economies. Period.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/31/2012 13:26 Comments || Top||

#9  No warmist has so far put forth which type of SUV the Dinosaurs were driving back in their 'global warming' period.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2012 13:35 Comments || Top||

#10  Voldemort?
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili || 10/31/2012 14:28 Comments || Top||

#11 

Doom Sayers, go die. Americans will be fine without you.
Posted by: Thrert Creresh3656 || 10/31/2012 15:59 Comments || Top||

#12  Hey, when Chris Matthews is on your side, you know you are...sooo screwed.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 21:11 Comments || Top||


Don't You Know Who I Am?
by Javier Manjarres

A group of sign-waving campaign ralliers comprised of both Democrat and Republican supporters outside an Aventura, Florida polling location witnessed Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz get involved in a heated altercation with an Aventura policeman after she apparently took issue with his request to not engage in campaign activities in the street which would hold up oncoming traffic.

She listened to the police officer’s respectful and reasonable request, but Wasserman Schultz continued to argue with the police officer, according to several people who witnessed the incident.

Wasserman Schultz was greeting voters and waiving her campaign signs on a street that leading into the polling site and was obstructing traffic by stopping cars before they could even enter the parking area.

The police officer respectfully asked Wasserman Schultz to move onto the sidewalk as everyone else was required to do, but the Congresswoman was unhappy with not being able to campaign how she saw it fit. Unnerved by the simple request from a police officer, Wasserman Schultz made a “well placed” phone call to some unknown individual in a position of authority. Five minutes later, the Aventura City Mayor came to the scene and was confronted by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and proceeded to get an earful from her as well.

Wasserman Schultz stayed about 20 minutes before she left the scene with the six or so supporters she brought with her . After the congresswoman left, one of the Democrat supporters who witnessed the whole incident confronted the Mayor and told him that what she did was “extremely inappropriate” for her to berate him in the manner she did.

This altercation is just a few days removed from an earlier incident in which the congresswoman took issue with a Democrat voter who refused to campaign and support her and instead supported her Republican congressional opponent Karen Harrington.

Posted by: Deacon Blues || 10/31/2012 08:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Don't You Know Who I Am?"

More to the point, I know WHAT you are......
Posted by: Ebbeack Uleck3361 || 10/31/2012 12:59 Comments || Top||

#2  A person who is shrill, irrational, and appears deranged? The Anthony Weiner of Florida sans the internet sex scandal.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 13:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't they have disturbing the peace laws there?

How about voter imtimidation? She was forcing people to stop.

haul her ass off to jail until November 7th.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/31/2012 13:41 Comments || Top||

#4  "Don't You Know Who I Am?"

Someone who doesn't grasp her 'immunity' disappears after she leave the floor of the House and she becomes a citizen 'equal before the law'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 13:58 Comments || Top||

#5  I can't believe the Dems aren't smart enough to shift her to a less visible position. She makes them look like idiots on a daily basis. Even Biden isn't that frequent.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 14:50 Comments || Top||

#6  The officer should have pepper sprayed her, then tazed her.
Posted by: Jefferson || 10/31/2012 17:00 Comments || Top||

#7  Nope. That would have played right into her intent, i.e. to rally the base, especially the yoots.
Posted by: lotp || 10/31/2012 20:31 Comments || Top||

#8  mayo-haired shark-toothed mumbly talking point robot scrunts everywhere hardest hit
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2012 20:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Yeah, I know who she is. She's Nancy Pelosi in the remake of Back to the Future...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 21:22 Comments || Top||


Blaming Obama for Benghazi Could Ensure Clinton’s Presidential Race in 2016
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 07:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Stupid thesis.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/31/2012 12:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Consider the source.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 13:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Puts me in mind of what Elton John said about Madonna: Here
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 13:27 Comments || Top||

#4  The head-line should read "Obama screwed up Benghazi, and Clinton let him for 2016 hopes". That's basically what it all amounts too.
Posted by: Charles || 10/31/2012 13:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Hillary's and a few other's careers will probably or should be over because of Benghazi. If there were actually consequences in politics for actions or inactions, people would be looking at long sentences.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 13:31 Comments || Top||


Europe
Al-Qaeda's Strategy of a "Thousand Cuts"
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 07:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Italy, Land of Islam
Education minister Profumo proposed that Islam be taught in public schools alongside Catholicism. Nazification of Israel ruled free speech.
Terrifying.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 07:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
After Botching Libya, War On Terror Spreads To Mali
The U.S. is pushing for military intervention in Mali to hose out a new al-Qaida enclave. Undoubtedly it needs to be done. But so much for the White House's facile claim to having terrorists on the run.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Algeria Monday, pleading with its government to support a U.S.-France-led military mission to destroy al-Qaida's latest conquest in northern Mali, an impoverished African state along the Sahara.

Fine, but this was a preventable crisis that has a lot to do with White House hubris about ending the war on terror before it was actually done.

It springs from the ill-considered "leading from behind" U.S. involvement in Libya during the Arab Spring, which saw the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Weapons from Gadhafi's unsecured arsenals flowed first to the nomadic Tuaregs, and along with them came al-Qaida members.

The perfect storm formed when a coup in Mali last March left the government enfeebled enough for the newly armed Tuaregs and al-Qaida to seize control in Mali's north. The terrorists then turned on the Tuaregs and made northern Mali into a hellish Shariah state as well as an al-Qaida base with state power.

Now, there's no doubt that Clinton should be trying to use waning U.S. influence to persuade Algeria to help. A new terrorist nest in a failed state poses a massive security threat to every country in the region. But the crisis could have been avoided.

During Libya's uprising, the U.S. had little knowledge of who we were helping and no plans for securing prisons and armories as Gadhafi's forces fled. That's the root of the Mali situation now -- a war extended by ill-considered decisions and an administration in denial about the scope of what we face. What's more, when President Bush attempted similar terrorist clear-outs, he was opposed every step of the way by Democrats calling him a "warmonger."

The Mali front shows a crisis that is spreading with no signs of ending.

What's missing here is farsighted leadership that has yet to admit what kind of war we are in.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 06:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Libyan charity’s ship implicated in Benghazi attack on US ambassador
Libyan-flagged vessel used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters,
A Libyan-flagged vessel which last year was used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation in supplying a lifeline to rebels in Misurata, has been implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters, which may also be linked to murdered US ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi last month.

The ship 'Al Entisar' which was chartered last year by I-Go Aid Libya, then run by businessman Mario Debono, has been reported to be linked to last September's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

A Fox News investigation revealed that shipping records confirmed that the Al Entisar entered the Turkish port of Iskenderun, some 35 miles from the Syrian border, just five days before Ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other US officials were killed during an assault by more than 100 Islamist militants on the US Consulate compound in Benghazi.

Another report, this time appearing on the Times of London, said that the Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons, described by the report as the largest consignment of weapons headed for Syria's rebels on the frontlines.

Walid Phares, a Fox News Middle East and terrorism analyst, identified the Al Entishar on a news report aired by the news channel, saying, "this is the Libyan ship... which is basically carrying weapons that are found in Libya."

Phares added that the ship came all the way up to Iskenderun in Turkey. "Now from the information that is available, there was aid material, but there were also weapons, a lot of weapons."

The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPGs and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

The ship's Libyan captain reportedly told the Times of London that "I can only talk about the medicine and humanitarian aid" for the Syrian rebels.

It was reported there was a fight about the weapons and who got what "between the free Syrian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood."

According to various reports, on the night of September 11 - in what would become his last known public meeting - US Ambassador Stevens reportedly met with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and escorted him out of the consulate front gate one hour before the assault began at approximately 9:35 p.m.

Fox News said that although what was discussed during the meeting is not public, "Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer, an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists."

But although the negotiation was said to have taken place, it may have had nothing to do with the attack on the consulate later that night or the Al Entishar, it could explain why Stevens was travelling in such a volatile region on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Fox News added that a source at the US Congress also cautioned against drawing "premature conclusions" about the consulate attack and the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria via Turkey, noting they may in fact be two separate and distinct events.

But the source acknowledged to Fox News that the timing and the meeting between the Turkish diplomat and Stevens was "unusual."
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 04:54 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Al Entisar.... "the victory". Flagged as a vessel of the Templar fleet? My neighbor has Lodge tonight, I will ask him.

Potentially unrelated, but Wehrmacht General Reinhard Gehlen received the highest honor given by the Knights of Malta shortly after World War II for "services rendered." Gehlen has been credited with helping many former Nazi and SS officers into new positions (Project Paperclip) with the ...... U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 6:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Listening to radio tonight and one report was about the Aus Government making a donation of more than 1/2 million dollars to the Clinton Fund to help establish a carbon trading scheme in KENYA!!
When you hear about such nonsense, its time to check what other scamming is going on?
It appears Stevens was running weapons for the Syrian rebels. It also seems that the Saudis were paying for the weapons. Who got all that money the Saudis and other Gulf states were paying for?
Re-election funds, lining the Clinton's pockets?
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 9:44 Comments || Top||

#3  It is interesting how this gun running operation is now leaking out. If it becomes public then Hilary's hopes of being president are toast. If it comes out quickly, then Obama is toast too.

What would be the rationale for arming MB and AQ types in Syria with MANPADS? They could easily be used against a civilian airliner. Nuts.
Posted by: remoteman || 10/31/2012 13:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Mujahideen MANPADs supplied by the Klingons broke the back of the Soviets in Afghanistan leading to their withdrawl in 1989. Same plan could have been in store for Assad.

The first successful MANPADS attack against a civilian aircraft occurred Feb 1979. The Zimbabwe Peoples Revolution Army shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 827 leaving 59 passengers dead.

They are both deadly morale breakers and regime changers. The ends justifies.... sort of weapon. Not much thought given to air travel-after.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 16:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Not much thought given to air travel-after

Stingers used in A'stan during the Soviet adventure had built-expiration via the battery system. MANPADS were likely being run due to cost and the plausible deniability of supplier.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 17:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Excellent point. Yes, I'd wager they were Russian or FSU weapons. Could also offer justification (or panic/fear) regarding the authorization of airborne force interdiction. Aircraft and CAP could have been orbiting at altitude, (safe altitude out of reach of MANPADS). Just a wild guess.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 17:21 Comments || Top||

#7  I am not so sure this is what it seems. Here's a hypothetical: Stevens & CIA were in Benghazi at an unsafe date for some important reason; there are hints that reason was to collect some weapons we would like out of circulation; the cover story given to collect said weapons was to transfer - via this aid ship - to Syrian rebels; when sh*t hit fan cover stories were amateurish and inconsistent; those with inside knowledge have not been aggressive about challenging those stories (including Romney, Wolfowitz & others.)
May not be right, but seems to make sense out of what we know, once we decide not to assume the Administration is malicious and totally stupid (sorry, partisans, that is almost certainly a dangerous and stupid assumption.) This story certainly could still be wrong, but tell me where, and why it is more wrong than anything else out there.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/31/2012 19:14 Comments || Top||


Video reportedly shows key suspect from Benghazi attack
One of the main suspects in the Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi appeared in a recent video posted online by an Egyptian media organization, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Muhammad Jamal al Kashef (a.k.a. Abu Ahmed) is suspected of training some of the terrorists responsible for the consulate assault, during which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

On Oct. 28, the Al Marsad News Network posted a short interview with Jamal on YouTube.

It is not clear where or when the interview was filmed, but Jamal says he "always came to this place inside a State Security vehicle, and this is the first time" he did not. Jamal does not add much more.

The interviewer concludes by congratulating him, according to SITE's translation. "A thousand congratulations, Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a thousand congratulations, Muhammad Jamal Abu al Kashef. Peace be upon you O Sheikh!"

Jamal's ties to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. US officials cited by the paper said "initial reports" indicated that some of Jamal's fighters took part in the assault. In addition, the paper cited a former US official as saying that intelligence reports "suggest that some of the attackers trained at camps [Jamal] established in the Libyan Desert." Those same camps are being filled with recruits from Egypt and elsewhere. Suicide bombers are also being indoctrinated in the camps.

The Wall Street Journal's sources added that Jamal had "petitioned" Ayman al Zawahiri, "to whom [Jamal] has long ties, for permission to launch an al Qaeda affiliate and has secured financing from al Qaeda's Yemeni wing."

Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 03:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Why Germany Wants to See its US Gold
For decades, almost half of Germany's gold has been stored deep below the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Now, with the euro crisis swirling, German politicians are asking their central bankers to take stock of the reserves. Some even say that the gold should be shipped home.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 02:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, yeah. Since half of it has been replaced with tungsten, they're wise to take delivery. The bankers will scream about the cost of transportation, but it's a small price to pay. As soon as a major customer finds their gold has been replaced with worthless tungsten, there will be a shitstorm as everyone goes to check at once.
Posted by: gromky || 10/31/2012 2:29 Comments || Top||

#2  If Germany's gold is shipped home, it may meet the same fate as that Russian gold ore just did.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/31/2012 2:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, the vault has been flooded by Sandy. You'll have to wait, oh, 50 years or so.
Posted by: Spot || 10/31/2012 7:49 Comments || Top||

#4  That's not for reparations?
Posted by: Bobby || 10/31/2012 9:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Boy howdy! Moving 700 tons of gold in one shipment is incredibly stupid, like the Russians did. That is about $28.6 billion. Worth a salvage trip at any depth.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/31/2012 12:51 Comments || Top||

#6  We went over this yesterday. That was 800 tons of Gold Ore, not actual gold. Basically rock that contains small amount of gold in it. I think somebody came out with the total of like $625,000 for the gold smelted from it.

Yes, I killed the fun. I don't like joking about no gold. That brings up scary thoughts.
Posted by: Charles || 10/31/2012 13:24 Comments || Top||

#7  People in the US want to see the gold.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 14:15 Comments || Top||

#8  If you were to move the gold it might be best not to announce it. Perhaps arrange a trip for a super-carrier fleet to make port in Kiel and arrange for the gold and be ready to unload when it arrives.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 14:43 Comments || Top||

#9  Perhaps the Germans don't trust the economy of the near future. Perhaps they want to buy some Greek islands. most likely they want to mint it into coins and charge people to roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 14:51 Comments || Top||

#10  Who can blame them? Trust, but verify!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 10/31/2012 15:18 Comments || Top||

#11  They might even ask to have a few random bars cut open...
Posted by: mojo || 10/31/2012 16:39 Comments || Top||

#12  if they ship it ... they'd better check that what they receive in Germany is 100% pure gold. :-)
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 18:28 Comments || Top||

#13  The heirs of Sgt. Moriarty are laughing.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 19:30 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistani terror suspect offers to send humanitarian assistance to US
The Pakistani terror suspect blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks has offered to send doctors, medicine and humanitarian assistance to help with relief efforts as the US is battered by Superstorm Sandy.

Hafiz Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the US has placed a $10 million bounty on his head.
Which need not be connected to the rest of him for us to pay up...
He has always denied any involvement in terrorism and is today head of the charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which many believe to be a front for his former organisation.

On Tuesday, he said he was ready to send volunteers and other assistance to help.

"Regardless of what US government propagates about us including their announcement of bounties, we look forward to act on the traits of our Prophet Muhammad by helping and serving adversity struck American people; considering it our religious and moral obligation," said a statement posted on the group's facebook page.

LeT, is blamed by both the US and India for the commando attacks on India's financial capital in 2008 that killed 166 people.

However, despite being placed under house arrest after the attacks, today Saeed lives openly in the eastern city of Lahore delivering a sermon each Friday at one of its biggest mosques.

In 2005, JuD was one of the first relief organisations to reach areas of Kashmir affected by a massive earthquake in 2005.

Its volunteers -- and the group's huge fund-raising ability -- were again on display during devastating floods that swept through Pakistan in 2010.

In many areas its grassroots network was able to react faster than the country's government or military.
This article starring:
Hafiz Saeed
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 01:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: WoT
Obama's Taqqiya Unravels
by Nonie Darwish

I have never entertained the idea that Champ Obama was a Muslim and always believed he was a socialist. But Champs's Obama's behavior over the last four years regarding Islam has convinced me that he has a Socialist/Islamic centered worldview -- a combination that is not uncommon in many parts of the Muslim world.

Having been a journalist in Egypt for six years in the seventies, I have witnessed socialism with an Islamic twist to be a popular political ideology, especially amongst Arab journalists and intellectuals. Socialism, and even communism, have managed to survive in the ruthless Islamic political system as an alternative to full-fledged Sharia. The two ideologies have blended together in cases including the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq and socialist regimes in Egypt and Yemen. One major difference between the two ideologies is that Islam uses Allan, while socialism uses atheism, to fight the God of Christianity. Free democracies, such as the United States, are alien to Islam and socialism both because they regard government as a servant of the people and hold that human rights are granted by God and not by government or the code of Sharia.

Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 01:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The data points are piling up and the dots are being connected.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 10:23 Comments || Top||

#2  The 47%'ers don't give a damn about this.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/31/2012 13:27 Comments || Top||

#3  As someone said: "Wish Obama would be concerned about the guns and religion of our enemies."
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 15:02 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Buying Votes: Hints of East Coast Sandy Money to Come
Do we really want the same group that handled the stimulus money, managing what will surely be an enormous amount of money?
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/31/2012 01:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nice edit. Thank you.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/31/2012 23:32 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Barak: Iran used up some of its uranium this summer, pushing back 'moment of truth' 8 to 10 months
Otherwise, situation would have 'peaked' by now, defense minister tells Telegraph; says military option still on table

Iran temporarily pulled back from its nuclear weapons drive this summer, and converted over a third of its enriched uranium to civilian use, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview published Tuesday, intimating that this shift pushed off a decision by Israel and its allies about striking at Iran's nuclear facilities.

Barak told The Telegraph that Tehran's move to transfer 38 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile into fuel rods for civilian use "allows contemplating delaying the moment of truth by eight to 10 months." Were it not for this Iranian move, he said, the situation would likely have "peaked" before the US presidential election.

Talk of an Israeli or American strike against Iran's nuclear program has indeed died down since being raised to a zenith over the summer, with the US publicly opposing an Israeli resort to force and refusing Israel's call to set "red lines" that, if crossed by Iran, would trigger military action. The US maintains that time remains for diplomacy and sanctions to work, while Israel at the time said Iran was closing in fast on the ability to create a nuclear weapon.

Asked whether, had they not made the move to reduce their uranium stockpile, the Iranians would likely be reaching the point of no return, necessitating military action "about now," Barak replied: "Probably, yes." He added that Iran could still reconvert the rods back into weapons-grade uranium, though this would take time and resources.

Barak posited "at least three explanations" for why Iran had temporarily pulled back: "One is the public discourse about a possible Israeli or American operation deterred them from trying to come closer. It could probably be a diplomatic gambit that they have launched in order to avoid this issue culminating before the American election, just to gain some time. It could be a way of telling the IAEA [ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency] 'oh we comply with our commitments'... Maybe it's a combination of all these three elements."
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/31/2012 00:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As said or inferred times before, Iran prefers to be on the strategic defensive, + desires the US + Israel, etc. to attack it first - in so doing, Iran can reap the sympathy of World Islam, etc. + effec blame the US-West for any retaliatory TerrOps launched agz them + justify full-scale, overt NucWeaps production, as well the proliferation of Nuke-WMD Techs to Radical Islamic Groups.

Right now, there are "NO WMDS IN IRAN" [nukes] + Iran presents no immediate or near-term threat to Regional, Trans-, or World Trade that would justify UNSC intervention or US-led ground war.
OFFICIALLY, IRAN IS NOT BUILDING ANY NUCWEAPS, BUT DOES INTEND TO STOCKPILE "LESS-THAN-WEAPONS-GRADE" NUCMATS FOR CIVIE ENERGY INCLUD FOR NUCLEAR-POWERED MERCHANT SHIPS + IRANIAN NAVY WARSHIPS, + IS BUILDING LR "SPACE ROCKETS" + HT SATELLITES.

Unlike DESERT SHIELD/STORM agz Saddam Hussein Iraq, THERE IS NO POTUS BUSH 41 ["Herbert/
Herbie"] <=> 1960'S = 1990'S ARCHANGELS "DRAWING LINES IN THE SAND" AGZ IRAN.

[MADONNA'S "LIKE A PRAYER", MARIAH CAREY'S "I'LL BE THERE" [Three Lions of Troy] here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 0:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Loose lips
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 3:43 Comments || Top||

#3  If this is true, Iran spent a huge amount building a stock of U enriching to 20% U235, then fabricated 4% fuel for their reactor from that stock.`

From a business sense, this is quite wasteful and stupid.

Posted by: lord garth || 10/31/2012 6:06 Comments || Top||

#4  With a little reflection - this story paints a big picture.

There was recently a major schism in the Israeli Gov't between Netanyahu (PM) and Barak (Defense Minister). This schism contributed to Bibi (Netanyahu) dissolving the entire Gov't. A new Israeli Government is now due to be elected early next year. Bibi accused Barak of improperly courting the interests of the USA - at a time when Pres Obama was doing a "go slow" dance on the Iran nuclear issue.

Now we see the reason for the Israeli schism. Barak knew that in fact the Iranians were not on a rapid pace towards assembling a cache of nuclear material - and the real critical deadline lies in late 2013 (not early 2013 as Bibi has implied). It appears that this realization by top Israeli leaders - and what to do about it - may have led directly to the collapse of their government.
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 21:57 Comments || Top||


Russia announces delay in Bushehr reactor commissioning
[Jerusalem Post] A provisional acceptance agreement transferring Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant over to Iranian technicians has been delayed by three months, the Russian state company contracted to construct the facility confirmed late Monday.

Iran has signed an agreement with NIAEP-Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom, to construct the Bushehr plant.

Vladimir Pavlov, Atomstroyexport's deputy director responsible for constructing power plants in Iran and Turkey, told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that the Bushehr nuclear power plant had originally been scheduled to be transferred to Iranian technicians for operation by late December but will now take place in late March 2013.

The three-month delay is due to technical considerations arising from the need to integrate Russian-built components into the original German-constructed plant, Pavlov said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/31/2012 00:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Curious they wouldn't have thought of that before.
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/31/2012 11:36 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Obama Offered To Reestablish Full Ties With Iran in 2009
Israel was told about and opposed president's diplomatic incentives package, initiated soon after he took office, and Iran rebuffed it, according to Maariv

Soon after he took office, President Barack Obama
Ready to Rule from Day One...
began a process ultimately designed to reestablish full US diplomatic relations with Iran, including a reopening of embassies, an Israeli daily reported Sunday. The initiative, part of a wider shift in America's diplomatic orientation, aimed at reaching understandings with Tehran over suspending its nuclear program, Maariv claimed, citing "two Western diplomats very close to the administration."

The initiative led to at least two US-Iran meetings, the report said. Israel was made aware of the contacts, and opposed them.

But Iran rebuffed the "diplomatic hand" offered by the White House, Maariv reported. The Islamist regime "opposed any sign of normalization with the US, and refused to grant a 'prize' to the Americans," according to an anonymous Israeli source quoted by the paper.

The information -- the lead item on Maariv's front page, headlined "Obama offered to renew relations with Iran" -- comes on the heels of reports earlier this month that the US and Iran held back channel contacts toward establishing direct talks over Tehran's nuclear program. Both the White House and Iran denied those reports.

According to Maariv, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili for an hour in 2009, and one other meeting between officials from both sides took place as well.

Included in the diplomatic incentives package offered by Washington would be, in the first stage, the opening of interest sections in Washington and Tehran, with the possibility subsequently of expanding to full diplomatic ties, including US and Iranian embassies and ambassadors in each other's capitals, Maariv claimed.

As part of restored diplomatic relations with Iran, Maariv reported, Washington was ready to hold senior level diplomatic contacts, to agree to reciprocal visits, to approve security cooperation between the countries, direct flights between the US and Iran, and the granting of visas to Iranians wishing to visit the US.

The report, if true, would indicate a readiness by Obama to oversee a sea change in American policy toward Iran. The two countries have not had direct diplomatic relations since the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1981, when the Shah was tossed during the Iranian Revolution and workers in the American Embassy held hostage for over a year. The US currently maintains a trade embargo with Iran and any diplomatic contacts are officially handled through third parties

According to Maariv, Iran also rejected the attempt to reestablish ties out of fear that the regime in Tehran would become weakened by normalization with Washington.

The meeting between Burns and Jalili was reportedly held in Geneva in October 2009, on the sidelines of talks between Tehran and the five permanent members of the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
Security Council plus Germany, also known as the P5+1.

Those talks, which Jerusalem has characterized as a stalling tactic by Tehran to buy time to develop its nuclear program to weapon capability, have mostly failed, despite several attempts to hash over curbs on Iran's uranium enrichment activities.

Last week, the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
and NBC reported that Washington has held secret contacts with Iran with the goal of holding one-on-one negotiations over their nuclear program. According to the report in the New York Times, Iran was open to the possibility, but asked to wait until after the American elections on November 6 so they would know who they were negotiating with.

The White House denied the report, but said it has always had an offer on the table for Iran to engage in direct negotiations.

In Jerusalem, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said last week that he knew about the contacts and welcomed them, while Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said he hoped the B.O. regime's denial was true.

Iran's nuclear program is widely believed to be for military purposes, a claim Iran denies.

Israel considers an Iranian bomb to be an existential threat and has reportedly lobbied for military action against the program, while the US and much of the West maintain that there is still time for sanctions and diplomacy to convince the Iranian government to abandon their attempt to develop a nuclear weapon.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/31/2012 00:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thats gonna leave a mark!
Posted by: Skidmark || 10/31/2012 22:59 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
One killed, two injured by gang in Dhaka
[Bangla Daily Star] Unidentified assailants killed a teenage boy and injured two others by stabbing in the capital's Mugda last night.

The dead is Md Sagar, an 18-year-old printing press worker of Manda Khalpar.

Injured Shahin and Roman, both 17, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

A gang of six stabbed the three around 9:00pm when they were listening to music on their mobile phones at Manda Khalpar near their house, said Babu Mia, father of Sagar.

The trio was rushed to the hospital where doctors declared Sagar dead.

Saifuddin Ahmed, sub-inspector of Mugda Police Station, said they were looking into the incident.

Quoting locals, police said there was a rivalry between some youths of Manda and its neighbouring Manik Nagar over establishing domination.

Police suspect the rivalry is behind the killing.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
'War of Extermination' in Syria, Says Qatar PM
[An Nahar] Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani has accused the Syrian regime, with the complicity of the international community, of waging a "war of extermination" against its people.

Sheikh Hamad in an interview with Al-Jazeera satellite channel late on Monday took issue with U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who earlier in the day had characterized the deadly conflict ravaging Syria as a "civil war."

"What is happening in Syria is not a civil war but a war of extermination against the Syrian people," Sheikh Hamad said.

This war, he charged, was being waged "with a license to kill, endorsed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community."

He was apparently referring to Russia and China, which have repeatedly vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions threatening action against President Bashar Assad's regime.

"We have confidence in Mr. Brahimi... but we need him to develop a clear proposal for a solution that can be put before the Security Council paving the way for a transition period and a transfer of power," said Sheikh Hamad.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  The Vietnam War involved about 500 dead on both sides every single day. Would the Sheikh characterize this as a war of super duper extermination? Undoubtedly...
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/31/2012 20:46 Comments || Top||

#2  For all the manufactured outrage, this is a vanilla civil war, with a dictator putting down a coalition of would-be dictators.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/31/2012 20:47 Comments || Top||


Turkey says 'no point' in dialogue with Syria
[Daily Nation (Kenya)]
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the West and regional players including Turkey to start negotiating with President Bashar al-Assad as well as the opposition to pave the way for a political solution in Syria, wracked by almost 20 months of conflict

  • Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, a one-time ally of Assad, fell out with Damascus after its deadly crackdown on popular dissent that erupted in March last year

  • Syria's foreign ministry lashed out at Davutoglu, accusing him of "sidestepping" the problems between Turkey and Syria
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


India-Pakistan
Hafiz Saeed offers help to storm-hit US
The founder of a Pakistan-based Islamist group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who is under a $10 million US bounty, Tuesday offered humanitarian aid to the United States as it battles superstorm Sandy.

Sandy hammered the eastern United States early Tuesday, flooding much of New York City, hitting several states with heavy winds and torrential rain and leaving at least 14 people dead.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit and now head of the charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, said his organisation was ready to offer every possible help to the storm-hit American people.

"Jamaat-ud-Dawa is ready to send its volunteers, doctors, food, medicines and other relief items on humanitarian grounds if the US government allows us," Saeed said in a statement.

"America may have any opinion about us, it may fix bounties on our heads but as followers of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, we feel it is our Islamic duty to help Americans trapped in a catastrophe."

Jamaat-ud-Dawa is seen as a front for LeT, which Washington and Delhi blame for the commando-style attacks on India's financial capital in 2008 that killed 166 people.

In April the United States offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Saeed, who lives openly in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore.

Saeed's charity has long denied terror accusations and is known around Pakistan for its relief work in the wake of the devastating Kashmir earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010, which were the worst in the country's history.

He was put under house arrest a month after the Mumbai attacks, but was released in 2009 and in 2010 as Pakistan's highest court upheld his release on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to detain him
Posted by: Glinesh Craling7938 || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fear notteth, DONALD [Trump] + BALDWINS + CLINTONS + NYC, the JuD + LeT will come to your rescue!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  To his domestic audience he tells them the storm is due to with Allahs wrath the two faced tosser!
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 10/31/2012 17:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Each "Volunteer" comes equipped with a rifle,1000 rounds, ten grenades and copies of the Quran to pass out.

There will be NO inspection at the Ports.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/31/2012 20:57 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Libya Army Has 'No Control' in Bani Walid
[An Nahar] Libya's defense minister said Monday that the army has no control over Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Muammar Qadaffy
...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later...
's regime, and that gangs there prevent families from returning home.

"The chief of staff has no control over the town and therefore gunnies are able to prevent families from coming back," Osama al-Jueili told journalists in 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...
, adding that "gunnies" hold a checkpoint leading to the town.

Fighting in Bani Walid this month displaced tens of thousands of people, Jueili noted, including 30,000 who fled to the nearby town of Tarhuna and 10,000 who went to the capital.

"The town is completely empty except for a small number of people who are living in tragic conditions; there is no activity; the impact of shelling is visible everywhere," the minister said.

Jueili had previously made no public statements on the situation in Bani Walid.

His bleak assessment came five days after the army chief-of-staff officially announced the end of all military operations in Bani Walid, which was branded by the authorities as a hideout for criminals and former regime loyalists.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  That worked out well, didn't it?
Posted by: Solomon Protector of the Texans5923 || 10/31/2012 14:29 Comments || Top||

#2  It has control over the rest of Libya?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 14:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Please add "Arab Sping" to the list of terms of reference no longer in vogue, such as.... "Nation Building" and "GM is alive, UBL is dead".
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 15:00 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Somali, AU forces launch sweep in Kismayo
[Shabelle] Somali and African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
forces launched Tuesday a sweep in the port city of Kismayo, and captured landmines and other kabooms, reports said.

Witnesses in the city told Shabelle Media via telephone that the allied forces discovered landmines placed in a road and explosives in a a house during their security operations. Somali military officials in Kismayo, declined to comment further on the crackdown.

The operations followed after KDF announced last week that movement in and out of the town was being monitored at control points erected outside the town.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ahmadinejad Hopes 'Understanding' Will Prevail among All Lebanese
[An Nahar] President Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
on Tuesday received a phone call from his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad who offered him condolences on the liquidation of Intelligence Bureau chief Maj. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan and the rest of the victims.

As the Iranian president reiterated his condemnation of the crime, he extended Eid al-Adha greetings, hoping Leb will enjoy stability and prosperity, Leb's National News Agency said.

He also hoped “understanding and serenity will prevail among all the Lebanese for the sake of their country and its independence and illusory sovereignty
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Bangladesh
Man held for link with Ramu attacks
[Bangla Daily Star] Police jugged
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
yet another person on Monday night for his alleged involvement with the Ramu mayhem in Cox's Bazar on September 29.

Saleh Ahmed, 34, was jugged
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
from a barbershop from the town's Lal Dighirpar around 10:00pm.

The arrestee has connection with Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and had provided shelter to Rohingyas on several occasions, said Jashim Uddin, officer-in-charge of Cox's Bazar Police Station.

According to the police, Saleh's father had migrated from Myanmar before the Liberation War of 1971.

The arrestee, however, has a national identity card and a passport to prove his Bangladesh nationality, police added.

Police interrogated him till yesterday morning to ascertain his link with the violence.

Saleh is son of Mir Ahmed of South Pahartali of Sadar upazila.

Police sources said 239 people have been jugged
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in connection with the Ramu violence till yesterday.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


India-Pakistan
Two killed, six injured in Dera grenade attack
[Dawn] Two persons were killed and six others received injuries when person or persons unknown hurled a hand grenade at the house of a policeman in Dera Ismail Khan
... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
on Sunday.

Officials said that the assailants hurled a hand grenade at the house of ASI Ghazanfar Baloch in Basti Ustrana Janobi area. They said that a guest identified as Zeeshan Haidar was killed on the spot while seven inmates were maimed in the attack. The injured were being shifted to a hospital when one of them identified as Yasir Hussain departed this vale of tears.

The other injured included Shahbaz Haidar, Munawar Ali, Hassan Raza, Mukhtiar Hussain, Nadeem Safdar and Nazakat Ali.

Police started the paperwork but haven't done much else on the complaint of Hassan Raza against Adeel, Waqas and Sajjad alias Allah Dad.

In Mohmand Agency
... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
, Orcs and similar vermin blew up a private school in Mian Mandi Bazaar area of Haleemzai tehsil on Sunday.

Officials said that Orcs and similar vermin planted bombs in the school building at midnight that went off with a big bang. Two rooms of the school were damaged in the blast.

Security forces cordoned off the whole area soon after the incident and recovered three more bombs from the damaged building of the school.

The watchman of the school was locked away
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
and sent to lockup.

It is pertinent to mention here that it was third incident of its kind in the area during the last one week.

Also, suspected Orcs and similar vermin blew up a government primary school in Mandan area of tehsil Yakka Ghund in Mohmand Agency on Monday night.

In Mardan, a high school for girls was destroyed and its watchman received injuries when two bombs went off on the night of Eidul Azha in Kati Gari area.

Officials of Katlang cop shoppe said that unidentified Orcs and similar vermin planted bombs at two separate places in the school building that went kaboom! on the night of Eidul Azha. The building of the school was destroyed and watchman Zulfiqar was injured in the blasts, they added.

The injured watchman was shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Africa Subsaharan
G.Bissau's alleged coup mastermind to face military court
[Daily Nation (Kenya)]
  • The Sunday dawn attack on an elite "Red Beret" army barracks left at least seven people dead, including six of the attackers
  • Transition authorities in the west African nation have accused former colonial ruler Portugal of instigating the attack in a bid to re-instate former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior who was ousted in an April 12 coup
  • The latest coup bid has caused further turmoil in the west African nation which has suffered chronic instability since independence from Portugal in 1974 due to conflict between the army and state
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Mugabe expects new constitution before March elections
[Daily Nation (Kenya)]
  • The veteran ruler urged Zimbabweans to refrain from violence in the lead-up to new elections
  • A new draft constitution which is set to go for a referendum forms part of the key reforms to be made before fresh elections
  • Last week political parties and civic groups gathered to review the draft constitution which will go for a referendum whose date is yet to be announced
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Even if he and Grace must write it themselves!

Alternate link
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 9:23 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm surprised they didn't just photocopy the Nork Korean one.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 12:53 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Rebels 'Buying Arms from the Regime'
[An Nahar] The Syrian regime may be their sworn enemy, but rebels fighting to bring down Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
say they pay hard cash to government agents for guns and bullets.
Lenin once said that the last capitalist would sell them the rope to hang the second to last.
For Syria's plethora of armed opposition groups, obtaining weapons is a constant struggle. Furious with the West for failing to provide heavy weaponry, they say they have little choice but to line Assad's coffers.

In a country where national service is compulsory, and a conflict where brothers fight on opposing sides and rebels defect from the armed forces, they say it is not difficult to find a "middleman" or an "old friend" to help.

"We buy from Assad spies and on the market," said Major Abu Mahar, puffing on a French cigarette over coffee at a gym requisitioned by his network of fighters as a base in the northern city of 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 claims to lead 200 men who conduct "special missions" against Assad's forces. But like other units, they are poorly armed with machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles and home-made rockets and bombs.

Seven Kalashnikovs hang upside down from hooks and a bucket of bullets sits in the corner of Abu Mahar's office, which overlooks the mirror-lined workout room where bodybuilders used to flex their pecs.

Quietly spoken and hunched over in a leather jacket, he defected this summer from the air force. And like other rebels, he still has associates in various branches of the government military and security.

Abu Mahar says a bullet costs 110 Syrian pounds ($1.60) to buy from the regime, compared with $2 on the market, declining to specify where that market might be.

He claims that most of his group's ammunition supplies come from the shabiha, the term used to refer to state-sponsored militia hired by the government.

"We buy them from double agents, they need the money. The shabiha's God is money. They don't care about anything else. If you give them money they'll even sell you their own mother," he said.

"They have open access to army, police and intelligence bullet stores. They're saving up for when the regime falls," he smiled into his salt-and-pepper beard.

But Abu Mahar is evasive about where and how often the exchanges take place. He says his network uses a "pointman" or an "old friend," and they do not meet face to face.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  The politics of the souk know only profit and loss.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 19:27 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Taliban Leader Captured in Helmand Raid
[Tolo News] A Taliban leader was captured in a joint Afghan and coalition security force operation in southern Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province on Tuesday, Isaf said.

The tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
leader is believed to be involved in providing tactical guidance to Taliban big shots while facilitating the movement of improvised bomb (IED) components to members of an IED cell, Isaf said in a statement.

The security force also set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
a number of suspected bully boyz as a result of the operation.

It happened as the Afghan and coalition security force tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
a Taliban weapons and IED controller in southern Kandahar province today.

"The tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
controller is suspected of smuggling weapons throughout Kandahar province and acquiring homemade explosives and other IED-making materials for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces," it said.

The joint forces also confirmed the arrest of a Taliban leader in southern Kandahar province on Monday, believed to have assisted in inspecting and relocating IEDs within in the province, and the arrest of a Taliban leader in Helmand province last Wednesday who is alleged to have facilitated weapons to Taliban fighters while coordinating and executing ambush and IED attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  Will be allowed to escape in hopes it will keep his jailers from being executed after we leave.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/31/2012 7:36 Comments || Top||

#2  How about just capturing him dead?
Posted by: Solomon Protector of the Texans5923 || 10/31/2012 14:27 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Game Theory
In the final candidates' debate last week, President Obama delivered a telling, somewhat snarky zinger in response to Governor Romney's call for naval expansion: "This isn't 'Battleship.'" He then went on to school Romney about how having some aircraft carriers and submarines means we don't need more ships. The governor had no adequate reply.

But the fact of the matter is that the old "Battleship" board game -- not the more recent movie flop that was somehow based on it -- offers exactly the right metaphor to describe strategic affairs in the information age. "Battleship" does so by capturing the distilled essence of naval operations today: the hider/finder dynamic.

No longer do fleets move against each other en masse, engaging in well-defined, line-against-line slugfests, such as dominated naval affairs from Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars to Jutland a century later. Instead, sea wars have become far more cat-and-mouse matters, whose outcomes have become critically dependent on the need to see the enemy first, so as to be able to strike before being struck. Just like in "Battleship."

In its own abstract way, "Battleship" forces players to concentrate deeply on the business of "finding." Given his great confidence in aircraft carriers and submarines, President Obama should take careful note that the board game includes them, too, with the carrier being the game's largest and most vulnerable ship -- just as it is in the real world today, as the array of smart, high-speed weapons that have emerged in recent years pose mortal threats to these behemoths. The most valuable vessel in "Battleship" -- that is, the one that is hardest to find and hit -- is also the smallest combatant.
Posted by: Au Auric || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Wild Boar Attacks And Injures 4 People In Berlin
Berlin authorities say they shot and killed a 120 kilogram (265-pound) wild boar after it attacked and injured four people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood.
One of my sergeants used to ride her bike to work through the Gruenewald in Berlin. She had a near-death experience with a wild boar one night. She said she pedaled up the hill twice as fast as she usually pedaled downhill.
Police said Tuesday the boar bit a 74-year-old man on the back and leg, and knocked a 74-year-old woman to the ground and injured her hip on Monday afternoon in the Charlottenburg area of the capital. It also bit a 24-year-old woman before she climbed aboard a parked car to safety. All three were treated in a hospital.

Police say when a police officer arrived, the boar attacked him and cut his leg before he pulled his gun and killed the animal with "multiple shots."

Wild boars are relatively common in green Berlin, though rarely cause problems beyond digging up gardens.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yokay, I'll bite, I thought Wild Boars = Pre-Bacon wid Hair-n-Tusks liked the Germans - its one of their major national symbols.

Black Boars for Black Germans.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Wild Boor? You mean Joe Biden?
Posted by: Spot || 10/31/2012 7:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Wild Bore ignores and kills 4 Americans in Benghazi.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2012 9:56 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Rebels Clash with Army, Palestinian Fighters
[An Nahar] Fierce festivities broke out before dawn Tuesday in a major Paleostinian refugee camp south of Syria's capital, pitting rebels against troops backed by pro-regime Paleostinian fighters, activists and a watchdog said.

The fresh violence came after the feast of Eid al-Adha came to a close on Monday, with 560 people, including 235 civilians, reported killed during a failed ceasefire attempt over the four-day Moslem holiday.

"Clashes broke out overnight in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad district between rebels and the army, spreading into the adjacent Yarmuk Paleostinian camp. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine
... Paleostinian Marxist movement, founded in 1967. It is considered a terrorist organization by more than 30 countries including the U.S., European Union, Australia, Canada, and Antarctica. The PFLP's stated goal is the establishment of a socialist State in Paleostine. They pioneered armed aircraft hijackings in the late 60s and early 70s...
-General Command joined on the side of the army," the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.

"Every time the fighting spills into Yarmuk, the General Command gets involved," said Abdel Rahman.

The Syrian Revolution General Council, a network of activists on the ground, also reported that heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual light or desultory fighting...
erupted between the Free Syrian Army and members of the PFLP-General Command in Yarmuk.

The Yarmuk district is home to more than 112,000 Paleostinians, who are divided over the 19-month revolt that has left 35,000 dead in the country.

In early August, Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
condemned shelling on the camp, which killed 21 civilians, and also chided the PFLP-GC for its role in dragging Paleostinians into the bloody conflict.

Elsewhere in Syria on Monday, the military renewed shelling attacks on the northern city and province of 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...
, the central city of Homs, the southern province of Daraa and the northwest province of Idlib, the Observatory said.

Regime warplanes made two air strikes on the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, where fighting has raged since the rebels overran the town on October 9 cutting off a key army supply route along the Aleppo-Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
highway.

Fierce festivities south of the town on Monday left two soldiers killed, while battles erupted around the nearby Wadi Daif army camp between troops and rebels, including fighters from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, the Observatory said.

Regime helicopters meanwhile dropped three barrel bombs on the nearby village of Maarshmareen, which also came under artillery fire from troops stationed nearby.

The Britannia-based Observatory 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.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
61 Syrians Detained in Jordan
[An Nahar] Jordan police on Tuesday were detaining 61 Syrians who were traveling in three trucks near the southern town of Maan, an Islamist stronghold, a statement said.

"A police patrol in Maan governorate seized today three trucks carrying 61 Syrians, who are now in detention. The drivers were locked away
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
too," a Public Security Directorate statement said.

"Investigations are under way to find out more information about them and why they were traveling in these trucks," it said without elaborating.

Maan has a bloody and rebellious past that goes back to the turn of the last century, when the town was the seat of the Great Arab Revolt that crushed the Ottoman rule.
This would explain why the Palestinian newspaper took that name. How nice to have another mystery cleared up.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israeli jets bomb Sudan missile site in dry run for Iran attack
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A counter-argument.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 0:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I like the graphic!
Posted by: American Delight || 10/31/2012 12:50 Comments || Top||


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Cleo Moore [She Loved a Big Fork](Died in 1973 at age 48)




Women Who Bathe
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/31/2012 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Ava's Gamoween Shot


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/31/2012 1:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Running a little slow, this morning?
Posted by: Bobby || 10/31/2012 7:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Glad to see you back GB...
Posted by: tipover || 10/31/2012 15:53 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Hamid Gul accepts responsibility for creating IJI
[Dawn] During an interview on DawnNews, former chief of the Inter Service Intelligence(ISI) General (Retd) Hamid Gul
The nutty former head of Pakistain's ISI, now Godfather to Mullah Omar's Talibs and good buddy and consultant to al-Qaeda's high command...
said that politicians in the country were corrupt, and at the same time admitted responsibility for creating the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), a political alliance that was allegedly created to prevent Benazir Bhutto's
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
PPP from winning.

He said that he is not afraid of any case leveled against him, nor is he afraid of being hanged.

"The army cannot be controlled by politicians, the army has put control on itself," he said.

Speaking on DawnNews's programme 'Faisla Awam Ka', Hamid Gul not only defended the creation of the IJI, but also credited General (Retd) Aslam Beg
...occasionally incoherent retired four-star general who was the Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army, succeeding the creepy General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, after the latter was rubbed out died in an air crash in 1988. The general was involved up to his hairy ears in the Mehran bank scandal, shuffling millions in public money to buy or lease politicians, and is believed one of the prime movers in the sale of Pak nuclear technology to Iran. He ranks second only to Hamid Gul in the volume and flavor of his anti-Western vitriol..
for helping create it.

During the interview, he said that he doesn't do anything against his own choice nor is he ashamed of anything he has done.

Hamid Gul also said that he is prepared to face any article of the constitution and become a martyr for democracy.

At the same time he put forward two condition's for his trial, stating that it should be open and that he should not be cooled for a few years
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
The former ISI chief said that politicians are crooks and that if they continue the path they are on, then the army will continue to intervene in the state's affairs.

Hamid Gul said that he has never run away when the situation in the country turned bad, nor will he ever run away. He said Pakistain is his country and that he will be buried here.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The army cannot be controlled by politicians, the army has put control on itself, Says it all re Pakistan.In years to come he will admit setting up the DPC too.

This guy should be public enemy number one in US eyes.
Posted by: Omerelet Spaique1766 || 10/31/2012 14:41 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Daily Life in Islamist Northern Mali
By Paul Hyacinthe Mben

A very long piece in the English-language version of Der Spiegel Online International about life in northern Mali right now. Way too long to post here but it is just superb.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  thanks. that was an interesting article.
i hate to see some parts of the world devolving back into pre-medieval times. but that is what is happening.
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 18:27 Comments || Top||

#2  The Mali Hard Boyz better enjoy it now before Hillary invades wid a UN-backed intervention force - she's repor in North Africa attempting to get Muslim Govt(s) participation in such a force iff its ever needed.

HILLARY IS COMING, HILLARY IS COMING???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 23:40 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Yemeni ambassador: Syria served as passage of Iran's plots against Yemen
[Yemen Post] A former Yemeni ambassador to Syria, Abdul-Wahab Tawaf, has revealed that Syria served as a passage of Iran's plots against Yemen.

He added that the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
played roles in encouraging Iranian expansion in Yemen.

In an interview with Al-Musaqela Newspaper, he stressed that the Iranian regime used to mobilize Yemenis through Syria.

Tawaf reiterated that Iranian leaders used to adopt proxy groups in Arab states to annoy western countries and have bargaining cards.

"The former president dealt with al-Qaeda and Iran a files as a source to gain financial and political support from the Gulf States and international community" he added.

Meanwhile,
...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths...
Iranian and Yemeni media sources claimed that the Turkish government asked Yemen to set up a military base for training Syrian rebels during the visit of the Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Yemen last week , but the Yemeni government strongly denied
No, no! Certainly not!
the claims.

Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion...
the Syrian Free Army has accused the Yemeni Shiite Houthi
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is "God is Great, Death to America™â„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ...
group of sending its members to fight them in support of the Syrian regime.

The front man of the Syrian National Coalition, Wael Hafiz, said the Houthi Group was among other foreign groups which have sent their fighters to kill the Syrian people, urging the Houthi fighters to leave Syria.

Yemeni protesters repeatedly demanded the authorities to expel the Syrian Ambassador to Yemen after the escalation of violence against the Syrian people by the regime.

Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Bangladesh
BNP govt sheltered separatists
[Bangla Daily Star] Foreign Minister Dipu Moni yesterday lashed out at BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia
Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
, saying Khaleda had always sheltered faceless myrmidons and separatists whenever in power.

Dipu Moni's comment came a day after Khaleda assured Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that she and her party would not allow faceless myrmidons and separatists to use Bangladesh territory to harm India's interest.

"The opposition leader not only promised but also gave shelter to faceless myrmidons and bully boyz whenever she came to power," the foreign minister told news hounds at a programme in Forokkabad High School in Chandpur.

"She [Khaleda] indirectly admitted the favour her government had for the global terrorism when she was in power…. We are happy that she admitted her mistake. She acknowledged that her government followed wrong policies.

"She [Khaleda] created instability on the border by giving shelter to separatists and also allowed using of our land for destruction to our neighbour," Dipu Moni said.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Obama On Hurricane: 'We Leave Nobody Behind'
What if the hurricane is in Benghazi?

Hat tip to Instapundit and Elizabeth Price Foley.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe Biden will ask him if he has balls like cue balls...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 0:07 Comments || Top||

#2  From a lawyerly point of view, nobody in Benghazi was left behind. They were refused aid and left to die. I realize we are getting into "what the meaning of is is" territory, but B-HO and his minions are lawyers as well as feckless crapweasels.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/31/2012 0:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes, I too caught the shrewish little "we leave nobody behind" insert. Yes, we can clearly see the shoulder chip.

Those who deviate from the plan, or give their seat on the EXFIL bird to the wounded and remain on the ground to search for survivors.....well. they're just bloody fresh out of luck eh Mr. President ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 0:59 Comments || Top||

#4  give their seat on the EXFIL bird to the wounded and remain on the ground to search for survivors.....well. they're just bloody fresh out of luck eh Mr. President?

I think, for Obama, it's more like "too stupid to live"
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 3:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Still hearing the cries for help, Mr. President? I bet they never go away. Your words will never stop the haunting.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/31/2012 6:39 Comments || Top||

#6  Bobby, a sociopath cannot feel guilt.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 7:31 Comments || Top||

#7  Harrrummppp, cough, cough, cough. Trying to look like a President rather than be one?
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 10:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Using all those new terms and phrases learned eight weeks ago. Pre-positioned assets, leave nobody behind. It adds a little salt to his wilted pre-storm speech, chock full of platitudes.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/31/2012 10:20 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai
[Dawn] Ten Islamic fascisti were killed when helicopter gunships targeted their hideouts in Bara area of Khyber Agency on Monday, official sources said.

The air strikes were carried out in Nala Malikdinkhel where a large number of Islamic fascisti were holed up, the sources said. The Islamic fascisti had fled the Akkakhel area a week ago and moved to Nala Malikdinkhel. Three hideouts were destroyed in the strikes.

The sources said that bodies of six Islamic fascisti were found from Nala Khwarh.

However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
local people said that only one suspected myrmidon, Saidullah Kamarkhel, was killed in the helizap. They said most of the Islamic fascisti had left the area much before the air strikes were conducted.

Three soldiers were killed when Islamic fascisti attacked their convoy in Nala area.

No official details were available about the assault.

The myrmidons, however, claimed to be in possession of the soldiers’ bodies.

Soon after the attack, Shalobar, Qambarkhel and parts of Malikdinkhel were placed under curfew.A search operation was conducted and artillery targeted myrmidon positions in Shalobar, Arjali Nafi and Malikdinkhel.

Three people were maimed when a mortar shell landed in a house in Mandi Kas area. The house belongs to Sial Khan alias Sailak.

Troops demolished houses of three myrmidon ‘commanders’ Rakhman Shah, Ayub and Gulabat Khan in Shalobar area. They were believed to be associated with Lashkar-e-Islam and hiding since a military operation started in the area in Sept 2009.

It is learnt that dozens of families who had come to Shalobar and adjoining areas from different towns to celebrate Eid with their relatives are now stranded there due to the curfew and intense artillery shelling.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment...
eight Islamic fascisti were killed and a security official was injured in a clash in Mamozai area in upper Orakzai on Monday.
Officials said the Islamic fascisti attacked a patrol wounding a soldier.

In retaliatory fire by the troops, eight Islamic fascisti were killed.

The perforated carcass of a security official was found in the Sheikhan area.

Troops took the body to the Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
headquarters Kalaya.

The Islamic fascisti kidnapped four rustics in Sheikhan area, identified as Feroz, Shah Hasan, Dilawar and Ahmad.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Afghanistan
Afghan presidential vote date is set: official
[Dawn] Afghanistan’s presidential election will be held on April 5, 2014, months ahead of the final withdrawal of Nato combat troops from the insurgency-plagued nation, a poll official said on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Great White North
Open Seas
If climate scientists' prophesies of an ice-free Arctic Ocean pan out, the world will witness the most sweeping transformation of geopolitics since the Panama Canal opened. Seafaring nations and industries will react assertively -- as they did when merchantmen and ships of war sailing from Atlantic seaports no longer had to circumnavigate South America to reach the Pacific Ocean. There are commercial, constabulary, and military components to this enterprise. The United States must position itself at the forefront of polar sea power along all three axes.

Understandably enough, most commentary on a navigable Arctic accentuates economic opportunities, such as extracting natural resources and shortening sea voyages. Countries fronting on polar waters -- the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden comprise the intergovernmental Arctic Council -- will enjoy exclusive rights to fish and tap undersea resources in hundreds of thousands of square miles of water off their shores. Nations holding waterfront property in the Arctic will bolster their coastiess to police their territorial seas and exclusive economic zones during ice-free intervals.

But they will not be the only beneficiaries. Former U.S. Navy chief oceanographer David Titley estimates that "sometime between 2035 and 2040 there is a pretty good chance that the Arctic Ocean will be essentially ice-free for about a month" each year. If so, polar shipping lanes will cut transit distances by up to 40 percent, saving ship owners big bucks on fuel and maintenance. They could pass those savings on to producers and consumers of the cargo their vessels carry. Global warming, it appears, could bestow significant advantages on mariners, fostering economic growth in the bargain. New sources of wealth concentrate minds.

But the geopolitics of climate change is just as consequential as the economics, and more intriguing. A strategic realignment could take place as the geographic setting -- the arena where great powers grapple for advantage -- widens to enfold a new inland sea. Navies will dispatch squadrons to the Arctic Ocean lest it become a theater for naval rivalry.
Posted by: Au Auric || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sniff, sniff, is there no love = hate for the SOUTH POLE???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 0:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Every disaster is a new opportunity, right Al?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/31/2012 1:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Joe is right, what about the South Pole?
We could as a united planet cut a sea-level canal across Antartica that would be ice free for 20 minutes every 10 million years. Shovel ready.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:35 Comments || Top||


Europe
Smolensk jet crash: Polish prosecutors deny explosives claim
Posted by: Unereng Ulaper4796 || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The plane was manufactured in Russia; it underwent a major overhaul months before the crash, in Russia.

The crash site was located in Russia. President Kaczynski challenged Putin in Georgia in 2008.

Meanwhile President Obama has openly repudiated the US' foreign policy of the 80s. One of the major aims of that foreign policy was to weaken Soviet influence on Poland, if possible to free Poland and Eastern Europe.

Even if the crash really was an accident why shouldn't Putin just have his minions contaminate the debris with traces of explosives and dare the Poles to accuse Russia of foul play.
Would the Poles go public with these results? Could they take that risk?

Coincidentally gruesome photographs of the mutilated victims' bodies have been leaked on the net.
"Poland has demanded that the Russian authorities launch a probe into the matter and punish those responsible for the leaked images, claiming that the photos could have been taken only by Russian security personnel who had access to the site shortly after the crash."

Are we witnessing a coordinated campaign to intimidate and humiliate Poland prior to the US election?
Posted by: Unereng Ulaper4796 || 10/31/2012 7:28 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Razakar was launched with 96 Jamaat men
[Bangla Daily Star] After two prosecution witnesses, an investigator of international crimes tribunal yesterday also said Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
leader AKM Yusuf formed the Razakar force, an auxiliary force of the Mighty Pak Army, during the Liberation War.

“Through investigation, I have found that the Razakar force was formed with 96 Jamaat activists at an Anser camp at Khan Jahan Ali Road of Khulna under the leadership of AKM Yusuf [in May 1971],” investigator Matiur Rahman told the International Crimes Tribunal-1.

During his daylong cross-examination yesterday, Matiur, the investigation officer of the crimes against humanity case against Jamaat's former chief Ghulam Azam, said he got the information from locals and newspaper reports published even after the war.

Earlier, eminent war crimes researcher Shahriar Kabir and journalist Mahbub Kamal, the first and third prosecution witness in the case against Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, testified before Tribunal-2 that Yusuf formed the Razakar force.

According to the prosecution and historic documents, although the Razakar force started operation since May 1971, the then Pak government abolished the Ansar Bahini and turned it into “Razakar Bahini,” proclaiming the Razakar Ordinance on August 2 that year.

In collaboration with the Pak force, the Razakar force committed killings, genocide and other crimes against humanity during the nine-month-long war.

On September 26, the investigation agency of the international crimes tribunal said it was conducting investigation into the allegation of crimes against humanity against Yusuf, incumbent nayeb-e-ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, and hoped to complete its probe by December.

The three-member tribunal led by its Chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq yesterday recorded the cross-examination of Matiur before adjourning the case proceedings against Ghulam Azam until today.

Defence counsel Mizanul Islam cross-examined Matiur, the 16th prosecution witness in the case, for four and a quarter hours and asked questions mostly on the Razakar force and the Shanti Committee, another collaborator force of the Mighty Pak Army.

Mizanul asked, “Who was the chief of the Razakar Bahini before [the then Pakistain] government took control over the [Razakar] force?”

“I don't know but I have found that Razakar Bahini was formed with 96 Jamaat activists at an Ansar camp at Khan Jahan Ali Road of Khulna under the leadership of AKM Yusuf,” said Matiur.

“During investigation, I got the news from locals,” said Matiur.

“What type of evidence do you have about the formation of the Razakar Bahini?” asked Mizanul.

At this point, Prosecutor Zead Al Malum said formation and activities of the Razakar force, Shanti Committee and Al-Badr force, yet another collaborator force of the Mighty Pak Army, was an “admitted fact.”

“I have a lot of information about the formation of the Razakar Bahini,” replied Matiur later.

“Who had become the chief of the Razakar Bahini after the [then] government took control over the Bahini,” asked Mizanul.

“Mohammad Yunis, who was involved with Jamaat-e-Islami,” said Matiur.

Replying to other questions, Matiur said the Shanti Committee was formed on April 9, 1971, and it had a 140-member central committee.

“On which principle the Razakar force was formed?” asked Mizanul.

“The Shanti Committee was formed to annihilate 'myrmidons' [freedom fighters and pro-liberation people] terming the movement for the independence of Bangladesh a movement of myrmidons,” said Matiur.

"Genocide '71", details the accounts of the wartime killers and collaborators.

The book says that in order to make decisions promptly and implement that swiftly, a 21-member working committee was formed under the Central Shanti Committee and the name of Ghulam Azam, the then ameer of East Pakistain Jamaat-e-Islami, was number three in that committee.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
36 Dead as Syria Warplane Hits Capital for 1st Time and Rebels Assassinate General
[An Nahar] A Syrian fighter jet hit targets inside Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
for the first time on Tuesday, a watchdog said, as air strikes pounded rebel bastions around the country and an air force general was rubbed out.

The warplane dropped four bombs on the east Damascus neighborhood of Jobar, near the opposition-held suburb of Zamalka, where rebel fighters were locked in fierce festivities with the army, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Only helicopter gunships had previously been used to strafe areas inside the capital, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Agence La Belle France Presse correspondents reported that the bombing run was heard across the capital.

The strike, and more raids around the country, came as Syrian rebels grabbed credit for the killing in Damascus of an air force general.

State television said the general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, was killed in the north Damascus district of Rukn al-Din, but gave no further details.

The general was was rubbed out on Monday evening as he left a friend's home, a security source in Damascus told AFP on condition of anonymity.

In a statement posted on the Internet, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) said it had killed Khalidi, who it said was in charge of training, along with an air force intelligence officer.

The government has intensified air strikes against rebel-held areas in recent days, with more than 60 raids on Monday, the most in a single day so far, the Observatory said.

On Tuesday, air strikes hit rebel bastions around Damascus including the town of Douma, where the Observatory said large numbers of people were killed or maimed.

The northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan, seized by rebels earlier this month, was also hit, with seven civilians killed, including four children, it said.

The army has been battling rebels for weeks for control of the town, which is on a key supply route between Damascus and the northern city of 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...
Tuesday also saw festivities between rebels and troops backed by Paleostinian fighters at the Yarmuk refugee camp, home to 148,500 Paleostinians on the edge of the capital.

Anwar Raja, front man for the pro-Damascus Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine-General Command, said its forces clashed for about an hour with rebels trying to infiltrate the camp but that there were no casualties.

There are more than 510,000 Paleostinian refugees living in Syria, and their leadership is largely supportive of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
's regime.

At least 36 people, including 22 civilians, were killed in fighting on Tuesday, the Observatory said.

With international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi due in China in a bid to revive peace efforts, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, a vocal supporter of arming the rebels, said the international community's failure to halt the fighting was making it complicit in the violence.

"What is happening in Syria is not a civil war but a war of extermination against the Syrian people," he told Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
television.

The war, he charged, was being waged "with a license to kill, endorsed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community."

On the first day after the Eid al-Adha Moslem holiday, which saw a ceasefire bid collapse in the face of renewed festivities, car boomings and air strikes, the Observatory said more than 500 people had died in fighting over its four days.

Brahimi was to travel to China from Russia. Both are historic Damascus allies and have repeatedly blocked tough U.N. Security Council action against Assad's government.

Diplomats say 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...
envoy is to present the council with new proposals in November following the two visits.

The uprising, which began in March 2011 as a peaceful protest movement, has escalated into an armed insurgency. More than than 35,000 people have died according to the Observatory, at least 20,000 according to the U.N.

Most of the rebels are members of Syria's Sunni Moslem majority. Assad's government is dominated by his Alawite minority.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Civilian fatality graph per MofSyria site is here.

also, An Nahar has obsolete counts for the Observatory and UN. The former currently has a count over 36k, the latter 30k.
Posted by: lord garth || 10/31/2012 11:15 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Six killed in violence, five arrested across Karachi
[Dawn] Six people, including a policeman were killed in incidents of violence whereas five people were placed in long-term storage
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
across Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, DawnNews reported on Tuesday.

A body of a woman was recovered from an apartment near the Bloody Karachi airport.

Another body, bearing torture marks, was found near crown cinema at Maripur Road. The dear departed had been rubbed out.

A man died in lockup due to torture at the Mominabad cop shoppe.

The body of a policeman, posted at the Crime Branch, was found near the Civil Hospital with its throat slit.

A young man was rubbed out in a firing incident in Baloch Colony in Manghopir while another man was killed by unknown gunnies in Mujahid Colony.

One man was killed in a firing incident in the Metroville locality of the SITE area.

A body of a swimmer drowned off the Manora Beach was also found. This incident occurred yesterday.

On the other hand, CID police placed in long-term storage
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
four suspects belonging to a banned bad turban outfit.

According to the SSP CID, four pistols and two hand grenades were recovered from the placed in long-term storage
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of police also placed in long-term storage
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
Please, Mahmoud, book him already!
an extortionist from Ferozabad.

There were also five incidents of arson at various locations across the city.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
China's People's Daily launches attack on The New York Times
Definitely a cage match in which two enter and one leaves...
The mouthpiece newspaper of China's Communist Party has launched a blistering attack on the mouthpiece newspaper of the American Left The New York Times, accusing it of "faking" and "distorting" news and being a government "propaganda tool".

The 1,500 word People's Daily editorial appeared to be a direct response to The New York Times's explosive exposé last week about the $2.7 billion (£1.67 billion) "hidden fortune" of the family of Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao.
Feel free to publish Champ's college diplomas as retribution...
But in a humiliating about-turn, within hours of the People's Daily publishing its lengthy assault on the American newspaper's journalistic integrity it emerged that much of the Chinese newspaper's critique had in fact been plagiarised from other sources.

The Beijing-based People's Daily turned its canons on the 161-year-old newspaper on Monday, three days after The New York Times published the highly embarrassing results of its one-year investigation into Mr Wen's family's finances.

"For a long time, the New York Times has [had] one line printed on its masthead, 'All the news that's fit to print'," noted the People's Daily opinion piece, under the headline: 'New York Times: scandals stack-up, prestige declines'.

"This century-old newspaper claims its news is authentic and reliable, yet there have been quite a few [cases of] plagiarism and fake news in recent years," added the combative piece published on the website of a newspaper which is controlled, funded and censored by the Chinese government.

"It turns out the New York Times has a history of faking news," the People's Daily went on, pointing to the damaging scandal surrounding reporter Jayson Blair, who resigned in 2003 after being accused of "frequent acts of journalistic fraud".

Doug Young, a journalism professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, said that while the People's Daily had not directly referred to The New York Times' allegations about Mr Wen's family wealth, the editorial was a "clear response" from the Communist Party leadership.

"It is the official Party newspaper [and] they are speaking on behalf of the Party," he said. "An editorial like that is basically their rebuttal even though they aren't giving The New York Times the pleasure of having their story mentioned."

The People's Daily story was an attempt to "discredit" the western media, added Young, the author of a book on the Chinese media called 'The Party Line'.

But the People's Daily and other state-controlled media outlets have themselves struggled with plagiarism in the past. In August, a reporter from its sister paper, the English-language Global Times, was sacked after being caught fabricating or copying a number of reports on the London Olympics. Among the plagiarised stories was a supposedly "exclusive interview" with London mayor Boris Johnson, which had been cribbed from one of Mr Johnson's Daily Telegraph columns.

On Monday afternoon, meanwhile, it emerged that large chunks of the People's Daily article on The New York Times had been plagiarised from a variety of online sources. Several sections appeared to have been lifted word-for-word from China News Agency stories while other parts had been copied from previous articles in the People's Daily itself.

Calls to the People's Daily HQ went unanswered on Monday afternoon. Users of China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo were unimpressed.

"The domestic media is so entertaining," wrote one. "Plagiarism, faking, scandals stack-up -- all because [The New York Times] reported the unspeakable secret."
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  GovernmentObama tool.
Yes I believe it. They got that right.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/31/2012 0:39 Comments || Top||

#2  "The unspeakable secret" > Uh, uh, COMMIE ELITES LIKE TO BE rly rely really Really RREELLYY RICH???

OH THE EQUAL/EGALITARIAN-MANITY!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 1:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps more pragmatically, China PCorrectly may be getting ready for a shooting war soon vee Japan in the East China Sea, hence it may attempt to distance itself from Japan's ally the USA.

China has sent its CMS vessels to Yonaguni near TAIWAN, indic to me that its interest in the area goes beyond the Daoyu/Senkkau Islands sovereignty dispute.

* CHINA DAILY FORUM > CHINA WARNS OF RIGHT-WING SHIFT IN JAPAN.

"Right-wing" also read, PRO-NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

* SAME > CHINA'S DIAOYU ISLANDS CLAIMS NOT MOTIVATED BY RESOURCES.

* SAME > CHINA TO USE FORCE IFF JAPAN CHALLENGES ITS SOVEREIGNTY.

* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA VESSELS CONFRONT JAPANESE COAST GUARD IN DISPUTED ISLAND WATERS | CHINA CONFRONTS JAPAN SHIPS NEAR EAST CHINA SEA ISLANDS.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA TO RESPOND FORCEFULLY, IFF ITS SOVEREIGNTY IS CHALLENGED.

* SAME > CHINA AGAIN SAYS NO CONCESSIONS ON TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY. Chinese VFM Zhang Zhi.

* SAME > CHINA'S GOOD MOVE ON THE DIAOYU ISLANDS.

* SAME > SO WHAT IS CHINA DOING, DROPPING DRILLING DEVICES IN JAPANESE EEZ?

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > JAPANESE SHIPS WERE TOLD TO IMMEDIATELY LEAVE CHINA'S TERRITORIAL WATERS.

* SAME > CHINA FLEET TO CONTINUE PATROLLING DIAOYU WATERS.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SINO-JAPANESE RIFT IS PART OF US [post-WW2, anti-China] STRATEGY, SAYS EX-DIPLOMAT.

* SAME > JAPAN'S POPULATION CRISIS | [Japan Times = Michael Hoffman]"ONLY IMMIGRANTS CAN SAVE JAPAN". THE JAPAN AS WE KNOW IT IS DOOMED - ONLY A [Ethnic = Immigrant] REVOLUTION CAN SAVE IT.

Japan must accept 10.0Milyuhn immigrants a year between now and 2050.

* SAME > HASHIMOTO'S PARTY TO END STATIONING OF US FORCES BY 2045: JAPAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 1:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Popcorn
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 3:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Red on Red
Posted by: Bunyip || 10/31/2012 4:39 Comments || Top||

#6  "Red on Red"

Rent-seekers of crony capitalism v people who haven't realised marxism always fails, is more accurate, but not as catchy.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/31/2012 7:46 Comments || Top||

#7  Beat me to it g(r)om.

That was my immediate reaction to the headline.

Double butter anyone?
Posted by: AlanC || 10/31/2012 8:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Why am I thinking of the old saying:

"It's a shame they both can't lose."
Posted by: BA || 10/31/2012 8:33 Comments || Top||

#9  I believe the Chinese People's Daily should receive the 2012 Leon Trotsky Ice Axe Award for best display of Intra-Party Discipline.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 10:09 Comments || Top||

#10  I've got to admit that I'm conflicted about the wealth of Communist Party members. When I go to China I'm looked after very, very well by the Princlings of the ruling class, who do nothing to hide their wealth, the opposite in fact.
The buggers also know my weaknesses,wine, women and exotic Chinese food.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 11:45 Comments || Top||

#11  I've got to admit that I'm conflicted about the wealth of Communist Party members. When I go to China I'm looked after very, very well by the Princlings of the ruling class, who do nothing to hide their wealth, the opposite in fact.
The buggers also know my weaknesses,wine, women and exotic Chinese food.


Thucydides: The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.

Ancient (and genuine*) Chinese aphorism (paraphrased): History records winners as kings and losers as bandits.

* As opposed to the fake "May you live in interesting times".
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/31/2012 15:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Tipper, the big problem I have with China is that its economy and current class system is based around the idea that a good credit rating springs from the barrel of a gun.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 10/31/2012 17:18 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
PPP Khairpur rally attack supsect killed in alleged encounter
[Dawn] The prime suspect of the attack that took place on a rally of the Pakistain People’s Party (PPP) in Khairpur on Oct 7 was killed in an alleged police encounter on Tuesday, DawnNews reported.

The suspect, Azizullah Janwari aka Kaffan, was shifted to Sukkur under police escort after he was tossed in the slammer
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
on Oct 15 during a raid on a house in Mailaiwali Gali, Tibba Badar Shah, Bahawalpur.

Various conflicting reports were received as the details of the incident are not yet clear. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching...
Dawn sources said the incident occurred when some associates of Aziz tried to free him from police custody in Sukkur as a result of which he was killed in an ensuing encounter.

Seven people, including a journalist and six PPP activists, were killed and 10 others maimed in the attack on participants in the rally where Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah’s daughter, MNA Nafisa Shah, was also to speak on Oct 7.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Why Iran Wants to Attack the United States
The Islamic Republic's terror plots may look bumbling today, but what about tomorrow?

An Iranian-American used car salesman pleaded guilty this month to conspiring with Iranian agents to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Mansour Arbabsiar's guilty plea would appear to be the end of this story, but in truth it raises more questions than it answers.

The facts were never really in dispute. U.S. officials learned of the plot early on and built an airtight case. The assassin Arbabsiar tried to hire was in fact a DEA informant. Once arrested, Arbabsiar confessed. At the direction of law enforcement, he then called his cousin and Quds Force handler, Gholam Shakuri. With agents listening, Shakuri insisted Arbabsiar go ahead with the plot. "Just do it quickly. It's late."

But why was the Quds Force, which had earned a reputation for operational prowess even among its enemies, so eager to move forward with an obviously flawed operation? Arbabsiar appears to have been a weak character who "wants to be important," as a government-retained psychiatrist determined. He was drawn into the plot by his cousin, a general in the Quds Force, the arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for external operations. So the real question is: What was the Quds Force thinking?

According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the plot "shows that some Iranian officials -- probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

This new calculus, intelligence officials believe, dates back to January 2010, when the Quds Force decided that it and Hezbollah, its primary terrorist proxy, would embark on a new campaign of violence targeting not only Israel but U.S. and other Western targets as well.

In the wake of last July's attack on Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, a barrage of journalists called asking me to explain the logic of the attack. I was finishing a book on Hezbollah -- Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God, due out next year -- but still could not easily place the attack within Hezbollah's established modus operandi. The more I thought about it, the more perplexed I became. So, much to my editor's dismay, I stepped away from my keyboard long enough to meet with diplomats and intelligence and military officials from several countries to try and make sense of the new trend of Shia extremist attacks tied to Iran and its proxies. Here is what I have come to understand.

To understand the decision Iran made in January 2010 to engage in a new campaign of violence, one must hark back to the February 2008 assassination of Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was allegedly responsible for the 1984 U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, and numerous other attacks. Following Mughniyeh's death in Damascus, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for an "open war" on Israel. "The blood of Imad Mughniyeh will make them [Israel] withdraw from existence," Nasrallah vowed.

Within weeks, Hezbollah would attempt the first of several failed and foiled plots -- a series of simultaneous car bombings around the Israeli and U.S. embassies, the kidnapping of the Israeli ambassador, and blowing up a radar tower in Baku, Azerbaijan -- intended to make good on Nasrallah's threat. Several additional plots were foiled, leading the Quds Force to partner with Hezbollah and provide extensive logistical support for a large-scale bombing in Turkey in fall 2009. Turkish authorities disrupted a plot in which Hezbollah and Iranian agents posing as tourists intended to attack Israeli and possibly American and local Jewish targets. According to one account, a cell led by Abbas Hossein Zakr was looking to strike Israeli tourists, Israeli ships or airplanes, or synagogues in Turkey. Turkish police arrested Hezbollah operatives who reportedly smuggled a car bomb into the country from Syria while Quds Force agents left the country posing as tourists.

Posted by: Au Auric || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why do people want to climb Everest?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 3:39 Comments || Top||

#2  To bring the mountain to Mohammed?
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:37 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel Army Arrests 5 Palestinians in Southern West Bank
[An Nahar] Israeli troops placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
five Paleostinians in the southern West Bank overnight, including two men with ties to the radical 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...
movement, witnesses told AFP on Tuesday.

During a pre-dawn raid in Beit Ummar village just north of Hebron, troops placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
Wahid Abu Marya, 45, who spent years in Israeli prisons over his ties to Islamic Jihad, witnesses said.

They said dozens of troops had surrounded his house at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) and opened fire when he initially didn't response to calls to come out, causing part of the house to collapse. They then placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
him.

Youths in the village pelted troops with stones, prompting them to fire tear gas, with several people treated for tear gas inhalation, an AFP correspondent said.

Witnesses also said another Islamic Jihad activist, Mohammed Najjar, 30, who was released from an Israeli jail last year after serving his sentence, was placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
by troops in Al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron.

In another overnight operation in Hebron's Old City, troops placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
Jamila Shaldi, 50, and her son Abdelrahman, 20, local residents said.

And in the south Hebron Hills, witnesses reported seeing 47-year-old Said Rabbah being beaten then placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
by troops. They said his 20-year-old daughter Maryam was also beaten, but not placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
She was taken to hospital in the nearby town of Yatta for treatment, they said.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic Jihad


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
The Bounty: Old Fashioned Ship - Old Fashioned Captain
Photos of the rescue of the crew of the Bounty during Hurricane Sandy. 14 rescued out of 16 crew. It's not clear why the ship was out at sea with Sandy approaching ... maybe they were trying to make port as quickly as they could. But one thing is for sure - this captain went down with his ship. He made sure everyone was evacuated before he left the boat - he was probably still at the wheel while the rescue was proceeding.
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I guess he wasn't Italian.
Posted by: Spot || 10/31/2012 7:52 Comments || Top||

#2  It's not clear why the ship (a wooden sailing vessel) was out at sea with Sandy (the largest Atlantic storm in recorded history) approaching

Poor judgement? I hope it is not discovered that a recording crew was aboard.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 8:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Apparently, they were actually trying (sadly unsuccessfully) to get her to haven before the worst of the storm.
Posted by: Korora || 10/31/2012 9:31 Comments || Top||

#4  They should have burned her. Just for historical accuracy.
Posted by: mojo || 10/31/2012 13:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Per this article in the Daily Mail, they were trying to run this ship down to Florida. Seems like someone was very ignorant of the situation.
Posted by: Dar || 10/31/2012 15:31 Comments || Top||

#6  even though it was an old-fashioned sailing ship - surely they were equipped with modern navigational aids and communications? could it be that they actually did not know the close proximity of Hurricane Sandy??
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 22:00 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Creepy: Singing children advocate for Obama's re-election, blame parents


[Examiner] The video is featured at the Future Children Project web site with a caption that reads: "Re-electing President Obama is a momentous decision that will require every single voter."
When I was a tad children were happy. They weren't zombiebots. Look at those little brats' faces. Look at them all through the video. Not one of them shows any expression at all. It's frightening. They look like Pod Children. They claim to be the Children of the Future.
"Imagine an America where strip mines are fun and free; Where gays can be fixed and sick people just die; And oil fills the sea," reads the opening lyrics.
We used to spend lotsa time outside when I was a kid, usually shooed out there by our parents, occasionally chased or even tossed. We ran, laughed, played, got into fist fights, and occasionally got bruised up falling down the rocky slopes of strip mines and quarries. We thought these were nifty because they were so much safer for our dads. Strip miners seldom died of methane inhalation and the quarries never fell in on them because there was nothing over them to fall.

"We haven't killed all the polar bears, but it's not for lack of trying," the song adds, despite a suppressed report indicating that polar bear populations are actually increasing.
Mmmmm! Bear!

As far as I know, this song isn't actually a Nazi ditty, but was written specifically for the play Cabaret, hence the brief appearance of the depraved-looking guy toward the end. But if Goebbels had heard it he'd probably have liked it and it would have made the Reichsfunk Top 40.
"Big Bird is sacked," the children sing - a clear reference to Mitt Romney's comment that he would stop taxpayer subsidies of PBS.
I actually grew almost to adultery before the United States got State Radio like the Soviets had. PBS was supposed to be an alternative to ABC/NBC/CBS, which were collectively described as a "Vast Wasteland." Nowadays we call that the "Golden Age of Television." Personally, I think Kukla, Fran and Ollie were a lot funnier than Big Bird. And Phineas T. Bluster had it all over Oscar the Grouch. And Miss Nancy once saw me in the Magic Mirror, which was a lot more interesting to the 5-year-old me than the Letter E.
"The Earth is cracked and the atmosphere is frying," they add, despite a report showing that global warming ended 16 years ago.
Children believe what they're told. When I was a child we were told that the United States is a great nation, that it's the land of the free and the home of the brave. We enjoyed being free and we tried to be brave despite the fact that we had occasional "duck and cover" exercises at school and the earth was in literal danger of being cracked, the atmosphere frying. One of the characteristics of people who weren't free was their unpleasant habit of convincing themselves that whatever dictator they currently had was the Greatest Mind of His Age, the Man with All the Answers, who was worthy of their adoration. It wasn't just Stalin and Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. It was Nasser and Peron and Sukarno and Franco and Stroessner and all the other pipsqueak dictators and strongmen. If I'd ever suggested to my parents that somebody wanted me to sing a hymn to President Eisenhauer they'd have assumed I'd become demented and called the men in the white coats.
The song is filled with similar straw-man arguments and ends with a message Barack Obama is sure to appreciate.

"Mom and Dad, we're blaming you!"
Being a part of something greater than yourself has an appeal. It can be religion or it can be politics, but the end result is the same: you don't really have to do any thinking. After all, His Excellency or His Holiness has done all that needs done. The i's have been dotted, the t's crossed.

Thus you could have been a part of the Soviet Union, cranking along for 75 self-justifying years, quoting from the collected works of Marx and Lenin. Or you could have been part of a Thousand Year Reich for... ummm... 12 years. Or you could rely on the dogma of The Church, be it Catholic in 1500 or the Koran in today's version of the Seventh Century.

All it takes for His Enormity is a little charisma to get the message across. Charisma seems to be pretty common. Lots of people have it. Girls used to throw their underwear at Frank Sinatra and they used to faint for the Beatles -- and for B.O. Watch Leni Reifenstahl's magnum opus. Listen to the inspiring music as Der Fuehrer's plane is landing at Nuremburg. Watch the reaction of the populace, to include the adoring girls. Imagine what it felt like to be a part of something so much bigger than yourself. The movie celebrates precisely that for an hour and 45 minutes.

But somehow the jackbooted thugs and the knock at the door in the wee hours of the morn seem to follow the initial euphoria, don't they? And, being a part of something so much greater than yourself, you could support the breaking of a few eggs to make an omelette, as long as you're not the egg. After all, His Enormity is fixing all that's wrong with society.

Somebody let society get that way. It was probably your parents. So you'd probably blame them.

Which came first? The True Believer or the egg?
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They're little kids. Tell them to get lost. Like our parents did with us when we got stupid...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 0:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Being drug down like this must surely be like having a milstone around your neck... government, government, government.
Posted by: newc || 10/31/2012 0:45 Comments || Top||

#3  We're the children of the future, saddled under piles of debt. We all wish the liberals had wised up, but there are no signs yet.
They preferred class warfare rhetoric, and calling everyone racist hicks, to fool the electorate with their emotional tricks.

Come on everyone, sing along.

If the Republicans can't come up with a snarky response to this they aren't even trying.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/31/2012 0:50 Comments || Top||

#4  Dear God help us if he, Axelrod, Jarrett and the rest of his evil regime are not defeated in November.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 1:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Paul Harvey
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 1:41 Comments || Top||

#6  Through the years, I've often wondered how a people could allow the rise of Hitler. Each time I've seen old film clips of crowds in surrender... I never understood how that could happen.

I still don't know how that can happen..... but today? Sometimes, I feel like I'm a part of that history...
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 2:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Fred, when I saw that creepy singing kids video I too immediately thought of that same scene from Cabaret - in my mind one of the most powerful ever out of Hollywood.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/31/2012 8:01 Comments || Top||

#8  That damned song from Cabaret scares me every time I hear it.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 8:58 Comments || Top||

#9  Sherry, this is why. He fulfilled their desires which they would pay with their lives and souls.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 9:36 Comments || Top||

#10  "Honor your father and mother." Ephesians 6:2
Posted by: Thrert Creresh3656 || 10/31/2012 10:15 Comments || Top||

#11  Besoeker, if Paul Harvey's video is circa 1967, that is prescient.

The current video is not only creepy but seems p0rn0graphic in that it uses kids to try to maintain power in Washington. The people who made this should be ashamed of themselves.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 10:19 Comments || Top||

#12  Shame on the left? There is no shame in the pursuit of Power. Power is self justifying and self-rationalized.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 10:31 Comments || Top||

#13  ...well, for the Left.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 10:32 Comments || Top||

#14  #5 Paul Harvey If I were the devil.
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 10:52 Comments || Top||

#15  Judge Jeanine
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 11:00 Comments || Top||

#16  Did somebody say strip mine?
Posted by: BJ Clinton || 10/31/2012 11:00 Comments || Top||

#17  mmmm mmmm mmmm
bacon maiyonnaise fajita
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/31/2012 11:04 Comments || Top||

#18  These guys really can't contain their inner Stalin. It just keeps poking its head out.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/31/2012 12:33 Comments || Top||

#19  I recall posting that very video "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" back in 2008. The whole cult of personality upon which the Obama administration depends has had that sort of overtone since the beginning. This Obama video is yet more Goebbels/Reifenstahl style propaganda, preaching:

accept what you are told uncritically, ignore any counter facts, blame someone else when bad things happen, for you are superior to those who do not believe as you do, so they deserve what they get at your hands, and you should take what you want because you deserve it for just being you (and supporting dear leader).
Posted by: OldSpook || 10/31/2012 16:01 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Hizbut Tahrir made three attempts to penetrate army
[Dawn] The conviction of Brigadier Ali Khan and four other army officers for their links with Hizbut Tahrir
...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate...
(HuT) was the third attempt of the banned
...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all...
organization
to penetrate into the military in the past 10 years.

On August 3, a military court convicted Brigadier Ali Khan, Major Sohail Akbar, Major Jawad Baseer, Major Inayat Aziz and Major Iftikhar for having links with HuT and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for terms ranging from 5 years to 18 months.

Back in 2003, HuT established links with about 13 commandos of the army’s Special Services Group (SSG), in 2009 officers up to the ranks of lieutenant colonel faced court martial for links with HuT and in 2011 a brigadier faced the same charges.Interestingly, in two of these incidents the same HuT members approached the army officers in 2009 and 2011. Although the army authorities have started court martial proceedings against the officers, it appears no action has been taken against them.

According to the documents available with Dawn, HuT activists Abdul Qadir and Ahmed, a doctor, were found to have links with Lt-Col Shahid Bashir in 2009 and Brig Ali Khan in 2011.

Both reports referred to the same activists to establish the case against the officers.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hizb-ut-Tahrir

#1  See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NO NEGOTIATION BY TALIBAN WITH COALITION EXCEPT THROUGH ITS "POLITICAL OFFICE": MULLAH OMAR.

Reminds me of the COSVN from the Vietnam War era = histoire'.

Iff the Hard Boyz can set up a formal "political office", then they can also penetrate the Pak Defense Ministry + Mil HQ.

versus

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [OilPrice.com] IS PAKISTAN'S [historical, Govt-State]PARANOIA PUSHING IT INTO A WAR [future Nuke War] WID INDIA?

ARTIC = Among other, denotes that iff Pakistan fails to control or prevent the MilTerr Groups from taking over its National Govt., ANY FUTURE NEW PAKISTAN WAR AGZ INDIA WILL NO LONGER BE A QUESTION OF "IFF" BUT "WHEN".

> Pakistan has been twitchy since its founding + espec since its defeat vee India in the 1971 Indo-Pak War which saw the loss of Bangladesh from its territory. A NOW SMALLER PAKISTAN SAW ITS DEV OF AN INDIGENOUS NUCLEAR ARSENAL AS AN "EQUALIZER" AGZ THE MUCH LARGER + NUCLEAR INDIA.
> Pakistan believes the US does want to see any Muslim country dev or possess Nuclear Weapons of any sort, hence closely monitors the US for any sign that the US will soon move to take over or destroy its nuclear arsenal.
> TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS [TNWS = Tacnukes] has become the new "equalizer" for Pakistan given that both it + India now possess potent LR strategic missles, + espec that INDIA HAS NO TACNUCWEAPS AT THIS TIME, SEEMINGLY GIVING PAKISTAN A PREEEMPTIVE OR FIRST-STRIKE MIL ADVANTAGE IFF A NEW INDO-PAK WAR OCCURS IN NEAR-FUTURE.

IIUC, IOW Pakistan must militarily strike India first before India develops any effective countermeasures or counterweapons.

* SAME > WHEN AFGHANS LOOK TO THE BORDER WID PAKISTAN, THEY DON'T SEE A FIXED LINE [Durand line].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/31/2012 1:26 Comments || Top||

#2  From what i have read about Hizbut there is not much difference than what what most Pakistanis want ie the Caliphate returning.
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 10/31/2012 17:54 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
U.S. Intelligence Spending Fell in 2012 for Second Year in a Row
The U.S. government's total spending on intelligence activities fell in 2012, the second year in a row of declines after years of soaring security spending since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The Office of Director of National Intelligence, the top U.S. intelligence authority, announced on Tuesday that total funding appropriated for the National Intelligence Program, covering activities of the CIA and high-tech spy agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office, was $53.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2012, which ended on Sept. 30.

That was down from the $54.6 billion appropriated during Fiscal Year 2011, according to government officials and figures published by the private Federation of American Scientists.

Also on Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that funding appropriated for the separate Military Intelligence Program during Fiscal 2012 totaled $21.5 billion. According to the Federation of American Scientists, that compares with $24 billion appropriated for military intelligence in Fiscal 2011.

The total appropriations in Fiscal 2012 for both the national and military intelligence programs was $75.4 billion. This compares to the Fiscal 2011 total of $78.6 billion.

Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the scientists' federation, said that the figure for the National Intelligence Program "represents the first drop" in that program "in many years." But when that figure is combined with military intelligence spending, the overall total has declined for two years, he said.

"Intelligence spending skyrocketed after 9/11, more than doubling," Aftergood said. "It looks like we are now seeing it level off, though it is still at historically high levels."

Some fall-off in intelligence spending had been expected. In a speech a year ago, the current national intelligence director, James Clapper, indicated that 2013 would likely signal the beginning of a decline in spy spending.

"We've experienced 10 years of growth - actually a fairly easy proposition, when you think about it, for the intelligence community, because every year all they had to do was hand out more money and more people," Clapper said in that speech.

The Intelligence Director's office said Tuesday it would not disclose further details of National Intelligence Program spending, citing potential harm to U.S. national security.

According to declassified documents posted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists, appropriations requests for two of the biggest technical spy agencies, the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes intelligence imagery, are considered as part of the National Intelligence program.
Posted by: Au Auric || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Malala attack mastermind put on ECL
[Dawn] The criminal mastermind of the attack on Pak activist Malala Yousufzai has been put on the Exit Control List (ECL), DawnNews reported.

Sources said that after adding Ataullah on the ECL, FIA and immigration authorities have been provided details on the suspect.

After the attack on the young activist, pictures of Ataullah were distributed to relevant authorities.

The interior ministry said that Ataullah had arrived in Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
from Afghanistan prior to the attack and escaped soon after.

The provincial government had put a reward of 10 million rupees on the culprits involved in the attack.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Election 2012
Acting on Intel, Secret and Otherwise
by Steve White

You will enjoy the article, What Did He Know and When Did He Know It? The Shadow Knows... at the source. Michael Ledeen, the respected foreign analyst at the National Review and PJ Media, nails it -- rather, James Jesus Angleton nails it and Ledeen just channels.

Mr. Ledeen's first point is so obvious that it needs to be amplified over and again, and I shall do so here. The whole point of intelligence work, government-gathered and otherwise, is to understand the world around you so that you make good decisions. Not all the intel required to understand a situation is gathered in secret: some of it is right in front of you. As but one example:
  • al-Qaeda hates us. Right in front of us.
  • Libya, particularly Benghazi, was increasingly dangerous. Check.
  • A lot of hard boyz in Benghazi hate us infidels. Of course.
  • The locally-hired coppe shoppe was unreliable. Indeed.
  • Amb. Stevens was too obvious and open in his movements. Yes.
  • He had an inadequate security team. You got it.
  • And it was the anniversary of 9/11. Right there on the calendar.
How much 'secret' intel did President Champ and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta need that day?

Answer: not much.

And how much more intel did they need once the attack commenced and the images from the drone were being beamed back to the White House?

Mr. Ledeen thinks Champ refused to order a rescue because the President was afraid of a failure, of a downed AC-130, of more dead Americans, of a catastrophe just before the election.

Mr. Ledeen is wrong. I know the reason why, and I shall tell you:

Champ was afraid. Period. He couldn't and wouldn't make a decision because he was paralyzed by fear. He is, deep down inside, a coward. He's never made a decision in which failure could come back to hurt him. He refused to make one this time.

Two SEAL guys ran towards the sound of gunfire.

Our president ran to catch a plane to Vegas.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reading the comments on Ledeen's article was as informative as the article itself.

When all the elements are racked & stacked and truth finally surfaces, I still believe there will be ugly weapons transactions or possible anti-Assad rebel force training events which will surface.

Fearing he himself has been targeted, a very security conscience and concerned US ambassador visits one of the most volatile cities in the muslim world one of the most volatile date of the muslim world, under the pretext of a ribbon cutting ceremony of a library to also meet a Turk ?

None of it passes the smell test.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Being a foreigner, I have a question. Since Obama been murdering US servicemen with his ROE for years, why you all so excited over Benghazi?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/31/2012 3:38 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 Because there is something especially repulsive about leaving a man behind on the field of battle. Even the al Qaeda guys try not to do that. (Which is not to say that you don't have a point about the ROE.)
Posted by: Matt || 10/31/2012 7:38 Comments || Top||

#4  And Steve, I think you're right. The underlying question is, why the coverup? A decision not to risk more Americans, disgusting though we here might find it, is at least rational. A secret arms deal could be cloaked in impenetrable diplomatic bullshit. But the President curled up in a ball while men died is so shameful that it cannot see the light of day.
Posted by: Matt || 10/31/2012 7:51 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd say g(r)om because there's a mechanism in place to address that for uniform personnel. Anyone subject to the UCMJ can prefer charges against anyone else. There's a procedural nuke handgrenade [meaning it takes out the complainant and the subject] in Article 138 to force an investigation to any act. So those who compose RoEs for the theater of operations do have an accountability no matter how infrequent or unused it might be. No such mechanism exists for SecDef or POTUS other than the political arena, in which case the public acts as the board of investigation or courts martial board.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/31/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#6  No such mechanism exists for SecDef or POTUS other than the political arena, in which case the public acts as the board of investigation or courts martial board.


The "political arena" to include (for better or worse), elected representatives of the people as to be found in the Congress of the United States.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 10:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Benghazigate (or Obamagate if you prefer) will be pursued after the election later in November. Issa did what he could to bring this to the forefront. The MSM fell down on their job which is shameful--unless their job is to be partisan and get the ONE re-elected. Benghazi seems to be a major question and concern among voters. Benghazi speaks to the fitness of Obama to be President. More information prior to the election would have been appropriate. Voters are entitled to this information so they can make an informed decision about the fitness of this Commander-in-Chief. The fact that Benghazi is being covered up is treasonous.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 10:34 Comments || Top||

#8  Many know John, few are talking. I suspect they remain silent out of fear. Perhaps those in the upper echelons who have knowledge of the truth, will have "more flexibility following the election".
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 10:39 Comments || Top||

#9  McCain was on Huge Hewitt Monday -- his voice was full of anger and he even stated, "If I sound angry it's because I am."

Stated he would push this -- "The President is either being deceitful or is incompetent. Either way, he is not fit to be Commander in Chief."

He added, "If the Republicans are elected to the majority, I will be Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, and this matter will go to the top."
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 11:35 Comments || Top||

#10  Had he acted correctly, we may not still have been able to get them out, but repercussions wouldn't have been instant, and you may have thinned the herd of evil in Libya, and other cretins would be loathe to target US again. And yes, people get killed, or maybe not.

Action was not taken.

Now, some creepies may think it's rather easy to target US Staff.

These things set precedence.
Posted by: newc || 10/31/2012 12:25 Comments || Top||

#11  Bing West stated last night that there ought to be an Execution Order by the President if there was a "Go order for help and rescue" or a "Stand Down order." There should be a paper trail of some sort according to West: Gingrich on more WH emails? and Benghazi paper trail
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 12:31 Comments || Top||

#12  Since Obama been murdering US servicemen with his ROE for years, why you all so excited over Benghazi?

It's not "his ROE", though as CinC he's ultimately (and technically) responsible for it. That's like saying he's responsible for establishing combat air control zones; authority for matters like that is delegated.

The difference is that Mr. Obama had direct command-decision responsibilty with regards to Benghazi. The impression is that he either bailed on the decision either through inaction or improper delegation, or decided 'No' and refuses to explain why.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 13:22 Comments || Top||

#13  Benghazi seems to be a major question and concern among voters. Only a subset of voters care about this. Obama's true believers DON'T, at most they view concern about Benghazi as a delusion of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/31/2012 13:31 Comments || Top||

#14  Got into an argument with somebody who said the President couldn't have known about it. Even after I pointed out the attack lasted 7hours. And he cited as a response, that Obama has a tested IQ of 165, so of course he didn't know. The response wouldn't have been what it was if he had.

Lets just say the idiot was stammering by the end of it, trying to use his current response to Sandy as an excuse of fitness to be President(Never let a crisis go to waste). I could feel him on the ropes. He just didn't know how to respond. Guy's ok, smart, into IT, but just... Ugh. Academia infected him.
Posted by: Charles || 10/31/2012 13:37 Comments || Top||

#15  There is an Obama supporter in the neighborhood who gets his news from MSNBC and The Daily Show. I suppose he and others like him are not going to get much information about Benghazigate.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/31/2012 13:42 Comments || Top||

#16  The best timeline I have yet seen.

Let's just say decision time should have been around 22:00. The event lasts until 04:00 in the morning.
Posted by: newc || 10/31/2012 14:15 Comments || Top||

#17  What I don't understand is why they didn't launch QRF via jet aircraft (they had a laser on the ground and a trained spotter using it), and a support element (AC130) launched pretty much immediately after that. You can generate a FRAGORD and get things wheels up, complete planning, issue the full OPORD en-route, and make a final go/no-go as late as the approach to near the IP. Quick response is why we have top notch aircraft, pilots, aircrews, ground crews and operations planners: they are trained and able to do this on-the-fly if needed.

That's where I have the problem: By not launching at all you effectively terminate all chances for any sort of response. If you launch immediately, you can always call the strike back, or have them orbit (generate a tanker sortie if needed), waiting for orders (strike or return) - and if things get worse (as they did) you can order them in fairly quickly, and if things are too dicey, order them to RTB.

Not even generating the strike package is criminally negligent, and smacks of cowardice or political calculation from the NCA in the Situation Room at the White House.
Posted by: OldSpook || 10/31/2012 15:36 Comments || Top||

#18  that Obama has a tested IQ of 165

Where's the proof? I've seen "Test Your IQ" ads for years that claimed President Obama had an IQ of 125.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/31/2012 15:38 Comments || Top||

#19  I have some friends, both with extremely high IQ's -- but can't make a decision.

Spent two hours with them at an Atlanta restaurant as they spent the entire time trying to decide whether to go to Savannah, or Columbus, GA. I left before the decision was made...

Barack didn't make a decision.... IQ has nothing to do with making a decision... my cat makes a decision every time she goes into pouch mode to jump up on the kitchen counter -- will I stop her or will I not -- she makes a decision and usually jumps...
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 15:59 Comments || Top||

#20  There is a huge difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence will inform you of facts, but wisdom will inform you of right and wrong. Intelligence means you know smoking is bad for you, but wisdom means you know you must make the hard effort to quit.
Posted by: OldSpook || 10/31/2012 16:05 Comments || Top||

#21  But the President curled up in a ball while men died is so shameful that it cannot see the light of day.

This has the feeling of ugly truth.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:30 Comments || Top||

#22  Also Sherry... the answer is always Savannah.
:)
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 16:31 Comments || Top||

#23  Not even generating the strike package is criminally negligent, and smacks of cowardice or political calculation from the NCA in the Situation Room at the White House.
Posted by: OldSpook


I suspect forces were in orbit and on stand-by as you have indicated. Why would anyone risk the potential spread of hostilities to Tripoli, and not be prepared to interdict ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/31/2012 16:35 Comments || Top||

#24  Ship -- that was my decision...
Posted by: Sherry || 10/31/2012 17:33 Comments || Top||

#25  "I have some friends, both with extremely high IQ's -- but can't make a decision. "

Sherry - very correct.
We call it "analysis paralysis" and it often affects very intelligent people. They get bogged down by their own lack of decision making. The old saying still applies ... "not making a decision" is also a decision. :-)
Posted by: Raider || 10/31/2012 18:34 Comments || Top||

#26  This is the latest research findings, which seems to explain a lot about the inaction of so-called intelligent people.
Empathy Represses Analytic Thought, and Vice Versa: Brain Physiology Limits Simultaneous Use of Both Networks
Posted by: tipper || 10/31/2012 21:48 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Ship with 700 tons of gold ore disappears off Russia
MOSCOW – A vessel with a nine-person crew and 700 tons of gold ore onboard has disappeared in stormy seas off Russia's Pacific Coast.
Oh! Oh! I seen that movie!
The ship sent a distress call on Sunday as it was sailing from the coastal town of Neran to Feklistov Island in the Sea of Okhotsk.

The vessel, hired by mining company Polymetal, was carrying 700 tons of gold ore from one deposit to another where it was to be processed. Gold ore is the material from which gold is extracted and contains only a small percentage of the precious metal.

Polymetal's spokesman on Monday would not estimate the value of the cargo.

The company said it has shipped ore via that route before, and there was nothing unusual in shipping it by the sea.
Wonder how things have been for ex-Spetznaz these days...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A likely excuse. The real tungsten gold ore was shipped somewhere else.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/31/2012 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Gold doesn't disappear.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/31/2012 12:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Ore it could be a tragedy.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/31/2012 15:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I hate when that happens.....
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/31/2012 19:56 Comments || Top||

#5  Gordon Lightfoot warming up.....
Posted by: Frank G || 10/31/2012 21:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Tough to find something that rhymes with Okhotsk...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/31/2012 21:13 Comments || Top||

#7  FrankG
This song really makes you shiver, doesn't it?
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/31/2012 21:15 Comments || Top||

#8  I sense another Modern Warfare game coming!

Call of Duty 10: Modern Warfare 4: Commie Gold
Posted by: badanov || 10/31/2012 21:20 Comments || Top||

#9  5 grams per ton
3500 grams
7 pounds
250 ounces
$400,000
bfd
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 10/31/2012 21:35 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Myanmar violence
[Dawn] FRESH communal violence has erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, between the majority Buddhist population and members of the minority Rohingya Moslem community. The scale of the violence is disturbing; Myanmar authorities say some 90 people have been killed in the latest bout of bloodletting while the UN has said over 26,000 people, mostly Moslem, have been displaced over the last week or so. Hundreds of homes have also been torched in the rioting. Satellite images released by Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
point to ‘extensive destruction’ in a Rohingya-dominated area. Earlier in June, similarly horrific violence was witnessed in Rakhine after the rape and killing of a Buddhist woman, blamed on Rohingya men. The incident sparked savage reprisals and the Myanmar military had to be called in to restore order.

Sectarian and ethnic strife is unfortunately quite common in Myanmar. The transition from decades of military rule to a quasi-democracy in 2010 has failed to bring relief to many of the minority groups unhappy with their treatment in Myanmar. This is particularly true of the Rohingya, who have been described by the UN as amongst the world’s most persecuted minorities. Numbering about 800,000 in Myanmar, the Rohingya are a stateless people as the government does not extend citizenship rights to them; even amongst the general population the community faces widespread discrimination. And whenever there is communal violence, the Rohingya often have nowhere to flee; neighbouring Bangladesh, which already hosts thousands of Rohingyas, has turned back refugees as it did in June. But perhaps what is most disappointing is the silence of Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi over the plight of the Rohingya. Ms Suu Kyi, who struggled against the military junta for years, has maintained an ambiguous stance on the ethnic strife in Rakhine, perhaps due to the impact any defence of the Rohingya may have on her party’s electoral fortunes; some of her party’s leading officials have reportedly made openly anti-Moslem statements. Considering her stature, Ms Suu Kyi must rise above communal politics and raise a voice for the Rohingyas so that a permanent solution to Myanmar’s sectarian strife can be found.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Houthi leader denounces US strike on Saada
[Yemen Post] Head of the Houthi
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is "God is Great, Death to America™", Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ...
group Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has strongly denounced a US drone strike on Kutaf of Saada in which four Al-Qaeda suspects were killed.

In a statement, he described that the as a US vicious campaign against the Yemeni people, stressing that the US aims at domination on Yemeni land and looting its resources.

He further accused the interim government of allowing the US air forces to commit crimes in Yemen and give it political cover to continue its strikes.

The Houthi group had exploited the 2011 chaos acts to take control on the rugged governorate amid allegations that it commits crimes and conduct arrest campaigns against its political foes.

The group engaged in violent festivities with tribal groups in Haja and Amran as it tried to expand in these areas.

A Yemeni think-tank, Abaad Research and Study Centre has recently said that slogans raised by the Houthi group led to the storm of the US Embassy in Sana'a early of September.

US drones killed four Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in the first strike recorded against the terror group in northern Yemen. A local Al-Qaeda commander was targeted, and two Saudis are thought to be among those killed.

The Arclight airstrike targeted a house in northern Yemen, killing three people. At least two were reported to be Saudis.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Mustaqbal Urges Referring Hasan Case to STL
[An Nahar] Al-Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
parliamentary bloc on Tuesday described the liquidation of Maj. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan, head of the Internal Security Forces' Intelligence Bureau, as “a black turning point that cannot be overlooked, as it heralds the end of a phase and the beginning of another in Leb

According to a statement issued after the bloc's weekly meeting, the headline of the new phase in Leb is “the renewed attempt of the Syrian-Iranian regime and its local and regional tools to target Leb and turn it into an arena for conflict and settling scores, in a bid to dominate it and subjugate its democratic system and people.”

The bloc slammed Prime Minister Najib Miqati's government, describing it as “a tool of war and persecution in the face of the majority of the Lebanese people and the leaders of the March 14 forces.”

The conferees accused the government of “providing political cover for the violations and recurrent crimes,” noting that it assumed power through the so-called “coup of the black shirts” which was “sponsored by the Syrian-Iranian alliance.”

The bloc said “the departure of the government and its replacement with a neutral, salvation government is the necessary first step towards the minimum level of national order and balance and towards achieving real stability on the eve of the parliamentary elections.”
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Protesters Storm Libya Assembly
[An Nahar] A dozen demonstrators stormed Libya's national assembly late on Tuesday prompting postponement of a key vote on the cabinet line-up proposed by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.

Images aired on state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
showed angry scenes in the chamber as assembly members prepared to vote one by one on the proposed line-up.

Moments later, a dozen men entered the assembly but security services kept them on the sidelines.

"What happened constitutes psychological pressure on the members of the congress," said assembly president Mohammed Megaryef.

"Let it be known to all Libyans and to the whole world in what conditions we are working in... The session is adjourned," he said, suggesting that the assembly convene again on Wednesday.

Earlier, Libya's new premier presented a 30-member cabinet that includes liberals and Islamists, in a fresh test of the country's fledgling democracy after the armed uprising that ousted Muammar Qadaffy
...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years until he was ejected from the gene pool by his indignant citizens...
last year.

Zeidan was elected on October 14 after his predecessor, Mustafa Abu Shagur, was dismissed in a vote of no confidence when the assembly rejected his cabinet line-up as unrepresentative of Libya's numerous factions.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  I'm surprised the Press didn't help them by giving them passes, like they've done with Congress.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/31/2012 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Islamists

Democracy

I think I see the problem here. Just shoot all and any Islamists and then there may be a stronger chance of Democracy perhaps.

There will always be corruption in systems, but the worst is to have a corrupt god.
Posted by: Solomon Protector of the Texans5923 || 10/31/2012 14:44 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
No Sign Pakistan is Combating Insurgency: Sediqqi
[Tolo News] There are no clear signs that Pakistain is honestly trying to combat insurgency on its soil because it is not changing a failing strategy, Afghan Ministry of Interior front man Sediq Sediqqi said on Tuesday.

Speaking to TOLOnews, Sediqqi said that Pakistain's tactics in fighting the insurgency in its country show no sign of success and so need to be revised; however, it has not done so.

"Pakistain is still holding onto its previous strategy in fighting insurgency which needs a definite change," Sediqqi told TOLOnews.

"There are no clear signs of honesty in Pakistain's fight against insurgency. We have not witnessed any great effort from Pakistain," he added.

He made the statements after Pakistain's 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.
said recently that fighting against the country's faceless myrmidons should be in close collaboration with the citizens and in keeping with their demands.

"We should act based on their demands, we should consider the demands of local residents in fight against insurgency. The military cannot be a solution for every problem," Malik said, calling for an immediate termination of the US drone strikes in tribal areas.

The international community and the Afghan government has frequently urged the Pakistain authorities to do more to control the bully boyz within its border, particularly the Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.

Afghan military analyst Gen. Amrullah Aman believes that Pakistain is intending to challenge the international community by focusing on the matter of US drone strikes.

"Pakistain tries to deceive the international community in the fight against the insurgency. Pakistain is dealing with bully boyz by asking for a termination of drone strikes," he told TOLOnews on Tuesday.

Pakistain-based bully boyz have been blamed by US and NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
leaders for terrorist attacks on several high-profile sites in Afghanistan in including embassies and Isaf headquarters.
Posted by: Fred || 10/31/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan

#1  Clean up jihadi groups and they lose money from the International community.Its a no brainer.
Posted by: Omerelet Spaique1766 || 10/31/2012 14:33 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
47[untagged]
5Govt of Syria
3Govt of Iran
2Arab Spring
2al-Qaeda in Pakistan
2Jamaat-e-Islami
2TTP
1Taliban
1Hizb-ut-Tahrir
1Govt of Pakistan
1al-Shabaab
1Houthis
1Islamic Jihad

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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.
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Steve White
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tu3031
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2012-10-31
  18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai
Tue 2012-10-30
  Israel Hit by 18 Rockets as Hamas Seeks Revenge
Mon 2012-10-29
  52 Dead in Syria Clashes, Air Raids after Eid Truce Collapses
Sun 2012-10-28
  Almost 150 Killed on First Day of Syria Truce
Sat 2012-10-27
  Indonesia foils plot to attack US missions
Fri 2012-10-26
  Afghanistan mosque suicide bomb attack kills at least 41
Thu 2012-10-25
  Israel says 79 rockets fired at it from Gaza
Wed 2012-10-24
  Libya fighters seize Bani Walid
Tue 2012-10-23
  Foreign jihadists pour into northern Mali
Mon 2012-10-22
  Men 'planned mass suicide attack'
Sun 2012-10-21
  Nigeria military nabs Bokoboy at senator's home
Sat 2012-10-20
  Leb: Wissam al-Hasan Assassinated in Beirut Bomb Blast
Fri 2012-10-19
  144 Dead as Syria Jets Blast Maaret al-Numan and Suicide Bomber Hits near Interior Ministry
Thu 2012-10-18
  Iranian-American Pleads Guilty to Plot to Kill Saudi Envoy to U.S.
Wed 2012-10-17
  ROPer arrested for attempting to blow up Federal Reserve Bank in NYC

Better than the average link...



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