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Saturday, September 7, 2013

The State Department Says Stay Out of Syria

alnusrah2
by: Onan Coca
The State Department issued a travel warning to all Americans this week, saying that Americans should stay out of Syria because a rebel group called the Al-Nusrah Front has carried out over 600 attacks across Syria in recent years. Why should that matter to Americans whose nation has sided with the rebels? Because the Al-Nusrah Front is a branch of al-Qaeda’s army in Syria. Last we checked, al-Qaeda is always looking for Americans to kill… so the State Department, in all its wisdom, has warned us to stay out of Syria.
Now somebody at the State Department just needs to carry this information up the street to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The resident-in-chief there somehow missed the memo.
The State Department warning goes on to explain why this particular rebel group is so fearsome. You might expect that a rebel insurgency fighting a civil war against the government and the military has focused its violence upon high value military and political targets. But in the case of the Al-Nusrah Front, you’d be wrong. “Public places such as government buildings, shopping areas, and open spaces have been targeted.” 


Attacks like these cause focus damage to civilian populations in hopes that the violence will turn the civilians against the government. It’s a monstrous way to fight a war. There’s more – when the Obama administration finally labeled the Al-Nusrah Front as a terrorist organization allied to al-Qaeda, several other rebel factions protested in support of Al-Nusrah. Even the President of National Coalition of Revolution and Opposition Forces begged the administration to “reconsider the designation.”
In Western Syria we are learning that government troops supporting Bashar al-Assad are actually fighting now to protect a Christian village in the mountains of Syria from attack. Who is attacking a low value military target that is not involved in the Civil War? Rebel groups loyal to al-Qaeda. The ancient village is an important piece of world history and on a UNESCO list of tentative world heritage sites.
Other groups are led by men like Abdul Samad Issa, whose brutality seemingly knows no bounds. He recently became “famous” when video of he and his men executing Syrian soldiers was leaked to the New York Times.

"War is hell," as the old platitude goes, and there is no war where both sides have not committed atrocities. The Syrian civil war is no exception. A rebel, disenchanted with such atrocities, has smuggled a video out of Syria graphically depicting a brutal execution of captive soldiers. The man responsible is known as "the uncle," or Mr. Issa (Arabic for Jesus), commander of the Jund Al-Sham brigade associated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
http://youtu.be/BSA6YZcdOQg 




Aren’t we supposed to be getting involved to stop the brutality of the Syrian government? Who is going to stop the brutality of the rebel groups? I plan to heed the State Department’s warning and stay out of Syria. Hopefully the President will do the same.

(If you have a strong stomach and want to learn more about the many atrocities committed by the Syrian rebels – they’re keeping track at the Libertarian Republic. Warning – it is graphic and not at all for young eyes.)

Video: Obama Claims He’d Be Treated Better In Europe, Whines About “Names I’m Called” In America

In Sweden, Obama complained about the way he’s sometimes treated back home in the United States, and suggested he’d be more welcomed in Europe:
http://youtu.be/Hcl-y_hQoxw

Obama’s Sneak Attack On Military Surplus Guns Goes Unnoticed


 

[Classic WWII M-1 and M-14 highly prized by collectors]

With the national — and most local — news organizations breathlessly covering President Barack Obama’s slow march to war against Syria, he managed on Thursday to find time to perform what he believes is his primary duty: not disarming Bashar al-Assad’s forces or the al-Qaeda rebels killing and maiming innocent Syrians, but disarming law-abiding Americans and US businesses who sell firearms, according to a number of firearms legal experts and police advisors.

“gun lobby” with two new executive actions, that include a measure that targets the import of military surplus weapons which is the raison d’ĂȘtre of many gun collectors in America, former police firearms instructor Jeff Kingridge told Law Enforcement Examiner.
“Without evidence of one case in which a legitimate military gun collector’s firearms purchased from a military-surplus store were used in a homicide, our current president has taken it upon himself to pass laws that are constitutionally questionable with input from congress, said Kingridge.
“Vice President Joe Biden was chosen to make the announcement about the new rules, which Obama added to the list of actions the White House already determined the president may take without congressional approval,” he added.
Obama’s gun-control measures by fiat are the president’s reaction to Congress declining to pass any gun control legislation in the aftermath of mass-shooting including Newton, Conn., school massacre.
Read More at examiner.com . By Jim Kouri.

Obama relying on student's spin on Syria?

obama-scratch-head
by: Jerome R. Corsi 

NEW YORK – Evidence is mounting that the strategy by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Secretary of State John F. Kerry to cast members of the Free Syria Army as “moderates” among the rebel forces opposing the government of Bashir al-Assad was the brain-child of Elizabeth O’Bagy, a 26-year-old graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in Arab studies and political science at Georgetown University, who is working on a dissertation on woman’s militancy.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Kerry cited O’Bagy, arguing that the war in Syria is “not being waged entirely or even predominately by dangerous Islamists and al-Qaida die-hards,” but rather the struggle is being led but “moderate opposition forces – a collection of groups known as the Free Syria Army.”

Kerry was citing an opinion piece O’Bagy wrote for the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 30 titled “On the Front Lines of Syria’s Civil War.” It ran with a tag-line “The conventional wisdom – that jihadists are running the rebellion [in Syria] – is not what I’ve witnessed on the ground.”
The O’Bagy narrative, however, is contradicted by intelligence estimates and experts specializing in the region.
After Kerry’s testimony to Congress this week, Reuters reported: “Secretary of State John Kerry’s public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and non-governmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements.”
On April 27, the New York Times reported that the Jabhat al-Nursa Front, a group declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, has pledged allegiance to al Qaida’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and remains the group of choice for foreign jihadis pouring into Syria. The Ahrar al-Sham, meanwhile, which shares much of al-Nusra’s extremist ideology, is composed mostly of Syrians.

In her capacity as a senior research analyst and the Syria team leader at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think-tank, O’Bagy authored a report in March titled “The Free Syrian Army” in which she argued as follows:
The opposition movement in Syria has been fragmented from its inception, a direct reflection of Syria’s social complexity and the decentralized grassroots of the uprising. This condition has plagued Syria’s armed opposition since peaceful protestors took up arms and began forming rebel groups under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the summer of 2001.
The narrative is currently being circulated in Congress in an attempt to counter the recent disclosure of evidence the rebel groups in Syria affiliated with al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, who have committed atrocities against government soldiers and Syrian civilians, may be the parties responsible for the chemical weapons attacks the Obama administration is blaming on the Assad government.
O’Bagy also works as the political director of the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, or SETF, chaired by Mohamed Kawam.
Kawam is linked with the Washington-based Syrian Support Group, or SSG, which encourages Americans to send money that arguably could be used to buy weapons for the Free Syria Group.

The “Donate” button on the Syrian Support Group website specifies donations will go toward providing “certain logistical, communications, and other services to the FSA.” The caveat is “the SSG intends to support only those military councils that have adopted the FSA’s Proclamation of Principles,” not the Jabhat al-Nusra or any other group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Syrian Support Group donation
The “About the Syrian Support Group” page on the group’s website states the SSG has pursued and received a license from the U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control that permits the organization to raise funds and provide certain services to the FSA, further specifying the SSG has to date transported over $10 million in U.S. government aid to the Supreme Military Council of the FSA.
The Facebook page of the Coalition for a Democratic Syria makes clear the Syrian Emergency Task Force organized McCain’s surprise May visit to Syria, where he met with leaders of the FSA Supreme Military Council.

Facebook posting by Coalition for a Democratic Syria
On May 27, the Los Angeles Times reported O’Bagy, in her capacity as political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said in a telephone interview from Turkey that McCain’s office approached the task force two weeks earlier to ask if it could arrange for him to meet with Syrian rebel leaders in Syria.
O’Bagy, who accompanied McCain on the senator’s May trip to the Middle East, told the newspaper McCain met with FSA commanders in two meetings in Gaziantep, Turkey, and in one meeting about a half mile inside the Syrian border at the Bab Salameh border crossing. There, he talked with the Asifat al-Shamal, identified as the Northern Storm Brigade, that controls the border.
O’Bagy further confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Gen. Salim Idriss, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and other rebel commanders asked the U.S. to consider giving heavy weapons to the FSA, set up a no-fly zone in Syria and conduct air attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
McCain asked the FSA commanders how they planned to reduce the presence of Islamic extremists in Syrian rebel ranks, O’Bagy told the newspaper.

In Syria, McCain was photographed with a group of Syrian rebels that included Mouaz Moustafa, a Palestinian Arab (seen to far right of photograph, closest to camera) who was introduced to McCain as the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, the group that organized the senator’s trip.
McCain in Syria, May 2013, with Mouaz Moustafa (seen at far right, closest to camera)
On Twitter, Moustafa identifies himself as a Palestinian refugee who moved to the U.S. at 12 years old, worked as a staffer in the U.S. House and Senate (Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.) and participated in the Libyan and Syrian revolutions.

Mouaz Moustafa Twitter post
On Instagram, Moustafa calls himself a “Freelance Revolutionary,” adding that he also worked as a field organizer for the Democratic National Committee in 2008.
On Linkedin.com, Moustafa continues to list himself as the executive director at the Libyan Council of North America.
A Daily Caller profile of Moustafa added that he meets with National Security Council staff “every couple of months.”
In recent weeks, O’Bagy and Moustafa have been conducting a media blitz on behalf of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, including interviews with NPR, Fox News, RT, Thom Hartmann’s radio show, Foreign Policy Magazine and MSNBC, arguing that the FSA is the “moderate” rebel group the U.S. should support in Syria.
The Daily Beast has reported that in addition to meeting with Moustafa and FSA leaders in Syria, McCain also met with Mohammad Nour and Ammar Al-Dadikhi (a.k.a. Abu Ibrahim), two men who were part of a group that kidnapped Lebanese religious pilgrims returning from Iran in May 2012. Both were identified as being part of Asifat al Shamal, the Syrian rebel group known as the Northern Storm Brigade controlling the border.



Boston Marathon suspects role models?

Dzhokhar_Tsarnaev
by: Bob Unruh 

A cleric for al-Qaida’s terrorists says the Tsarnaev brothers who are suspected of the July Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured dozens more are the type of role model Islamic children need.
“Yes, this should be our model. In the very house of unbelief and misguidedness, in the city of Boston, the city of American universities that spread poison around the world – this is where Dzokhar was raised; in an environment that ridicules and denies faith, Dzokhar and his brother carried out an attack that pleases the believers and makes us content. By his act, he said to us: This is what you should do, oh pearls … of Muhammad, and weep not,” said the cleric, Abu Dhar ‘Azzam.

The comments appear in Issue 13 of Turkestan Al-Islamiyya, the Turkestan Islamic Party’s journal, according to a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The organization monitors media throughout the Middle East, and interprets and analyzes it for trends and developments.
MEMRI reports that Azzam starts his article lamenting the “catastrophic situation” of Muslim children, “who … are targets for killing in Afghanistan, Burma, India and elsewhere.”
They are not being given the “proper Islamic upbringing,” he warns.
“If we neglect the jihadi, ideological and spiritual upbringing of the new youngsters and the new generation, history will not forgive us, and the disgrace of this treason will not be erased from our foreheads.
“The ummah is in dire need of children [who will be] slaughterers and fighters of the infidels and the devils – children who will be ascetics by night and knights by day, children who will fight the infidels and the leaders of polytheism,” he continued.

Assam then introduces the Tsarnaev brothers.
“Two Chechen brothers destroyed the infidels’ fortresses on April 16, 2013. During the search, the elder brother died as a martyr in the field of glory and honor, Allah willing. The younger brother Dzokhar, remained, and told his dear nation: ‘We did this operation as revenge for what America does in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.’”
Continued Azzam, “I saw Dzokhar’s photo, the photo of a handsome young man in the prime of his youth. I thought to myself: Years ago, he was a child, and he saw the tragedies and catastrophes befall his beloved ummah, one after another. His older brother raised him on jihad and martyrdom-seeking. So, years later, he grew up to be a lion who demolished the fortresses of the infidels and massacred them, rocking the throne of the greatest tyrant on earth.”
Muslims should follow his footsteps, Azzam wrote.
“This is but one pearl, oh infidels. Our sacrificing nation will offer many more pearls, until glory and honor is restored to their rightful people – the Muslims. Peace on Dzokhar and his brother, and on anyone who follows their example – an example from the pearls of an immortal nation.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a confrontation with police after the brothers were identified as suspects in the terror attack on innocent people at the Boston Marathon finish line that day. Dzokhar, the younger brother, has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, and could face the death penalty.
Two of his college friends also have been named in a federal grand jury indictment for allegedly covering up evidence and impeding the bombing investigation.
They were identified as 19-year-olds Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both from Kazakhstan, and they allegedly conspired to obstruct justice and for obstructing justice.

Got In A Little Trouble Last Week…

Prison Doors SC Got In A Little Trouble Last Week...

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In the immortal words of my favorite stand up comedian, Ron White, “Got in a little trouble last week…”
When I got home the other day, there was a very nice, very polite Washoe County deputy waiting for me with a warrant for my arrest on a year and a half old, 10-mile an hour over speeding ticket in Mineral County.
They handcuffed me, put me in the back of a really crappy Chevy Tahoe, and took me to jail.
Now, as White’s experience in Florida goes (and if you haven’t seen it, go to one of his shows or buy an album), I’m not whining.  I might (depending on advice of my counsel) have broken the law, and that’s what happens. 

But, as Mr. White would also say, during the 23 mile drive from Washoe Valley to the jail, we passed 8 meth labs and maybe two dead hookers. And it took one of the two deputies assigned to a very large area away from real police work for maybe five hours.  For a traffic warrant in Hawthorne. Your tax dollars at work. That’s something I’ll have to remember the next time response time to an emergency becomes an issue and the elected Sheriff of Washoe County starts whining about a lack of money. Being an upstanding citizen, if the nice deputy had asked, I would have driven myself down there and reported in.  That way, my wife would not have had to come get me, and both deputies would have been doing real police work.
So I get to the Washoe County jail, and it is refreshing to see that politeness is the word of the day.  It happens that the deputy allowed me to make a call before we left, so I had already arranged bail.  They did some processing, and I sat down to wait with a group in the intake area.
Now you might think that I would see a bunch of gangbangers, bad guys, tough hombres, and other assorted scary people. 

Not so much.
The room, frankly, could have been confused with a jury pool over at the courthouse, except they took our belts because we might have wanted to hang ourselves over being arrested on a traffic warrant. (Actually, I was in a jury pool once where I almost DID want to hang myself.)
The vast bulk of the arrestees were…wait for it…hard core traffic offenders.  It pretty much looked like America. There were a few DUI’s, some real and at least one where the poor kid blew a .081 after his truck broke down and he managed to get it to the side of the road without any damage to anyone else. A vigilant NHP trooper worried about his agency’s budget, and his personal paycheck made some lawyer a lot of money.  And there were some drug guys, including one young man with a very interesting story who could probably write a Master’s thesis on the correctional system but doesn’t want to work that hard.
“I love doing drugs,” he said.  “I have no life, so drugs are it.” That’s exactly who we want in jail at our expense, right?
You could easily mistake this kid for a grad student at UNR.  Someone ought to help him become one instead of wasting our money on incarceration. 

What’s the common thread here?
Well, it seems our justice system has morphed into a collection agency.  We’ve allowed the state agencies to use traffic enforcement, among other largely irrelevant misdemeanors, for a revenue source.  And whenever you give that kind of power to a government, you are tossing the Constitution out the window.
You know how we’re so proud of not having debtor’s prisons?
Well, that’s a bunch of crap.
Most of the people who spend the night at the Washoe County Jail do so because they don’t have the bail money. That part of the jail is a very lower middle class place. The intake room is just plain middle class.  You know, the people Barack Obama says he’s busy helping.
Isn’t there a better way to insure safety on our highways? Or to get people to stop doing hard drugs?
Now I want to be clear.
I’m not taking a pro-anarchy, anti-government position.  But we’re not the longest lived experiment in self-government because we can put a cop on every corner. 

We are that because our system is based on voluntary compliance.
People comply because they have respect for the system, thinking that the system is reasonable. We need to disincentivise the use of these laws as a hidden tax.  Maybe a citizen’s initiative constitutional amendment that makes it illegal to use any fines, fees, or cost assessment for any other purpose so they can’t take the money and use it in place of tax revenues they can’t raise.  We ought to start at the front end and make it easier to go to court and challenge a nonsensical ticket.  Or, perhaps, we ought to level the playing field a little bit by passing traffics laws that cannot be abused they way they are today. Maybe all of the above.
When there are a large number of traffic warrants, that says that the public knows it’s a bunch of crap and has lost respect for the law and the enforcers.
And to put a point on it, one of the questions they asked me at the jail—after they asked if I was affiliated with any prison gangs—was, “Are you a member of any anti-government group.”
I didn’t want to play with the young lady—I was just waiting to be released after my bond had already been arranged—so I said, “no”.
But the correct answer should probably have been, “keep this nonsense up and I might join. Where do I go to sign up?”

Will A Future Congress Eliminate The Extra-constitutional Power Of The Supreme Court?

US supreme court building SC Will a future Congress eliminate the extra constitutional power of the Supreme Court?
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“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” –Thomas Jefferson
For 200 years, the Supreme Court has enjoyed virtually limitless authority to determine the constitutionality of both state and federal legislation. Known as “Judicial Review,” this power to “…invalidate [an executive or legislative] act if it is contrary to constitutional principles” has made what the Founders believed the weakest of the federal branches into arguably the most powerful.
There is no mention of judicial review in the Constitution. Rather, legal historians believe that famed Chief Justice John Marshall made a personal gift of judicial review to himself and his black-robed progeny in the 1803 Marbury v Madison majority opinion, which he authored. It was in Marbury–the first case “…in which the Court asserted its power to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional”– that Marshall wrote “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” (my italics)

And for two centuries, the federal judiciary has continued to say “what the law is,” on occasion revealing a stunning penchant for error that the other branches have had no small difficulty correcting and the American people no small difficulty abiding.
However, Congress has the constitutional authority to limit or even undo this extra-constitutional power practiced by the federal judiciary.
Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution state:
Section 1.
“The judicial power of the States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish…” (my italics)
Section 2.
“…In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other Pubic Ministers and Consuls and those in which a State shall be Party, the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all other cases the Supreme Court shall have Appellate Jurisdiction both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make…” (my italics)

The language in these two Sections makes it clear that “Congress can unquestionably prevent judicial review by the federal courts altogether by abolishing the inferior courts and repealing the laws dealing with the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.”
And numerous opinions issued by the Court itself confirm the fact that Congress has the power to effectively end the extra-constitutional practice of judicial review. For in the final analysis, “The whole subject is remitted to the unfettered discretion of Congress.”
The question of course is whether any Congress would bring these options to bear against the Supreme Court or its inferior, federal sisters. Doing so would be constitutional and perfectly legal.  And lawmakers would no longer need to depend upon an extraordinary ruling by a rogue Justice to salvage favored legislation, or find a dangerous statute suddenly reaffirmed as the law of the land.
But one can only imagine the outrage from an American public that trusts the Court while exhibiting no faith in Congress!  Will a future group of lawmakers have the courage–or the chutzpah–to carry it through?

The Planned Destruction Of Christians In Syria

Coptic Christians The Planned Destruction of Christians in Syria
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The New York Times story, “President Gains McCain’s Backing on Syria Attack,” is predictable, considering that Obama had invited Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to the White House for the specific purpose of supporting his proposed military strike on Syria.  Obama has also asked the same two senators to travel to Egypt to undermine the military leaders who overthrew the Muslim Br
otherhood government there.
What is lacking from the media coverage is any recognition that the inevitable result, according to congressional testimony, will be the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood and associated terrorist groups in Syria, and the genocide of the remaining Christians there.  

In Egypt, right in front of our eyes, Obama facilitated a Muslim Brotherhood takeover, which has been stopped dead in its tracks by a true people’s revolution that has brought the military to power. The Muslim Brotherhood has responded by attacking Christians and their churches.
Incredibly, it seems as if the crisis in Egypt will be repeated, except in the case of Syria the explicit purpose of Obama’s military intervention (as it seems to be developing under the guidance of McCain and Graham) is the destruction of the regime that has been standing in the way of the complete obliteration of the Christians. There will be no one with authority left to rescue the Christians from the Muslim Brotherhood when it takes control in Damascus.
“The problem,” writes terrorism analyst Steven Emerson, “is that anything that hurts [Syrian President] Assad, however inadvertently, benefits those same Islamist radicals we’ve all been worried about…Equally incredible is the fact that, in taking military action in Syria, America would effectively be standing on the same side as al Qaeda affiliate groups who also support them.”

The issue isn’t the odious nature of the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, but the nature of the opposition, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the side of the conflict that Obama, McCain, and Graham want the U.S. to support.
Graham, up for re-election next year, has been labeled by one of his opponents, South Carolina state Senator Lee Bright, as a “Community Organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.” Fox News host Lou Dobbs seemed surprised by the comment when Bright made it on his show, but noted that Graham and McCain did in fact “try to bring the Muslim Brotherhood back into the government after the military had gotten them out of there.” Bright went on to say that McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee against Obama, had become “a tool of the Democrat Party” and that Graham was “following suit. 

Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative is equally harsh. “John McCain and Lindsey Graham are carrying water for Obama’s pro-jihadist intervention in Syria,” she says. “Step and Fetchit McCain and Graham were at the White House today getting their marching orders from the Dear Leader. There were no Democrats at the White House today.”
She asks, “Which Muslim Brotherhood operatives are advising McCain and Graham? …McCain said today that blocking Obama’s Syria strike would be ‘catastrophic.’ No, Senator McCain, Obama’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was ‘catastrophic,’ and so is backing the Brotherhood and al Qaeda in Syria.”
Geller is alluding to the fact that the Sunni branch of Islam, represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, and other jihadist groups, has targeted Syria for takeover. Al Jazeera, now in 40 to 50 million American homes, is their mouthpiece.
Strangely, Fox News figures William Kristol and Karl Rove were among those signing an August 27 letter supporting an Obama military strike on Syria, even without Congressional approval. On Monday night, after his White House meeting, Senator Graham appeared on the Fox News show “Special Report” with guest host Shannon Bream, and he was given about six minutes of virtually uninterrupted time to make the case for Obama’s war.

If Fox News is in the pocket of McCain and Graham, you know it’s going to be difficult for opponents of Obama’s war policy to get equal time and attention from the media. Perhaps this is why Kristol predicts the Republicans, who look to Fox News for guidance and direction, will fall in line behind Obama.
However, largely ignored in this debate are Syria’s Christians, now facing the prospect of genocide. It is not too late to cover their plight.
On June 25, the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, together with the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, held an important hearing entitled “Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle.”
Presiding over the hearing, Rep. Christopher Smith said, “The al-Nusra Front, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, has been blamed for much of the sectarian rhetoric and violence, but dozens of the opposition groups ascribe to Islamist or Salafist-jihadist ideologies and mingle with the Free Syrian Army—which the U.S. may now be supporting.”
Dr. John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidarity International (CSI-USA), went further than Rep. Smith, testifying that the Obama Administration has given a “green light” to Sunni countries in the region “to militarily destabilize Syria,” and that the human rights of religious minorities, especially Christians, are at risk.

Eibner said, “Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey may be beloved by America’s military and economic interests, but all have grave democracy deficits and cannot serve as models for religious pluralism…Saudi Arabia and Qatar are Sunni absolute monarchies. All religious minorities are banned in the former. Nearly one hundred years ago the Christian minorities were virtually eradicated in Turkey by means of genocide. Successive Turkish governments, including the current government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, have taken patriotic pride in genocide denial.”
Christian Solidarity International has issued a “Genocide Alert” for religious minorities in Syria.
It should be noted that Qatar is the financial sponsor of Al Jazeera, a channel serving as a voice for the Muslim Brotherhood that has been praised by McCain for making a “contribution” to world affairs.
Eibner’s comments are not just speculation. More than a year ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels” and that the CIA and State Department are working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and “other allies” on behalf of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Zuhdi Jasser, a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, testified that reports indicate that armed rebels affiliated with the FSA raided the Christian-populated al-Duvair village in Syria and massacred all its civilian residents, including women and children.

Rev. Majed El Shafie, founder of One Free World International, testified that the Islamist factions in Syria (which he said include Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist, and al Qaeda-linked groups) “are rapidly overtaking the undisciplined and poorly organized rebels as they have in other countries…” He fears that these Muslim groups will “cleanse Syria of the ‘infidels’—Christians and other minorities—and establish an Islamist state.”
“In fact,” he said, “this process has already begun.”
Is President Obama about to become party to the Muslim Brotherhood’s genocidal process? If so, how many Republicans besides McCain and Graham will join with Obama?

This commentary originally appeared at AIM.org and is reprinted here with permission.


 

Video: Syrians To Obama: “OVER OUR DEAD BODIES!!”

Syrians from all walks of life have joined a human shield campaign to help protect the country from potential foreign military action from Barack Hussein Obama
http://youtu.be/9dOBE_fy4Fk

Friday, September 6, 2013

If Obama hits Syria, Iran threatens savage attacks on Americans and the rape and killing of an Obama daughter

oped: Maybe Obama should rethink hitting Syria as we the people are against such action...however hitting Irans Nuke facilities with Israel would be a accepta
ble alternative!

Malia and Sasha Obama daughters of U.S President Barck Obama smile before swearing-in ceremonies for U.S. President Obama on the West front of the U.S Capitol in Washington by: BarenakedIslam

Should the U.S. carry out a strike against Syria for alleged use of chemical weapons, Iran is vowing to unleash terrorism on Americans. In an unprecedented statement, a former Iranian official has warned of mass abductions and brutal killings of American citizens around the world and the rape and killing of one of Obama’s daughters.

Daily Caller  Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Wednesday told the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — that “[w]e will support Syria to the end.” 


4014171956b24635994f8dee29bf42cb-e1371760408813 

Alireza Forghani, the former governor of southern Iran’s Kish Province, threw down the gauntlet last week. Forghani is an analyst and strategy specialist in the supreme leader’s camp and closely aligned with Mehdi Taeb, who heads the regime’s Ammar Strategic Base, a radical think thank, and thus speaks with the blessing of the Islamic regime.

“Hopefully Obama will be pigheaded enough to attack Syria, and then we will see the … loss of U.S. interests [via terrorist attacks],” he threatened. “In just 21 hours [after the attack on Syria], a family member of every U.S. department head, U.S. ambassadors, U.S. military commanders will be abducted. And then 18 hours later, videos of their amputations/beheadings will be posted on the internet” 

photo 

similar act was committed in a video of the torture of William Buckley, a CIA station chief who was abducted in Beirut in 1984 and later killed by Hezbollah on Iran’s order. That video was dropped off at the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Former CIA Director William Casey later described what he saw in the video: “They had done more than ruin his body. His eyes made it clear his mind had been played with. It was horrific, medieval and barbarous.”

In addition, Forghani warned, “We should remind Obama that if you are a bastard, there are other bastards all around the world who can assault Sasha.” The statement is written in both English and Farsi, but in the Farsi version, Forghani clearly stated that Sasha will be raped by someone who has been able to get close to the Obama family. “Obama will attack Syria and then you’ll go to hell, and the world’s public opinion will accept that you deserve to be attacked and assaulted, so please attack,” Forghani concluded. 


Forghani has stated his radical positions in articles that have been run by the majority of the regime’s media and has written several commentaries on the need for the destruction of Israel. One such article described the need for the Islamic Republic to have nuclear weapons and in another he laid out the legal case for the annihilation of Israel and all Jewish people. The latter, which ran in all of the regime’s media outlets, called for a pre-emptive strike on Israel. Based on this pre-emptive doctrine, he suggested, several “ground zero” points of Israel must be destroyed and its people annihilated.

Forghani’s threats last Wednesday were further emphasized by the chief commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, who told the regime’s Fars News Agency that “America’s vision in its ability for a limited strike in Syria is an illusion. The reactions will be beyond Syria’s borders … [and] those who participate with America in this matter will soon witness threats on their national security.” 


69555806c589bf6815f4a272b16478a5990366d8

 







Egyptian Media Portray Obama as Satan

http://clashdaily.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/satan.jpg
via: CBN News : http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2013/09/04/egyptian-media-portray-obama-as-satan.aspx
Popular and widely read Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd published this picture today portraying U.S. President Barrack Hussein Obama as Satan himself.
The unflattering picture has been making the rounds on Facebook in the Middle East and, according to Al Wafd, is representative of the hatred growing numbers of people in the region have for the American president, thanks to his staunch and unwavering support for Islamists and jihadiis — whether in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, or Syria — even as they terrorize, murder, rape, and burn down Christian churches, that is, even as they engage in diabolical activities.

President Obama’s Middle East bait and switch

Barack_Obama_and_Vladmir_Putin_at_G8_summit,_2013
by:

Bruce Ackerman from Yale Law says President Obama’s “limited” strikes are just the prelude to massive intervention in the Middle East. And Congress shouldn’t fall for it.
President Barack Obama’s turnaround on Syria comes as a surprise, given his recent shows of disdain for Congress. Only a couple of months ago, Edward Snowden’s revelations forced Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to admit that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee — a felony punishable by five years in prison. But the confession of a crime didn’t prompt the president to replace Clapper with a fresh face who might credibly join with Congress in cleaning up the NSA scandal.
Obama’s next unilateralist display came in response to the military takeover in Egypt. The Foreign Assistance Act bars aid to “any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup.” But even after Egyptian soldiers mowed down protesters, the White House insisted that it “is not in the best interests of the United States” to determine “whether or not a coup occurred.” Despite protests from Capitol Hill, there is no sign that the president will heed the plain meaning of the statutory command.
As the drama shifted to Syria, presidential policy shifted in the opposite direction. This time, the United States would not be financing Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as he killed protesters in the street, but would be bombing Bashar al-Assad for gassing civilians. With Secretary of State John Kerry leading the charge, the world was bracing itself for news of the first airstrikes when Obama made his remarkable turn to Congress.

In a moment full of historical irony, Prime Minister David Cameron’s defeat in the House of Commons was a precipitating cause of the president’s agonizing reappraisal. For almost a thousand years, the British constitution excluded Parliament from declarations of war — the king claiming this power as his “royal prerogative.” Given George III’s war against his rebellious colonists, this made it imperative for America’s Founding Fathers to establish that their new president would play a very different role — and that it would be up to Congress to make the ultimate decisions on war and peace.
Yet two centuries onward, it was the British Parliament that taught the imperial presidency a lesson. It was only in 2003 that Tony Blair decided that his adventure with George W. Bush required something more than a royal decree. To enhance his democratic legitimacy, he requested the formal approval of Parliament — which was readily forthcoming since his party was in firm control of the House. But this time around, Cameron was at the head of a shaky Tory-Liberal coalition, which proved incapable of delivering the votes.
This put President Obama’s push for a military response in Syria in the unlikely situation of falling far short of Bush-era benchmarks. Whatever the Iraq War’s deficiencies under international law, Bush and Blair did manage to organize a formidable “coalition of the willing.” Whatever lies Bush told the public about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, he did at least gain the consent of Congress. But once Britain dropped out, it was clear that Obama’s international coalition was going to be far less substantial than the one that rallied behind Bush. And if Obama refused to gain congressional consent, he would have faced withering attack from both the left and right if his unilateral intervention misfired.

Obama showed a healthy instinct for political self-preservation in making his last-minute turnaround. But his act will have larger consequences than he intended. Perhaps he might have gained a quick-if-narrow victory if he had proposed a resolution to Congress that strictly limited his use of force to the narrow surgical strike that is his purported objective.
But in fact, his formal proposal is a massive bait-and-switch operation. It authorizes the president to use “the Armed Forces of the United States,” including boots on the ground, and to employ military force “within, to or from Syria.” What is more, the president can act to deter the “use or proliferation” of “chemical or other weapons of mass destruction” and intervene to “protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.” This is nothing less than an open-ended endorsement of military intervention in the Middle East and beyond.
Such a remarkable initiative can’t help but provoke a fundamental reexamination of basic premises — something sorely needed at a time when administration policy veers wildly from crude realpolitik in Egypt to high moralism in Syria. What is more, there is no chance that a congressional majority will join John McCain and Lindsey Graham in endorsing Obama’s astonishing carte blanche. Indeed, Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Gerald Connolly (D-VA) are already drafting a revised resolution that would only authorize the limited mission Obama has described in his public announcements.
Most importantly, they are  insisting on a strict time limit on all uses of force, as was done in authorizing President Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Lebanon in 1983. Given the large gap between their restrictive approach and Obama’s open-ended authorization, however, last-minute bargaining may fail to generate a compromise that will carry a majority in both houses.

In either event, the upcoming debate will signal the beginning of the end of the 9/11 era. Future presidents will be put on notice that the American people will no longer support wide-ranging military interventions in the Islamic world.
And a good thing too. Although some may worry about Obama’s short-term loss of stature, the larger concern should be America’s long-term loss of credibility — both morally, as a result of its brutal conduct of the war on terror, and strategically, as its military interventions in Iraq and elsewhere generate an even more vicious struggle for power in the Middle East. Rather than doubling down on this failed policy, the coming congressional debate ought to open up space for a fundamental reassessment.
Paradoxically, this may liberate Obama to engage in his more constructive diplomatic initiatives. His championship of a European Free Trade Agreement is far more likely to generate lasting results than Secretary Kerry’s desperate effort to win an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Obama’s turn to Asia should be complemented by a turn to Latin America, whose fundamental problems are systematically ignored by a White House continually diverted by the latest crisis from the Middle East.
But all this is for the future. The crucial point to recognize is that something special is happening. A dispute with a minor-league despot is provoking a major turning point in American foreign policy. This is a moment for Congress to confront its responsibilities with high seriousness.
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, and the author of 15 books that have had a broad influence in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy. The commentary first appeared in Foreign Policy.

Barack Obama is heading for a humiliating defeat over Syria: this will be a massive blow to his presidency


By  

Politico has an eye-opening piece today revealing the extent to which the White House is staring defeat in the face over Syria. According to the influential Washington-based publication, President Obama doesn’t have the votes in the House of Representatives to secure a win, with large-scale opposition among Republicans, and lukewarm backing among Democrats:
If the House voted today on a resolution to attack Syria, President Barack Obama would lose — and lose big. That’s the private assessment of House Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides who are closely involved in the process. If the Senate passes a use-of-force resolution next week — which is no sure thing — the current dynamics suggest that the House would defeat it.
That would represent a dramatic failure for Obama, and once again prove that his sway over Congress is extraordinarily limited. The loss would have serious reverberations throughout the next three months, when Obama faces off against Congress in a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.

If Obama doesn’t get Congressional backing for military action, he could still go ahead with strikes against Syria, but it would be a huge political gamble. It would probably be a bridge too far for a president with sinking approval ratings, and his party facing crucial midterm elections in 2014. A defeat in Congress would be a massive blow to the Obama presidency, as well as to the president’s personal credibility, and could well amount to the biggest humiliation of his career so far.
Here are several key reasons why Obama is in trouble over Syria:
1. The president hasn’t made a convincing case why a Syria intervention is in the US national interest. He has also sent a confusing message over his ‘red line’ over Syria’s use of chemical weapons, declaring in Sweden that this wasn’t his red line, but that of the international community.
2. Public opinion is hugely sceptical over a Syrian intervention, with Members of Congress inundated with calls from constituents wary of war. There is very little public appetite for another war in the Middle East, not least one where the goals and objectives are unclear.
3. President Obama’s international coalition for military action is looking pretty pathetic, with only France signing up. The British have wisely decided to stay out, and no other NATO allies have stepped forward to offer military assistance. Obama looks increasingly isolated on the world stage, and that matters to US lawmakers. America remains the world’s only superpower, but it always prefers to go to war with allies at its side. As Margaret Thatcher once put it, “the United States needs friends in the lonely task of world leadership.”
4. The Obama administration’s case hasn’t been helped by extremely bad publicity for Syria’s rebel movement, some factions of which are aligned with al-Qaeda. A searing piece in The New York Times this week revealed (with video footage) the brutal execution of captured Syrian government forces by Islamist militants. There has also been significant coverage in the American media of rebel attacks on Christian villages, imagery that hardly plays well in Middle America.
5. Secretary of State John Kerry has been a liability, not an asset, for President Obama. Kerry has been entrusted with leading the Administration’s charge for war, making the case before the House and Senate, as well as the American public. Kerry, however, has been a notorious appeaser of the Assad regime, and worked tirelessly to undercut efforts by the Bush Administration to isolate Assad’s Baathist dictatorship. Photographs of Kerry intimately dining with the Assads in Damascus have hardly helped his case.
6. Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has remained largely silent on the Syria issue. One of her aides claims she is backing Obama’s push for war, but she hasn’t taken to the airwaves to support the president. Whatever her reasons for staying Mum, Clinton’s absence has probably lost the president some Congressional backing among Democratic waverers.
7. Obama’s campaign on Syria hasn’t been helped by declining support among Americans for his overall foreign policy. The “Obama doctrine” has been a striking failure on the world stage, from the disastrous Russian “reset”, to the lack of US leadership in the Middle East. The president’s handling of international affairs is increasingly viewed negatively by Americans, with just 41 percent of voters backing his foreign policy according to a recent poll.
8. Barack Obama simply doesn’t come across as a war leader, one who instills confidence both at home and abroad. He has a well-earned reputation for apologising for his country on foreign soil, and extending the hand of friendship to America’s enemies, from Tehran to Khartoum. His traditionally Jimmy Carter-esque approach simply doesn’t square with his new found desire to start bombing a foreign land. In the eyes of the American people, he’s not exactly General Patton.
Read more by Nile Gardiner on Telegraph Blogs

John Boehner: I Will Support Obama’s “Call for Action” on Syria

oped: Congress needs to remove Boehner as Speaker...he is not doing the peoples work...he is attending to his own agenda a progressive  in RINO clothing...!



by  
The Speaker of the House said recently that he can’t take a stand, because that would make his job more difficult. He said his job is to act as sort of a debate moderator. A facilitator of discussion. He can’t be taking stands on principle or trying to lead the House to do the right thing. That’s not his job.
But he feels perfectly comfortable taking a stand with Obama. A couple days ago, he and Eric Cantor both came out in favor of Obama’s desire for a “limited action” against Syria. Not a war. Just a few cruise missiles here and there to weaken Assad’s capacity to use chemical weapons again. And if more Syrian civilians are killed in the process, well that’s collateral damage. But it’s not a war.

Here’s Boehner:
“The United States, for our entire history, has stood up for Democracy and freedom for people around the world.”
Let’s stop right there for a sec. We’ve been fighting in the Middle East for decades, deposing dictators that don’t play by our rules and installing our own, all in the name of “promoting Democracy” and “free elections.” The people of Syria democratically elected Assad. They’re stuck with him. Just like we’re stuck with Obama, even though many make the argument that he wasn’t lawfully elected; that he was selected. But we still have to live with him. We pretend to keep President Wilson’s 100-year-old dream alive of “making the world safe for Democracy,” while we drone strike, occupy, “nation-build,” engage in “regime change,” and support terrorists who want to overthrow dictators we don’t like. Those things don’t make the world safe or more “democratic.”

Back to Boehner:

Egypt eyes Obama's brother for terror list

abongo-barack-obama
by: Jerome R. Corsi 

NEW YORK – President Obama’s Kenyan half-brother, Malik Obama, appears headed for the Egyptian terror watch list because of his Muslim Brotherhood ties.
Complaints have been filed with Egypt’s prosecutor-general calling for Malik to be put on Egypt’s terror watch list and brought to Egypt to be questioned by state criminal investigators for allegedly financing terrorism, according to former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat.
According to Egyptian newspaper and television reports, Malik Obama has become a target in an Egyptian government terrorist investigation because of his role as an owner and investment adviser for the Sudan-based Islamic Dawa Organization, or IDO, and the organization’s umbrella group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Shoebat has provided the following translation of a report from an Egyptian media source, Youm 7, detailing criminal complaints filed against Malik Obama with the Egyptian attorney general and the Egyptian High Court, petitioning to put him on the terror watch list in Egypt:

Dr. Ahmed Nabil Ganzory, in his capacity as lawyer and agent for Dr. Sadik Rauf Obeid, and resident in the United States of America, filed a complaint with Egyptian Attorney General Hisham Barakat, against Malik Obama, accusing him of supporting terrorism in Egypt and for his involvement in managing the Islamic Dawa Organization (IDO). The complaint also asks to include Chancellor Tahani Al-Jebali to substantiate claims against Obama. …
Complaint No. 1761 for the year 2013 reported to the Attorney General asked the Egyptian High Court to consider the suspicious activity of a group called the Islamic Dawa Organization, which is owned and managed by Malik Obama. This group is now being investigated by international bodies and the attached evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a close link exists between Malik Obama and some of the most notorious characters already wanted for their involvement in terrorism, as is consistent with the pictures and reports attached. …
The complaint also asks the court to bring in Malik Obama – a resident of the United States – to be questioned in regard to the terrorist groups in Egypt, whether by inciting or participating with or in any form of support punishable by law. It seeks permission to declare Obama a defendant in his right outside Egypt diplomatically, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the case of non-appearance and compliance for the investigation, the complainant requests monitoring [Malik Obama] by including his name on all Egyptian airports and ports, and take the necessary legal steps.”
[Editor’s note: bold text placed in translation by Walid Shoebat for emphasis] 

WND has previously reported that Malik Obama is the executive secretary of the Dawa Organization, a group created by the government of Sudan, which is considered by the U.S. State Department to be a terrorist state.
New! “Impeachable Offenses” lays out the blueprint for impeaching Barack Obama for crimes against the United States. Order it now at WND’s Superstore!
Shoebat has further reported Malik Obama attended an IDO conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that was attended and supervised by Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on seven counts related to crimes against humanity.
An objectives of the IDO is to spread radical Wahhabist Islam across the African continent.
WND has reported Malik Obama was the best man at the wedding of Barack Obama to Michelle Robinson on Oct. 3, 1992. He has been photographed visiting President Obama in the White House.

Tied to Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
The criminal complaint referenced in the translation by Shoebat also calls for the inclusion of Tahani al-Gebali, former chancellor and a current advisor to the Constitutional Court of Egypt.
WND reported Aug. 20 that Gebali went public in Cairo with allegations that Malik Obama had links to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Gebali charged that Malik Obama is “one of the architects” of the investments made by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
In her allegations against Malik Obama, Gebali also threatened to expose evidence of the Obama administration’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
“The Obama administration cannot stop us,” Gebali said, as reported by Egyptian television. “We need to open the files and begin court sessions. The Obama administration knows that they supported terrorism. We will open the files and begin court sessions.”

Gebali further charged the Obama administration’s enthusiastic support of the Morsi government brought into power after the “Arab Spring” continued even after the Morsi government welcomed Muslim Brotherhood leaders into the government.
Gebali suggested the Obama administration’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was a main reason President Obama has opposed the current military government ruling Egypt since Morsi was deposed.
Shortly after July 3, when Morsi was removed from office by a military coup that led to the establishment of the current Egyptian government, the Egyptian Independent newspaper reported in English on July 15 that Egypt’s prosecutor general, Hisham Barakat, moved to freeze the financial assets of several Islamic politicians, including Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamad Badie.
Last Sunday, Hisham Barakat moved to bring criminal charges against Morsi and 14 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a Cairo criminal court. Morsi was accused of “committing acts of violence and inciting killing and thuggery” in the deadly street clashes outside the presidential palace in December 2012 with opponents of his rule.
WND has reported Egyptian government prosecutors plan to introduce evidence Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo received bribes paid in amounts as large as $850,000 a year each from the Obama administration in Washington via the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

In September 2011, WND reported the Barack H. Obama Foundation, owned and operated by Malik Obama, apparently received notice of IRS approval in a document signed by Lois Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division now on paid executive leave from her supervisory duties after she took the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22. She was to be questioned regarding her department’s use of inappropriate criteria to delay or otherwise deny tax-exempt status for tea party and “patriot” groups.
Malik Obama received the determination letter from Lerner one month after an application was submitted in May 2011. The IRS determination letter June 11, 2011, granted highly irregular retroactive tax-exempt approval only after the group came under fire for operating as a 501(c)3 foundation since 2008 without ever having applied to the IRS.

[Abongo “Roy” Malik Obama displays a 1980s-era photograph of Barack Obama in Kenya]

In May, WND reported that funds contributed in the U.S. to a 501(c)3 foundation run by Malik Obama have been diverted to support Malik’s multiple wives in Kenya, according to Shoebat.
In October 2012, WND reported a separate foundation, the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation, created on behalf of Obama’s step-grandmother in Kenya, has transferred funds, 90 percent of which are raised from U.S. individuals and corporations, to send Kenyan students to the top three most radical Wahhabist madrassas in Saudi Arabia.
In the first parliamentary elections held in Egypt after former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly formed Freedom and Justice Party won nearly half the seats in the People’s Assembly.

Somali Islamist rebels suspended from Twitter again


[ Islamist group Shabab, which controls much of Somalia.]
By: AFP
The Twitter account of Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents was suspended Friday, the second time this year the Islamists have been pushed off the site.
A message from Twitter on the English-language @HSMPress1 account read that the account was suspended, without elaborating.
In a statement sent to AFP, the group denounced the suspension as "futile".
"Our account has been closed in another futile attempt to silence the truth and the factual coverage of events in Somalia," the group said.
Earlier this week the group used the site to claim they had ambushed the convoy of war-torn Somalia's internationally backed President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Somalia's presidency played down the incident, describing it as as IED explosion far from the convoy.
"Next time, you won't be as lucky," the Islamists tweeted after their attack, which the president escaped unharmed.
Twitter warns that accounts can be suspended if users publish "direct, specific threats of violence against others".
Users are also blocked if they use Twitter "for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities".
The Shebab's previous account, @HSMPress, was suspended in January after the group posted photographs of a French commando they killed and threatened to execute Kenyan hostages.
The Shebab statement said the group presently had no other active Twitter feeds and warned users to beware of "parody accounts".

U.S. Decided Not to Horse-Trade With Russia on Assad

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    By
  • ADAM ENTOUS
  • in Washington,
  • GREG WHITE
  • in Moscow and
  • Peter Nicholas 
  • President Barack Obama's 15 seconds of face time with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, while American and Russian warships patrolled the eastern Mediterranean, spoke to a deep chill that has created one of the biggest complications to the U.S.'s plan to strike Syria.
    Mr. Obama used the opening day of a Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg to press his Syria agenda, speaking for an hour with Japan's prime minister. With Mr. Putin, the summit's host, he simply shook hands and smiled for cameras, with no further meeting plans scheduled.

    Their tense standoff, in many ways, is the outgrowth of previously undisclosed calculations about the level of U.S. interest in the civil war in Syria. In early 2012, White House and State Department officials asked themselves what the U.S. might be willing to do to wean Russia from its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Curtail missile defenses in Europe? Pare plans to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
    Their conclusion: These initiatives weren't worth sacrificing for a deal on Syria, which was then lower on the foreign-policy priority list, say current and former officials who took part in the brainstorming exercise. Likewise, officials doubted such a gambit would work with a Russian leader whose motivations have confounded the U.S.
    Now, Syria is the dominant foreign-policy challenge of Mr. Obama's second term. 
Post Continues: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577304579057262691515176.html?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

U.S. intercepts Iranian order for attack on U.S. interests in Iraq: report


[United States Embassy In Baghdad. Largest Embassy In The World ..]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has intercepted an order from an Iranian official instructing militants in Iraq to attack U.S. interests in Baghdad in the event the Obama administration launches a military strike in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The American embassy in Baghdad was a likely target, according to unnamed U.S. officials quoted by the newspaper. The Journal said the officials did not describe the range of potential targets indicated by the intelligence.
In addition, the State Department issued a warning on Thursday telling U.S. citizens to avoid all but "essential" travel to Iraq.
President Barack Obama has asked the U.S. Congress to back his plan for limited strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians that the United States blames on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
The Journal reported that the Iranian message was intercepted in recent days and came from the head of the Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force. The newspaper said the message went to Iranian-supported Shi'ite militia groups in Iraq.
The Journal reported that the message informed Shi'ite groups to be prepared to respond with force after any U.S. military strike on Syria.

"Travel within Iraq remains dangerous given the security situation," according to the State Department's warning, which replaced an earlier one "to update information on security incidents and to remind U.S. citizens of ongoing security concerns in Iraq, including kidnapping and terrorist violence."
The department said that numerous insurgent groups, including al Qaeda's Iraq affiliate, remain active and "terrorist activity and sectarian violence persist in many areas of the country at levels unseen since 2008."
It added: "The ability of the embassy to respond to situations in which U.S. citizens face difficulty, including arrests, is extremely limited."
The State Department declined immediate comment. The CIA declined comment.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Reporting by Will Dunham and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Barack Obama’s New Allies

syria prisoners
streiff 
Just after posting, this came in via my Twitter feed Among Syria’s Islamist Fighters.
Obama’s proposed strike at the forces of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is filled with ironies. We have the man who had pledged to make America more respected reducing America to a laughingstock, we have the man who praised Assad as a moderating force in the Middle East about to bomb said moderating force, we have a Nobel Peace Prize winner about to launch an unprovoked attack on one party in a civil war… that could have been stopped or mitigated by the Nobel Peace Prize winner two years ago, and we have the sorry spectacle of the United States about to aid the same al Qaeda that we are killing with drones in Pakistan and Yemen.
This is not conjecture on my part, it was acknowledged by Secretary of State John Kerry in testimony to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where he acknowledged 15% to 25% of the opposition force in Syria were “extremists” of a total field force of as many as 100,000 fighters. (As an aside, the existence of 100,000 opposition fighters seems highly improbable if the number is limited to effectives in the field.) That translates, for the low information readers out there, as up to 25,000 fighters who are members of or allied with al Qaeda.

The entire comment bears reading:
But in testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 3, Kerry said it was “basically incorrect” to claim Syria’s opposition is becoming more infiltrated by Al-Qaeda militants. Kerry told lawmakers that “extremists” now make up 15-25 percent of all antiregime fighters in Syria. He said the total number of opposition fighters was “in the tens of thousands,” with estimates between 80,000 and 100,000. He also said the latest intelligence showed the number of Al-Qaeda fighters among the rebels is lower than “previously expected.”
“The opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to…[the] democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution which will be broad-based and secular with respect to the future of Syria,” Kerry added.
A couple of things we know. First, as civil wars progress the sides rarely, if ever, become more moderate. The longer the war last the more loss that is inflicted on the opposing sides and less willing the sides are to attempt compromise. The larger point is that if the rebels are 25% al Qaeda and that number is lower than anticipated then what percent did the administration expect to be al Qaeda?

His assertion has prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to call Kerry out as a liar.
Speaking to his human rights council (Ed note: okay, I did laugh when I read that), Mr Putin recalled watching a congressional debate where Mr Kerry was asked about al-Qaeda. Mr Putin said he had denied that it was operating in Syria, even though he was aware of the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group.
Mr Putin said: “This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans) and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.”
Putin’s veracity, of course, is open  to question but in this case I think I believe him. Regardless of whatever you think about the man, Putin does hate him some radical muslims. They are the last people he’d ever want to see prevail in Syria. Secondly, Kerry’s statement runs contrary to our own intelligence community’s assessment.

As recently as late July, at a security conference in Aspen, Colorado, the deputy director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, David Shedd, estimated that there were at least 1,200 different Syrian rebel groups and that Islamic extremists, notably the Nusra Front, were well-placed to expand their influence.
“Left unchecked, I’m very concerned that the most radical elements will take over larger segments” of the opposition groups, Shedd said. He added that the conflict could drag on anywhere “from many, many months to multiple years” and that a prolonged stalemate could leave open parts of Syria to potential control by radical fighters.

But a second official, who also asked not to be named, said moderate rebels may have lost strength rather than gained it in recent months. Due to their relative lack of weapons and organization, they are beginning to make alliances with better-armed Islamic radicals, whom they see pursuing more effective actions against Assad’s forces, the official said.

“In a hard-fought civil war, especially one without a single well-organized opposition movement, success goes to the most ruthless and dedicated elements, which also tend to be the most extreme in their views. We are seeing such a process in Syria today,” Pillar said.

Today the New York Times reported on the increasing prominence of al Qaeda and al Qaeda allied forces in Syria:
Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups — the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — have attracted foreign jihadis, used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by their severe interpretation of Islamic law.
They have established a firm presence in parts of Aleppo and Idlib Provinces and in the northern provincial capital of Raqqa and in Deir al-Zour, to the east on the Iraqi border.
While the jihadis claim to be superior fighters, and have collaborated with secular Syrian rebels, some analysts and diplomats also note that they can appear less focused on toppling President Bashar al-Assad. Instead, they said, they focus more on establishing a zone of influence spanning Iraq’s Anbar Province and the desert eastern areas of Syria, and eventually establishing an Islamic territory under their administration.

This squares precisely with earlier reports that al Qaeda affiliated fighters are engaged in ethnic cleansing in Syrian Kurdistan — the Kurds have been fervently anti-al Qaeda for a couple of decades — and the spate of bomb attacks in Iraq’s Anbar Province.
The al Qaeda faction is obviously focused on the Syrian civil war with a markedly more strategic view than that being employed by Obama. Of course, the same could be said of my dog’s approach to a Syrian policy. While they are attempted to carve out a substantial area of the Middle East as an area they control, our president is flailing about trying to salvage some semblance of credibility.