Thursday, September 20, 2012
Deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
THE TRUTH FROM ALJAZEERA:
THE LIES FROM OBAMA REGIME:
Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week's deadly assault a "terrorist attack" -- the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a "spontaneous" act.
"Yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Olsen echoed administration colleagues in saying U.S. officials have no specific intelligence about "significant advanced planning or coordination" for the attack.
However, his statement goes beyond White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate was spontaneous. He is the first top administration official to call the strike an act of terrorism.
Sufyan Ben Qumu is thought to have been involved and even may have led the attack, Fox News' intelligence sources said. Qumu, a Libyan, was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2007 and transferred into Libyan custody on the condition he be kept in jail. He was released by the Qaddafi regime as part of its reconciliation effort with Islamists in 2008.
His Guantanamo files also show he has ties to the financiers behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The declassified files also point to ties with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a known Al Qaeda affiliate.
Olson, repeating Wednesday that the FBI is handling the Benghazi investigation, also acknowledged the attack could lead back to Al Qaeda and its affiliates.
"We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's affiliates, in particular Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," he said at the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
Still, Olsen said "the facts that we have now indicate that this was an opportunistic attack on our embassy, the attack began and evolved and escalated over several hours," Olson said.
Carney said hours earlier that there still is "no evidence of a preplanned or pre-meditated attack," which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"I made that clear last week, Ambassador Rice made that clear Sunday," Carney said at the daily White House press briefing.
Rice appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and four other morning talk shows to say the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was "spontaneous" and sparked by an early protest that day outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, over an anti-Islamic video.
"It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States," Rice told Fox News. "The best information and the best assessment we have today is that this was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack. What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo."
However, that account clashed with claims by the Libyan president that the attack was in fact premeditated. Other sources, including an intelligence source in Libya who spoke to Fox News, have echoed those claims. The intelligence source even said that, contrary to the suggestion by the Obama administration, there was no major protest in Benghazi before the deadly attack which killed four Americans. A U.S. official did not dispute the claim.
In the face of these conflicting accounts, Carney on Tuesday deferred to the ongoing investigation and opened the door to the possibility of other explanations.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called Wednesday for an independent review of the attack.
"A State Department Accountability Review Board to look into the Benghazi attack is not sufficient," Collins said. "Given the loss of the lives of four Americans who were serving their country and the serious questions that have been raised about the security at our Consulate in Benghazi, it is imperative that a non-political, no-holds-barred examination be conducted."
Fox News' Bret Baier contributed to this report.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Does Glenn Beck have something here?
Alexander Higgins
Libyan officials, US officials and intelligence assets on the ground say the Benghazi embassy attack was planned by Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic extremists.
Libya officials also say that the U.S warned in advanced but failed to take necessary measures to prevent the attack that took the lives of 4 Americans including that of US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stephens.
An investigation by The Examiner's Alexander Higgins reveals further reveals that Libya extremists conducted nearly monthly attacks against diplomatic facilities and convoys prior to the 9/11 attack.
These are the latest details contradicting the US government's claim the attack on the Benghazi Embassy in Libya was spontaneous outrage over an anti-Muslim film that caught the administration off-guard.
Several foreign policy experts have offered explanations on why the administration would be attempting to spin the narrative.
Explanations offered ranged from limiting political damage for backing the Libya extremists to overthrow Gaddafi to an attempt to hide the administration's gross negligence in failing protect the consulate despite clear warnings prior to the attack.
As Canada's Sun News details the video embedded on this page the US was given clear specific warnings Al Qaeda publicly urged followers to attack embassies in both Libya and Egypt.
On September 10th Al Qaeda issued a warning they would attack the US embassy in Cairo and "burn it to the ground" if the blind Sheik was not released from prison.
In Libya Al Qaeda urged followers to attack the consulate in Benghazi for revenge of a US assassination drone strike.
Official diplomatic cables echoed the warnings of potential attack in Cairo and CNN reported on the attack warning.
Despite those warnings much of the corporate media's attention has focused on whether the Obama administration was warned of the possibility of an attack in the 48 to 72 hours prior to the assassination of the US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
Several top-level officials in the U.S. government and the Libyan government have stated that certainly is the case.
Libyan security officials tell the Independent the U.S. was warned three days prior to the attack.
The Independent cited top-level U.S. diplomatic sources in a prior report who revealed the US was warned 48 hours in advance.
Those sources said an alert was issued by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security but was never made public.
The February 17th Brigade, the armed militia group in control of Benghazi security, told CNN that US diplomats were separately warned of the "rapidly deteriorating security" situation in a meeting three days before the attack.
Nearly monthly attacks on Libya diplomatic facilities ignored
Not only did the Obama administration fail to act on specific warnings of a potential attack but there also was a failure to harden security at diplomatic facilities in Libya.
Security alerts issued by the US Libya embassy to American travelers prior to the 9/11 attack that took the lives of 4 Americans, including that of US ambassador Chris Stevens, reveal diplomatic facilities were being attacked on a nearly monthly basis.
The previous attacks against US diplomatic facilities included rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices in attacks on diplomatic facilities.
Additionally there have also been attacks on diplomatic convoys, including an attack on a UN convoy in February, a UK convoy in June and a US convoy in Tripoli in August.
Each of these security alerts warn that protests in Libya in the past have often escalated into violence and attack against government buildings.
The nearly monthly occurrence of these attacks suggest severe gross negligence on behalf of the Obama administration.
There was clear failure to take the necessary steps to harden the Benghazi consulate from the same attacks that targeted it the past and provide the security needed to protect American lives.
Instead, just two weeks prior to the attack the consular section of the Benghazi office was opened to the public.
Libya officials say attacks were planned
Libyan security officials have arrested several people and identified at least 50 more who played a role in the attack.
According to the Libyan officials and investigators familiar with the attack on the Benghazi compound the evidence indicates the attacks was planned by foreign Islamic extremists considered to be affiliates and sympathizers of Al Qaeda .
The way these perpetrators acted and moved, and their choosing a specific date for this so-called demonstration, I think that this leaves us with no doubt that this was pre-planned, pre-determined,”, says Libyan parliament chief Mohammad Magarief told McClatchy papers.
Magarief further explained that the raid as “definitely” planned and were not the result of the spontaneous storming of the consulate as claimed by the Obama administration.
Magarief states he also believes that the assaults were planned by foreign Islamic extremists he considers to be “affiliates and sympathizers”of al-Qaeda.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
How does a Republican win the presidency?
Where They Live
From David Graham, here is the graph of the 47% -- a.k.a. "non-payers" -- by state. The ten states with the highest share of "non-payers" are in the states colored red. Most are in southern (and Republican) states. Meanwhile, the 13 states with the smallest share of "non-payers" are in blue. Most are northeastern (and Democratic) states.
How They Vote
The easiest thing to say about this map is that "non-payers" ironically seem more likely to vote Republican and "payers" seem more likely to vote Democratic. But we can't say that for two reasons.
The first reason is that low income earners are much more likely to vote Democratic, even within Republican states. In 2008, Obama lost Georgia by 5 percentage points but he won 70% of voters who earned less than $30,000 -- which is precisely the demo most likely to owe no federal income tax. Obama lost Mississippi by 14 percentage points, but picked up 66% of voters who earned less than $30,000. As a general rule, Republicans win among richer voters -- both in the red states and the blue. [Graph below viaSuper-Economy]
US Afghan strategy a total failure?
US suspends joint military operations with Afghanistan after attacks
GUARDIAN
The US military has suspended joint operations with Afghan forces because of a collapse in trust after a surge in the number of Americans and other Nato soldiers killed by the men they are fighting alongside or training.
The chief US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, described the sharp rise in "insider attacks" by rogue Afghan soldiers and policemen, which saw four American and two British soldiers killed at the weekend, as "a very serious threat to the campaign" against the Taliban.
American commanders said that joint operations on the ground will be suspended "until further notice" in a dramatic admission that the strategy to shift responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces has been deeply compromised by Afghan government soldiers and policemen killing 51 Nato soldiers in 36 attacks this year. At least 12 attacks were carried out last month alone, leaving 15 dead.
The US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, described the attacks as the "last gasp" of a weakened Taliban. But the admission that Nato troops are no longer safe from the forces they are relying on to keep the Taliban at bay after the final US pullout in 2014 is a severe blow to Washington's military plans.
Under the strategy, members of the soon to be 350,000 strong Afghan security forces gain experience patrolling and fighting alongside American and other foreign soldiers. But the killings have led to a collapse in trust.
The US army said it is "not walking away" from Afghan military units and will continue to advise them. But Nato troops will patrol with them only when specific approval is given by a regional commander.
American officials say the insider attacks are carried out by a mix of Taliban infiltrators dressed as soldiers, by insurgents who have got themselves recruited and Afghan soldiers angry about their treatment because of personal insults or cultural differences.
US commanders had already assigned soldiers to guard their comrades as they slept, ate or interacted with Afghan forces because of the increasing number of "insider killings". American troops were also ordered to carry loaded weapons at all times, even inside their own bases.
Nato attacks on Afghan civilians have added to the strain. In the latest, an air strike killed eight women and girls collecting firewood.
The loss of trust in the force the US is relying on to prevent the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan again, compounds other concerns about Washington's strategy. The additional 33,000 soldiers Barack Obama despatched two years ago as part of the "surge" are expected to complete their withdrawal this week. The remaining 68,000 US troops are supposed to gradually shift responsibility to Afghan forces which, under the American strategy, are to take the lead in combat as early as next year.
But despite gains on the battlefield, questions persist about whether the Afghan forces will have the ability and will to keep an undefeated Taliban at bay once Nato forces have left.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The Wonderful Powder - DDT
New mosquito poses greater malaria threat
Scientists have discovered what could be a new breed of mosquito in Africa with the potential to cause hundreds of thousands more deaths from malaria. Charities say the previously unknown parasite could pose a serious setback to the global fight against the disease – one of the world's biggest killers.
Researchers said the discovery is worrying because the insect does not behave like normal mosquitoes. Already nearly one million people a year die from malaria caused by bites. But that number would be much higher were it not for mosquito nets. They prevent the female anopheles – the main cause of the disease – from biting at night, when it sucks blood as part of its egg-production cycle. Nearly one million people are thought to have cheated death over the past 12 years by sleeping under nets coated with insecticide.
The new type of mosquito, however, does not wait until night-time; it bites while people are outdoors in the early evening. Even more worrying for the scientists is that they are as yet unable to match the DNA of the new species to any existing mosquito variety.
Jennifer Stevenson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was part of the research group, said: "We observed that many mosquitoes we caught – including those infected with malaria – did not physically resemble other known malaria mosquitoes.
"Analysis indicated that their DNA differed from sequences available for known malaria-transmitting mosquitoes in Africa."
Researchers are worried that the feeding daytime pattern of the new tropical bug posed a serious challenge to controlling the disease.
Ms Stevenson said her team found the species in a village in the highlands of western Kenya where they set up outdoor and indoor traps: "The main difference that came through from this study is that we caught 70 per cent of these species A – which is what we named them because we don't know exactly what they are – outdoors before 10.30pm, which is the time when people in the village usually go indoors."
Andrew Griffiths, from the children's charity World Vision, said the findings are a setback in the worldwide battle against malaria: "It's concerning because bed nets are one of the important tools in combating malaria and we've seen deaths go down dramatically."
He added that while nets are not the only answer to reducing the incidence of the disease, they are one of the main ways.
"It would mean that one of the important parts in the response to malaria would be taken away. We have to be talking about protecting yourself at different times of the day and put even more focus on the community and other systems without too much reliance on bed nets."
Scientists who led the study in Kenya are now calling for wider controls to deal with outdoor transmission of the disease.
Jo Lines, a colleague of Ms Stevenson at London's tropical medicine hospital and a former co-ordinator for the World Health Organisation's global malaria programme, said: "We do not yet know what these unidentified specimens are, or whether they are acting as vectors [transmitters] on a wider scale, but in the study area they are clearly playing a major and previously unsuspected role."
All it takes to provoke Muslim fanaticism and violence is a YouTube account and access to an Arabic translator (and naive activism in Washington)
Mayhem and death with just one click
David Randall on the US film sparking riots around the world – and its YouTube genesis
SUNDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2012
Once upon a time it would have taken scores of dedicated people and an awful lot of hard work and travel to incite riots in two dozen countries half a world away. But, as events of the past six days have shown, a few extremists in California can now do it without even crossing the state line.
Fresh revelations yesterday enabled to be pieced together for the first time the inside story of the anti-Islamic film that has caused mayhem around the globe, and led to the deaths of around a dozen people, including Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya. The tale involves Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a shadowy convicted fraudster and user of multiple aliases; Steve Klein, an insurance salesman seemingly obsessed with the idea that West Coast America is full of jihadists poised to strike; and a mysterious charity called Media for Christ. And in their intent to provoke a reaction among the more incitable elements of Islamic countries, they were unwittingly abetted by a firm owned by Google, and a satellite channel's talk-show host.
Nakoula, although he has denied involvement, has been identified as the key figure in the making of the film, while Mr Klein has acted as its promoter, and the Christian charity was listed as the production company.
It all started, as these things so often do, with the innocuous: a casting call for a film with the working title of Desert Warrior and described as a low-budget "historical Arabian Desert adventure". Actors, including "various Middle Eastern types, bearded", were asked to apply. The lead character was to be "George – warrior leader, romantic charismatic". Actors were hired, a professional crew engaged, and most of it was shot in about two weeks last summer inside a squat warehouse that serves as the offices of Media for Christ, according to Eric Moers, who served as chief electrician for the production.
Mr Moers said the film took 15 to 16 days to shoot and that 90 per cent of the work was done at the Media for Christ studios. He said one day was spent at a movie ranch in Santa Clarita, and one day was spent filming at the home of the man he knew as Bacile, a likely alias of Nakoula. Mr Moers, who estimated the cost of production at $100,000, added: "I'd say this was the most unprofessional professional film I've worked on." He said he was paid with a cheque issued on the account of Abanob Basseley Nakoula, the 20-year-old son of the purported filmmaker.
Most of the film was shot using a backdrop to simulate other locations. The crew members received sheets with the scenes each day − never a full script − and Mr Moers said there was no mention of the word "Muhammad" throughout filming. But, at some stage, unknown to the actors (who have issued a statement saying they were misled by the film's makers), the movie was re-dubbed. "George" became Muhammad, and the dialogue was altered to insult the Islamic faith, portraying the Prophet as a bloodthirsty womaniser, and paedophile. The result, judging by the 14-minute clips available, was that a film toe-curlingly amateurish in its script, with wooden performances and shoddy production values ("sets" were often poor back-projections), became a crude and flagrant insult to Islam.
The intention of those involved may perhaps best be judged by what happened next. With the alterations complete, and the title changed to Innocence of Bin Laden, the small Vine Theatre, Hollywood, was booked for a screening, and mosques leafleted in an attempt to drum up a Muslim audience. They failed. Barely anyone at all attended the screening, and so on 2 July the film – or rather 14-minute clips of it –turned up on YouTube, with its title now Innocence of Muslims. The account used to post the footage was in the name of "Sam Bacile".
Still no notice of it was taken, so on 6 September, a Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian living in Washington and described as an anti-Islamic activist, acted. He posted a blog and emails to journalists worldwide which mentioned an "International Judge Mohammad [sic] Day" being organised on 11 September by the Rev Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who famously put the Koran on trial and then threatened to burn it. He included a link to the YouTube trailer for the Innocence film, which by now had dialogue translated into Egyptian Arabic.
This, after a couple of days, finally lit the blue touchpaper. Last Saturday, Sheikh Khalid Abdallah, who hosted a talk-show on the al-Nas satellite television channel, based in Egypt, ran an item on the film. Three days later, the deadly protests began.
With the film now beginning to inflame crowds across the Muslim world, the hunt for those responsible was initially handicapped by a fog of disinformation. Reports hit the wires that Israeli-Americans were behind the film, in particular a man called Sam Bacile, who told the Associated Press that the film was financed by "100 Jewish donors". This obvious attempt to pour fuel on the already growing flames lasted but a day or so. No Israeli involvement ever existed, and Sam Bacile was duly linked to Nakoula, a man whose middle name was Basseley and whose previous aliases included Nicola Bacily, Robert Bacily, Sam Bassiel, Erwin Salameh, plus others such as Kritbag Difrat and P J Tobacco. The YouTube account, "Sam Bacile," was used to post comments online as recently as Tuesday, including a defence of the film written in Arabic: "It is a 100 per cent American movie, you cows."
Nakoula – who denies posing as Bacile – pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010 and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, to be followed by five years on supervised probation, the terms of which involved not using computers or the internet without approval from his probation officer. He was accused of fraudulently opening bank and credit card accounts using social-security numbers that did not match the names on the applications, a criminal complaint showed.
He was released in June 2011, and at least some production on the video was done later that summer. As well as the fraud conviction, Nakoula also pleaded guilty in 1997 to possession with intent to manufacture methamphetamine, and was sentenced to a year in jail.
As the protests mounted, a Steve Klein came on the scene as a promoter of the film, saying that about 15 key players from the Middle East – from Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and a couple of Coptic Christians from Egypt – worked on the movie. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said Mr Klein is a former marine and religious-right activist who has helped train paramilitary militias at a California church. It said he was founder of Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. He was also quoted as saying he believes that California is riddled with Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells "who are awaiting the trigger date and will begin randomly killing as many of us as they can".
Mr Klein, whose son Matthew was seriously wounded in Iraq in 2007, said "Bacile" contacted him months ago for help in vetting the movie's script, and asked him if he would act as a spokesman if the film "caught on". While Mr Klein has granted a steady stream of interviews, and Nakoula volunteered for questioning by probation officials, Media for Christ, and its president Joseph N Abdelmasih, has not spoken publicly. Mr Abdelmasih, a Christian originally from Egypt, has spoken out against radical Islam. He also participated in a protest against a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre near the World Trade Center site.
Events since Tuesday have underlined two aspects of the Arab Spring. First is the role of the Middle East's more freewheeling media, loosened from restrictions after the fall of long-time dictators. Before Egypt's 2011 revolution, authorities periodically suspended privately owned religious satellite channels such as al-Nas. Not any more. Second is the weakness of the forces of law and order in many former repressed states. And then there is the internet.
On Friday, Steve Klein said that he warned the filmmaker "you're going to be the next Theo van Gogh", the Dutchman killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam. "We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen," he said.
That, in view of the deaths and injuries still going on, is one of the most depressing aspects of the saga. Another is that all it takes for a few extremists to provoke violence is a YouTube account and access to an Arabic translator – and the certain knowledge that there are in many countries elements ready to be incited. There is nothing to stop future anti-Muslim fanatics making this happen again and again and again.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
You are not alone trying to understand Romney’s incoherent campaign.
 |
| “I can’t get my head around this.” |
For Romney, a day of scattered campaign messages
September 15, 2012 12:21 am
By Karen Tumulty / The Washington Post/Post Gazette
PAINESVILLE, Ohio -- For a campaign that has been so proud of its discipline and focus, Mitt Romney's message Friday was exceptionally diffuse.
In the morning, he was bantering with television personality Kelly Ripa about his guilty pleasures, that he wears "as little as possible" when he sleeps and that he's "kind of a Snooki fan."
By afternoon, he was standing in pouring rain, his hand over his heart, starting his Painesville rally with a moment of silence for the four Americans killed this week in Libya.
These were the discordant messages the Republican presidential nominee offered at the end of a trying week, in which he struggled both to sound the right tone about protests sweeping the Middle East and to get a foothold in battleground states that will decide the November election.
Mr. Romney's pre-taped appearance on "Live!," the television show hosted by Ms. Ripa and former New York Giants star Michael Strahan, was part of the candidate's continuing effort to show his softer side to female voters -- a group with whom he is struggling to connect.
On the New York set for a show scheduled to air Tuesday, Mr. Romney gushed about Nicole Elizabeth "Snooki" Polizzi, the potty-mouthed star of the MTV series "Jersey Shore." He marveled: "Look how tiny she's gotten. She's lost weight. She's energetic. Just her spark-plug personality is kind of fun."
But coming at a moment of international crisis, as U.S. embassies in the Middle East were beset by anti-American protests, the interview brought shudders from some Republicans who fear that his campaign is running aground in its final stretch.
"I can't get my head around this," said John Weaver, a former strategist on Republican John McCain's 2008 presidential campaigns. "What is their message? What is going on here? This is not a complicated race against Obama."
Mr. Romney's campaign defended its decision to do the Ripa interview, with advisers pointing to moves by the Obama campaign Tuesday that they said were impolitic on a national day of Sept. 11 remembrance: President Barack Obama did a radio interview with a Miami deejay nicknamed "Pimp the Limp" and raised money in Las Vegas.
Read more
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)