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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Mohammed Morsi titzup
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Only with Real Transparency Will the FBI Ever Be Trusted Again
[PJ] When Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos he (Donald) might listen to "oppo" research coming from a foreign source and that he might not tell the FBI about it, the mainstream media, as is so often the case, deliberately missed or misstated what he meant, went into one of their usual hissy fits, and attacked the president, even calling him treasonous.

Besides the obvious hypocrisy, pointed out with characteristic aplomb by Andrew McCarthy, something else, likely more important, was at play.

The media (and the Democrats, of course) deliberately missed the point because you would have to be seriously intellectually challenged not to get why Trump might have been hesitant or ambivalent about going to the FBI. These days only a total dimwit would unquestioningly trust the supposed "world's greatest law enforcement agency." The FBI is under a dark cloud.

The litany of personages who have recently left or been expelled from that organization is long and getting longer. As is well known, it's under investigation for its practices during and before the Mueller probe, via the inspector general and recently-appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is famed for prosecuting FBI agents with ties to the Boston mob. All this is being supervised by AG William Barr.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/17/2019 07:49 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A weaponized arm of the Deep State, always has been. Protecting the nation from domestic terrorism... not so much.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/17/2019 8:03 Comments || Top||

#2  No one ever trusted the FBI. I'm not sure what the author is eluding to. They have always acted a political arm for one party or the other...
Posted by: 49 Pan || 06/17/2019 14:22 Comments || Top||

#3  They might be more trustworthy if Link Wray were FBI director, but sadly, the Link died a few years back...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 06/17/2019 14:51 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too.
Hattip Instapundit. Here’s the beginning — go read the entire, very long thing.
[ForeignPolicy] In recent years, Hezbollah has stepped up its activities beyond Leb’s borders. This uptick has been clearest in the Middle East‐in Iraq, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
, and especially Syria‐but plots have also been thwarted in South America, Asia, Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
, and now, possibly, the United States.

Reports of Hezbollah activity in North America are not new, though such reporting tends to focus on the group’s fundraising, money laundering, procurement, or other logistical activities from Vancouver to Miami. But last month, the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed disturbing new information about the extent of Hezbollah’s operations and activities in the United States and Canada.

Taken together, the arrests in 2017 of Kourani and another Hezbollah operative, Samer el-Debek, led the U.S. intelligence community to revisit its longstanding assessment that Hezbollah would be unlikely to attack the U.S. homeland unless the group perceived Washington to be taking action threatening its existence or that of its patron‐Iran. Following Kourani and Debek’s arrests, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said in October 2017, "It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook."

At the time, little of the underlying information leading to this new assessment had been made public, but on May 16, a New York jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts in the indictment against Kourani, including terrorist charges related to his surveillance of FBI and U.S. Secret Service offices, as well as a U.S. Army armory, all in New York City. (Debek has yet to stand trial.)

Kourani carried out other operational activities as a long-term sleeper agent, acting on behalf of Hezbollah’s external attack-planning component, the Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination 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...
Organization (IJO), such as identifying Israelis in New York who could be targeted by Hezbollah and finding people from whom he could procure arms that Hezbollah could stockpile in the area.

Most of his activities occurred in the United States, but Hezbollah also sent Kourani to China, where the group had previously procured chemicals used to make bombs of the kind the group built in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Thailand. The 2012 bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria, left seven people dead including the bomber and 32 maimed, and bomb-making chemicals of the same type were found in Thailand in 2012 and in Cyprus in 2012 and 2015, when plots were thwarted there. Hezbollah also sent Kourani on operational assignments to Canada. Kourani described himself in interviews with FBI agents as being part of a "sleeper cell."

"While living in the United States, Kourani served as an operative of Hezbollah in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers. These included buildings housing the FBI and U.S. Secret Service in Manhattan, as well as New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and a U.S. Army armory.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/17/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Prosecutors concluded Kourani and his handler saw distinct advantages to Kourani having ties to Canada “so he could travel back and forth to Canada to conduct operations.”Prosecutors concluded Kourani and his handler saw distinct advantages to Kourani having ties to Canada “so he could travel back and forth to Canada to conduct operations.”

"Distinct advantages" to third country contacts. How very original. Steele, Ohr, McCain... might all agree.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/17/2019 7:45 Comments || Top||


Here's a foreign policy think tank openly advocating the use of false flag tactics in order to create a pretext to attack Iran.
Remember the Maine!
Golly. A bunch of thinkers tossing ideas around back in 2012, when Barack Obama, who loved his deal with Iran, was president. Not exactly a smoking gun.

Posted by: Herb McCoy || 06/17/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This low IQ fokker is being allowed to promote extremely false conspiracy theories about the current administration through comments and posts like this.
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 06/17/2019 1:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Our young men and women in the military serving in the Strait of Hormuz, putting their lives in danger are being mischarachterized and trashed by this cockroach at Rantburg?????
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 06/17/2019 1:57 Comments || Top||

#3  The crank of an engine. Then... clink, clank.
Eyes fixed on the fog barely blink. Blank
Looks all around
As the source of the sound
Is revealed as... a Washington think tank.

Remember the CuComs!
Posted by: Thumper Tingle8166 || 06/17/2019 5:59 Comments || Top||

#4  This isn't news -- it's a seven year old video.

Posted by: Rob Crawford || 06/17/2019 7:07 Comments || Top||

#5  But Herb is living in the anti-Neocons! No blood for oil! Nutcase era
Posted by: Frank G || 06/17/2019 7:12 Comments || Top||

#6  In my country tanks aren't used for thinking.
Posted by: European Conservative || 06/17/2019 7:29 Comments || Top||

#7  From think tanks to various money losing publications supported by left or faux non-left billionaires, every time I hear some dimwhit like Boofay mumble that "the proles' taxes are not high enough," I wonder: What if that wasted money was re-directed to something worthwhile?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 06/17/2019 7:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Considering this is the Washington Institute... I'll file this where it belongs. In the outside trash with my dog's shit.
Posted by: DarthVader || 06/17/2019 8:58 Comments || Top||

#9  False Flags operations do occur. Most regular folks think of them pejoratively. There is something about people being duped that they just don't like.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/17/2019 9:09 Comments || Top||

#10  In my country tanks aren't used for thinking.

Snark of the Day material! And nearly a coffee-spewing accident.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/17/2019 9:12 Comments || Top||

#11  Sitting around and thinking all day every day sounds like an easy way to make a good living. I mean, it's not like there's any real work involved. Just kick back in a nice, comfortable chair and think about...stuff. Where do I apply?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 06/17/2019 10:45 Comments || Top||

#12  Vote for #6 for Snark Of The Day
Posted by: magpie || 06/17/2019 12:53 Comments || Top||

#13  The Iranians were supplying terrorists in Iraq while we were there. We've also never scraped them off the map for 1979. We don't need a reason or an excuse. As for Iran being stupid enough to attack the tankers, nothing I've seen in almost 50 years tells me they really aren't that stupid.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 06/17/2019 13:01 Comments || Top||

#14  "Our young men and women in the military serving in the Strait of Hormuz, putting their lives in danger are being mischarachterized and trashed by this cockroach at Rantburg?????"

Who said this? This is a DC think tank.

Frank G back on the bottom of the pyramid of debate with name calling instead of arguments.

"We've also never scraped them off the map for 1979."

Uhm, Jimmy Carter met with Ayatollah Khomeini and approved the revolution. Khomeini pinky swore not to be hostile to the USA afterwards. Did we not know this? Mr. Human Rights Carter didn't like the Shah, a staunch US ally. Boy, do you people seriously not know this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Khomeini

This video just goes to show DC elites have been chomping at the bit for a war with Iran for a long time. Obama did a deal with them instead of a war, the neocons had to be pissed.

It's the ease with which they throw around these ideas, really. You'd expect using a false flag attack as a casus belli to start a war with Iran to be utterly repugnant, or if not then top secret, not bantered around casually.

A false flag incident to start a war with Iran has been within the Overton Window of DC for years. PNAC called for starting a war with Saddam in 1996, Albright in 1998. Did we not know this either? Things don't happen overnight.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 06/17/2019 13:42 Comments || Top||

#15  A better story about US support for Ayatollah Khomeini overthrowing the Shah.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36431160
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 06/17/2019 13:57 Comments || Top||

#16  Obama gave a craven bow to the Mullahs, just as you'd do
Posted by: Frank G || 06/17/2019 14:17 Comments || Top||

#17  Carter was a pansy and 0bumhole was passive-aggressive. Neither knew how to negotiate properly.

War will come when one or the other side decide the time has come, not because of any false flag operation or overreaction to or intentional misinterpretation of an event.
Posted by: gorb || 06/17/2019 14:49 Comments || Top||

#18  Herb,

You apparently saw 1979 and let your mind go someplace weird. I said we never scraped them off the map FOR 1979, when they invaded our Embassy, committing to what had been the standard up to that point, an act of war. To my mind, since the first foot crossed the threshhold of our embassy, we have been at war with Iran. We haven't been bothered to exterminate them yet, but at whatever point we choose to do so, the reason has already been given.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 06/17/2019 15:16 Comments || Top||

#19  Meh. This war came in 1979 and never left — we just haven’t yet started fighting back. In fact, Jimmy Carter tried to surrender when he was president, and Barack Obama was actively on the enemy’s side. If there were to be a false flag operation — though if we did such a thing it would be against our own equipment, not that of various powerless third parties — it would only mark the beginning of what should have been done in 1980 or 1983 or any time since 2003... or a number of other occasions in between.

But Iran’s Mad Mullah’s continue to be generous im providing the real thing. It was only a few years ago, on January 12, 2016 that Iran stopped two American boats in the Gulf, detaining ten sailors — a casus belli wrapped up in a pretty bow. Any discussion in 2012 would have had the reality of President Obama’s craven response in mind — and we have it all in our archives starting here.

A pity that Allah did not allow a repeat performance the other day, but if we are patient and good Iran will provide a perfectly legitimate excuse to rain hell down upon them soon enough.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/17/2019 15:51 Comments || Top||

#20  tanks aren't used for thinking

EC, thanks for being you! Laughed my way through the Panzerlied (quietly, it being 0300 or thereabouts, and fudging the words a bit).
Posted by: Neville Jath2106 || 06/17/2019 16:20 Comments || Top||

#21  "In this very ornately carved crate
Awaits a great hater in state,
Entombed by a troll,
Herb McCoy," sez the scroll,
"In his pyramid of high school debate."
Posted by: Neville Jath2106 || 06/17/2019 16:50 Comments || Top||

#22  Nice. Licking the bottom of the curley-toed shoes
Posted by: Frank G || 06/17/2019 20:20 Comments || Top||

#23  We need a pretense?
Posted by: Skidmark || 06/17/2019 20:53 Comments || Top||

#24  "As Americans, it is our God-given right to mispronounce, misspell, f*ck, fight or kill anything we come across. That's why the French hate us."
-- I forget who
Posted by: SteveS || 06/17/2019 21:54 Comments || Top||

#25  What I don't understand is there has been at least two times when the people were in the streets of Iran, seemingly against the government, and we apparently did nothing. I'm not sure what we could have done but it would seem to have been better to help the people than some false flag idiocy that McCoy is on about.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 06/17/2019 23:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Rethinking hero status: Was Martin Luther King Jr. a monster?
[American Thinker] César Chávez once declared, "History will judge societies and governments -- and their institutions -- not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless."

This quote got me thinking. How will history judge Martin Luther King Jr.?

The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King, a recent essay published by widely respected historian David Garrow in Standpoint, a widely respected British magazine, sparked fierce debate among historians. Within the press, however, Garrow’s essay was met with a reaction somewhere between ambivalence and outright refutation.

Remember, this is David Garrow, author of King’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. This is an author of real merit.

According to Garrow, King engaged in orgies, solicited prostitutes, and "looked on and laughed" as a rape took place before his very eyes.

Again, this report comes from a senior advisor to Eyes on the Prize, an award-winning series documenting the Civil Rights movement. Garrow is very much a liberal's liberal. He’s certainly no friend of the right, and he’s certainly no enemy of King's. In fact, Garrow is, in many ways, a former idolator.

The allegations against Dr. King are as shocking as they are unfathomable. How could this man, an activist and orator like no other, act in such a monstrous manner? In King’s famous "I have a dream" speech, the self-professed pacifist eloquently expressed the hope that someday his children would be able to live in a nation "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Well, Dr. King, your wish has been granted, because here we are, all these years later, judging the content of your character.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/17/2019 05:40 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What's unfathomable to me is how an entire nation can allow itself to be brought to it's knees at the altar of guilt, citing inaccurate historical depictions and blatant panhandling for 'respect' by openly un-American communities.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 06/17/2019 9:15 Comments || Top||

#2  ...Am I the only one who remembers hearing about this twenty-something years ago?

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 06/17/2019 12:03 Comments || Top||

#3  I never hero-worshipped him.

He was at best a flawed human who did some good things while having socialistic views, and who was drifting even further left before his assassination.

He would have been like Jesse Jackson or John L. Lewis (but more sonorously articulate) had he lived.
Posted by: charger || 06/17/2019 14:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Agreed, charger. He did advocate having the father in the household and doing your best at what you do, so there's that.

Don't know if he would have gone 'Full Grifter' like one of the other two you mention (not John L.).
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 06/17/2019 16:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Mike: No, I remember it too. I think though it was just rumors then. Nobody with pull had come forward claiming to have heard the tapes by the FBI. That's the difference now. This also might have been planned as "soft" release since the tapes are supposed to be declassified in... what, 2024?
Posted by: Charles || 06/17/2019 19:15 Comments || Top||

#6  Isn't everyone, in their time?
Posted by: Skidmark || 06/17/2019 20:52 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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6Taliban
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2Govt of Pakistan
1Govt of Syria
1Govt of Iraq
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1Commies
1Muslim Brotherhood
1Sublime Porte
1al-Nusra

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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2019-06-17
  Mohammed Morsi titzup
Sun 2019-06-16
  Maldives seek foreign help to deal with IS fighters
Sat 2019-06-15
  Iranian boat fired missile at US drone prior to tanker attack, US official says
Fri 2019-06-14
  Tanker Front Altair is on fire according to Bloomberg
Thu 2019-06-13
  Middle East on alert as two oil tankers are hit by explosions and one 'sinks' in suspected 'torpedo attack' in Gulf of Oman
Wed 2019-06-12
  Boko Haram kills at least 26 people in Cameroon
Tue 2019-06-11
  At least 95 killed in central Mali village attack
Mon 2019-06-10
  Iran ammonium-nitrate stash in London and around the world ignored for 2015 Iran deal
Sun 2019-06-09
  Tunisian-German couple in court over ‘ricin attack plot’
Sat 2019-06-08
  U.S., Mexico: Trump Announces Deal With Mexico, Suspends Tariff Threat
Fri 2019-06-07
  Houthis kill imam, 9 worshippers for following Saudi Eid al-Fitr moon sighting
Thu 2019-06-06
  ISIS claiming to exterminate a Pakistani Intel agent
Wed 2019-06-05
  Nanagarhar: Senior ISIS leader hailing from India killed in Afghanistan airstrike
Tue 2019-06-04
  Sri Lanka Muslim ministers resign en masse over Easter bombings
Mon 2019-06-03
  Houthi rebels launch a drone attack on a military parade for Saudi-led coalition forces in the port city of Aden

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