[Intel Briefs] Al-Qaeda may expel Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... for failing to stick to Jihad laws, intelligence analysts report. Somehow I doubt it.
"The laws of Jihad are very clear, 'You fight only that who fights you, you don't kill children, women, and old frail men. Any one who does that is not conducting jihad, rather speaking and acting for himself"
Al-Shabaab has broke every rule of the Qoran's guide to Jihad and Al-Qaeda may opt expelling or punishing them.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... banishing the Al-Shabaab from the Al-Qaeda would have catastrophic ramifications in East Africa.
Al-Shabaab will simply join ISIS and continue with their murders.
What is happening is that Al-Shabaab is desperate, broke, and demoralized by many factors such as defections, loss of territory, economic lifelines, besides continued destrution and killing of their troops by the Kenyan military.
This desperation is being witnessed through attacks that are rushed and half-planned.
The objective is to seek relevancy and support from the Al-Qaeda.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... Al-Shabaab is on a steady decline and could be dead in coming days.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 01:25 ||
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#1
Haha as if Alqaeda doesn't murder children, women, and old frail men.
Who's the idiot that wrote this?
[AnNahar] Kenyan police have named homegrown myrmidon Islamist Mohammed Mohamud, a soft-spoken former teacher, as the alleged criminal mastermind of the massacre of 148 people in a university in Garissa.
Known also by the alias "Kuno", as well as "Dulyadin" and "Gamadhere" -- meaning "long armed" and "ambidextrous" -- the alleged Shabaab member is also wanted in connection with a string of recent cross-border killings and massacres in Kenya's northeastern border region.
Police have offered a 20 million shilling ($215,000, 200,000 euro) bounty for information leading to his capture.
Mohamud is a Kenyan national and an ethnic Somali -- like more than two million other Kenyans or some six percent of the population. The minority mainly lives in the country's vast, impoverished and arid northeast, where Garissa is one of the largest towns.
Kenya's ethnic Somali region is also claimed by the Shehab as part of Somalia itself, and has long been lawless, including the brutal secessionist 1963-1967 "Shifta war".
While Mohamud, thought to be in his late 50s, did not take part physically in the Garissa attack, students who survived the massacre described the attackers as men like him: speaking Kenya's Swahili language well, with some suggesting they may have been Kenyan too.
One of those tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! of suspicion of supporting the gunnies include a Tanzanian -- found hiding in a ceiling with grenades -- and a university security guard, a Kenyan ethnic Somali, according to the interior ministry.
Mohamud was reportedly born in Æthiopia into the powerful Somali Ogaden clan, which controls the region where Æthiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet.
Photographs show a slender man with a short beard.
Kenyan police sources say he was a teacher and then headmaster of a madrassa in Garissa, but later became radicalized and crossed the mostly non-existent border into southern Somalia to join the Islamic Courts Union, a precursor to the Shabaab.
An AFP correspondent who met him in the Somali capital Mogadishu in 2008 and 2009, when the majority of the city was under Shabaab control, said Mohamud was a well-known and hardline commander.
He commanded a much feared Islamist unit in Mogadishu called the "Jugta-Culus" -- or "heavy strikers", who carried out some of the toughest fighting.
Mohamud, however, also appeared in person as educated as well as "quiet and gentle".
He appeared in several propaganda films showing Shabaab battles in southern Somalia, and later was a commander in the southern Somali Ras Kamboni militia, under the warlord Ahmed Madobe, a former Islamist commander turned Kenyan ally.
In the murky world of Somali gangs, politics and clan loyalties, Madobe's forces helped Kenyan forces seize the key port of Kismayo in 2012.
While Mohamud is on the run, Madobe now leads southern Somalia's Jubaland region.
But under pressure on their home soil, the Shabaab have reached into Kenya to carry out attacks and find recruits among disaffected youth in the Moslem-majority coastal and northeast regions.
In November, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group grabbed credit for holding up a bus outside Mandera, separating passengers according to religion and murdering 28 non-Moslems.
Ten days later, 36 non-Moslem quarry workers were also massacred in the area.
A Shabaab statement on Friday warning Kenyans of further bloodshed, said the gunnies carried out the Garissa attack in Dire Revenge for the "systematic persecution of the Moslems in Kenya".
Attacks cited include Kenya's 1984 Wagalla massacre, when Kenyan troops trying to put down local conflict killed an unknown number of people - officially less than a hundred, while others claims up to 5,000 people.
Cash rewards for other Shabaab commanders -- offered by the U.S., and unlike Mohamud's bounty, in the millions of dollars -- are believed to have led to information that have resulted in a series of air strikes in Somalia to assassinate them.
[REUTERS] Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Saturday that those behind an attack in which al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... Islamist murderous Moslems killed 148 people at a university were "deeply embedded" in Kenya, and called on Kenyan Moslems to help prevent radicalization.
His televised speech in response to Thursday's 15-hour siege at the Garissa university campus came after the Interior Ministry said five suspects in the assault were tossed into the calaboose, some while trying to flee to Somalia.
Four suspects were Kenyans of Somali origin, and the fifth was Tanzanian, the ministry said. The suspected criminal mastermind, Mohammed Mohamud, a former teacher at a Garissa madrasa, is still on the run. Kenya has offered a 20 million shillings ($215,000) reward for his arrest.
"Our task of countering terrorism has been made all the more difficult by the fact that the planners and financiers of this brutality are deeply embedded in our communities," Kenyatta said.
"Radicalization that breeds terrorism is not conducted in the bush at night. It occurs in the full glare of day, in madrasas, in homes, and in mosques with rogue imams."
The attack at Garissa, which lies 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border, has put Kenya on high alert and spooked its Christian communities after reports the gunnies sought out Christian students while sparing some Moslems.
Kenyatta's comments will put more pressure on Kenya's Moslem community, who make up about 10 percent of the 44-million-strong population.
More than 400 people have been killed by al-Shabaab on Kenyan soil since he took power two years ago, including 67 people who died during a siege in September 2013 on a Nairobi shopping mall.
Earlier on Thursday, Somali murderous Moslems vowed to wage a long war against Kenya and run its cities "red with blood".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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The White House also touts Yemen as a model of success...
President Obama has cited the battle against al-Shabab militants in Somalia as a model of success for his relatively low-investment, light-footprint approach to counterterrorism.
The White House touts the Iran nuclear deal as peace in our time...
By some measures, it has paid dividends. U.S. drones have killed several of the Islamist group’s leaders, including two top planners in just the past month, a senior administration official said Friday. African Union troops backed by the United States have forced al-Shabab fighters to flee huge swaths of territory. Wait till they point with pride to Karachi!
But this week’s massacre of 148 people at Garissa University College, the deadliest terrorist attack on Kenyan soil in two decades, demonstrates the limits of the administration’s approach and the difficulty of producing lasting victories over resilient enemies.
Particularly when you're not trying very hard...
Only last fall, Obama was touting his counterterrorism strategy in the region as one that “we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
If he begins to jabber about another part of the world where we've been successful, I'd go short in that country's stock market...
The collapse of the American-backed government in Yemen forced the Pentagon last month to pull its Special Operations forces from the country. The chaos in Yemen and the absence of an effective partner has essentially halted U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda’s affiliate there.
In Somalia and neighboring Kenya, the record is less clear. Despite this week’s killings, senior administration officials characterized their campaign against al-Shabab as highly effective.
As long as you don't mind all the dead women and children...
The organization, a onetime youth militia that began affiliating with al-Qaeda in the mid-2000s, once controlled virtually all of southern Somalia but has lost more than 75 percent of its territory in recent years.
Its grip on Kismayo, where it controlled the lucrative port, had been broken, robbing it of a key source of revenue. These days, the group’s finances have been drained.
Turns out that guns and ammo are cheap. Gunnies are cheap. It's only the number three's that cost you money since they like to live in style...
This week’s vicious killings in Kenya, carried out by only a small team of masked gunmen, were cited by White House officials as further evidence of the group’s inevitable demise.
That doesn't make a bit of sense.
“They are desperate,” said the senior administration official,. “And as much as we hate to think about it, this is what desperate groups do. They try to have smaller teams go out and [conduct] higher-impact operations.”
No, it means that they could stage an operation well within Kenya and get a spectacular (for them) result. They were able to foil the Kenyan police and military long enough to kill a lot of people.
But analysts who follow al-Shabab’s activities said the recent attacks demonstrate how difficult it is to destroy militant groups in places such as Somalia, where decades of war and famine have created vast, chaotic and largely ungovernable areas. After troops from a coalition of countries acting under the banner of the African Union dislodged al-Shabab from the area it controlled, ill-disciplined militia forces filled the vacuum. Kenya’s participation in the African Union mission has made it a target for reprisal attacks.
The Shaboobs weren't paradigms of discipline in the first place. And the nature of terrorist movements is like squeezing a balloon -- you pinch here, they move there and keep doing what they're doing...
“There’s no question that there was not an effective plan to win the peace after winning the war,” said Kenneth Menkhaus, an expert on Somalia and a professor at Davidson College. “Now, who’s to blame for that is another matter.”
Ever try to "win the peace", Kenneth, or do you just pontificate about it? It's not easy. Ask Rumsfeld.
Some have criticized the international community for its failure to deliver the money and support the fledgling Somali government needed to function, Menkhaus said. Other experts contended that the government’s corruption and incompetence had caused potential backers in the West to pull their support.
Al-Shabab’s brutal rule gave way to chaos and crime. Clan-based militia forces, which took over territory vacated by al-Shabab, began taking land from villagers. “They made things worse,” Menkhaus said. “The area became less secure after al-Shabab left. The reality is that there is only so much you can do if the government is pocketing all the money and not following through.”
White House officials have counseled patience, noting that the reconstituted Somali government is not even three years old. “This is still a relatively new project,” said the senior administration official.
The White House’s approach reflects Obama’s firm belief that outside military forces can’t compel change in troubled parts of the world. “For a society to function long term, the people themselves have to make decisions about how they are going to live together,” Obama said last August in an interview with the New York Times.
The United States can offer advice, aid and support, “but we can’t do it for them,” Obama added.
That turns out to be true -- but without the most basic security the people don't have the luxury of figuring out how to run things for themselves. That's why we're paying the African Union forces. Turns out we need more of them.
That philosophy has guided Obama’s relatively light-footprint approach in places as diverse as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Instead of deploying large formations of American ground troops, as he did in Afghanistan during the first years of his presidency, Obama has increasingly relied on small Special Operations teams to advise local troops and conduct targeted raids. In Somalia, the United States maintains a small military coordination cell that advises Somali and African Union forces, which have received about $1 billion in training, equipment and assistance since 2007.
In the early days of the Obama administration, senior officials in the White House and Pentagon debated whether to launch airstrikes against al-Shabab training camps. Some administration officials were skeptical that the group intended to strike U.S. or European targets.
Since 2011, as al-Shabab’s affiliation with al-Qaeda deepened, the president has periodically authorized strikes against senior al-Shabab leaders who U.S. intelligence officials have said are planning attacks on U.S. soil. “There have been a series of them that have definitely degraded [al-Shabab] in Somalia,” said the senior administration official.
Steady promotion prospects for number fours...
The White House has supplemented the military training and targeted strikes with modest aid programs and efforts to undermine the appeal of extremist groups.
In a country as large and troubled as Somalia, stability and effective governance inevitably will be slow in coming. There are only about 22,000 African Union troops in the country, which has a coastline roughly as long as the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. “People look at a map and they don’t realize the tyranny of distance and size there,” said the senior administration official. “These rebuilding efforts take time.”
Bring in more African Union forces. What's another billion given the sunk costs already?Let Somaliland to the north go free -- they clearly have a modicum of peace, and you can hold them responsible for policing their own. Keep building up Puntland and Jubaland. See if federalism will actually work.
Some critics said that the international community’s insufficient response had allowed al-Shabab to survive. “Al-Shabab is not defeated, it has just changed,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. Instead of trying to hold territory, like an army or militia, it functions today almost entirely as a regional terrorist group.
“Arguably, their terror attacks have gone up as they lost territory,” Pham said.
Thanks for that astounding insight, J. Peter. Zounds but the WaPo reporter reached deep for that...
White House officials said such an assessment overstates the group’s strength. “This is a group that in its heyday attracted lots of foreigners, to include Westerners,” said the senior administration official. The group’s ability to rally foreign recruits has been badly damaged, the official said.
“We saw the attack in Garissa earlier this week,” he said. “But we haven’t seen the group . . . become the threat that many people feared. It is still our assessment that al-Shabab doesn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. and the West.”
Likely true as long as we keep an eye on Minneapolis.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
It appears that the Sri Lanka model works. You may not like it, but it works.
The UN Security Council will meet on Saturday to discuss a Russian proposal for humanitarian pauses in the air campaign in Yemen, diplomats said.
That should leave an opening for aid shipments from the Widows Ammunition Fund...
Russia called for the meeting amid growing alarm over the rising civilian death toll from the fighting in Yemen.
UN aid chief Valerie Amos said Thursday she was “extremely concerned” about civilian deaths after agencies reported that 519 people had been killed and nearly 1,700 injured in two weeks of fighting in Yemen.
That's a drop in the bucket compared to the Congo but okay...
The UN children’s agency this week said at least 62 children had been killed and 30 injured over the past week in Yemen, and that more of them were being recruited as child soldiers.
Aleksey Zaytsev, spokesman for the Russian mission at the United Nations, said the closed-door consultations would be about “possible humanitarian pauses in air strikes.”
Perhaps they could divert some of the funding from Gazoo...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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New Delhi -- Amid war-like conditions in Aden, the Navy today pressed into action INS Mumbai, a guided-missile destroyer, to evacuate the second batch of Indians from the port city of Yemen.
The warship placed itself just outside Aden harbour as part of ‘Operation Raahat’ as heavy firing was reported in Aden where the Saudi-led coalition is fighting Houthi rebels who are making a bid for the city.
Indian authorities have hired small crafts which are being used to move 30-35 Indians at one time from the port to INS Mumbai, the Navy said. While the exact number of Indians stranded there is not known, defence sources put it over 200.
“Absolute tough environment at Aden... Evacuation of stranded Indians being carried out in almost war-like conditions by Indian Naval ship Mumbai,” the Navy said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A front group for Moslemhard boyz which wants to let British Moslems fight in Syria has boasted that it is "negotiating with the Tory and Labour leadership" to secure some of its demands.
Moslem Engagement and Development (Mend) has built links with both parties -- and been chosen as an "official partner" by the Electoral Commission for May's poll -- after claiming to promote "democratic engagement" by Moslems. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... it is actually a facade to win political access and influence for individuals holding extreme, bigoted and anti-democratic views.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[Politifact] Based on photos of Walker in the sweater, it appears to be a "Chaps Twisted Button Mock Sweater" in a color called "walnut twist." We couldn't find that sweater available on the Kohl's web site, so we visited the Kohl's store in Glendale to paw through the clearance racks.
There we found plenty of Chaps sweaters marked between 80 and 90 percent off -- an even deeper cut than the 70% Walker cited when describing the deal. Some of the sweaters we found were originally priced at $70 and marked down to $7.
Now, that's not $1. But Walker did say he used his "Kohl's Cash" -- a coupon of sorts that is generated based on how much a customer purchased in an earlier visit to the store.
Thus, he could have easily gotten one for $1 out-of-pocket. We rate the claim True. With our economy in the state it is in, I have no problem with "Cheap is the new black."
#2
"We can't spend any staff, $, or effort on Barack's transcripts or radical connections and upbringing, but we can afford to send staff to investigate a $1 Sweater claim....that's true"
Politifact is a partisan joke. Credibility = Zero
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/05/2015 8:35 Comments ||
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#3
My wife is a dedicated Kohl's shopper. I get dragged into the store from time to time. Indeed, you can buy clothing off the 80 to 90% off racks, use your Kohl's cash, and walk out with the store owing you money. I personally wouldn't wear the stuff that is on those racks but tastes vary.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 9:52 Comments ||
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#4
Politifact has been in the forefront of leftist 'investigations' and skewering against Gov. Walker in newsprint since before he took office (when he was Milwaukee County's Executive). They will leave no stone (imaginary or not) unturned in their pursuit to discredit him. They will only rate a 'true' when they can find absolutely NO issues with a statement or action by the governor that will offer the left an advantage.
One misused/misplaced word or statement by the governor rates a full 'False' generally. The next day, the rating is posted on signs carried by some 'activists' somewhere in Madison or Milwaukee (usually accompanied by tambourines, drums and really bad singers).
The Politifact folks probably figured that this sweater issue, if negatively rated by them, would be a non-starter for the left's talking points.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/05/2015 9:56 Comments ||
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#5
No worries politifact will never get to the bottom of this because they pull the investigators off the 'find out if Romney paid taxes the last ten years' fact check.
Long piece at the LA Times that documents all sorts of problems with ballistic missile defense projects that have not worked out as originally proposed. It's a one-sided story and I'm not smart enough to find all the biases. Do defense projects sometimes fail? Sure -- that's what happens in R & D. Sometimes the new super theory works in practice, sometimes it doesn't. That's the difference between theory and practice. Does that mean the Pentagon "wasted" the money? Depends on your viewpoint. When a project yields a new defense system that works (e.g., the F14, the A10, the Abrams tank, the Apache helicopter, etc) then everyone's happy. When it doesn't, and there are lots of examples of those, well then...
Parts of ballistic missile defense work -- THADD, the Standard 3 missile, etc. Remember how the "smart" said it would never work? Some of it does. Some parts don't. I suppose we could just wring our hands, proclaim that we can't defend ourselves, and go sign another deal with Iran.
I think I'd prefer we keep trying.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 00:12 ||
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“You can spend an awful lot of money and end up with nothing,” said Mike Corbett, a retired Air Force colonel who oversaw the agency’s contracting for weapons systems from 2006 to 2009. “MDA spent billions and billions on these programs that didn’t lead anywhere.”
Not just a USAF problem. I give you the discontinued U.S. Army Crusader, a BAE systems masterpiece.
#3
But it created a lot of jobs, whether it worked or not. Some of them were blue collar jobs, and three or four of the workers probably voted (D).
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/05/2015 7:15 Comments ||
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#4
Research & development. It means creating something that didn't exist before. And to do that, you have a lot of things that might work but turns out they do not work, and sometimes it takes a lot of time and effort to find that out. The bigger the breakthrough you're seeking, the higher the risk of failure. Now factor in the money, profit, etc. So these results are not surprising. But they are what we have to put up with to make progress toward a missile defense system.
Remember, you dont always get something on the line when you cast, that's why they call it fishing, not catching.
#6
While working on a mil/homeland defense research project with an SEC school I had a minder from Oak Ridge Nat Labs stop in to visit. He was very excited about our project and was going on about it be one of 3 in the South East Conference he had the most hope to be commercialized.
Over lunch I was in a strange mood and asked him: "How many dollars had they spent on projects in the SEC in this time period? 5, 10, 15 billion?"
He answered: "That's about right."
I said: "You know, don't you, that this is not a large ticket item. It will likely make 1 or 2 million a year with the max being 10 or 11. If we are one of your 3 most likely to make it... in the commercial world this research would be a bad return on investment."
#7
“You can spend an awful lot of money and end up with nothing,”
What is it, 7 trillion dollars + on the War on Poverty for 50 years? How's that working for you. Maybe you should consider the old adage - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
#8
3dc, thats the nature of the beast. Not a good ROI if it were commercial.
The issue is: how do you calculate ROI for something that might deter or even halt a nuclear strike, especially one from a rogue state like NKor? And even though the individual projects may not have succeeded per original plans, they did learn a lot that can be applied to future systems that will eventually solve the problems faced. This is not an incremental problem, its a break-point problem; in other words we dont gradually have something that works better and better (ex: upgrading a B52), what we get are a series of failures that we learn from, which cause a breakthrough that all of a sudden does work and has major impact (ex: the atomic bomb).
Back to ROI: Not every failed system is a failure in terms of ROI. ROI for "Star Wars" for instance is pretty damned good for the money spent in the 80's. Consider the Berlin Wall came down without a shot fired. Ask any of us there in the mid 80's, and we would have never dreamed it - dying in a conventional then chem then nuke ground war seemed a lot more likely. my personal ROI is pretty damned high - Im alive because it worked well enough to force the cold war to an end.
#9
...A gentleman I have known and highly respected for many years is in the defense analysis industry, and he was once faced with someone reciting a laundry list of failed missile defense tests. When the other person was done, he paused and thought for a moment, and then very quietly asked, "Have you ever considered that some of those tests were intended to fail?"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/05/2015 10:03 Comments ||
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#10
OS - quite aware of your point. Just making the context. Research can result in development but sometimes it's better to cogitate on the research before the development. (Avoids Rube Goldberg solutions.)
#11
I suspect large parts of The Bureaucracy have been pursuing "arms control via goldbricking" for the past twenty-five years, under the impression that the US was the sole superpower and that there'd be no destabilization if the US never developed anything and remained dependent on people like Vladimir Putin for space access.
The same people who were supposed to be developing missile defense were also in charge of developing cheap space launch, but have also failed to do so. They've now been beaten to the latter by a private US company.
It's too bad there's noone like Elon Musk working on missile defense, and it's left to the people who pretended to be working on cheap space launch all this time.
#12
While working on a mil/homeland defense research project with an SEC school I had a minder from Oak Ridge Nat Labs stop in to visit. He was very excited about our project and was going on about it be one of 3 in the South East Conference he had the most hope to be commercialized.
Sounds like a BMI Business Developer. I'll refrain from naming names.
Asked by Jeff Greason why we as a society stopped pushing the technologies we needed to be pre-eminent in civil and military space, the former administrator blamed it on “My Generation,” the Baby Boomers. He prefaced the statement with the caveat that he had thought long and hard about it, and didn’t have a good answer, and that it was only his opinion, and that it might be wrong. Obviously many of us are exceptions (and he obviously thinks himself one) but that was the only answer that he could come up with.
In response to a question from Greg Sullivan, he noted that when we feel threatened (e.g., being attacked with IEDs) we throw the acquisition book out the window to solve the problem. Clearly, we don’t currently feel threatened enough to do that with space technology development and acquisition.
[Update a while later]
Jeff’s answer: We don’t want game-changing technologies, because they upset the Russians, and arms-control regimes. They don’t like game changers, because they like and are comfortable with the game. Reagan administration was rare exception. Not surprised that we do not attain that which we do not want.
In commercial market, the market will drive things. If Brilliant Pebbles had gone forward, we’d have much cheaper launch today. If there was a market, we’d have satisfied it by now. If assured market, he could go to the bank and get the money for reusable vehicle.
Demand is key. Airmail-like things would help (already starting this with COTS). Could buy payloads and capability, rather than resources. Isn’t as concerned about tech development for launch vehicles, except things that allow SSTO. But it’s important to learn how to integrate two-stage stage system, and that would be productive area.
Read the comments as well, in particular the bits about Delta Clipper's funding problems.
We've basically hobbled many of our technological development efforts in order to make the Russians happy. And the result?
"You Destabilizing Assholes! YOU'RE MAKING US KILL THE UKRANIANS OURSELVES INSTEAD OF KILLING THEM FOR US! GODDAMN IT, YOUR RELUCTANCE TO PUT THE BABIES ON THE ROTISSERIES IS RISKING WORLD WAR!!!! YOU HOMOFASCIST BANKSTER BULLIES!!!!!ELEVENTY!!!!"
[IsraelTimes] Noelle Velentzas, Asia Siddiqui said they were ‘citizens of the Islamic State,’ were arrested in Queens with gas tanks, bomb-making manuals
Two women accused in New York City's latest homegrown terrorism case may be part of what some experts say is an evolving threat -- a greater willingness by women to shed blood in the name of turban Islamic jihad.
The pair allegedly wanted to "make history" on their own by building a bomb and attacking a domestic target.
While past cases often involved women answering the call by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group on social media to join the cause as nurses or wives, "the idea that they want to fight is more a noticeable new trend," said Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham Law School's Center on National Security.
The sometimes boastful and profane language one of the New York women was quoted as using in the criminal complaint -- "Why can't we be some real bad b----s?" -- bolstered the idea that the defendants weren't candidates for nonmilitary roles in a self-proclaimed caliphate.
The two U.S. citizens "were determined to play an essentially military role, so that's different," said Jessica Stern, who was on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration and lectures on terrorism at Harvard University. "In that way, they were typical Americans. They're sort of between these two cultures with a kind of amorphous identity."
Another expert, Mia Bloom, a professor at the University of Massachusetts and the author of "Bombshell: Women and Terrorism," disagreed with the conclusion that more women are now participating in global terrorism, citing large percentages of women among gunnies in Chechnya and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... . In Nigeria, the Islamic turban group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... has begun using teenage girls and young women for suicide kabooms in marketplaces, bus stations and other busy areas.
Bloom also said the evidence shows the American women charged this week were probably aligned more with al-Qaeda than with the Islamic State group, and that the threat was overblown.
"These are wannabe jihads that sort of have this, at least in their head, projection of importance of significance," she said. "They want to build a bomb but they don't know how to do it."
Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were arrested at their Queens homes early Thursday following a sting operation using an undercover officer. Officers searching the homes recovered items including three gas tanks, a pressure cooker, handwritten notes on the recipes for bomb making and jihadist literature, court papers say.
Velentzas had been "obsessed with pressure cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013," and was caught on recordings saying she and Siddiqui were "citizens of the Islamic State," also known as ISIS, the papers say.
The complaint suggests the women were initially radicalized by al-Qaeda literature. But it also refers to them watching a video of "in which pro-ISIS French imported muscle urged others to leave their countries to try to fight with ISIS," and looked at a photo of "ISIS blowing up a gas pipe between Egypt and Israel."
Authorities said Friday that Valentzas, 27, was believed to have been born in Florida of Greek ethnicity and claimed to have worked as a home health aide. Siddiqui, 31, was born in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and was unemployed.
Siddiqui's lawyer, Thomas F.X. Dunn, declined to talk about the allegations on Friday, saying only that he plans to "mount a vigorous defense." In a statement, Velentzas' lawyer called his client "a loving mother and wife who is innocent of the sensationalistic charges manufactured by the U.S. government."
Authorities declined to confirm whether the undercover officer was a woman. Past cases have relied on male New York Police Department recruits -- typically with Moslem or Arab backgrounds -- who agreed to skip the police academy and enter a NYPD counterterrorism program that grooms and deploys young undercover officers to expose potential plots.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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Islamabad -- Former president Pervez Musharraf has challenged a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against him for the alleged murder of a former Lal Masjid cleric, media reported on Saturday.
Good gawd, we're still going on about Perv?
On Tuesday, Islamabad additional district and sessions court judge Wajid Ali issued the warrant against Musharraf following his repeated absence from the trial for the murder of Lal Masjid’s former cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, Dawn online reported.
In 2013, police registered a case against Musharraf for the alleged murder of Ghazi and his wife during the Lal Masjid military operation.
In his petition, filed through advocate Malik Tariq, Musharraf contended that police controlled by him had amazingly declared him innocent after a thorough investigation in the case. The petition requested the court to set aside the non-bailable arrest warrant.
A single-member bench of the Islamabad High Court is expected to hear the petition on Monday.
Musharraf faces a string of cases dating back to his 1999-2008 rule, including the death of Ghazi when more than 100 people were killed after troops stormed the Lal Masjid here on July 10, 2007. The mosque was the scene of a week-long military siege against radicals who unleashed a wave of militant attacks across Pakistan.
Should have stayed in Jeddah, Perv...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi says the military will begin arresting and prosecuting anyone who loots abandoned properties in the newly-recaptured city of Tikrit.
Saddam Hussein's hometown was recaptured by Iraqi forces Wednesday, ending a nearly 10-month occupation by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... murderous Moslem group.
Most of the city's homes remain abandoned and cases of looting from homes and businesses were reported within hours of the military victory.
In a statement Friday, al-Abadi said security forces must ensure that normality is restored quickly so that the city's residents can return to their homes.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] The president of the Kurdistan Region has congratulated the Iraqi prime minister on the liberation of Tikrit, vowing military cooperation between the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces.
In a phone call on Saturday between KRG President Masoud Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Heider al-Abadi, the Kurdish leader praised the efforts of the Iraqi forces in defeating the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in the city and surrounding areas.
Abadi, in turn, congratulated Barzani for the latest Peshmerga advances against ISIS.
The two leaders reiterated their cooperation in the war against ISIS.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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I'm putting this up here as a reference/companion piece to the article in the Los Angeles Times. It's a useful piece that points out the roots of a lot of the problems with US antimissile defense: we've attempted to continue development of the missiles without performing any of the research and development of the base technologies behind the missiles, and try to defend ourselves with what are basically hand-assembled prototypes rather than mass-produced products, and are surprised when this system, developed under the imagined constraint that if it's only just barely capable enough to handle what they're telling us are North Korea's capabilities _this week_ we won't piss off Vladimir Putin, turns out to be insufficient.
By Ambassador Henry F. Cooper
May 29, 2014
Last week (Click here.), I referenced the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering's 11-page summary of his strategic guidance (Click here.) that identified, among the top three threats to U.S. forces, the proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles with advanced offensive countermeasures‐which was rendering our current missile defenses "no longer practical or cost-effective."
No doubt, the Under Secretary's assessment accurately reflects the current lamentable situation, which need not have occurred. Had programs pioneered by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) continued, they would have produced truly cost-effective ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems that stayed ahead of the predictable‐and predicted‐offensive developments. It is not too late to recover, though time is no-longer on our side.
This Did Not Have To Be!
To repeat in summary: The Clinton administration totally scuttled the SDI's space-based interceptor concept demonstration program and all its related key research and development (R&D) programs that would have kept ahead of the predictable‐and predicted‐development of stressful offensive countermeasures. Click here to review Don Baucomb's discussion of the 1988-89 "season of studies" in his "The Rise and Fall of Brilliant Pebbles."
Thus died the technology demonstration efforts that led President Reagan to walk out of the 1986 Reykjavik summit, because Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev demanded that they be limited to the laboratory. Reagan's determination to support his SDI, as Margaret Thatcher and others have said, brought an "end to the Cold War without firing a shot" when it became clear they could not compete with American technology.
What Gorbachev could not achieve in Reykjavik was subsequently accomplished by congressional leaders and several administrations, especially beginning in 1992 when congress directed the curtailment of on-going key technology demonstrations. The coup de grâce was supplied in early 1993 when Les Aspin left his post as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to become President Clinton's Secretary of Defense‐and from that post, as he bragged, he "took the stars out of Star Wars".
Little has since been done to restore the most important of those abandoned key R&D programs that could have kept our missile defenses ahead in the inevitable offense-defenses measure-countermeasure competition . It remains to be seen whether current and future "powers that be" will revive the needed key technology, or whether we will abandon Ronald Reagan's realizable vision of truly effective defenses‐as implied by the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Development's assessment.
This week, I want to recount the legacy of a notable exception to this truly sad story‐which still is alive and offers a recovery pathway without the political trappings that have so far inhibited any serious R&D on space based defenses, as well as other defense concepts that could be advanced by currently ignored but possible technological innovation.
Time for Boost-Phase Defenses!
Since the earliest studies of ballistic missile defenses in the 1960s, we have understood that the best time to shoot down a hostile missile is during its initial "boost phase" after launch. It then moves slowly, is easy to see (because its exhaust plumes are so hot) and presents a big target (having not yet ditched its first-stage rocket). A bonus is that the debris may come crashing down on the country that launched it‐our enemy, rather than on us.
Thus, SDI proposed space-based BMD systems, which could also intercept attacking missiles during their later stages of flight through space and during reentry into the upper atmosphere. But space-based defenses are not the only concepts that can accomplish this role.
Indeed, as my April 11th email noted, our currently deployed Aegis BMD ships can accomplish a boost phase intercept if they are close enough to the attacking rockets' launch pad‐as could be the case to counter North Korea's fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS).
On April 17th, I noted that this also could be the case for at least one of Iran's satellite launch sites. But for other Iranian satellite launch sites, it is not possible to get close enough to accomplish this objective with sea-based defenses. Furthermore, North Korea's obvious offensive counter to its current vulnerability to Aegis BMD boost-phase intercept capabilities would be simply to choose an inland FOBS launch site, beyond Aegis' reach.
So, we would be prudent to pursue alternative boost-phase intercept capabilities as quickly as possible‐if not from space, then perhaps from the air‐in 1992, the SDI program was considering two interesting alternatives:
The airborne laser (ABL), which continued at a reduced level of funding over that past two decades and was recently canceled‐as I understand it for lack of funds rather that a failure of technology.
Unpiloted air vehicle (UAV) interceptor launch platforms for kinetic kill vehicles (KKVs), a concept dropped at the beginning of the Clinton administration, even though interest in UAVs was then growing.
Reconsidering both possibilities would be prudent. In particular, the UAV option could bear very near term fruit because the technology development maturing two decades ago has continued even after the Clinton administration scuttled the Pentagon's most pertinent programs‐and they remain dormant.
But friends were eventually able to transfer two initially SDI-sponsored UAV development activities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) to NASA and elsewhere, where the two important concepts matured through a significant testing phase.
One demonstrated the feasibility of two inexpensive Burt Rutan designed high-altitude (65,000 ft.) UAV platforms (called Raptor) that, at a then anticipated million-dollars-a-copy (in 1992 dollars) price, could be affordably proliferated to overcome defense suppression countermeasures. (Rutan is best known for his SpaceShipOne flights, the first private spacecraft and winner of the first X-PRIZE.) The other (called Helios), powered by solar cells and batteries to stay aloft for long periods, set a high-altitude record (almost 97,000 ft.) in 2001. Both are depicted below. I'm not going to link the pictures. If you want to see the original pictures, click through to the article. I'm too tired to do formatting.
Either concept could be configured to support he boost-phase intercept mission as a launch platform for a light weight KKV (called Talon) based on the then (in 1992) maturing Brilliant Pebbles technology. Raptor-Talon was conceived as a near-term option, with an expectation that eventually a longer endurance solar-battery powered UAV might replace Raptor. The light-weight Talon technology development was scuttled along with other SDI technology development programs and needs to be revived.
Then Air Force Lt. Colonel Dale Tietz was the excellent project manager for these SDI UAV efforts; and, after the Pentagon abandoned the SDI vision and technology, he stuck with developing the technology by whatever means have been available over the years.
Dale is appropriately referenced in the May 17, 2014 Economist article, "Star Wars 2: Attack of the Drones" which discusses a revived UAV-launched interceptor idea, there proposed to launch multiple KKV interceptors from the fully developed and deployed "Global Hawk" that can stay aloft for 30 hours. This is a good idea as far as it goes, especially since Global Hawk was recently deployed from Guam to Japan and could help in defending against North Korean ballistic missiles launched to either the North or South.
But Global Hawk costs orders-of-magnitude more that did Burt Rutan's UAV which was quite adequate 20-years-ago to carry then designed Talon KKVs. The current KKVs are heavier and cost more than then envisioned for Talon. Perhaps another challenge to "go back to the future?" I think so.
Reviving the Raptor-Talon concept could be important to stay ahead in the inevitable measure-countermeasures competition, as mentioned in the Economist article and emphasized in the Under Secretary of Defense's assessment.
Not only would the Raptor be much less expensive than Global Hawk, but lighter weight relatively inexpensive KKVs as envisioned for Talon would enable a resilient defense architecture that keeps system costs low by employing a single less expensive Talon interceptor on each of a set of proliferated Raptors.
Finally, I would note that the Economist article falsely claimed that the Reagan space-based boost-phase intercept concept "cost a packet, didn't work and was scrapped in the 1990s." As discussed in my last email, the truth is the contrary on all counts‐it was the most cost-effective concept developed during the SDI era (from 1983-1993), judged by a number of competent technical reviewers to have no technological show-stoppers, and was cancelled for political reasons‐first by congressional cutbacks in 1992 and then by the Clinton administration in 1993.
No doubt these decisions were made because fully developing, testing and deploying space-based systems required withdrawing the ABM Treaty‐which the "powers that were" in congress and the Clinton administration did not wish to do.
Happily, the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002, but little has since been done to revive the technology for either Raptor-Talon or space-based interceptors.
So, let's indeed "go back to the future"‐first by rapidly reviving the technology to enable Raptor-Talon and then to support a viable space-based interceptor program.
Back to the Future!
These same technological innovations would enable lighter weight KKVs for Aegis BMD interceptors to achieve substantially greater velocities, giving them a larger defensive footprint. The area of that footprint increases as the square of the interceptor's velocity.
The lesson we should take from the detour we have taken for over 20-years is that we should not let politics keep us from investing in truly innovative technology. That is how to meet the strategic guidance laid out by the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering as discussed last week.
The Economist article suggests that at least there is growing interest in moving in the right direction toward a return to a viable boost-phase defense capability.
Hopefully, we can and will build the needed momentum to turn such possibilities into reality consistent with the world of political possibilities. Stay tuned.
Near Term High Frontier Plans.
We will do all we can to encourage "the powers that be" to "make the Navy's Aegis BMD system all it can be" and to adopt the anti-FOBS strategy laid out in our recent email messages and above. We will also seek to revive a viable program to deploy Raptor-Talon and space-based defenses. (FOBS stands for fractional orbital bombardment system, basically a nuclear armed satellite that is launched over the South Polar region to attack the U.S. from the south‐against which we currently have no defense.)
We will continue our efforts to inform state and local authorities about the EMP threat and expand our work with the National Guard to help them gain knowledge and workable plans to help harden the electric power grid and counter the EMP threat. This work should go hand in hand with the efforts to gain support from State legislators to expand on the excellent work in Maine and Virginia, who have passed legislation requiring serious studies of the EMP threat and the needed countermeasures to protect the electric power grid.
The most recent bill passed in record time without single negative vote in Virginia can be used as a ready pattern.
We will continue working with South Carolinians to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to this serious threat. We will expand this effort to neighboring and other states.
We are informing SC state legislators and senators about the threat and what can be done to deal with it‐and hopefully they will follow Maine and Virginia in seeking to harden the electric power grid. We also expect support from Cong. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) whose district includes my SC farm‐and who is a member of the Congressional EMP Caucus seeking passage of the Shield Act and the Infrastructure Protection Act, as well as other SC representatives.
We will be working with members of the EMP Coalition and others who are seeking to take our message across the country‐especially with Bob Newman, a former Adjutant General of Virginia to help us link our SC plans more broadly and especially into Virginia and the National Capital region.
What can you do?
Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.
Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all "powers that be" to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.
Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage, www.highfrontier.org for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter!
And support us with your tax deductible gifts to help enable our continuing efforts.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
04/05/2015 12:15 ||
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#1
Persistent Surveillance and the ability to dynamically re-task on a moments notice are the keys.
#2
Good stuff, dear Snowy Thing. I did a touch of formatting, but I think our readers are hardy enough to click on the headline and then scroll down to the pictures.
#3
I had a rough week, actually getting to work involved having to leave the house at 5:30. I'm slowly putting together my planned lunch for the coming week. (Have Monday and maybe Tuesday Breakfast done, and I was going to leave to get some ground meat for Hamburger Helper for Tuesday and Wednesday when it started to rain).
#4
Sounds like a plan Snowy. I like my ground round over whole wheat toast or biscuits, then smothered with white gravy. A fried egg or two on the side sets it off. Two cups of joe and I'm set to go.
[ARA] In the midst of joy and celebrations that swept the areas held by Syrian opposition forces due to the "Liberation" of the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria, celebrators missed the main factors that led to the fall of the strategic city (Idlib) in four days in spite of the opposition's failed attempt Curses! Foiled again! s to take over it during the four years of conflict.
Unity factor
Speaking to ARA News, Ammar Younis, a fighter in the ranks of al-Fatih Army (an umbrella for several Islamist factions, FSA battalions and the al-Nusra ...the current nom de guerre of al-Qaeda in the Levant, which isn't to be confused with al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant... Front) who participated in the anti-Assad operations in Idlib, said that he had participated in several previous operations aimed at liberating the city from pro-regime forces, "but the lack of unity, coordination and mistrust among the rebel factions prevented them from liberating the city in previous battles".
Ammar added that the latest operation against Assad troops in the province of Idlib had seen a high degree of coordination between all anti-Assad rebels, and came after they worked under the unified umbrella of the "al-Fatih Army".
"Also, we cannot deny the efficient role of the al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front, Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... and the rest of the opposition military factions in the last operation," he concluded.
Unexpected Advance
Mohammed Salloum, a Syrian opposition activist from Idlib, told ARA News that the surprise factor has had a decisive role in this "victory" against the Assad army in the city and its suburbs, adding that the indifference of many pro-regime soldiers inside the city --because they believed the festivities would last for two days and will end as usual-- led to the collapse of the Assad army in the area.
He pointed out that the last operation saw serious determination and intense fire by the opposition fighters, which led to the loss of more defenses by the pro-Assad army.
"So, this was reflected clearly in the psyches of many pro-regime soldiers, especially when they lost contact with a lot of strategic security centers inside and outside the city," Salloum said.
Exhausted Army
In the meantime, the U.S. military expert George Talen talked to news hounds in Washington about the current status of the Syrian regime, emphasizing the role of exhaustion suffered by the Syrian regime forces amid the continuous conflict across the country, adding that this exhaustion was apparent when they lost Idlib two days ago.
Talen didn't rule out a similar collapse by pro-Assad forces at more strategic cities in the near future, "because of the dire situation the pro-regime fighters are currently enduring after four years of continuous fighting".
Noteworthy, the Syrian opposition forces announced Saturday the "Liberation" of the entire city of Idlib. It is the second province regained after Raqqa province, in a conflict that has caused the death of nearly a quarter of a million people so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[Breitbart] The French delegation in Switzerland felt the outline for a nuclear deal with Iran was "not solid enough," and wanted to improve upon the deal before signing off on the accord, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Europe 1 radio on Friday.
However, the Iranian delegation threatened at the last minute to leave the talks entirely, which persuaded the American delegation to capitulate to the demands of the Ayatollah's regime, Fabius revealed. The French Foreign Minister said he wanted a strong, comprehensive deal that dissuades "other countries in the Gulf such as Saudi Arabia from embarking on nuclear proliferation."
Fabius's remarks add evidence to Friday's Wall Street Journal report that the delegation led by Secretary of State John Kerry continually conceded to the demand's of the Iranian regime throughout the course of the talks. What started in September of 2013 as a chance to dismantle a vast swath of Iran's nuclear program, turned into America making major concessions as the agreement was finalized, the Wall Street Journal explained.
#3
4,000 years of recorded human history. Maybe if you go back to the science of natural selection you might find reasons why there are no whole units of Xenas in the armies of the world, past or present. Or mines or forestry concerns or sea going commerce vessels et al staffed largely by the other gender. The urban bubble concept of the world will for ever be surprised the world does not match its fantasies of how it should be.
#4
Yea, I know it's cold and you can't feel your toes. I thought you liked 'guy stuff'....extreme sports, skiing, snowshoes, camping, etc. No worries, it's an achio sled, and it's your turn to pull it. You'll warm right up.
#5
Don't change the training, don't change the entrance requirements, don't expect ANYBODY to pass. The truly excellent will pass. A lady might pass. if she does she'll have earned all the respect from the community and everyone's.
If they change the training or rules for ladies nobody will ever respect them and they'll be more likely to get killed.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AnNahar] Kenyan police have named homegrown
New Delhi -- Amid war-like conditions in Aden, the Navy today pressed into action INS Mumbai, a guided-missile destroyer, to evacuate the second batch of Indians from the port city of Yemen.
Not just a USAF problem. I give you the discontinued U.S. Army Crusader, a BAE systems masterpiece. 
Yea, I know it's cold and you can't feel your toes. I thought you liked 'guy stuff'....extreme sports, skiing, snowshoes, camping, etc. No worries, it's an achio sled, and it's your turn to pull it. You'll warm right up. 
