It’s ain’t pretty. And now, here we are.

Monica Crowley

The fall of authoritarian regimes throughout the greater Middle East has fueled growing persecution of minority Christian communities.

Richard L. Russell
|
May 10, 2013

Americans of all political stripes have embraced the promotion of democracy as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. But this American democracy crusade has caused huge, and largely overlooked, collateral damage since the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks against the United States in 2001. The fall of authoritarian regimes throughout the greater Middle East has fueled growing persecution of minority Christian communities. The Pew Research Center has charted extensive government restrictions on non-Muslim religions in numerous countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. Pew also has gauged very high social hostilities in Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

These government restrictions and social hostilities directed against Christians are causing many to flee the region. In the early twentieth century, Christians accounted for about 20 percent of the Middle East population, but now that figure is down to only 5 percent. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the “Arab Spring,” Christian communities throughout the greater Middle East find themselves increasingly besieged. While the United States seems to notice bits and pieces of this picture, the full magnitude of the horrific Christian plight is largely ignored.

Sieges against Christians in Lands “Liberated” by the American Military

A democracy enthusiast would anticipate that the Christian community would be thriving now that a “democratic” Afghan government was installed by American military power after the ouster in 2001 of the Taliban regime. After all, Afghanistan’s constitution, adopted in 2004, guarantees freedom of religion. But Afghan Christians today are compelled to worship in secret lest they be accused of apostasy for converting to Christianity from Islam, a charge punishable by death. Such persecution no doubt will grow after 2014, when American soldiers are largely gone and Washington is less able to influence the government in Kabul.

Across a troublesome border, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are wielded more and more aggressively against Christians by a weak civilian government propped up by Pakistan’s Islamized military and society. Christians, who make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people, are living under growing fear of persecution and economic discrimination. The assassination in March 2011 of the only Christian minister in Pakistan, who bravely criticized harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam, has chilled the willingness of secular and liberal Pakistanis to speak out.

Iraq’s open warfare against its Christian community has led to a mass exodus of Christians from that country since the 2003 American and British military invasion ousted Saddam Hussein, whose repugnant regime was nevertheless relatively hospitable to Christians. Iraqi Christians are severely embattled by Sunni extremists linked to Al Qaeda and are discriminated against by Iraq’s Shia majority, largely in control of the government. Incidents such as the 2010 suicide bombing of Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, which killed fifty Christians and two priests, have terrified Iraq’s Christian population, which has dwindled to less than 500,000 from between 800,000 and 1.4 million in the time of Saddam.

Sieges against Christians in Lands Coping with the Arab Spring

The current Egyptian regime, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, poses a far greater threat to Egypt’s sizable Coptic Christian community than its authoritarian predecessor under Hosni Mubarak. A Coptic church in Cairo was set ablaze by Islamists in 2011 and many Copts—an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people—live in fear that Egypt is on the path to being governed by Islamic law, or Sharia. In early April 2013, Egypt’s police sided with an angry crowd of young Muslims throwing rocks and firebombs in a siege of Egypt’s major Coptic Cathedral. Nor have Egyptian Copts, who have sought work in neighboring Libya, fared well in the chaos that has reined in that country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Christians were shocked in December 2012 by the bombing of a church in Misrata, Libya. That attack has stoked fears that Libyan Islamists are growing in power and more such attacks against Christians are in store.

Islamists also are emerging as a powerful force in Syria, generating fears that, should they gain power, they would persecute Syria’s Christian community. About three hundred thousand Christian Syrians have already fled the country and are refugees. A Christian patriarch in April 2013 warned, “The future of Christians in Syria is threatened not by Muslims but by…chaos…and the infiltration of uncontrollable fanatical fundamentalist groups.”

READ THE REST HERE

More American lives sacrificed for Islam

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military’s top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.

In the south, three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives just as a convoy with the international military coalition drove past another convoy of vehicles carrying the governor of Zabul province.

Another American civilian was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

For what? Why do we fight wars in support of islam?????

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/6/6-americans-doctor-killed-afghan-attacks/

 Leaving Corruptistan: Washington Favors Exit over Fight with Karzai

Declare victory and then leave. That seems to be Washington’s line in Afghanistan these days. The United States has even caved in to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a dispute over an airline alleged to have transported drugs. Getting out, it seems, has become more important than fighting corruption.

Karzai: Mullah Omar could run for president

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a German newspaper that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar could run for president in elections next year.

Karzai’s government has agreed the Taliban can open an office in Qatar if the group breaks all ties with al Qaida and renounces terrorism. Karzai was in Qatar Sunday to discuss the issue.

Karzai said in an interview published Tuesday by the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that authorities have “sporadic contacts” with the Taliban. He said that the Afghan constitution is valid for all Afghans and “the Taliban also should benefit from it.”

Asked whether Mullah Omar should seek the presidency, Karzai was quoted as saying: “He can become a candidate for the presidency and give Afghans the opportunity to vote for or against him.”

But putting the ATF’s problems with tracing guns aside, it could still help agents track you down a lot faster than they could before — along with finding out everything else about you.

The ATF Wants ‘Massive’ Online Database to Find Out Who Your Friends Are

• By Robert Beckhusen
• The ATF doesn’t just want a huge database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It wants one that can find out who you know. And it won’t even try to friend you on Facebook first.According to a recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau is looking to buy a “massive online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII). The system is intended to operate for at least five years, and be able to process automated searches of individuals, and “find connection points between two or more individuals” by linking together “structured and unstructured data.”   READ THE REST HERE

New Online-Data Bill Sets Up Privacy Fight

Internet Firms Push Back on California Proposal Requiring They Disclose What Has Been Done With Users’ Information

Silicon Valley is fighting privacy advocates over a California bill, the first of its kind in the nation, that would require companies like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.to disclose to users the personal data they have collected and with whom they have shared it.

The industry backlash is against the “Right to Know Act,” a bill introduced in February by Bonnie Lowenthal, a Democratic assemblywoman from Long Beach. It would make Internet companies, upon request, share with Californians personal information they have collected—including buying habits, physical location and sexual orientation—and what they have passed on to third parties such as marketing companies, app makers and other companies that collect and sell data.  READ THE REST HERE

War On Terror Is Now a Fraud, Obama Admin Funding Al Qaeda in Syria

In a classic example of the many things that can go wrong when a nation finds itself in dozens of entangling alliances around the globe, the United States government has now found itself funding the very organization it went to war with over a decade ago, following the horrific 9/11 attacks – al-Qaeda.  READ THE REST HERE

“Whom are They Kidding?” Dept: DHS Orders 360,000 More Hollow Point Bullets “to Save Money”

One can only speculate on why the DHS is continuing to purchase enormous quantities of bullets that they cannot use in battle, and that are hardly ever used in training.

As many times as we publish the increasing amount of ammunition for various federal agencies, we continue to be baffled by the apparent unconcern on the part of the DHS that the American people are watching and Congress wants answers. Since the agency has already purchased more than 2 billion rounds, and since hollow-point bullets are forbidden under international law to be used in war, what in the world does the DHS need them for. .

READ THE REST HERE

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said worker protections are “weakened by several factors” and that oversight is “cursory.”

U.S. tech. companies are demanding more H1-B visas in an obvious drive to depress wages and facilitate export of American jobs off-shore.

Our Post American media has been complicit in feeding misinformation and falsehoods about the H1-B visa programme and thereby assisting the destruction of the U.S. tech. economy from within.

On February 19, 2013 NPR broadcast a programme entitled “Older Tech Workers Oppose Overhauling H-1B Visas “  which  was so full inaccuracies and blatant anti-worker propaganda that they had to issue the following statement:

Michael Snyder
April 5th, 2013
Economic Collapse Blog

If the economy is getting better, then why does poverty in America continue to grow so rapidly?  Yes, the stock market has been hitting all-time highs recently, but also the number of Americans living in poverty has now reached a level not seen since the 1960s.  Yes, corporate profits are at levels never seen before, but so is the number of Americans on food stamps.  Yes, housing prices have started to rebound a little bit (especially in wealthy areas), but there are also more than a million public school students in America that are homeless.  That is the first time that has ever happened in U.S. history.  So should we measure our economic progress by the false stock market bubble that has been inflated by Ben Bernanke’s reckless money printing, or should we measure our economic progress by how the poor and the middle class are doing?  Because if we look at how average Americans are doing these days, then there is not much to be excited about.  In fact, poverty continues to experience explosive growth in the United States and the middle class continues to shrink.  Sadly, the truth is that things are not getting better for most Americans.  With each passing year the level of economic suffering in this country continues to go up, and we haven’t even reached the next major wave of the economic collapse yet.  When that strikes, the level of economic pain in this nation is going to be off the charts.

The following are 21 statistics about the explosive growth of poverty in America that everyone should know…

1 - According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty.  The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.

2 - When you add in the number of low income Americans it is even more sobering.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.

3 - Today, approximately 20 percent of all children in the United States are living in poverty.  Incredibly, a higher percentage of children is living in poverty in America today than was the case back in 1975.

4 - It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

5 - Poverty is the worst in our inner cities.  At this point, 29.2 percentof all African-American households with children are dealing with food insecurity.

6 - According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

7 - The number of children living on $2.00 a day or less in the United States has grown to 2.8 million.  That number has increased by 130 percent since 1996.

8 - For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

9 - Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

10 - One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

11 - At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the U.S. lives in a home without a father.

12 - Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

13 - Today, there are approximately 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

14 - About 40 percent of all unemployed workers in America have been out of work for at least half a year.

15 - At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.

16 - There has been an explosion in the number of “working poor” Americans in recent years.  Today, about one out of every fourworkers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.

17 - Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  And that does not even include Social Security or Medicare.

18 - An all-time record 47.79 million Americans are now on food stamps.  Back when Barack Obama first took office, that number was only sitting at about 32 million.

19 - The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

20 - According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

21 - Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps.  Today, close to one out of every six Americans is on food stamps.  Even more shocking is the fact that more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program.

Unfortunately, all of these problems are a result of our long-term economic decline.  In a recent article for the New York Times, David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, did a brilliant job of describing how things have degenerated over the last decade…

Since the S&P 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

For the last couple of years, the U.S. economy has experienced a bubble of false hope that has been produced by unprecedented amounts of government debt and unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately, that bubble of false hope is not going to last much longer.  In fact, we are already seeing signs that it is getting ready to burst.

For example, initial claims for unemployment benefits shot up to385,000 for the week ending March 30th.

That is perilously close to the 400,000 “danger level” that I keep warning about.  Once we cross the 400,000 level and stay there, it will be time to go into crisis mode.

In the years ahead, it is going to become increasingly difficult to find a job.  Just the other day I saw an article about an advertisement for a recent job opening at a McDonald’s in Massachusetts that required applicants to have “one to two years experience and a bachelor’s degree“.

If you need a bachelor’s degree for a job at McDonald’s, then what in the world are blue collar workers going to do when the competition for jobs becomes really intense once the economy experiences another major downturn?

Do not be fooled by the fact that the Dow has been setting new all-time highs.  The truth is that we are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and things are going to get a lot worse.  If you know someone that is not convinced of this yet, just share the following article with them: “Show This To Anyone That Believes That ‘Things Are Getting Better’ In America“.

So what are all of you seeing in your own areas?

Are you seeing signs that poverty is getting worse?

‘We’re Going to Have a Crisis’: David Stockman’s Stark Warning for America

David Stockman (right) with Ronald Reagan in happier times, at a 1981 Cabinet meeting to discuss the budget.

David Stockman, formerly a leading conservative Reaganite, now blames some of the economic program that he once supported for the 2008 meltdown and sluggish recovery. But liberal Democrats who may be excited about a Stockman defection will be sorely disappointed: His critique of the Obama economic program is just as strong as what he says about his erstwhile friends in the Republican Party.

With his new book, The Great Deformation, published today, Stockman positions himself as a whistleblower of the highest order, offering a scathing appraisal of what’s happening in Washington. His history gives the story an unusual perspective. In the late 1970s, as a young Republican congressman from Michigan, Stockman was in a group of politicians, economists, and journalists who championed supply-side economics — the theory that cutting taxes will lead to an economic boom. Ronald Reagan embraced the theory in his 1980 campaign for the presidency, landing Stockman a spot in Reagan’s inner circle of advisers. After Reagan won, he appointed the then-34-year-old Stockman to one of the most influential positions in Washington: director of the Office of Management and Budget. From that position, Stockman led Reagan’s economic program for the next several years. Stockman became an object of controversy in part to the remarkable cover story in the December 1981 issue of The Atlantic, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of budget policy in the capital. “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers,” Stockman told author William Greider.

That article, coupled with Stockman’s break with the supply-siders in the mid-1980s, made him persona non grata with many Reaganites. He later joined Salomon Brothers and the Blackstone Group.

In Sunday’s New York Times, Stockman wrote an arresting diagnosis of the country’s economic condition: It’s worse than everyone thinks. And he argues that it’s only getting darker. I visited with him to discuss his outlook, the 1981 Atlantic story, and the long journey that brought him to this point. The interview has been condensed and edited.

A couple of months ago, in the State of the Union, President Obama said, “After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over six million new jobs. We buy more American cars than we have in five years, and less foreign oil than we have in 20. Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding …. We have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is stronger.” Obviously, you don’t agree with his conclusion.

He’s dreamwalking. I agree with a few of the things he said, particularly getting out of Afghanistan as fast as possible. But in terms of facing down the real domestic issues, I think he missed the boat. He has this idea that’s been peddled to him by his advisers that we’re making great headway on chiseling away at the deficit, but that’s based on a rosy scenario that makes the one we used in 1981 look pale by comparison. If you do an honest projection, the deficit over the next decade will be $15 to $20 trillion. He’s lost.

You and the late Jude Wanniski were some of the original champions of supply-side economics. What would he think about your new book?

He would probably denounce it because what I’m saying is inconsistent with the free lunches and economic magic that is the essence of supply-side.

But aren’t incentives important? Won’t people work harder if they get to keep more of their own money?

Incentives are important. Ultimately, economic growth, wealth, and prosperity come from the supply side of the economy and not the demand. But Jude turned that into something superficial. He argued that Republicans didn’t have to be the party of root canals, warning the public about the dangers of deficit financing, or always saying no. Why don’t we become the Santa Claus Party and give tax cuts to everybody? We’ll win elections and live happily ever after — well,I think that’s just another variation of the Keynesian magic that the state can solve everything. There needs to be discipline. Economic growth, wealth, and prosperity take a lot of effort, sweat, and real-world endeavor over long periods.

The GOP program has the supply-side, low-tax position at its core. If it won’t generate the results they promise, why is it still such a part of the Republican agenda?

Because Republicans claim that we had this great Golden Age in the 1980s, that there was a boom in the 1990s, and that everything was going well during the George W. Bush era until some mysterious comet came in from deep space and caused a meltdown in 2008. My argument is that this was mostly a phony prosperity built on massive additions to public and private debt. That so-called prosperity came from the printing press in the Eccles Building run by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. The “prosperity” didn’t come from tax cuts made by Republican policy makers.

Read the rest here

Welcome to Obama’s Post-American Nightmare

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% – the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is “improving.”

People not in labor force:

Via ZeroHedge

Labor participation rate:

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Unemployment

Ghassan Hitto: Texan

By Kyle Shideler:

Well the Syrian rebel factions have settled down to decide on who should be their interim Prime Minister, and shockingly the winner is a Texan (but not Rick Perry.) No, it’s Ghassan Hitto, an information technology specialist from Texas, and former CAIR employee (h/t Jihad Watch):

Mr. Hitto and his wife, Suzanne, an American schoolteacher, have four children, all born in the United States, where Mr. Hitto advocated for Muslim Americans after 9/11 as a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Nor of course is Hitto alone within the Syrian rebels. Louay Safi, formerly of the Muslim Brotherhood front group, the International institute of Islamic Thought (among others) and a former advisor to the Pentagon, currently heads up the Syrian National Council’s political office. The SNC has long been understood to be one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s principle organs in Syria.

Add to that the fact that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was recruited into the Muslim Brotherhood while attending the University of Southern California, and it looks like the United States is by far the biggest incubator for future Islamist  Heads of State.

One might also be tempted to ask how it is that individuals of little renown outside of being members of North American Muslim Brotherhood fronts so easily transition to leadership roles of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in other countries? After all, we are repeatedly (falsely) assured that there is no “Global Muslim Brotherhood”, with an international viewpoint and plan, only a disparate group of organizations under that banner, each with their on national view points and focuses.

Source: Center For Security Policy

Related

American to Lead Syrian Jihad

• American Muslim Brotherhood Member is New Syrian Prime Minister (counterjihadreport.com)
• White House Partners with Muslim Brotherhood Front (counterjihadreport.com)

I rest my case against immigration

By The Flying Camel

The U.S.’s proxy terror front “The Syrian National Coalition” has elected a U.S. Citizen from occupied Texas as the “Provisional Premier” of the Al-Qaeda-Al Nusra-Muslim Brotherhood coalition.  Ghassan Hitto advocated for Muslim Americans after 9/11 as a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organisation linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.  Hitto is also a strong supporter of Fethulah Gulen Charter Schools in Texas where his wife Suzanne teaches.

Hitto is the latest of U.S. backed Jihadists to be pushed into a position of power in the new, Islamist Middle East.  Mohammed Morsi of Egypt, Hamid Karzai  of Afghanistan are well known stooges of the U.S. State Dept. and the Obama Administration.

“Premier” Hitto has made it clear that he has no interest in a peaceful or negotiated outcome to the Syrian civil war:    “Syrian Opposition PM Rejects Dialogue with Assad Regime”  which comes as no surprise considering his radical, anti-western activities in Texas.

“We confirm to the great Syrian people that there will be no dialogue with the Assad regime,” Ghassan Hitto said.

“The proposal for talks ended before we elected an interim prime minister,” he added.

“The main priority we have before us is to make use of all tools at our disposal to bring down the Assad regime,” said Hitto, while pledging to offer “all possible assistance” to residents living in areas free from army control.”

Radical Islamist Ghassan Hitto’s appointment has placed millions of Syrian Christians in peril.

Syrian Christians Fleeing as Islamists Take Over

Syria: Obama Administration is Arming–and Training Militarily?–Radical Islamists

Syrian Rebels Trained by U.S. Advisors in Jordan?

The American face of Syria’s revolution: Ghassan Hitto voted interim PM

Obama’s America & The Genocide of Christians

The Obama administration announced it will be sending $450 million in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt.

The killings came a week after the attorney general’s office encouraged civilians to arrest lawbreakers and hand them over to police.

The Obama Administration’s $1.3 Billion In Aid To Egypt is a bow to the Muslim Brotherhood

Arabs in Bethlehem had a “warm welcome” for American officials who on Monday came to prepare for President Barack H. Obama’s visit to the city Friday, by throwing shoes and garbage at the vehicles in an entourage from the U.S. Consulate

Here are a few photos of the Syrian Christians that the United States of Obama has paid millions of U.S. Dollars to murder…. in their Muslim Brotherhood-Al Qaeda programme of ethnic cleansing and genocide of all Non-Moslims in the Middle-East and Africa.

Next Stop…..U.S.A.!!!!

Assyrians and Syria’s Struggle For Democracy And Freedom

These are the faces of the children that Obama & Co. want to kill

The Obama Administration has spent Millions of taxpayers dollars…. to kill off the Christians of Syria and Iraq

The US has supported Al Qaeda & Brotherhood throughout the “Arab Spring”

The 2000 yr. old Christian communities of Syria and Iraq shall be eliminated with American dollars

These are the Christians that John McCain & Obama want dead. Sorta’ look like us don’t they?

The Ethnic Cleansing of Christians has been US policy for over two decades

Please have mercy upon the Christians.. Do not allow Obama to Kill Us

Syrian Christians Fleeing as Islamists Take Over

Islamic rebels have been taking over Christian villages in Syria and that leaves the Christians facing some tough choices.

Recently a Muslim group captured the Christian village of Yacoubiyeh.

Many residents fled, leaving behind empty homes, damaged churches and relics of their faith.

Some say they won’t return until they see how the Muslim rebel commander treats minorities.

The commander says he will treat everyone fairly, but like many rebel leaders he makes his decisions according to harsh Islamic law.

There are reports of Muslim rebels murdering Christians and kidnapping others for ransom.

Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people

Syria: Muslim Militia Forces Christian Exodus

Syria’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is being devastated by the country’s civil war.

A Swedish journalist interviewed more than 100 Syrian Christian refugees in Turkey and Lebanon. They say Muslim rebel militia are driving them out because of their faith.

One woman said her husband and son were shot in the head just because they were Christians.

Syria’s population of 2 million Christians is the second largest in the Middle East after Egypt, and now whole villages are disappearing when Islamist rebels arrive.

Every week, hundreds of Syrian Christians arrive in Lebanon. A Lebanese patriarch said it is a ”great exodus taking place in silence.”

Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration will give the Syrian opposition an additional $60 million in aid.

Kerry said the United States will also for the first time provide food and medical supplies to the rebels fighting to remove President Bashar Assad.

He announced the new support and change in policy in Rome Thursday, where an international conference on Syria is being held. European nations are expected to follow Kerry’s example.

Kerry said the goal of the aid is to put more pressure on Assad to step down and to make way for a democratic transition.

Discredited, Hagel-Supporting Jewish Democrats Attack CPAC For Choosing Rand Paul

The National Jewish Democratic Council’s executive director, Aaron Keyak, released a vitriolic statement over the weekend that attacked Republicans who made Rand Paul the winner of CPAC’s straw poll, intimating Paul ‘s foreign policy vies would be dangerous for Israel.

The NJDC has discredited itself, in the eyes of many pro-Israel Jews, with its support for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, despite his long history of anti-Israel statements and incidents of anti-Jewish language–which it had once criticized.

Keyak based his bizarre and rabidly partisan statement on Paul’s statements about cutting foreign aid:

Regardless of political affiliation, American Jews should be alarmed that the Republican Party’s core activists have selected Senator Rand Paul to be their preferred standard bearer for 2016.

Senator Paul has called multiple times to cut and end American aid to Israel, and has refused to rule out a containment strategy vis-à-vis Iran. Paul’s misguided foreign policy views are nothing short of dangerous, and his growing legitimacy among the GOP’s base is only another reason why the vast majority of Jewish Americans consistently support the Democratic Party.

Keyak and his cohorts willingly ignore the strong statements Paul has made in support of Israel. When visiting Israel in January, Paul said of Israeli settlements, “America should and does have an opinion about these things, but ultimately these are decisions you have to make.”

Contrast that to Joe Biden’s rabid comment about the settlements in 2010: “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units.”

Paul continued in January by remarking about the trouble Israel was having with Gaza, “I don’t think you need to call me on the phone and get permission to stop missiles raining down from Gaza.”

When asked about cutting foreign aid, Paul asserted, “ … that we have to reassess who to give aid to, and when we do reassess that, I would begin with countries that are burning our flag and chanting ‘Death to America.’ No one is accusing Israel of that.”

In an interview with Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro in January, Paul spoke of how his position on foreign aid matched Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ultimate desire for independence: “I agree with Netanyahu who said in 1996 he’d like to be independent of foreign aid so Israel could be more of a sovereign nation.”

When Shapiro asked, “If Israel comes under attack from its enemies, does the United States stand with Israel in terms of giving military foreign aid?”, Paul immediately responded, “Well, absolutely we stand with Israel, but I think what we should do is announce to the world, and I think it’s pretty well known, that any attack on Israel will be treated as an attack on the United States.”

Nothing Paul has said remotely compares to Hagel’s statements on Israel, such as that Israel keeps Palestinians “caged up like animals” or that the “Jewish lobby” bullies members of Congress. In 2007, the NJDC criticized Hagel but reversed itself when he was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2013.

The GOP should back away from “Third-party groups that promote purity” (54)–an apparent swipe at the Tea Party.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has released its long-awaited study on the 2012 elections, with detailed recommendations about how the party can improve its future.

The report, entitled the “Growth and Opportunity Project,” was compiled by a special committee consisting of former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, veteran GOP adviser Sally Bradshaw, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, Puerto Rico committeewoman Zori Fonalledas, and South Carolina committeeman Glenn McCall.

For several months, RNC chairman Reince Priebus has referred to the committee’s report on the state of the party as an “autopsy.” It is an apt description, because the 100-page report has as much chance of reviving the GOP as an autopsy has of reviving a corpse. The report effectively suggests Republicans try to compete with Democrats by imitating them–not just in tactics and appearance, but in policy and ideas as well.

Thus far, media coverage of the report has anticipated its recommendations for a shorter primary process, fewer debates, an earlier national convention, and closer engagement with minority communities. Whatever the merits of these suggestions, they mask the fundamental flaw of the report: a failure to acknowledge, much less learn from, the successes of the recent past–all of which were built on conservative revival.

Instead, the report declares that the GOP is stuck in an “ideological cul-de-sac” and requires “a more welcoming conservatism.” (5) To that end, the report insists that the party “must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.” (8) It also calls for Republicans to imitate the left’s identity politics, creating a “Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council” composed of “nonwhites” who are meant to help increase diversity.

There is nothing in the report about strengthening the Republican Party’s commitment to conservative principles–the winning formula in 1980, 1994, and 2010. Instead, the report declares that Republicans “make sure that the government works for those truly in need”–a worthy goal, but one that cannot be accomplished without shrinking it and focusing it. (The word “smaller” does not appear anywhere in the report’s 100 pages.)

The report suggests that the GOP focus on “growth.” But the sort of growth the report’s authors seem to envision is of the party bureaucracy itself. Repeatedly, the report calls for hiring new staff, creating new committees, and spending more money. In many ways the RNC’s report reads like a government policy prospectus–full of earnest exhortations and ambitious targets, bereft of common sense principles and clear, attainable priorities.

There are some bright spots in the report. It recognizes that “there is a need for greater competition among vendors to spur more creativity and better outcomes.” (34). Yet the RNC seems to have no idea how to foster that competition. The committee suggests that the RNC itself lead the way in technological innovation, data collection, and setting the message for third-party groups such as Super PACs and issue-based organizations.

One striking passage reads:

Chairman Priebus should call for a command performance meeting of the leadership of our friends and allies and not allow anyone to leave the room until it’s determined, to the extent allowed by law, who is doing what that can be divided legally. This is likely the most important recommendation in this friends and allies section of this report.” (49)

Yet elsewhere, it insists: “Groupthink is a loser.” (91)

Amazingly, a key recommendation for the revival of the Republican Party depends on the support of Democrats. The report calls for bipartisan cooperation to relax campaign finance restrictions in order to strengthen the power and cohesion of the two national parties relative to “third-party groups.” The obvious targets are not just outside PACs but groups like the Tea Party that challenge the Republican Party’s claim to conservatism.

Even while suggesting ways to “raise corporate money,” the report calls on Republicans to adopt the Democrats’ class warfare and to attack bonuses and large CEO retirement packages. It rightly calls for Republicans to reach out to minorities through coalitions, then treats minorities like window-dressing, calling on the party to “elevate Hispanic leaders” as if it has not already done so–on merit, and more often than the Democrats.

There is very little in the report about how Republicans can improve their performance in the media. The only relevant recommendation is that “Republican leaders should participate in and actively prepare for interviews with The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, MTV and magazines such as People, UsWeekly, etc.”–left-leaning outlets that are often hostile and which are useless in mobilizing the core conservative voter base.

That is not to say Republicans should avoid those outlets, but to focus on them is also a mistake. The primary key to the Obama campaign’s success in 2012 was that it brought the Democrats’ base to the polls. Mitt Romney won independents in 2012, but lost the election. Until Republicans improve their communication with their own base–reaching out through conservative media, and new media in particular–their message will be lost.

Instead, the report recommends that Republicans reach out to organizations such as the NAACP–ignoring the fact that the NAACP’s policies are decidedly radical and do not even represent public opinion in the black community on issues such as voter ID and school reform. At the same time, the report implies that the GOP should back away from “Third-party groups that promote purity” (54)–an apparent swipe at the Tea Party.

The only part of the “Growth and Opportunity” report that has any real coherence is the section on fundraising. There, Chairman Priebus can boast some real successes. The report highlights the improvement in party finances, and also points out that the Romney campaign made improvements in efficiency, using a financial platform that coordinated “over $1 billion” between various groups through the efforts of only nine employees.

That fundraising role is where the RNC is most effective. Elsewhere, it can coordinate, but not control. The authors seem to realize this at times. They implicitly rebuke Karl Rove: “Washington should not try to dictate candidate choices. Voters will ultimately decide.” (47) Yet the authors cannot resist the urge to centralize. And rather than finding ways to sell conservative principles, they chart a leftward course–one that cannot win.

John Boehner “absolutely” trusts President Barack Obama “

On ABC’s This Week, hosted by Martha Raddatz, Speaker of the House John Boehner appeared to downplay the problem of national debt while loudly proclaiming his wonderful relationship with President Obama. “The president and I, as I have made very clear, have a very good relationship. We’re open with each other. We’re honest with each other,” said Boehner.

“Do you trust President Obama?” Raddatz asked.

 “Absolutely,” Boehner replied.

 “Absolutely?” Raddatz emphasized.

 “Absolutely,” Boehner repeated.

Framing Republicans as out-of-touch radicals, Raddatz then asked, “President Obama says these meetings are intended to find members of the common-sense caucus who he can make a deal with …. Are you not a member of the common-sense caucus?”

Boehner, falling for the trap, shot back, “I’m part of the common-sense caucus. We appreciate the outreach. We appreciate the engagement from the president. But it’s gonna take more than this if we’re serious about solving our problems.”

Then Boehner dropped the bombshell. Raddatz, after quoting President Obama saying we don’t have “an immediate crisis in terms of debt,” asked Boehner for his thoughts. And Boehner eagerly agreed: “We do not have an immediate debt crisis. But we all know that we have one looming …. It could be a year or two years, three years, four years. It’s not an immediate problem.” And then Boehner said he agreed with Obama on the immediacy of the problem.

READ THE REST HERE

Aircraft software is inadequate for even basic pilot training.

If you thought that canceling the White House tours in order to save the Federal Government $74,000 per week was desperate, what do you think about the $40 billion that we have already spent on a ‘state of the art’ fighter plane that was designed by an international committee and can’t fly!

The development of the latest US fighter planes over the last several decades has been one of the most costly examples of bad military spending in US history. In these days of fiscal crisis and sequestration, the story of the $120 billion development fiasco of the the F-22 and F-35 jet fighter plane is particularly egregious. The F-22 was less than expected, and in a recent report from the US Department of Defense, leaked to the public last week, the F-35 was considered unfit to fly. The report, called “F-35A Joint Strike Fighter: Readiness for Training Operational Utility Evaluation,” was released by the Office of the Secretary of the  in February 2013, and a declassified version was posted on March 6, 2013.

Three reasons stand out for this colossal and costly fiasco:

1. The decisions to move forward with the development of these two fighter jets have been political, not military;

2. The idea that a fighter jet can be designed by committee in order to accommodate bad foreign policy in a ‘global economy’ is patently absurd; and

3. In order to placate Muslim (particularly Turkish) objections, the one country whose technological expertise and experience in building what are arguably the best equipped fighter jets in the world – Israel – was shut out of all development.

Background 

The F-22 Raptor entered the fleet of the US Air Force in December 2005. A product of Lockheed-Martin aircraft, it was reputed to be the best overall fighter in the world. It was characterized by its supposed stealth, speed, agility, precision and situational awareness, combined with air-to-air and air-to-ground combat capabilities. However,the  aircraft’s stiff price tag, cost overruns, development and production delays, a Congressional ban on Raptor exports, and the ongoing development of the F-35 which was considered more versatile, resulted in demands that F-22 production be ended. Production was halted on December 13, 2011.

In the summer of 2012, at the international Red Flag Alaska training exercise where the planes were matched against Australian, German, Japanese, Polish and [NATO] aircraft, the “most advanced stealth fighter jet in history, the F-22 Raptor” proved that while the plane excels at modern long-range air combat, it is only “evenly matched” with cheaper, foreign jets when it comes to old-fashioned dogfights.

In the meantime, back in October 2001, Lockheed Martin won the contract to the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter to  replace the F-16, A-10, F/A-18, and AV-8B tactical fighter aircraft. The government planned to buy a total of 2,443 aircraft for an estimated US$200 billion. The purchase was to provide the centerpiece of the US armed services tactical air power to the US military.

According to the DOD report, the F-35 was intended to be a “multi-service, multi-national program consisting of a single-seat, single-engine aircraft built in three distinctly different variants intended to perform a wide array of missions to meet an advanced threat (year 2010 and beyond). The variants include a conventional take-off configuration (F-35A), a short take-off/vertical landing configuration (F-35B), and an aircraft carrier-compatible configuration (F-35C). “The international market included Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia,  and Turkey, who were invited to join in the development program. The aircraft was also to be sold to Singapore, Japan, and Israel, although they were not invited to participate in its development.

Ironically, the same optics, avionics, and software packages that have kept the F-15, F-16, and F-18 Hornets as well as the Apache  and Cobra helicopters flying long after their ‘sell-by’ date of 1984, could have easily been applied to the F-22 and F-35 projects. However, in the interest of appeasing Islamic sensibilities, because these technologies were developed by Israeli companies such as Elbit, Elisra, and Raphael, they were not consulted and their technology was not utilized.Instead, the F-35 was designed by a committee of manufacturers from the US, Canada, and Europe.

As a possible result, the F-35s now represent such a danger to pilots that according to the leaked report , they are not even fit for training purposes. A comparison between the 1960s designed F-16, which Israeli technology has continually upgraded since 1984, and the F-22 and F-35, which have failed to meet their promised potential, demonstrates how using the best technological advances can – in the case of the F-16, they have enabled it to maintain its well-earned reputation as the finest fighter jet in the world – still. The US has employed all of these Israeli modifications into their entire fleet. Until the development of the  F-22, when Israel was cut out of the development loop.

READ THE REST AT GERARDDIRECT.COM

Muslim Brotherhood’s Statement on Women Stirs Liberals’ Fears

Mr Kerry kow-towing to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MAYY EL SHEIKH

don’t be surprised a decade from now if an Iran-Contra like political scandal is uncovered and SOF are fighting the very same weapons that were supposedly never sent.

by Isaiah Burkhart · March 11, 2013 ·

The U.S. policy on aid to Syria is tilting dangerously in the direction of military support. There are many who believe that the situation in Syria should be treated similar to the regime overthrow in Libya. It has become increasingly normal to see media outlets using the ‘cookie cutter’ method in their analysis of countries within Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia.

“Oh, these countries contain Muslims and it’s hot there, they must be the same.”

These countries are not identical, as seen in the United States war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many years, the two countries were militarily approached in a similar way and we are seeing how that is turning out. Almost 12 years of fighting in Afghanistan, and an Iraq that is in shambles, are examples of why these conflicts should not be viewed with a cookie cutter eye piece.

Recently, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at a joint press conference at Doha’s al-Wajba Palace with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani. Kerry stated that he believes that weapons are reaching Syrian rebels, and that the United States supports such efforts. He also said that the U.S. had yet to and will not directly send weapons to the Syrian rebels.

There are very concerning allegations, from various foreign news agencies, that have started to materialize in recent days. Since late 2012, reporters on the ground in Syria have noticed an influx of Yugoslavian weapons circulating throughout the rebels. A Croatian newspaper claims:

3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November.

Supposedly these  weapons were paid for by Saudi Arabia at the bidding of the United States.

Another allegation includes the U.S. sending stockpiled weapon from Afghanistan to the Syrian rebels once we have pulled the majority of troops out of the country. Weather either of the two allegations are true or not, it must raise some awareness as to what our plans and intentions are regarding aid to the Syrian rebels.

The US may or may not be directly sending weapon to the Syrian rebels, yet supporting armament of such rebels is one step away from actually throwing our hand in the ring. Kerry also stated that he believes the weapons that are shipped to Syria from other sympathizing countries are reaching ‘moderate’ fighters. Where is the substantiating evidence that moderate rebels are the only fighters receiving these weapons? Yes, there are many rebel forces that are simple working men wanting a free and democratic society. Yet to believe that al-Qaeda is not heavily involved in the fighting, and aid/weapons are not reaching their hands as well, screams ignorance.

With a sequestration that came into effect on March 1st, there are are other questions that must be raised, to include, how has Secretary of State Kerry managed to gather 60 million dollars to give as non-military aid to the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s military?

With these recent developments, don’t be surprised a decade from now if an Iran-Contra like political scandal is uncovered and SOF are fighting the very same weapons that were supposedly never sent.

SUPPORT SOFREP

by Jack Murphy · March 9, 2013 · SOFREP

By Alexander Bolton -

Three Senate Republicans will press Secretary of State John Kerry to make the survivors of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, available to a congressional investigation.

Six months later and no answers

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has played a leading role in pressing the Obama administration to reveal more information about the attack, which left U.S ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead, said he and colleagues will send a letter to Kerry.

“We’re going to write a letter. Myself, Sen. [Kelly] Ayotte [N.H.] and [Sen. John] McCain [R-Ariz.] to Secretary Kerry asking to make the survivors available to the Congress,” Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “The appropriate committees can interview the survivors about what happened that night.”

Graham said the administration’s initial account of what happened at the American diplomatic compound, that the attack was a spontaneous protest to an anti-Islamic video, has “collapsed.”

Graham, who faces a likely Republican primary challenge in 2014, blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as oblivious to the dangers posed to the mission in Benghazi.

“We also know that Secretary Clinton did not have a clear idea of the threats in Benghazi because she never received any information coming from Chris Stevens and other people on the ground in Benghazi and Tripoli about the threats they faced,” Graham said.

“So she was not clear eyed. She was deaf and blind and before the attack is a clear example of a failed foreign policy, a detached president and a deaf and blind secretary of state,” he added.

Some Republican strategists have predicted Graham will shore up his standing among conservative activists at home by bird-dogging the administration on Benghazi.

He relished the opportunity to do so on Fox.

“God bless Fox News,” he said. “The media has been absolutely AWOL except for Fox and CBS.

“Can you imagine if this were Bush? And Bush was telling the American people there’s no evidence of a terrorist attack here?” he added in reference to former President George W. Bush.

Graham accused the administration of setting up an ill-conceived security operation in Libya because it was determined to create a small American footprint but put American lives at risk.

He said the Libyan government was far too weak to protect American diplomats, which is why Stevens made repeated requests for additional security, requests that were denied.

“They wanted to basically lead from behind and outsource security to a nonexistent government in Benghazi, so the president is the primary culpable party here,” Graham said of the administration.

Benghazi Survivors Remain Gagged by Federal Law

This is how FSA gangs get their bloody “salary”.

As was reported today, the Greek Orthodox priest was found dead. “The corpse of Fady Haddad, kidnapped last Friday (October 19), was found this morning in Damascus province,” said locals. Priest tried to negotiate the liberation of a Christian doctor in Damascus province.

The soldiers, who belong to a UN force, were ordered by their commander to abandon the post for fear rebels may attempt to capture more peacekeepers.

Peacekeepers ordered by their commander to leave post in Syria for fear of additional kidnappings; IDF soldiers meet them at border crossing
Yoav Zitun

Two days after 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers were kidnapped by Syrian rebels in the village of Jamlah, situated less than a mile from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, eight other UN monitors from the Philippines abandoned their position on Friday and crossed the border into Israel.

The soldiers, who belong to a UN force that has patrolled a ceasefire line between Israel and Syria for nearly four decades, were ordered by their commander to abandon the post for fear rebels may attempt to capture more peacekeepers.

An IDF force stationed in the Golan met the peacekeepers at one of the gates along the border fence along with UN personnel who arrived from the Israeli side of the border. The Israeli army stressed that its soldiers did not cross the border to pick up the peacekeepers.

The IDF was expected to transport the peacekeepers to the UN’s Ein Zivanit base, located near the Quneitra Crossing.

Some two weeks ago Croatia announced that it is withdrawing its 100 troops from the buffer zone separating Israel and Syria. The Croatian government said it feared for the soldiers’ safety after reports that Saudi Arabia had bought arms from Croatia and then provided them to the Syrian rebels.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government said the Syrian rebels failed to release the 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers who were kidnapped on Wednesday and stuck to their demands for repositioning of Syrian government forces before any handover.

The spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, Raul Hernandez, said the rebels had been expected to free the peacekeepers early Friday.

“I don’t know exactly know what happened, why the expected release did not happen, but the demand is still there” for the Syrian forces to pull back, he told reporters in Manila.

He said that the Philippine government continues to “work with all stakeholders for the expeditious release of our Filipino UN peacekeepers.”

The rebels demand that Syrian troops pull back from the area around Jamlah, the village near the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. UN peacekeepers have been monitoring the armistice line since 1974.

Walid Shoebat SMEARED by local news WDAY6 reporter after two Muslims were asked to leave event

Walid Shoebat has now been smeared in a blatantly biased report by Kevin Wallevand of WDAY6 News in Minnesota after two Muslims were asked to leave an event where he was recently speaking. Before I get into the details, watch both the original news report and the shorter update:

Obama wants to have Paul Ryan for lunch

GOP budget chief Rep. Paul Ryan will provide the next backdrop for President Barack Obama’s high-profile political charm offensive.

Both are expected to meet for lunch today at the White House, according to an White House leak given to favored media outlets.

The event will boost media coverage of Obama’s new claim to bipartisan outreach, which can help him weaken GOP legislators’ solidarity and also boost his public-approval polls by appearing to seek bipartisan comity in Washington .

Now John McCain goes to the floor and slams Rand Paul’s filibuster as ‘not helpful’, ‘ridiculous’

Why don’t John McCain and Lindsey Graham just get a room or something. As soon as I heard that Lindsey Graham didn’t like filibuster, I knew that McCain would be soon to follow with the same garbage.

Just like clockwork:

Lindsey Graham Slams Rand Paul, GOP’ers Cheering Him: Paul’s Position On Drones Not ‘A Republican View’

Is Michelle Obama About to Honor an Anti-American Anti-Semite?

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Mar 7 2013, 11:34 AM ET 7 Tomorrow afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama and the secretary of state, John Kerry, are scheduled to present the International Women of Courage Award to 10 women who have shown leadership in advocating for women’s rights around the world. Among the 10 honorees is an Egyptian woman, Samira Ibrahim, who has battled against the Egyptian army’s infamous “virginity tests.”

Ibrahim, according to Samuel Tadros in The Weekly Standard, is also a rather ostentatious anti-Semite who frequently takes to Twitter to excoriate Jews:

WDAY reporter cites CNN Hit Piece on Walid in blatantly biased report on incident involving two Muslim youths

Kevin Wallevand of WDAY TV out of Fargo, ND did a “news report” on an incident involving Walid and two Muslim youths at an Assembly of God church in Perham, MN that took place on February 24th. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also inserted itself into the story.

Aside from the fact that Walid was never contacted by anyone from WDAY to get his point of view, the debunked CNN hit piece on Walid from 2011 was cited by the reporter in an obvious attempt to discredit Walid and boost the accounts of the two Muslim youths.

Smith & Wesson (SWHC) Plunges On Assault Rifle Ban Fears

By: Leo Sun, dated March 7th, 2013

Shares of gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson (SWHC: Analysis) plunged this week, despite reporting third quarter earnings that surprisingly more than tripled from the prior year quarter. The Springfield, Massachusetts-based company posted a profit of 26 cents per share, or $14.6 million, a 228% increase from the prior year quarter. Revenue rose 38.8% to $136.2 million.

Thomson Reuters analysts expected the company to earn 23 cents per share on revenue of $134 million.

AGENDA 21 INDOCTRINATION IN TEXAS SCHOOLS WITH CSCOPE CURRICULUM

Over 80% of Texas schools, public, charter and private (some christian schools) have purchased and  implemented a curriculum called Cscope. Cscope from Kindergarten thru 12th grade is written with the intentions of indoctrinating children with the United Nations Agenda 21 goals. Agenda 21 is commonly called Sustainable Development. A warm fuzzy term with devastating effects on American culture and freedom.

Please watch Glenn Beck exposing Cscope on his radio show.

The following is from a Cscope 1st grade lesson. The teacher is instructed to ask these question in regard a/the child preparing for their own birthday party.

• Is this a party that could be for you in real-life?
• Why or why not?
• Could scarcity, not having enough of something, have anything to do with what you have at a birthday party? Explain.
• Could scarcity affect the choices you make about a birthday party?
  

A leaked email is being highlighted by Republicans as apparent evidence that the Obama administration’s goal is to try to make the cuts look as painful as possible to the American people.

In the controversial email, circulated by two Republican House members, Charlie Brown, a USDA worker with the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Raleigh, N.C., appears to be asking about how to implement budget cuts. USDA responded by writing, “however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”

The USDA claims the email has been misinterpreted and taken out of context. Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced that due to sequestration, thousands of illegal immigrants have to be released from immigration detention centers.

U.S. Captures bin Laden Son-in-Law

Mr. Abu Ghaith appeared in al Qaeda videos condemning the U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan, saying al Qaeda would retaliate against the U.S. and Britain.

By DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON—A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and longtime suspected member of al Qaeda has been captured by U.S. officials, who are preparing to bring him to the U.S. to face charges, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, identified by counterterrorism officials as a spokesman for the terror group once led by his father-in-law, was recently deported from Turkey to Jordan, where U.S. agents captured him, one person familiar with the case said.

The person said the U.S. plans to fly him to America to face trial, most likely in New York, where al Qaeda conspirators have been convicted in the past.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Mr. Abu Ghaith appeared in al Qaeda videos condemning the U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan, saying al Qaeda would retaliate against the U.S. and Britain. After those videos appeared, Kuwait stripped him of citizenship.

Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) said the capture “shows again that core al Qaeda is being devastated. It goes right to the heart of al Qaeda, because it’s bin Laden’s son in law. That’s a psychological victory for us and a psychological defeat for al Qaeda.”

ALSO: U.S.-funded Jihadist “Holy War” in Syria Seeks Sharia Dictatorship

Nobody in Pakistan has been punished for helping bin Ladin and the Taliban. No officials have been fired. Has the United States even demanded such steps be taken?

On the basis of easily obtainable evidence, it is possible to ask the following questions:

Why has there never been any government investigation that yielded changed policies into Pakistani complicity in protecting Usama bin Ladin and the Taliban at a time that these forces were killing hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

How has large-scale U.S. aid to Pakistan continued without change and without this question being answered?

And why has there been no media or congressional interest into an extremely passionate issue (remember September 11?) in which there are arsenals of smoking guns?

I wrote an article December 19, 2009, that begins:

“Prediction: One day some enterprising author or former intelligence officer is going to write a best-selling book about the hunt for Usama bin Ladin. Readers will be horrified to find how the Pakistani government and military sabotaged the effort to catch or kill the al-Qaida leadership.”

In fact, Usama bin Ladin was killed on May 2, 2011, and the news was obvious about how he had been given safe haven and protected by at least some elements in Pakistan’s government. Remarkably, there was no serious change in U.S. policy toward Pakistan despite the fact that this regime treated badly and threw into prison the Pakistani doctor who helped the United States get bin Ladin. Nothing is more immoral than to betray friends.
One of the keys to this foolishness was an interview then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a week earlier:
“We’ve admired the way Pakistan has pulled together to go after those elements of the Taliban that are directly threatening them. And I think that the people of Pakistan are so unified now in support of this military action.”

Note to Hillary: Of course Pakistan has gone after those elements in the Taliban that were directly threatening them. The problem is that it didn’t do anything about those elements in al-Qaida or the Taliban who were directly threatening the United States. How many billions of dollars in aid was given by the Obama Administration to Pakistan despite that reality? And why hasn’t U.S. policy changed almost two years after it became public that bin Ladin, the biggest single mass murderer of American civilians in history, was Pakistan’s privileged guest?

But wait! Perhaps Hillary wasn’t so clueless after all. Six months after her defense of Pakistan cited above but almost precisely a year to the day before the killing of bin Ladin, Clinton said this:

“I’m not saying that they’re at the highest levels but I believe that somewhere in this [Pakistani] government are people who know where Usama bin Laden and al-Qaida is, where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is and we expect more cooperation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill, those who attacked us on 9/11.”

This was a slip of major proportions and an exception to what administration officials said on a daily basis. Nothing had happened between December 2009 and May 2010 that showed a real change in Pakistani policy, except as I noted retaliations against those elements in the Taliban who had attacked Pakistan directly.

Indeed in October 2009 there was an event long-forgotten today that proved the opposite. David Rhode, an American journalist who had been taken prisoner by the Taliban and held for several months wrote an article in the New York Times describing in great detail his personal observations of Pakistani officials helping the Taliban.

This was at a time–in fact all these events were–when the Taliban was killing scores of American soldiers and terrorizing Afghans.

It was also at a time–in fact all these events were–when the Obama Administration was continuing to give billions of dollars to that same Pakistani government.

And today, more than three years after the Rhode and Clinton statements, this same situation continues.
What makes this even more scandalous is that I’m not aware of any major journalistic or government investigation about what Pakistan’s rulers knew and when did they know it, followed by demands of punishment or firing for Pakistan officials and officers involved, and failing that followed by a reduction in U.S. aid and relations with Pakistan.

It’s even more scandalous for this reason: Nobody in Pakistan has been punished for helping bin Ladin and the Taliban. No officials have been fired. Has the United States even demanded such steps be taken?

Only one man has been punished at all in regard to these events: the Pakistani doctor who helped the United States get bin Ladin. He’s now in a Pakistani prison and reportedly been treated terribly. He’s forgotten, too.

Remember that if you, as a non-American, ever think of taking some risk to help the United States. The Egyptian moderates who boycotted and jeered Secretary of State John Kerry whose policy backs the Muslim Brotherhood; the moderates in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and elsewhere have learned that lesson. So have Central Europeans who lack protection against Russia; Latin Americans who worry about Cuba and Venezuela while the late dictator Hugo Chavez is mourned as a hero in much of American mass media and intelligentsia; even Saudi Arabia and Israel, and other countries whose names would astonish you, have learned that lesson.

Did I mention that the Pakistani government is getting billions of dollars in U.S. aid, even at a time of great spending deficits in the United States?

The fact that nobody is even talking about this is another proof about how decadent U.S. politics and foreign policy have become. Obama gets praise for killing bin Ladin but not responsibility to do something about the reason why bin Ladin was able to remain safe for a decade after September 11 and continue planning attacks on America.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports.

Lamlam, 17, is one of thousands of people who make the treacherous journey from Eritrea to Egypt each year. Many fall victim to unscrupulous people traffickers, who kidnap them and demand ransom money from their families.

By Mike Thomson

“The kidnappers would make me lie on my back and then they would get me to ring my family to ask them to pay the ransom they wanted,” she says, lifting up the back of her shirt to expose a rash of deep scars.

“As soon as one of my parents answered the phone, the men would melt flaming plastic over my back and inner thighs and I would scream and scream in pain.

“This, they hoped, would put extra pressure on my mother and father to find the money.”

A man standing next to her gently places a hand on her shoulder as she finishes speaking.

Zere, his faced swathed in a red and white scarf, was one of those kept with her in a windowless basement room for almost a year.

“They had about four of five of us tied up together and they would pour water on the floor and then electrocute the water so that all of us would get electrocuted at the same time,” he says.

“They would starve us, they would burn us and they would not let us sleep.”

Zere says that nine out of the 20 people held hostage with him died. But, he tells me, by that point those still alive would have welcomed that fate.

“All of us were actually hoping for death because that would have been an escape from the torture.”

‘Kidnapped’ Eritrean man in plea for life

Listen to the interview here

The jihadists’ move into Sinai only worsened Israel’s headache.
“Instead of operating in Gaza on a 40-kilometer border with Israel, they can now operate on a 250-kilometer border in Sinai,” a security source lamented.

Published: March. 6, 2013 at 4:25 PM

EL ARISH, Egypt, March 6 (UPI) — EL ARISH, Egypt, March 6 (UPI) — As Egypt struggles to head off another bout of political violence, Islamist militants, many of them linked to al-Qaida, are establishing a stronghold in the vastness of the Sinai Peninsula with a steady supply of looted armed from Libya, and Israel as their target.

Israeli intelligence says most of the attacks out of Sinai in recent months have been the work of Ansar Jerusalem, aka Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which is believed to have several hundred operatives in the mountainous desert wastes that link Africa and Asia.

The Egyptians are unable to mount effective operations against the militants, who call themselves Ansar al Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula and in December 2011 swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden before he was assassinated by the Americans.

Their attacks on Israel, along with the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since the Feb. 11, 2011, downfall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, pose a threat to Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, lynchpin of Israeli and Western policy in the Middle East.

“Jihadist groups are emerging as a major threat in Egypt because of three developments: the permissive atmosphere for Islamist mobilization in general since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, the ruling Muslim Brotherhood’s tolerance toward its fellow Islamists, and the weakness of the Egyptian state,” observed Aaron Y. Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.

Egypt’s declining internal security will give jihadists ample recruitment opportunities as well,” he noted in a January analysis.

“In addition, instability in northern Sinai and attacks against Israel could jeopardize the peace treaty.”

On Dec. 24, Egyptian security services foiled an attempt to smuggle 17 French-made rockets into Sinai. They thwarted an attempted car-bombing in Rafah, near the Gaza Strip on Sinai’s eastern border, Jan. 7. Two days later they seized a truck carrying 1 ton of explosives at a central Sinai checkpoint. The cargo was bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The Egyptians said they’d intercepted 5 tons of explosives, automatic weapons and disassembled rockets in three months. Many of the weapons originated in Libya, officials said.

On Feb. 15, another 2 tons of explosives headed for the Sinai from Cairo was intercepted. Two days later the Egyptians uncovered a weapons cache in El Arish, the provincial capital, that included and anti-aircraft gun and six anti-tank mines.

On Feb. 18, Egyptian troops flooded several tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip in a bid to curb the flow of weapons into the coastal enclave.

Israel’s General Security Service, known as Shin Bet, claimed in February that “hundreds” of high-quality weapons, including rockets and advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles from Libya and Sudan were smuggled into Gaza throughout 2012.

READ THE REST HERE

“Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning.”

Samira Ibrahim to receive medal from US Secretary of State Kerry, First Lady Michelle Obama.

On Friday March 8, Michelle Obama will join John Kerry at a special ceremony at the State Department to present ten women the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. The award, says the press release, is given to “women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women’s rights and empowerment, often at great personal risk.”

Five of these awards are being given to women from Muslim-majority countries, underscoring the unique plight of women in those countries. The only problem is that one of the women to be recognized is an anti-Semite and supports the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Samira Ibrahim, as the State Department’s profile describes her, “was among seven women subjected by the Egyptian military to forced virginity tests in March 2011.” The press release further notes that Samira “was arrested while in high school for writing a paper that criticized Arab leaders’ insincere support to the Palestinian cause.” Apparently, the State Department is unaware of her other convictions.

On Twitter, Ibrahim is quite blunt regarding her views. On July 18 of last year, after five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed a suicide bombing attack, Ibrahim jubilantly tweeted: “An explosion on a bus carrying Israelis in Burgas airport in Bulgaria on the Black Sea. Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.”

“An explosion on a bus carrying Israelis in Burgas airport in Bulgaria on the Black Sea. Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.”

Ibrahim frequently uses Twitter to air her anti-Semitic views. Last August 4, commenting on demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, she described the ruling Al Saud family as “dirtier than the Jews.” Seventeen days later she tweeted in reference to Adolf Hitler: “I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.”

Ibrahim holds other repellent views as well. As a mob was attacking the United States embassy in Cairo on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, pulling down the American flag and raising the flag of Al Qaeda, Ibrahim wrote on twitter: “Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning.” Possibly fearing the consequences of her tweet, she deleted it a couple of hours later, but not before a screen shot was saved by an Egyptian activist.

Just today, apparently after having been warned that her vicious tweets might cause her trouble during her visit to the U.S., she has written on twitter: “My account has been previously stolen and any tweet on racism and hatred is not me.” However, in the past she never made any mention of her account being “stolen.” The record of her anti-Semitic tweets is still available online.

The decision to honor Ibrahim reflects poorly on the State Department, which is either incapable of doing the minimum amount of research required to find out who she is, or does not care that the secretary of state and First Lady are about to honor an anti-Semite who longs for violence against Americans. It’s understandable that now with Islamists having come to the fore after all the hope that the Egyptian uprising inspired, American policymakers are looking for the good guys, real liberal activists that deserve U.S. support. Samira Ibrahim is not one of them.

Samuel Tadros is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom

Read the rest here

Kissinger says Iran nuclear crisis close

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has warned that a crisis involving a nuclear Iran is in the “foreseeable future”.

“The danger is that we could be reaching a point where nuclear weapons would become almost conventional, and there will be the possibility of a nuclear conflict at some point… that would be a turning point in human history,” he said.

May 3, 1994
To Members of the U.S. House of Representatives:

We are writing to urge your support for a ban on the domestic manufacture of military-style assault weapons. This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety. Although assualt weapons account for less than 1% of the guns in circulation, they account for nearly 10% of the guns traced to crime.

Every major law enforcement organization in America and dozens of leading labor, medical, religious, civil rights and civic groups support such a ban. Most importantly, poll after poll shows that the American public overwhelmingly support a ban on assault weapons. A 1993 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 77% of Americans support a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of semi-automatic assault guns, such as the AK-47.

The 1989 import ban resulted in an impressive 40% drop in imported assault weapons traced to crime between 1989 and 1991, but the killing continues. Last year, a killer armed with two TEC9s killed eight people at a San Francisco law firm and wounded several others. During the past five years, more than 40 law enforcement officers have been killed or wounded in the line of duty by an assault weapon.

While we recognize that assault weapon legislation will not stop all assault weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons.

Sincerely,

Gerald R. Ford

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

US pledges $450m to back Egypt’s faltering economy

Mr Kerry urged the Egyptian government to reach a deal on $4.8bn IMF loan that could unlock more US funds.

The Brotherhood’s credo is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.“

US Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged $450m (£300m) to support Egypt’s faltering economy but warned Cairo that “more hard work” was needed.

Mr Kerry’s comments came after talks in the Egyptian capital with President Mohammed Morsi.

He also urged Mr Morsi to ensure that next month’s elections “are free, fair and transparent”.

The elections are being boycotted by the main opposition group, amid continuing mass protests.

The secular National Salvation Front (NSF) says electoral laws favour allies of President Morsi – a charge he denies.

Egypt remains sharply divided between Islamists and their liberal and secular opponents.

More than 70 people were killed in violence between security forces and protesters following the second anniversary of the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Departure delayed

“It is clear that more hard work and compromise will be required to restore unity, political stability and economic health to Egypt,” Mr Kerry said after Sunday’s talks – on the second day of his visit to Egypt.

“In all my meetings, I conveyed a simple but serious message: the brave Egyptians who stood vigil in (Cairo’s) Tahrir Square did not risk their lives to see that opportunity for a brighter future squandered.

“The Egyptian people must come together to address their economic challenge,” Mr Kerry stressed.

He also said that Washington would now be providing the first $190m of the pledged $450m in budget support funds for Egypt.

Mr Kerry earlier urged the Egyptian government the government to reach a deal on $4.8bn IMF loan that could unlock more US funds.

Mr Morsi’s government agreed the loan in principle last November but it was later put on hold amid the continuing street protests.

John Kerry’s first overseas trip as secretary of state is taking him to 11 countries in Europe and the Middle East.

However, his departure from Cairo was delayed because hundreds of al-Ahly football supporters blocked the road to the airport demanding justice over last year’s football riot in Port Said in which 74 fans died.

Gayle Trotter: A woman’s right to choose self-protection

Concealed-carry laws help reverse that balance of power even before an attack. Criminals cannot tell which potential victims can defend themselves, and armed citizens can better defend against violence.

While whining about “The Sequester” and demanding a crippling programme of “Austerity” from the American people… the Obama Administration continues to spend billions of (scarce) dollars on dangerous adventures in Africa and the Middle-East.

Have they learned nothing from Benghazi?

Obviously not!

Be sure to check out these aerial photos of secret US bases in Africa.

Something to think about while you are being taxed out of existence!

U.S. Officials Propose Sharing Drone Surveillance Data With Algerians

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — The American ambassador to Algeria and senior counterterrorism officials have proposed sharing more information with Algerian security forces to help them kill or capture militants in their own country and in areas just across their borders.

Their approach reflects the growing support within the administration for more forceful action against extremists in the area since the attack on a gas field in eastern Algeria last month left 37 dead, including three Americans, and focused new concerns on terrorist activity in Africa.

Under one plan, information from American surveillance drones would be provided to Algerian forces to enable them to engage in operations both inside Algeria and possibly, in a limited way, across its borders. The United States is already providing surveillance information to the French-led military operation in Mali to help combat militants there who last year seized the northern half of the country.

In a cable to the State Department last week, according to administration officials, Henry S. Ensher, the United States envoy in Algiers, urged that the pursuit of the Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of the gas field attack, be made a priority. Toward that end, he recommended that the Obama administration tell the Algerians that if they allowed the United States to fly unarmed drones over the border area of Algeria as well as over Mali, the Americans would share the information with the Algerian government.

There was broad agreement among policy makers and intelligence officials at a meeting of President Obama’s top national security deputies at the White House last week that Mr. Belmokhtar and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb should be aggressively pursued, according to one senior American official who insisted on anonymity so he could discuss internal deliberations. But no decision appears to have been reached on whether to make a formal proposal to the Algerians.

The idea of taking stronger action in the region has been supported in recent months by Michael Sheehan, the senior counterterrorism official at the Pentagon, and Daniel Benjamin, who until December was the senior State Department counterterrorism official. In the past, State Department lawyers have questioned whether the military action approved by Congress against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorized efforts to target extremists who were not clearly linked to the group. But according to some officials, those legal arguments  have recently been overcome.

The United States has long sought Algeria’s cooperation in antiterrorism efforts, and sharing information with a government that has jealously guarded its sovereignty would be a significant step toward that goal. During the siege of the gas plant at In Amenas, Algeria permitted the United States to fly a Predator surveillance drone over the complex, though it insisted that the drone be withdrawn after the assault was over.

Mr. Obama announced last week that about 100 American troops had arrived in Niger in West Africa, next to Mali, to set up a new drone base to conduct surveillance flights in the region.

American officials also sense a possible change of heart by Algerian officials to move away from their longstanding policy not to conduct military operations outside the nation’s borders. Algerian officials recently told the United States that they were prepared to conduct operations in border areas, one American official said.

Mr. Belmokhtar, 40 — sometimes known as “Laaouar,” or the one-eyed, after he lost an eye to shrapnel —  was deemed to be a menace long before he drew international attention for last month’s attack. As the Algerians pressed their campaign against the militants, he took refuge in Mali, where he engaged in smuggling and kidnapped foreigners for ransom, including Robert Fowler, a Canadian diplomat and United Nations special envoy who was abducted in 2008.

By the spring of 2012, northern Mali had become a gathering place for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Other militant factions in northern Mali included Ansar al-Dine, a group largely made up of members of Mali’s nomadic Tuareg minority. Its leader, Iyad ag Ghali, has been officially designated as a global terrorist, the State Department announced  Tuesday.  The growing extremist presence in Mali became an increasing concern for Mr. Ensher as well as for Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Africa Command, and counterterrorism officials at the Pentagon and the State Department.

In late 2011, according to current and former administration officials, Mr. Ensher proposed that the United States share what limited intelligence it had on Mali with the Algerians to encourage them to act against Mr. Belmokhtar either directly or through their contacts with the Tuaregs in northern Mali. Mr. Ensher later expanded the idea to include sharing information from unarmed drone flights.

“We had an opportunity to prevent what’s been a continuing nuisance from becoming a threat to regional stability,” said a former senior administration official.

Some proponents of the plan thought that gaining Algerian cooperation on counterterrorism might be problematic but figured the Algerians might come around if the United States was prepared to present a detailed proposal to share information.

“They need to take responsibility for their guys running amok in the areas,” one senior administration official said of the Algerians.

Even as the militant threat grew in northern Mali, however, there was debate within the Obama administration over how much weight to give to military initiatives in Africa and how best to forge a relationship on counterterrorism with an Algerian government that has a track record of dealing sternly with militants.

Questions raised by the State Department’s legal office about targeting Mr. Belmokhtar presented another complication, as did the reluctance of the United States Central Command to shift drones that were being used in Yemen and Afghanistan.

With the administration preoccupied with other foreign policy crises and skeptics raising objections about the wisdom of opening a new counterterrorism front, the proposal to fly drones and share the information was never formally approved for presentation to the Algerians.

“The question is always with partners, ‘What are they going to do with the information we give them and will they use it in ways that are acceptable?’ ” said the former senior administration official.

Last October, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, visited Algeria to discuss ways to improve cooperation on counterterrorism. In December, Mr. Sheehan, Mr. Benjamin and William Burns, the deputy secretary of state, paid a follow-up visit. If the White House does decide that a new proposal to share drone information with the Algerians should be made, the use of a Predator during the hostage-taking episode in Algeria might serve as a precedent for further collaboration.

“MBM clearly has sought to raise his own profile in the context of various extremists,” said another senior administration official, using the American government’s shorthand for Mr. Belmokhtar. “He’s certainly somebody who is the subject of our attention now.”

Sales to Saudi Arabia last year also included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, all contributing to a total Saudi weapons deal from the United States of $33.4 billion, according to the study

And of course….. the Saudis transfer the weapons systems to terror forces and the US claims it’s hands are “clean”

Saudis Step Up Help for Rebels in Syria With Croatian Arms

By C. J. CHIVERS and ERIC SCHMITT

Much has been said, and rightly so, about Chuck Hagel’s dismal confirmation hearing, his noxious statements about Israel, his alarming attitude toward Iran, and his eagerness to gut the Defense Department.

But what Dan Senor has done better than anyone else is to explain, in a specific and accessible manner, what a secretary of defense does, what the job entails, and why competence in that Cabinet post, more than any other, matters

In the wake of Senator Hagel’s dim-witted performance in his confirmation hearing, his supporters were forced to argue that Hagel is acceptable precisely because he won’t really be in charge. “After all,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, “the president is the one who sets policy.” Mr. Hagel himself, in order to allay concerns of his critics, actually said, “I won’t be in a policy-making position.”

Except that he will–and Senor explains all that this means.

What a Defense Secretary Does

Pace Hagel, it’s a policy-making job.

Dan Senor

NASA supposedly leaked classified military technology to China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

By Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

When Obama came into power over four years ago, I knew it was the opening volley of the destruction of much of what America holds dear. One of the first things he did was attack amesNASA. People may have forgotten the layoffs and changes in NASA. I haven’t. Obama has overseen the Islamization of NASA with instructions to run a Mohammedan outreach program. He cut the Constellation program, intended to develop new rockets to carry people into space and the space shuttle program was mothballed — with a special dissing of Texas because they bucked Obama’s EPA mandates. Stellar thuggery gone mad – space exploration, the Chicago way.

Now, it is coming to light that NASA supposedly leaked classified military technology to China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. If it was leaked, I would wager it was leaked to other countries as well, such as Russia and Iran. We owe tremendous amounts of money to China, who is — make no mistake of it — our enemy. They are currently being accused of massive cyber-attacks against the US, which is an act of war. Let’s not forget that the majority of the bombers on 9-11 came from Saudi Arabia, who condones terrorism and sharia law and they got free goodies as well. Even leaking this technology to South Korea is just plain insane as it lays our military and technological throats bare for our enemies to rip out. If these charges are true, say it with me, this is treason. Have you noticed under Obama, that every enemy we have has become a special friend of Obama and his minions? That’s not an accident, it is by design. It is part of bringing America to her knees.

This has evidently been going on for four years and the FBI has now been stonewalled on the investigation. Now, given, the FBI is not the most competent bunch of investigators these days – they seem to be more into sexting and dating drug dealers, but still…

Two prominent Congressmen have come forward with these accusations of wilfully leaking military/space technology to our enemies. Fox News has obtained documents from a whistle-blower who gave this information to the Congressmen. A Grand Jury was convened to look into this in February of this year, but it has since been put on hold. There are several informants, including a senior NASA engineer. Suddenly, the general prosecutor was removed from the case and it was transferred to another office in California where it now sits in purgatory.

According to the informant, the information leaked was staggering:

When I mentioned the tech that was compromised to the Armed Services Committee, their jaws just dropped. – Congressional Source

Have you heard about this in the news? I haven’t. I only heard about it by going to Drudge and from several readers who sent it to me. Guess the media is more interested in shiny things and Obama’s propaganda than real news.

From Fox News:

The claims originate with several past and current NASA employees concerned with the systemic leak of highly sensitive information relating to missile defense systems, as well as what they call a troubled investigation into the leak.

The documents claim the FBI has been working with other agencies since 2009 on an investigation into foreign nationals working at Ames. This follows allegations by two Republican lawmakers earlier this month that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern California district was ultimately denied by the Justice Department when it tried to proceed with indictments.

Of course the government (the DOJ) and the US Attorney’s Office are denying that any of this is true. Just for the record, I absolutely believe it is true. Two members of Congress, Reps. Frank Wolf, R-VA and Lamar Smith, R-TX, in a statement to Fox News said Haag’s denial “conflicts with information we have received from federal law enforcement sources,” and added “we hope that the DOJ Inspector General will take our request seriously.” They sent a letter to the DOJ who acknowledged receipt and said they are ‘reviewing’ the letter. I bet.

The Ames Research Center, which is at the heart of this scandal, is located in Silicon Valley. The accusations come from a violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulation. This law governs the export of defense weaponry. The information leaked had to do with specialized rocket engines — originally developed for the Pentagon missile defense “Kinetic Kill Vehicle” program, information on guidance and terrain-mapping systems from the Tomahawk cruise missile and a radar from the F-35 were also shared. That ought to make you pause. Hell, it should send a very cold shiver up your spine. Those accused are Ames Center Director Simon P. “Pete” Worden and Will Marshall, a British citizen. I wonder if they were ordered to do it… or did they have a price? I hear 30 pieces of silver goes a long way these days.

According to documents, foreign nationals were brought into the program with little or no vetting. These individuals then shared information with the Chinese and others through the International Space University. But, it gets even better… DHS seized Marshall’s NASA laptop at the San Francisco airport, citing that it contained ‘sensitive’ information. Note to Marshall – you suck as a spy. Obviously, DHS was not briefed on the deal. Three foreign nationals left the US and shared technology all over the place. And I bet it’s still occurring.

More from Fox News:

On Feb. 8, Reps. Wolf and Smith sent letters to the Justice Department inspector general and the director of the FBI regarding the allegedly illegal movement of this crucial technology. Wolf chairs the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee. Smith heads the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

The letters allege the FBI had uncovered the ITAR violations, and the U.S. attorney was prepared to issue indictments. But it says the case has been stalled for more than a year, agents in the case were reassigned, and the statute of limitations on the violations is already beginning to expire.

“It is our understanding that this illegal technology transfer may have involved classified Defense Department weapons system technology to foreign countries, including China, potentially with the tacit or direct approval of the center’s leadership,” the letters read.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, also wrote to NASA as early as April 2012 asking about allegations that Worden “allowed foreign nationals” to access Ames – along with “NASA secrets and cutting edge technology” in violation of ITAR.

Of course the media is spinning those who are speaking out about this as ‘China haters.’ I kid you not.

The Washington Times sums it up:

“It is our understanding that after the reassignment, certain defendants and certain charges were dropped from the case without explanation,” the congressmen’s letters say.

The congressmen are asking the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate whether “political pressure may be a factor.” They also say one suspect’s computer hard drive was corrupted by officials handling evidence.

Political pressure… imagine that… more corruption in the Obama administration. Sounds like they are covering up treason to me. Selling America out to our enemies. Obama has succeeded in destroying NASA from within and he’s actively sleeping with every enemy we have.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is a Libertarian and she blogs at NoisyRoom.net. NoisyRoom is a Conservative blog that focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public.

Obama specifically nominated Hagel as Co-Chair of the PIAB as reward for Hagel’s 2009 insane Middle East recommendations.”

Hagel, at Obama’s bidding, plans to send troops to Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) where they would soon be victims of Hamas terror. It’s in writing. An investigative report.

By Mark Langfan

There is only one reason that Chuck Hagel was picked by President Obama to be US Defense Secretary, and why Obama will go nuclear to get him confirmed:

Hagel is the only person alive now dumb enough to deploy US “peacekeeping” troops to what is surely a “West Bank” deathtrap. Don’t believe me??! Well, in early 2009, two years after Hamas violently took over Gaza, Hagel along with a ragged has-been crew of “Israel Lasters” had some strong “recommendations” for the incoming President Obama.

I will let Hagel’s 2009 “recommendations” speak for themselves. But to lend a note of rationality, Florence Gaub, a NATO researcher, in 2010 published a NATO Research paper outlining some of the problems of such a deployment. (I.e. it would need about 60,000 US/Nato troops and about 160 billion Dollars over 10 years) I and I will excerpt her report as well.

Obama’s determination in confirming Hagel is based on Obama’s belief that Hagel will cripple Israel at any price: including the deaths of  thousands of US soldiers at the hands of Hamas suicide bombs in the Palestinian Authority.
START OF HAGEL’S 2009 REPORT:
“A Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement,” April 2009. “Submitted to the administration of President Barack Obama” by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chuck Hagel, et al.

The U.S. parameters should reflect the following fundamental compromise:

[A] non-militarized Palestinian state, together with security mechanisms that address Israeli concerns while respecting Palestinian sovereignty, and a U.S.-led multinational force to ensure a peaceful transitional security period. This coalition peacekeeping structure, under UN mandate, would feature American leadership of a NATO force supplemented by Jordanians, Egyptians and Israelis. We can envision a five-year, renewable mandate with the objective of achieving full Palestinian domination of security affairs on the Palestine side of the line within 15 years. Page 6

III. Substantive Issues to be Resolved: Israel-Palestine

Security.

The borders between the two states must be physically secure and fully controlled for their entire length. A U.S.-led multinational force would likely be essential for a transitional period once a peace agreement is concluded. Palestine would likely be non-militarized. No doubt Jerusalem will require a special security and administrative regime of its own and special arrangements will be needed for the use and regulation of Palestinian airspace. Page 12

Israel-Syria

Security. Demilitarization of the Golan Heights and limited forces zones on both sides – all likely to be supervised by multinational forces featuring American leadership – will be mandatory. Page 13

Annex: Addressing Israel’s Security Challenges

Beyond the current efforts we expect that, upon the full agreement of the parties, there will be a robust international effort involving outside armed forces for a period of indeterminate length assisting Palestinian authorities in executing their responsibilities in the security sphere and helping them build capacity in order eventually to act without outside assistance. Page 14

Naturally, the U.S. will play a large and perhaps decisive role. Yet it should not act alone – there should be broad participation reflecting international consensus on the importance of supporting the emergence of a truly sustainable two-state outcome. Page 14

Although General Jones’ mandate has focused exclusively on the Israel-Palestine track, clearly there would also be a robust American role in implementing the security-related aspects of any Israel-Syria accord. Beyond helping the IDF with improving capabilities designed to compensate for full withdrawal from territory occupied on the Syrian front since 1967, the U.S. would undoubtedly play a vital role in monitoring a demilitarized Golan Heights and providing early warning services to both parties. Page 16

In our view there is no avoiding a central U.S. role in helping the parties (especially the Palestinian side) meet their security-related responsibilities to each other in the context of two states. Page 16

GAUB’S 2010 NATO REPORT:

Research Paper – Research Division – NATO Defense College, Rome – “NATO: Peacekeeping in the Holy Land? A feasibility study,” by Florence Gaub. March 2010.

This paper argues that such a mission would struggle to be successful, and is very likely to fail. Although the idea is attractive to some who would like to prove NATO’s global peace-enforcing capacity, the chances are that this endeavor would turn bad and tarnish NATO’s image in more ways than one. NATO is not currently ready to take on this kind of mission, and might never be. Page 2

Bright lights, big city

Also, there are over 19 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. In total, 4.2 million inhabitants in the area live in cities of this kind, with more than half a million living in refugee camps. This itself implies two things: first, arms caches are difficult to locate without local knowledge, and arms smuggle is facilitated greatly. Disarmament measures would be even more difficult to enforce than they already are under friendlier circumstances. Page 8

Less is not more, less is less

Independently from the local security forces, the NATO force in Palestine (hence the minimalist version) would, if it follows the example of the successful cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, need forces ranging from 43,700 to 76,000 men, including the police forces. Of these, between 16,100 and 28,000 would patrol Gaza, and between 27,600 and 48,000 the West Bank. Page 10

Current theatres of operations would have to be reduced in size before a suitable size NATO mission in Palestine would be available without introducing longer deployments – something many Allies would like to avoid. Page 11

Who dunnit?

Stabilisation missions are largely infantry missions. This is topped in our case by the fact that in worst case scenario, the tasks would entail urban warfare and counterinsurgency, which are also infantry heavy tasks. Page 11

According to some estimates, 57,000 of the 76,000 men would preferably be international civilian police or gendarmerie. Page 11

Time is Money

Aside from the costs for the mission itself, additional costs can be expected, due to the training of the Palestinian police, building infrastructure and providing equipment. Some estimates calculate between $9.61 billion and $16.72 billion per year, not calculating reconstruction efforts, which in the case of the recommended 5 years would result in a total number between $48.05 billion and $83.6 billion. Page 11

In a Nutshell

NATO’s mission in Palestine would have slim chances of success, and a high probability of failure. One should not be blinded by perceptions of a historical opportunity and embark on an endeavor that could cost NATO credibility, prestige, money and lives simply because it seems to be a politically symbolic chance in a lifetime to establish NATO as a global security provider.

The territory involved presents aspects that would cause any campaign planner nightmares – densely populated, urban areas with highly intermingled conflicting populations, a volatile political ambiance where the tides can turn any second, and a very experienced opponent if it ever comes to counterinsurgency. Thus, this mission would need thorough preparation, careful planning, sufficient staffing and funding, a significant amount of political will, and would leave a very narrow margin for success. At the current stage, and with its other operations ongoing, it seems irresponsible to hasten NATO into a mission that has all the ingredients to turn into a quagmire that equals the Alliance’s involvement in Afghanistan. Page 12

END OF GAUB’S 2010 NATO REPORT:

And now for my analysis: Florence Gaub’s NATO College real analysis exposes Hagel’s US “peacekeeping” “recommendation” for the US defense policy fraud it is. Based on Hagel’s sheer hate of Israel, and without a whit of real thinking, Hagel would have had Obama commit the greatest US defense error in US history bringing the deaths of thousands of US soldiers, and the destruction of Israel, America’s anchor in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.

Can anyone imagine the depraved analysis Hagel has been spewing while, at this very moment, he is currently the “Co-Chair” of Obama’s “President Intelligence Advisory Board” (“PIAB”)?

In fact, Obama specifically nominated Hagel as Co-Chair of the PIAB as reward for Hagel’s 2009 insane Middle East “recommendations.” No wonder Obama’s policy has enabled Iran’s nuke program, and betrayed all our historic allies. “Hagel” and “Intelligence” are mutually exclusive terms. For 3 years, Obama has seen Hagel prove himself to be a useful-idiot  who will dance to any Kill-Israel tune Obama plays for him.

So, in conclusion, Obama will do anything and everything to get Hagel confirmed because Obama knows Hagel, and only Hagel, hates Israel enough to sacrifice 1000s of US soldiers in body bags, and dumb enough to gladly blow 160 Billion US dollars, we don’t have, in order to grossly cripple, or perhaps even destroy Israel. In 2007,

Hagel saw Hamas takeover the Gaza Strip in 10 seconds flat. So in 2009, he knew the 60,000 US troops he was recommending Obama send into the “West Bank”  would have been instantly trapped by Hamas, and subject to multiple Marine Beirut Barrack’s-type suicide blasts and kidnappings. But to compound Hagel’s rank stupidity, Hagel also wanted to put US troops on the Golan at the same time. Imagine what Assad would have done with US troops on the Golan Heights!! Add to the thousands of US body bags,

Hagel would happily spend 160 Billion US dollars we will have to borrow from the Chinese (over ten years of a minimum deployment) to expose US troops to mass-murder suicide bombing by Iran’s Hizbullah, and Tel Aviv to Hamas fired chemical-katyusha rocket barrages. (As an author’s note, if AIPAC plans on lobbying the US Congress for their “West Bank/Golan-for-Dead-US-GIs” “peace” plan, they should also plan on fighting Mark Langfan like they did in 1994; when they tried it the first time, and lost. Remember well the Nickels’ Defense Authorization Amendment fight!!!! See, US Troops On Golan Quicksand, by Mark Langfan,1994,

But get this, in early 2009, Hagel proved his total obsession with annihilating Israel by his stating in the 2009 paper’s preface: “In short, the next six to twelve months may represent the last chance for a fair, viable and lasting solution.” (Toto, we’re not in Nebraska 2009 anymore!) So, in 2009, Hagel was fiercely advocating for 60,000 US troops to have been already deployed by 2010, and 45 Billion US dollars already poured down the drain!! Such defense policy insanity conclusively proves Hagel is uniquely and inherently disqualified to be US Defense Secretary. Hagel’s 2009 “White Paper” shows only one thing: Obama has, in Hagel, knowingly nominated someone whose abysmal defense policy judgment is only “exceeded” by his evident virulent genetic in-bred German-Polish hate for both Israeli and American Jews.

The US Senators now voting for Hagel’s confirmation don’t know that they are now really voting for a deployment of 60,000 US soldiers to the “West Bank” and Golan Heights. If the Senators don’t stop this catastrophic train now, the Obama-Hagel “peace” locomotive will run them over when the actual time comes for the deployment decision.

Calling Israel’s “Guardian” Chuck Schumer?? Where are you?

Written By Kris Zane

For anyone who has done even a cursory study of Barack Obama’s life, they know that his radical Marxist views are not a recent phenomenon.  They probably go back to his Occidental days, most definitely to the New York years, where he attended at least two (and probably three) of the annual Socialist Scholars Conferences held in Manhattan.

This leftist bent continued with his association in the 1990s with the Marxist New Party; socialist-funding groups like the Woods Fund (where Obama, with Bill Ayers at the helm, doled out money to groups like ACORN); and his later connection to the anti-Iraq War movement, anti-torture movement, anti-drone movement, etc.

So when Obama ascended to power, none of us who had been doing even basic research on Obama were surprised when he surrounded himself with a gaggle of leftist ideologues. But like those picture games kids play where the question is asked “What doesn’t belong?”, it was extremely odd when Obama in 2008 put John Brennan at the top of the list to head the CIA.

For years, as part of the CIA, Brennan was knee-deep in Bush’s use of waterboarding and psychotropic drugs to gain information. He was a proponent of the Iraq War, a proponent of drones to carry out assassinations, and a Republican—all things Obama and his leftist base have fought against for years.

And Obama’s leftist base was livid and demanded that Brennan’s name be withdrawn from consideration for CIA head.

Obama brought Brennan into the inner circle anyway, giving him the job of what has turned out to be a position more powerful than the CIA director. His title sounds innocuous enough: Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Brennan, running something akin to a fiefdom with his drone assassination program, has the power to decide who lives and who dies and doesn’t have to provide evidence to any entity that the “target” presents any threat to America—even if they are an American—even if the American is living in the United States!

Investigative Reporter Michael Isikoff uncovered a secret memo, entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force.”

The memo gives the Obama Administration—in effect, Brennan—the authority to kill any American citizen at anytime for any reason without proof, without due process, and with absolutely no oversight.

But this unchecked power exercised by John Brennan is mild compared to what we learned with the recent release of an extensive book on the Benghazi consulate attack. Benghazi: The Definitive Report, released on February 12, makes the shocking claim that Obama’s chief counter-terrorism officer, John Brennan, aside from having the authority to murder American citizens, has been waging a series of secret wars in North Africa and the Middle East against Al Qaeda and Al-Qaeda-linked groups. How secret? So secret that he and his minions at JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) operated not only outside the purview of Congress, but outside the purview of the Pentagon and CIA. Former CIA head David Petraeus wasn’t even aware of Brennan’s secret wars!

According to Benghazi: The Definitive Report, the attack on the Benghazi consulate had nothing to do with, as we were told, an amateurish anti-Muslim YouTube video leading to a “protest turned violent,” but was retaliation for John Brennan’s JSOC attacks on the Libya-based terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia.

So the question becomes: Why does a leftist ideologue President pal up with a man—John Brennan—whose ideology is the complete opposite to his?

For the answer to this, we must go back to the beginning of 2008 when it was announced that a company that no one had ever heard of—Analysis Corporation—had breached Obama’s passport file.

The incident was reported to simply be mischief, and the employee was reprimanded. We would soon find out that John Brennan, then advisor on intelligence and foreign policy to the Obama campaign, headed Analysis Corporation.

What we weren’t told at the time, however, was that Analysis Corporation (now Sotera Defense Solutions) then as now not only had access to virtually every passport of every American, but Social Security numbers (and probably birth certificates.)

We were told that Analysis Corporation was a State Department contractor. This was only partially true. Analysis Corporation was a database-crunching company focusing on national security and counterterrorism and thus worked for virtually every government entity with a connection to U.S. intelligence: CIA, FBI, DHS, etc. The Analysis Corporation was staffed by former government agents, which was why John Brennan, who had been the former second-in-command at the CIA, ran the company.

It has been theorized that the 2008 breach of Obama’s records was not in fact simply mischief by an employee, but was a cover to purge Barack Obama’s file of any reference to foreign citizenship.

READ THE REST AT: WesternJournalism.Com

Also: John Brennan refuses to say drone strikes won’t be used in the United States

To watch Western naives fool around with this in trying to socially engineer a new Syria is like watching chidren playing around with high explosives.

Make some popcorn and enjoy the Jihadi on Jihadi action!

A commander of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) said Syrian rebels had started to attack Lebanon’s Hezbollah Feb. 21, less than a day after the FSA chief of staff issued a 48-hour ultimatum warning the militant group to stop shelling territory held by the insurgents.

“We have bombed the territories of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The Free Syrian Army will continue bombing these positions,” Col. Hisam al-Avvak of the Group of Free Officers, which operates under the umbrella of the FSA, told Anatolia news agency. Al-Avvak also threatened that the FSA would target Hezbollah strongholds in the south of Beirut unless Hezbollah stops its joint operations with the Syrian army forces.

Gen. Selim Idriss, the FSA chief of staff, said on Feb. 20 that Hezbollah had long been taking part in hostilities in Syria, but had gone too far by shelling villages near Qusayr in Homs province from the Bekaa valley in Lebanon.

The commander said the rebels were giving Hezbollah a 48-hour deadline to stop the attacks and “as soon as the ultimatum ends, we will start responding to the sources of fire.” Rebels in the Qusayr area would be backed by FSA fighters “equipped with long-range weapons from other areas,” he said.

The FSA had also asked the Lebanese president and premier to intervene, Idriss said, but the office of Prime Minister Najib Mikati denied any contact with the Syrian rebels.

Hezbollah has repeatedly denied sending fighters into Syria. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, acknowledged in October 2012 that party members had fought Syrian rebels but said they were acting as individuals and not under the group’s direction.

Hezbollah has been supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad ever since the uprising began in March 2011, even though the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain. The group says it is backing the Syrian regime because of its support for the anti-Israel resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine and because it is willing to implement political reforms.

A Lebanese analyst ( whose name was withheld for security reasons) told Yalibnan: ” As a Lebanese Shiite myself , I strongly feel that Hezbollah has become an Embarrassment. Hezbollah was my Hero until the Israelis pulled out from Lebanon in 2000 but ever since then it has been downhill for Hezbollah. I pride myself of being a Lebanese Shiite, but I think Hezbollah’s agenda has ceased to be a Lebanese resistance since 2000. Hezbollah is now a proxy of the Wilayat al Faqih ( the basis of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran) which for us as Lebanese Shiites is a step back. Hezbollah is now doing Iran’s dirty work . Look what Hezbollah has allegedly done in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Thailand, Singapore, Kenya, Azerbaijan, India, Georgia , Argentina, Egypt, Bahrain and Iraq. How does this benefit me as a Lebanese Shiite? Hezbollah’s behavior is having a negative impact on all of us as Shiites . We feel this , by the way we are treated wherever we travel.”

He added: As far as the Syrian regime is concerned the writings are on the wall. This regime is bound to fall . Where will this leave us as Shiites if Hezbollah continues to support a failing regime. Unfortunately most people think that if you are a Shiite you are automatically a Hezbollah member, which of course is not the case. Time for Hezbollah to wake up and think Lebanon. This will be better for Hezbollah, better for the Shiites and better for all the Lebanese “.

A federal appellate court has ruled that prison inmates who practice witchcraft can sue the state that incarcerates them for discrimination because it doesn’t hire a chaplain for them but does for more mainstream religions.

It’s one of those only in California stories, but it’s going through the federal court system so it deserves attention. Two incarcerated women who practice Wicca, a goddess-worshiping form of witchcraft, sued the state for refusing to hire a Wiccan chaplain. In their complaint the women claim that Wicca has more adherents in their northern California state prison than two of the five religions—including Islam and Judaism—that have state-paid chaplains.

Wiccan inmates have access to a volunteer chaplain, the prisoners claim, but the volunteer is only available every two or three months and the jailed Wiccans need frequent contact with ordained clergy. That’s because clergy is essential to perform “initiations, blessings and ceremonies” in a faith that relies on “an oral tradition of songs and stories.”

A federal court in Fresno dismissed the inmates’ lawsuit in 2011 after finding no violations in their rights. However, this week the notoriously liberal Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brought it back to life by overturning the decision. The San Francisco-based appellate court ordered the original judge to reconsider the case and determine whether state prisons unconstitutionally prefer majority religions over Wicca and other minority faiths.

If the jailed convicts’ allegations are true, the appellate court wrote in its decision, “the prison administration failed to employ any neutral criteria in evaluating whether a growing membership in minority religions warranted a reallocation of resources used in accommodating inmates’ religious exercise needs.” While the state isn’t required to “provide inmates with the chaplain of their choice,” it must use neutral standards when deciding how to spend money on prisoners’ religious needs, the ruling says.

For many years California prisons have hired chaplains for Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims to conduct religious services for inmates. In the mid 1980s American Indian prisoners sued the state because it didn’t provide spiritual advisers so those are available as well. The group that represents California’s 30,000-plus correctional officers posts this on its website: “California taxpayers, who already pay for prison chaplains covering Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant and Native American religions, might have to add witches to the employee list.”

Although America is providing the guns, at least we know they haven’t any good shooters:

H/T  Theodore Shoebat

  Written by Frosty Wooldridge

Americans must ask themselves if Muslim-style “multiculturalism” fits into the United States of America.  Can our country tolerate beheadings, be-handings, female genital mutilation, arranged marriages of 12 year old girls and murders of gays?  Before 1990, no American ever experienced the barbaric ritual of beheading a person.

But since our U.S. Congress began importing a total of seven million Muslims from all over the Middle East and Africa since 1990, an ever increasing rate of “honor killings” continue to horrify Americans around the country.

This week, the New York Daily News reported Islamic violence in Buena Vista, New Jersey: “Cops arrested Muslim Yusuf Ibrahim, 28, of Jersey City on Sunday after detectives found the bodies of the two men, aged 25 and 27, behind a home in Buena Vista Township. Their severed heads and hands were discovered at a separate burial site. The investigation into the grisly murder began Thursday following reports of suspicious activity at the Buena Vista home. Cadaver dogs located the bodies, which both suffered a single gunshot wound to their chests.” (Source: New York Daily News, 2/19/13)

Muslim man accused of beheading two Christians in U.S. Torture, persecution of faithful no longer reserved for Islamic nations

Police reported in New Jersey that Yusuf Ibrahim beheaded and be-handed two Coptic Christians after shooting them.  He buried them in two separate graves in Buena Vista, New Jersey.

“It’s a shock, something like this doesn’t happen,” one resident said.

Pamela Geller, who blogs about Islam at Atlas Shrugs, said, “It appears to have been a ritual killing, religious in nature.  The victims were Coptic Christians and the murderer was Muslim, and we are painfully aware of the status and treatment of Christians under Muslim rule in Egypt.”

The killings stem from Islamic law within the Quran: “When Allah was revealing to the angels, “I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so cut above the necks, and cut every finger of them!” – Quran 8:12.”

At this time, America houses seven million Muslims.  They already advocate for Sharia Law within America.  As their numbers grow, they will implement it with the power of the vote. They continue practicing female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, multiple wives and subjugation of their women.  Detroit, Michigan harbors massive Islamic cover-up of Muslim rituals.  It’s become so isolated that no American law can be adjudicated. Detroit has become an Islamic country within our country.

Wherever their numbers grow, Muslims slowly and methodically overwhelm the host nation.

Muhib Ru’yat al-Rahman, a senior writer of a leading jihadi forum called “Shumoukh al-Islam”, suggested, “Muslims living in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S., must kill Westerners who criticize Islam, and display their decapitated heads along roads.”

One Muslim Dutch-Moroccan immigrant named Muhammad Bouyeri, killed Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 over the production of “Submission,” a film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women. Dozens of forum members praised the action, expressing their agreement with the writer’s suggestions.

A majority of Americans lack any understanding or knowledge of the Muslim onslaught of much of Europe. Smaller countries like Belgium and Holland suffer complete displacement of their cultures, languages and people because Muslims out-breed them at an astounding rate of speed.

Norway houses four million people and Sweden less than five million citizens: both countries watch horrific upheaval of their laws, culture and language by Islamic immigrants.  For example, 99 percent of rapes on Norwegian women stem from Muslim immigrant men.  The United Kingdom and France experience similar consequences of mass Muslim immigration.  To say that Islam remains a savage and barbaric religion in the 21^st century can be seen as an understatement.

Annually in Islamic countries, Muslim fathers, husbands and brothers, following the edicts of the  Koran, kill 5,000 women with impunity for “dishonoring” the family name.  A woman might make a transgression by wearing jeans or she might attempt to gain an education or she might try to escape an arranged marriage because she just turned 11 years of age.  Americans cannot grasp the savagery of the Koran and the men who follow it.

With the onslaught of “multiculturalism” into America from Islamic countries, Americans must ask themselves if they treasure women’s rights. Gays must ask if they stand a chance of living in Muslim dominated cities like Detroit, Michigan.  Women must ask if they can dress, speak and travel on their own.

Everything about Islam contradicts everything about Western democracy, free speech, religious choice and women’s rights.

“Immigrants devoted to their own cultures and religions are not influenced by the secular politically correct façade that dominates academia, news-media, entertainment, education, religious and political thinking today,” said James Walsh, former Associate General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. “They claim the right not to assimilate, and the day is coming when the question will be how can the United States regulate the defiantly unassimilated cultures, religions and mores of foreign lands?  Such immigrants say their traditions trump the U.S. legal system.  Balkanization of the United States has begun.”

Join these organizations to empower you to stop mass immigration:

www.CapsWeb.org ; www.NumbersUSA.org ; www.TheSocialContract.com ; www.Fairus.org ; www.Alipacus.com

Join me with Dave Chaffin, host of the Morning Zone at 650 AM, www.KGAB.com , Cheyenne, Wyoming every Monday 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., as we discuss my latest commentaries on immigration-environment.  You may stream the show on your computer. You may call in at: 1-888-503-6500.

Written by  Bob Adelmann

On February 18, the Democrat-controlled Colorado House of Representatives passed all four gun control bills over an out-numbered Republican minority’s noisy and occasionally emotional protests.

House Bill 1224 would prohibit the sale, transfer, or possession of large capacity magazines (15 for firearms and 8 for shotguns). It passed 36-29.

House Bill 1226 would prohibit concealed weapons from being carried into any building, structure, stadium, or arena used by a public institution of higher education (unless the permit holder is a security officer employed by that institution). It passed 34-31.

House Bill 1228 would require that those seeking a criminal background check in order to purchase a firearm pay the costs of that background check. It passed 33-32.

House Bill 1229 would require all sellers of firearms, including transactions between private individuals, to receive a background check through a licensed gun seller before the sale can be completed. It passed 36-29.

These four bills are headed to the Senate where Democrats hold a 20-15 advantage over Republicans. And Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, is expected to sign at least three if not all four of the bills, making them laws of the state.

In covering the bills for the Associated Press, Ivan Moreno noted that “the vote [on] Monday in Colorado’s gun control debate is part of the shift in the region’s politics to the left.”

That shift has been going on at least since 2004 when four rich liberals, Tim Gill, Rutt Bridges, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker, decided to fund the Colorado Model, a low-profile strategy deliberately designed to turn “red states blue” according to Erik Erikson, a blogger at Redstate.com. As explained by Erikson, the Colorado Model is “one of the left’s most effective stratagems … when combined with the tactics of Saul Alinsky and his disciples, the Colorado Model is akin to a Soviet platoon armed with AK-47s mowing down a militia armed with slingshots.”

The Colorado Model was first outed by Fred Barnes in his column at The Weekly Standard in July 2008 when he noted that something strange and stunning was happening to the conservative state of Colorado:

In Colorado, Democrats are third in registered voters (31.2 percent), behind both Independents (34.19 percent) and Republicans (34.14 percent). But in the last two election cycles — 2004 and 2006 — they’ve routed Republicans, capturing the governorship, both houses of the state legislature, a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats. Democrats are on a roll, and that’s not likely to change this year.

Indeed it didn’t. Democrats now have commanding control of both houses and the governorship and nothing is standing in their way to enforce their view of the world onto unsuspecting and politically naïve Colorado citizens and gun owners.

The Colorado Model is a simple strategy that consists of developing seven “capacities” that are “required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on [the] offense,” according to Eric O’Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago. The seven capacities are: generate intellectual ammunition for the fight, pursue investigations into alleged wrongdoings by the enemy, mobilize citizens to get active on specific issues, expose media bias that opposes their agenda, litigate when necessary, train up new young progressives as soldiers in the battle, and support progressives in the media who are favorable to their agenda.

How are they doing in Colorado? As Barnes explained:

First, there are the think tanks such as Bighorn and Bell [founded and funded by Bridges] and supposedly nonpartisan political advocacy groups like the Colorado clone of MoveOn.org called ProgressNowAction.org, founded in 2005. Another clone, this one a local version of Media Matters known as Colorado Media Matters, was created two years ago to harass journalists and editorial writers who don’t push the liberal line.

There’s a “public interest” law firm, Colorado Ethics Watch, established in 2006, plus an online newspaper, the Colorado Independent, with a team of reporters to ferret out wrongdoing by Republicans, also begun in 2006. And there’s a school to train new liberal leaders, the Center for Progressive Leadership Colorado, as well as new media outlets with bloggers and online news and gossip, including ColoradoPols.com and SquareState.net.

That covers all seven capacities. Count ‘em.

According to Barnes, here’s how it works:

It works quite simply. The investigative arm uncovers some alleged wrongdoing by a Republican candidate or official or plays up what someone else has claimed. Then Ethics Watch steps in and demands an official investigation, and ProgressNowAction.org jumps on the story. This is synergy at work. It spurs political chatter. Finally, the mainstream media are forced to report on it.

The Republicans are in disarray, to put it nicely. John Andrews, the former Republican Senate majority leader, admitted as much back in 2008: “Colorado is being used as a test bed for a swarm offense by Democrats and liberals to put conservatives and Republicans on defense as much as possible.”

With no effective pushback, the Colorado Republican Party can only mount a noisy and emotional defense of sacred rights against this onslaught. Gun control bills like those just passed by the Colorado legislature and shortly to be signed into law by the Colorado governor, are just the beginning. From the King James Version of Holy Scripture comes this warning:

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. — Hosea 8:7

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.

Last summer when I did my post:why is the government buying up so much ammo?  I started it off by saying, “Let me put my tin foil hat on today”. At the time, no one was commenting yet about it. Yesterday, the story finally hit Drudge. So with the same caveat, let me preface this post the same way. It is too surreal to think it true, yet…… so here we go down the rabbit hole together one more time:

Marine Gen. John Allen is planning to retire rather than be re-nominated for the powerful post of NATO supreme allied commander-Europe, after White House officials forced him to step aside, a source familiar with the discussions told Fox News on Wednesday:.

“He’s out,” the source said. “I know he is retiring. He was pushed out of the door.”  Read more: Fox News

And there is word that Gen. Mad Dog Mattis is stepping down from CENTCOM command due to questioning Obama’s handlers on Iran. Washington Free Beacon:

“Word on the national security street is that General James Mattis is being given the bum’s rush out of his job as commander of Central Command, and is being told to vacate his office several months earlier than planned.”

Beside them, It is stunning to me that over the course of the past four years, our military generals are being eliminated for one reason or another. This ongoing list includes from what I could find:

Gen. David Patraeus

Gen. William Ward

Gen. David Mc Kiernan

Gen. Stanley Mc Crystal

Gen. Carter F. Hamm

Well, there is five right off the bat. What do these brave men all have in common? They have all served under the Obama regime and have all been either fired, forced to resign, or forced to retire for one reason or another.

Knowing that these men all have held top positions in the military, and that they would have the means to remove an illegal President by force if necessary, is it possible that the Obama regime wanted these potential threats out of the way in preparation for any future policy decisions that he may be planning to make?

We already know that in his first term, Obama has circumvented Congress and the US Constitution on several occasions. H/T: Western Journalism

Earlier post Top Military leaders new requirement- Williing to shoot Americans?

Anyone familiar with Obama’s radical background will find this Facebook post by author Jim Garrow as believable as it is terrifying. Garrow is a respected activist who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work rescuing baby girls from one-child China. His source is “one of America’s foremost military heroes.”

I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not”. Those who will not are being removed.

Read the rest at Bunkerville

“I’m confident that Sen. Hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of defense,” said Sen. John McCain

By Andrew C. McCarthy

The Flying Camel’s mind has been boggling like a Bhangra music video ever since North Korea detonated a compact nuclear weapon on February 12 2013. The response of the Obama Administration and most of the MainStreamMedia® was so muted that one could be forgiven for assuming that the test was lacking in international importance.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the test was “only the first response we took with maximum restraint”.

“If the United States continues to come out with hostility and complicates the situation, we will be forced to take stronger, second and third responses in consecutive steps,” it said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

North Korea – which gave the U.S. State Department advance warning of the test – often threatens the United States and its “puppet”, South Korea, with destruction in colorful terms.

Today’s news reports are announcing “North Korea Prepares to Test Another Nuke”

Expect the United States to deliver another stern, finger wagging protest.

North Korea detonates Obama’s Iran policy

According to an unidentified source who spoke with Reuters, North Korea has informed China that it will conduct additional nuclear tests and missile launches this year. Preparations for a fourth nuclear test are said to be completed already.

The detonation of a six kiloton Uranium based nuclear device by North Korea was carried out in a suspiciously close timing to “IAEA leaks” from Vienna about Iran allegedly converting some of its uranium stockpiles to fuel rods, shortly before Obama’s planned visit to the Middle-East where he is expected to discuss the Western options regarding the Iranian nuclear program – which at this point in time is mostly based on uranium enrichment facilities disguised as “peaceful nuclear energy” development.

The North Korean success in miniaturizing a uranium based device to the point that it can be installed on a ballistic missile could shuffle the cards for the Israelis and the Americans, because even a successful strike on the Iranian reactors could be overcome by simply purchasing readymade nukes from North Korea. Iran’s next phase of the nuclear project is supposed to be the heavy water reactor in Arak, scheduled to become operational later in 2013. The used fuel rods of that reactor could be easily converted to weapons grade plutonium, rendering it as dangerous as the Syrian plutonium reactor that was built jointly by North Korea and Iran for the purpose of bypassing the IAEA and using Syria as a ‘backyard storage’ for a planned strategic nuclear stockpile of the Shiite axis and its rogue pacific ally – until it was destroyed by Israel in 2007. However, the Arak plutonium reactor may not be necessary given North Korea’s test proven uranium based devices, which in the future could theoretically be installed on Iran’s planned nuclear cruise missile.

The same goes for Egypt which Scud missile systems are currently being upgraded by North Korea and where both the deposed military regime and the present Islamic regime maintain their connections with North Korea all along- despite Egypt’s dependence on American military platforms for most of its armed forces, likewise its dependence on American financial support.

It seems like the Iran-North Korea duo is playing the ‘good cop – bad cop’ game vs. the west (Iran has even made the laughable move of “condemning ” her close ally for the nuclear test) or more precisely that Washington has deliberately chosen to wag this dog in order to produce the desired result of mounting tensions in the far east as a pretext for the long planned reshuffle of the US navy from the Middle-East to the South China sea and in order to keep the petrodollar floating in this manner .

South Korea has publicly threatened a pre-emptive strike on the North following the nuclear test, but the credibility of their statement is questionable given their dependence on the American military umbrella, the vulnerability of Seoul to massive artillery salvos from the North which is located only 32 km away and the dubious results of an airstrike on an already functional military nuclear program. If Iran crosses the same threshold sometime in 2013 Israel might find itself in the corner South Korea is found right now, especially since the Ayatollahs have publicly committed themselves to the genocide of the Israelis numerous times in the recent year – despite the ostensibly absurd attempts to deny this obvious fact by controlled opposition propaganda organs known as “alternative media”.

If this present crisis was indeed engineered by Washington it could have originated from one of the following two different schools of thought:

1) Preparing public opinion to the abandonment of the military option vs. Iran, since Iran could now obtain its nukes from North Korea.  This notion is supported by this description of Middle East Defense After U.S. Drawdown and by this report: N.Korea Draws New Sanctions Threat With Third Nuclear Test

2) Preparing public opinion to increased military pressure on Iran, now that the impotence of the west vs. North Korea has proven the futility of the sanctions regime. This option seems less likely at the moment, however it remains to be seen what eventually happens.

http://essential-intelligence-network.blogspot.com

“A certain Three Letter Agency, people are sharpening their knives. We’ve seen the crackdown on whistle-blowers during this administration but in this case there really isn’t anything they can do to me and my co-author. We are out of the service now and are not writing about anything we did while we served. Like any good intelligence operation, we gathered open source reports, talked to our sources and put the puzzle together.”

The sad thing is that this clique within the intelligence community could care less about any of the actual operations we discuss in the ebook, it is only the information about David Petraeus that concerns them

by Jack Murphy · February 14, 2013 ·SOFREP

Just a quick but important update about the new ebook that Brandon and I released this week. Benghazi: The Definitive report has made quite a splash and I’ve been doing media for it all week, with both myself and my co-author scheduled to do some television appearances starting on Monday.

We both believe in this book and stand by it. We are also humbled by the tremendous support we’ve received from readers. We have been covered by both the left and right wing media, we have received both praise and scorn from the left and right wing media. I take this as a sign that we are doing something right. The reality about what happened in Benghazi does not fit into some pre-packaged corporate political ideology. The truth is not politically satisfying in anyway.

That said, I do want to comment on some of the grumbling going on behind the scenes. A spokesmen for the National Security Council has said the claim made in the book that the US Government has been facilitating the trafficking of weapons from Libya to Syria is false, a complete fabrication. The statement the NSC gave is technically correct but intrinsically wrong, that is the nature of plausible deniability. They can issue a statement like this because technically they are not the ones trafficking the weapons, but they know all about it and have approved the process. In regards to the JSOC operations that happened inside Libya, it has pretty much been radio silence aside from SOCOM making a statement that they don’t confirm or deny operations.

Meanwhile, in a certain Three Letter Agency, people are sharpening their knives. We’ve seen the crackdown on whistleblowers during this administration but in this case there really isn’t anything they can do to me and my co-author. We are out of the service now and are not writing about anything we did while we served. Like any good intelligence operation, we gathered open source reports, talked to our sources and put the puzzle together. We were never read in on any of these programs. Hell, I’ve never even held a Top Secret clearance. I got out of the Army before the paperwork could finished to be processed. Legally speaking, the spooks are out of luck. Benghazi: The Definitive Report falls under the category of journalism.

However, there is another avenue open to them: character assassination. How do you go about doing this? You could dig into our backgrounds using government databases, check out our military records, talk to some former team mates, that sort of thing. I can’t really imagine what they could find on me…alcohol and women? Big deal, welcome to the US Army folks! But they can fabricate or exaggerate certain claims and then have a few retired analysts or case officers strut their stuff in the media and try to discredit what we wrote. I’m not afraid of it, I just say, go ahead and mentally prepare for it now.

The sad thing is that this clique within the intelligence community could care less about any of the actual operations we discuss in the ebook, it is only the information about David Petraeus that concerns them. You see, that information hits a little close to home and could make some very senior people look very bad. Careers could be on the line and that is what really ruffles some feathers, national security be damned.

I am not trying to use scare tactics as some cheap gimmick to get people to go and buy the book, I don’t believe in that sort of thing. What I will ask is for you to rally around this book if you support this type of reporting and this style of journalism. Spread the word.

It is a brave new world out there in publishing and in journalism, a libertarian wild west type of model, but maybe a better one then simply having four or five corporations who have consolidated the entire news media under their umbrella. If you think it is important to hear from ordinary Americans, former Special Operations soldiers in this case, who do investigative work and then pass that information on to the public is a responsible manner, then please make your voice heard.

I’m writing this now to try to get ahead of the opposition’s decision-making process and stay a few steps ahead of them. If you support this book or this type of reporting then now is the time to say something. Speak out against digital censorship and let people know that you want the unvarnished truth, not some PR spin from the corporate media.

Brandon Webb learned Glen Doherty, one of his closest friends and his former Navy SEAL teammate, was killed alongside Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and two other Americans when the U.S. State Department and CIA headquarters in Benghazi, Libya, were sieged in a shocking terrorist attack.

by Blake Miles · February 14, 2013 · http://sofrep.com

Below are some key points, personal analysis, and further questions I gathered from reading The Benghazi Report. I hope this will generate some more detailed analysis, conjecture, deductions, and questions. Kudos to Brandon and Jack for putting this together. It was definitely a learning experience. [Quotes from the book are in bold.]

“The contract with February 17 was allowed to lapse prior to the 9/ 11/ 12 attack because the militia no longer wished to be seen protecting Americans in Benghazi.“
-This should have been a major indicator. When did the contract lapse? How high on the priority list was correcting this situation?

“All told, the handful of Americans would kill just under a hundred enemy attackers.“
-Didn’t hear much about these numbers in the news. Important note: the assaulters gave up the rough equivalent of a bunch of pawns to take out a rook, bishop, and two knights. Painful loss, simply put.

“Did Ansar Al-Sharia get inspired after seeing the Egyptians storming the US embassy in Cairo the day before? Did they get offended by an internet video? Did they choose 9/ 11 as the date for the attack because of the obvious symbolism? Maybe. But another contributing factor was JSOC operations in Libya, which kicked the hornets’ nest and pissed off the militia.“
-Logical deduction. Makes sense to me.

“With the left hand not talking to the right, it was impossible for Stevens to see or predict the JSOC expedition into Libya in late summer of 2012, which ultimately led to the attack on the consulate.”
-Main explanation within this report as to the “why” behind the attacks. This seems logical, though the weapon transfers variable would have to play a role to some degree. Whether it played a major role or minor is a very serious question which I doubt we will have answers to in the near future.

“In total, seven Americans with four local militia guards were left to promote diplomacy in one of the most hostile and unstable places on earth.”
-”We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi on the night of 9/11,”-State Department official Charlene Lamb. Her testimony made my blood boil.

“It’s worth noting that the local guards hired by the State Department were armed only with bats, not with firearms of any sort; it’s no surprise they fled.

-Assets also apply not only to personnel, but equipment as well; yet another Dept. of State failure. I suppose it ‘doesn’t make a difference‘ in the eyes of some.

“With tacit support from Michael Vickers and James Clapper, Brennan works to exploit a number of loopholes and utilize the Obama administration’s creative interpretations of Title 10 and Title 50 powers to launch operations across North Africa and the Middle East, with Admiral McRaven no doubt happy to be along for the ride.”
-Here begins the accountability portion of the report. John Brennan receives a healthy amount, and it seems well deserved.

“Because John Brennan is running his own private war, he is not going through the normal chain of command, and operations are not deconflicted. Ambassador Stevens, for instance, was not read on to the JSOC operations in Libya. He was kept in the dark and ultimately killed in a retaliation that he never could have seen coming. “
-If the CIA is not gathering intelligence on potential attacks via HUMINT or SIGINT, who the hell is? Was there any of that going on? There had to have been a catalyst, even if the bulk of the assault didn’t take place until hours after the initial breach. There is always a thread running somewhere. Our intelligence assets were either kept completely in the dark by the coordinators of this assault, or someone dropped the ball.

“In a Senate hearing after the attack, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, stated that there was no evidence of “significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack.” This is a viewpoint shared by Matthew VanDyke, who told Business Insider, “This was not a commando style raid, that’s ridiculous…” The problem with this thesis is that further investigation has clearly shown that there was no protest outside the consulate prior to or during the attack.“
-Again, if they were gathering any HUMINT or SIGINT of any measurable value, or there should have been SOME sort of a blip on the radar that something was in the works. My estimation: this was pure spin from the administration.

“As the Global War on Terror enters the next phase in North Africa and elsewhere, we can only hold our breath and wonder which of our friends will be killed in the next debacle.“
-The next chapter looks to be a disturbing one. I do not look forward to it growing.

“The last thing the White House wanted was journalists digging into what was really going on in Libya, namely, secret weapons transfers from Libya to Syria, a program that remains a peripheral issue in the story of the Benghazi attack. More importantly, they did not want the press investigating the true motivations behind the assault.”
-This stood out as the most valuable piece of the puzzle I gathered from this report. This picture cleared up the majority of questions I had about this entire debacle.

“His willingness to stand up to his CIA boss and do what was right is an example of true American heroism. Glen Doherty ran toward the sound of gunfire, and his CIA and JSOC comrades could have waited it out in Tripoli. Instead, they practically commandeered a local plane and forced their way into the fight. Their presence and the JSOC element’s access to the Predator drone ultimately drove the decision to evacuate the Americans.”
-One of the more sobering elements of the report, but definitely a bright light amid a backdrop of blackness.

Standing Questions:

• Is the CIA or JSOC capable/willing to run operations without knowledge or consent of the Dept. of State?
• What quantifiable actions has the Department of State done to fix their operations abroad?
• What was the original intelligence source that referenced the YouTube video? How did that become the assumed reason for the attack in the State Department?
• Did the absence of executive authority hamper the speed at which assets could have provided support?

My bottom line: The continued lie about the video was intended to be discovered as a blatant lie in order to distract anyone with the power to hold the administration accountable from the darker activities being conducted. The real important question is how far up the chain these ‘darker activities’ go. Fortunately for the White House, the majority of the media is too prostrated to actually go through the process of ‘journalism’ and discover questions like these. I have little to no confidence that anyone will be held accountable for what occurred on this dark day.

Those who have suffered from the effects of Air Conditioning and late delivery of American fast food are finally recognised for their heroism.

Combat Medals For Drone Pilots?

(Dedicated to our friend and mentor…. Dr. Wheatus)

The medal gives the military a way to recognize drone operators actions that “directly affect a combat operation, doesn’t involve an act of valor, and warrants an award higher than the Bronze Star” according to the Pentagon criteria.

by Nicholas Irving · February 15, 2013 · http://sofrep.com

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to announce that the Pentagon is creating a medal for the men and women who operate and conduct drone and cyber attacks against enemy combatants in combat operations today. This medal will be the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944.

The new medal will be called the Distinguished Warfare Medal. The medal will be a brass pendant, nearly two inches tall, with a laurel wreath that circles a globe with an eagle at the center, and has red, white, and blue ribbons around it.

What makes this interesting?

Not only is this a combat medal, but this medal will have a higher ranking than the Bronze Star medal and a lower ranking than the Silver Star, a defense official reported. As we know, the Bronze Star medal is the fourth highest combat decoration, while the Silver Star medal is the third highest combat medal, given for bravery in combat. Unlike the Bronze Star and Silver Star, the Distinguished Warfare Medal does not require that the recipient be in harm’s way or risk his or her life to get the combat medal. The operators of drones that conduct operations in combat areas fly them from as far as 7,000 miles away from any immediate danger in a secluded air-conditioned room.

The medal gives the military a way to recognize drone operators actions that “directly affect a combat operation, doesn’t involve an act of valor, and warrants an award higher than the Bronze Star” according to the Pentagon criteria.

The Question

Pilots who operate drone strikes, surveillance, and cyber operations in areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, etc., absolutely play a key and direct role in combating terrorism, but should their actions be awarded a “combat medal” higher than the Bronze Star if they are not in direct “combat?”