The Grendel Report

1920 The year the Arabs discovered Palestine

2011-09-08T02:11:00.001-03:00

Fw: [Impeach_Obama_Now] Marxist Revolution Oil Spill

2010-06-13T11:20:00.001-03:00

What do you think? Any evidence for this ?

----- Original Message -----

From: John Ening

To: Impeach_Obama_Now@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2010 10:44 AM

Subject: [Impeach_Obama_Now] Marxist Revolution Oil Spill

------- Forwarded message -------

From: The Conservative Monster.com<noreply@onlinequickblog.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:04:07 -0700
Subject: New Entry at The Conservative Monster.com

Was Venezuela Behind the BP Oil Spill?

I found it very interesting that a Venezuelan gas rig mysteriously sank just one week after the BP oil rig explosion and it was blacked out by the media. Immediately, the media was reading the White House script handed to them, rather than reporting or investigating events that could lead to the real reasons why this catastrophe happened.

What made me come to this theory that a Venezuelan submarine (bought from the Russians) was behind this tragedy that killed 11 oil workers in the Gulf?

Well, websites that are supposedly linked to Russian FSB intelligence leaked stories that a North Korean submarine attacked the BP rig with a torpedo. Russian intelligence never releases the truth; they only release a cover story to hide the truth. This made me very suspicious and I kept an eye on this angle, rather than the mainstream media/White House script that was being spewed daily.

Hugo Chavez has spent billions on Russian weapons in recent years and at least 6 submarines were part of that purchase if I remember correctly. Venezuela is a Russian proxy and there is nothing more that Russia and China would like is to weaken the USA's oil drilling abilities via a crisis.

Did a Venezuelan submarine hit the BP oil rig with a torpedo and the USA retaliated against one of their gas rigs and this entire incident is being covered up? Why did the Russian KGB/FSB sites release that cover story blaming a North Korean submarine? We may never find out the truth to this entire incident folks.

Russia is the number one oil exporter in the world and it is interesting that none of their off shore oil rigs are blowing up. Russia passed Saudi Arabia over one year ago as the leading oil producer in the world, but we still hear the propaganda that Russia is weak, poor and our friend.

This spill is a blessing to the Marxist American environmental groups, because they are working for our enemies. It is their goal to weaken the USA as much as they can with lawsuits to prevent us from drilling, but Russia and China are drilling away off of the coast of Cuba and in the Gulf as well.

This spill is also a blessing for Obama, because it keeps the media off of the real issues like his ineligibility to be president and his radical left wing agenda. When is the last time that you heard about the health care takeover? They want the health care takeover erased from your memory just in time for the November elections and it is working like a charm.

This spill is also a blessing for Obama, because this crisis will be used as a tool for him to take over all oil drilling in the USA and the oil companies will be held hostage. This will drive up gas and all energy costs through the roof. The elite love this, because your car will not be in the way of their limousines any longer due to the fact that you can not afford the gas to drive on your little road trips.

The Gulf Oil Spill: The Perfect Distraction

Was the Oil Rig Explosion a Russian Spetsnaz Operation?

Permalink: http://theconservativemonster.com/2010/06/12/was-venezuela-behind-the-bp-oil-spill.aspx

__._,_.___

Members of this group stand diametrically opposed to any and all efforts to incite or encourage violence against the upcoming Obama administration. This group represents a loyal conservative opposition to the incoming administration and is absolutely dedicated to championing the principles espoused by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi of peaceful, non-violent resistance in order to secure our freedoms and defend our civil rights from assault by our leaders, regardless of party affiliation. Our sole purpose is to get out the truth and educate the American people as to the perils of Obama's socialist program to our freedoms and the danger posed by his plans for unilateral disarmament to our national security and to enforce our God-given Constitution, while helping to organize opposition to these America-Last policies at a grassroots political level. We also stand united against racism and any and all discrimination against American citizens on the basis of race. Anyone who disagrees with this mission statement is strongly encouraged to leave our group or face being banned by the moderator.

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Fw: [JewishLibertarians] CNN POLL ON ISRAEL, A public opinion, one click below to the web site and and it is done.

2010-06-02T16:17:00.001-03:00

> Subj: CNN poll. Please vote as it is 60% against Israel at the moment
>
>
> YOUR VOTE IS NEEDED. *THE VOTE IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE *
>
> http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/
>
>
>
> Thank you
>
>

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Re: (Intel) Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes

2010-05-05T08:43:00.001-03:00

An since he has violated u.s. laws within five years of his naturalization, his u.s. citizenship is cancelled. Its a law, but rarely used.

-Ric

----- Original Message -----

From: Beowulf

To: grendelreport@yahoogroups.com ; Individual-Sovereignty@yahoogroups.com ; Intelligence History

Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 8:00 PM

Subject: (Intel) Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes

http://wcbstv.com/local/times.square.car.2.1674692.html

Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes

Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States

The arraignment of Times Square terror suspect Faisal Shahzad has been postponed until Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said Shahzad confessed to receiving explosives training in Pakistan and is being held by federal agents in lower Manhattan.

Charges against Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, were contained in a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan. Shahzad was arrested overnight as he attempted to leave the country on a flight.

The complaint says he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it Saturday night into Times Square, where he tried to detonate it. It also says he admitted to receiving bomb-making training in Waziristan, Pakistan, but there is no mention of al-Qaida.

Officials said Tuesday that Shahzad, 30, is providing "useful" information in his interrogation. When they detained him, they found a gun in his car and other incriminating evidence.

"It is clear that this was a terrorist act aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Wanna Speak Out On This Story? Write On Our Facebook Wall!

Shahzad, 30, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, has been in custody since shortly after midnight. He was hauled off a plane in the nick of time as it was about to fly to the Middle East. CBS 2 obtained air traffic control recording intended to stop the pilots from taking off. The controller alerts pilots to "immediately" return to the gate.

The charges he'll faces for allegedly planting the explosive-laden SUV in Times Square include an act of terrorism transcending national borders; attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; use of a destructive device during the commission of another crime; and assorted explosive charges.

There were many developments in the fast-paced investigation, but sources told CBS 2 how the operation went down. Spooked by reports that authorities were looking for a Pakistani-American, Shahzad rushed out of his Bridgeport, Conn. Home and headed for the airport. He made the reservations on the way, paying cash for his ticket.

Agents raiding his Bridgeport home found components for the bomb device, including firecrackers and the boxes for the alarm clocks. They also reportedly found a hand-drawn map of potential targets, including the 4, 5, and 6 trains and the Staten Island ferry. There was also evidence of his ties to Pakistan, including a Karachi ID and residency papers.

Pakistan officials have reportedly made arrests in connection with the case. One of the suspects, Tausif Ahmed, is believed to have traveled to American two months ago to meet with Shahzad.

"We are working with our law enforcement and intelligence partners to uncover all possible ties this particular individual has to radical extremism terrorist organizations, both at home and overseas," said FBI Director John Pistole.

In the end, it took officials just 53 hours and 20 minutes to solve the case.

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What are the idiots up too?

2010-05-03T18:24:00.000-03:00

SIZE OF NUCLEAR STOCKPILE TO BE DISCLOSED

In an historic step, the U.S. Government will formally reveal the number of
nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

Until now, the shifting size of the nuclear arsenal had only been
declassified from 1945 up to 1961. Current stockpile figures were the
subject of more or less informed speculation. The pending disclosure was
first reported by the Washington Post.

Among other things, the declassification of the nuclear stockpile is a
milestone in secrecy reform. It means that what must be the single most
significant number in the domain of national security policy will now be in
the public domain. It will also set a standard by which the nuclear
transparency policies of other nations may be assessed.

If there is any cause for dismay in today's announcement, it is that it took
so long to accomplish. The Department of Energy, which has the highest
concentration of nuclear weapons expertise in the federal government, had
proposed declassification of stockpile size as early as 1992, as noted in a
2000 DOE fact sheet on the subject. But the DOE proposal was blocked by the
Department of Defense.

Other DOE declassification proposals that have been stymied would have
disclosed the explosive yield of retired or dismantled nuclear weapons
(blocked by DOD), and the locations of former nuclear weapons storage sites
abroad (blocked by DOD and State). An Energy Department classification
official told Secrecy News last week that the Department also favors public
disclosure of the budget of the DOE Office of Intelligence (which had been
public information up until 2004), but that the Director of National
Intelligence had vetoed the move.

"We get blamed for a lot of stuff that's not our fault," the DOE official
said.

bad news for u.s. :Germany Answers Obama Call For NATO Troops In US Homeland

2010-02-28T17:46:00.001-04:00

Check this out!

----- Original Message -----

February 24, 2010

Germany Answers Obama Call For NATO Troops In US Homeland

By: Faal...i.e. GRU in RUSSIA

In a move showing the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the United States, where new reports are showing nearly 1 out of 5 Americans are now jobless and another 20 million have been thrown from their homes into the street, the GRU is reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that German Chancellor Angela Merkel [photo top right with Obama] has ordered her Federal Ministry of Defense"immediate" to place over 18,000 Bundeswehr troops under NATO command for redeployment to the heartland of the US.

According to these reports, Merkel received an "urgent" plea from Obama this past fortnight for these German troops after being told by his US Military Commanders that they may not have sufficient forces in their Northern Command to keep an expected American civil-war from occurring during the expected bank failures set to occur in their Nation in late April and early May and depriving these already beleaguered people of even the most basic of necessities forcing millions of them into relief camps.

These reports further state that Merkel has scheduled an early April tour of the United States to "see for herself" where Bundeswehr troops will be employed by NATO against the American people, but has also "stressed" to Obama that German soldiers should not be utilized in any combat operations, only missions of support and disaster relief.

Russian Military Analysts are further stating in these reports that over 20,000 NATO military troops, from various European Nations, have already been "infiltrated" into the United States during the past 7 weeks through the vast American base called the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center (MUTC) located in the State of Indiana.

As horrifying as it is that the Americans even have a military base where their troops are being trained to fight against their own citizens, even more shocking is MUTC's motto "Defend The Homeland-Win The Peace", and especially noted in these reports for its "Orwellian" phrasing reminiscent of the 2001 Patriot Act which has done more to strip these peoples of their rights and freedoms than any other law in US history.

Important to note about these events is that as Obama continues his steady march towards martial law, the fear of him is causing many US States to begin a rapid loosening of their already lax gun laws (as compared to the EU and Russia) in preparation for an expected assault on their freedoms from their central government overlords.

New reports from the United States are also showing that their citizens have been plundered on a scale not seen in that country since the Robber Baron's of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries destroyed their once vibrant Republic to replace it with a much more "compliant" Democracy (mob rule, i.e. "two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have dinner) and has seen the disparity of wealth between these people and their elite classes reach a level not seen since the 1920's, and which led to the Great Depression.

So dire has the banking crisis become in the United States that their largest bank Citigroup this past week notified all of its customer that beginning April 1^st it is reserving the right to refuse letting any American withdrawal money from their checking or savings accounts for up to 7 days. And if that isn't bad enough, the United States chief banking regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), is now making a desperate plea for all Americans to participate in what they are calling "America Saves Week" and put more of their money in this already collapsing banking system.

Paradoxically, at the exact same time that the American people are being warned their money is not going to be available to them, and as the FDIC is pleading with them to put more money into their banks, the Wall Street Journal News is reporting today that lending from American banks has now fallen to "epic lows" not seen since the early days of World War II in 1942.

To the options left available to the American people to protect themselves against the continued tyranny they are being subjected to by their own government and elite classes there appears to be very few, and as we can read as reported by London's Times Online News Service in their article titled "Buy farmland and gold,'" advises Dr Doom", and which says:

"The world's most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a "dirty war" by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash.

The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown, delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers.

Dr Faber, who advised his audience to pull out of American stocks one week before the 1987 crash and was among a handful who predicted the more recent financial crisis, vies with the Nouriel Roubini, the economist, as a rival claimant for the nickname Dr Doom.

Speaking today, Dr Faber said that investors, who control billions of dollars of assets, should start considering the effects of more disruptive events than mere market volatility.

"The next war will be a dirty war," he told fund managers: "What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?"

Even worse for the American people is that they are now being feared by their own government officials, including their Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano who told reporters this past week that US "authorities are becoming more concerned about American citizens or legal residents becoming involved in terrorist plots against the United States."

And to just how fearful the US government has become of its own citizens we can see evidenced in Obama's allowing their police forces to continue tapping and tracking their cell phones without their even having to obtain a warrant, as if each and every American citizen is now a criminal subject in their own Nation. Important to note too is that we had previously documented American officials openly stating that they have the right to assassinate and even massacre their own citizens should they deem them a threat.

Most unfortunately in all of these events are the American people still believing the lies told to them by their propaganda media and meant to keep them mollified and distracted from the coming horrors they will have to face as their American dream becomes revealed for what it truly is.a nightmare beyond comprehension

Only a damned fool puts his hope in mankind put it in the Lord where you are assured a return on your investment!

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Re: [grendelreport] The Apocalypse, Space Aliens, Vampires and Unbiased Journalists

2009-12-04T00:56:00.002-04:00

Beowulf wrote:

>http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2009/20091202122152.aspx
>
>
>
>The Apocalypse, Space Aliens, Vampires and Unbiased Journalists
>Americans believe three out of the four, but know one is a fantasy.
>
>
><http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/commentary/2009/20091202122152.aspx
>> By Dan Gainor
>The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
>Business & Media Institute
>12/2/2009 12:24:06 PM
>
>
>
>
>The imminent end of the world. Aliens (the ones from space, not the illegal
>kind). Witches and warlocks. Those are some of things Americans believe in.
>
>
>
>Unbiased journalism? Not so much.
>
>
>
>That's what the polling tells us. A 2008 Harris Poll reinforced that belief.
>More Americans believe in ghosts (44 percent), UFOs (36 percent) and witches
>(31 percent) than believe journalists. No major media outlet scored that
>high according to the 2009 Pew State of the Media report.
>
>
>
>Hollywood must be paying attention. Nearly every top film of 2009 reflects
>those topics. Everything from the "Transformers" sequel to the "Night at the
>Museum" sequel to the latest "Star Trek" and "Twilight" movies has been a
>success. Top 100 films have taken in more than $8 billion according to
>Boxofficemojo.com. Nine of the top 10 are fantasy, science fiction or
>horror. They amount to more than $2.2 billion of that total.
>
>
>
>You don't see Hollywood doing many big budget movies about journalism. Of
>course, that might be due to the wonky and mundane life of reporters and
>editors. Or it might be because simply no one trusts journalists any more.
>
>The biggest example of a journalist in entertainment these days is the
>sleazy, Tokyo Rose-like reporter on "V," who says he modeled his character
>after real-life CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. "V" star Scott Wolf described
>his character on "Good Morning America" as a "morally compromised news
>journalist" or in terms the viewing audience can appreciate, "he's more of
>Anderson Cooper-y."
>
>This natural distrust of the news is essential if Americans are to dig their
>way out of some of the biggest issues of the day - including the economy,
>health care reform and climate change. In every case, journalists have been
>spinning the debate in favor of big government, big cost solutions.
>
>
>
>That film is really just getting started. The fight so far has just been the
>opening scenes of an epic. This week the plot thickens, as they used to say
>in the old movies. The White House holds its summit on jobs, the health care
>reform debate heats up and President Obama gets ready for next week's
>climate catastrophe marathon in Copenhagen.
>
>
>
>The jobs event is laced with irony. Thanks to the stick-it-to-business
>policies of the Obama administration, the only one hiring is Uncle Sam. And,
>after the incredibly wrong predictions from the Obama gang that unemployment
>wouldn't pass 8 percent if the stimulus passed, it's amazing he has any
>credibility on the issue at all. Even lefty blogger entrepreneur Arianna
>Huffington cautioned that the "unfolding unemployment disaster is
>threatening to do the same for the Obama White House" as Hurricane Katrina
>did for Bush.
>
>
>
>Why then did network broadcasts first promote the stimulus and then try to
>defend its impact on the economy. First they picked stimulus supporters by
>more than 2-to-1 over anyone who questioned the $787 billion bill. Then when
>the economy settled a little, journalists were quick to call an end to the
>recession. Back in August, Newsweek declared the "recession is over."
>
>
>
>The July 28 "Good Morning America" did the same thing, bringing on two
>separate experts who said the recession was over. Sure, unemployment is
>called a "lagging indicator," but it's not just lagging, it's in double
>digits. Ordinary voters know that 10.2 percent - more than twice what it was
>for much of the Bush administration - isn't a recovery.
>
>
>
>The latest episode of the health care reform saga is much the same script.
>Obama has pushed for a quick national takeover of one-sixth of the economy.
>Even many liberals have balked at that. If he doesn't get the votes, the
>curtain comes down on his whole plan.
>
>Imagine where Obama would be without his media support on health care
>reform. Back in spring, network journalists ignored the whole issue of cost
>- mentioning it in just 9 percent of their many stories on the topic. Now
>even those rare times when journalists are honest about the failings of
>health care reform, they still support it. Newsweek Assistant Managing
>Editor Evan Thomas recently described it as "a fiscal fraud." Of course,
>here's the kicker: "I'd still vote for it," he said.
>
>Then there's the ClimateGate scandal, which is rapidly escalating into a
>media scandal as well. So far only a few in the media are even addressing
>this possible scientific fraud just days before the Copenhagen summit. Phil
>Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit,
>has stepped aside pending a probe into whether he helped overstate the
>danger of climate change.
>
>That story is all over the Internet and even in major print outlets. But you
>can't find it on the evening and morning news shows on ABC, CBS or NBC, even
>with a global climate conference just days away.
>
>In every case, the media position has been clear: root for Obama, back
>bigger government and hope for a happy ending.
>
>
>

In Iran, Death by Poison Salad and a Hair-cream Overdose

2009-12-03T19:57:00.001-04:00

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/12/03/in-iran-death-by-poison-salad-and-a-hair-cream-overdose/

In Iran, death by poison salad and a hair-cream overdose

Iranian whistleblower Dr. Ramin Pourandarjan was killed by a poison salad, says prosecutor, in the fourth explanation of his Nov. 10 death. It's not the first bizarre death in Iranian political circles.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer 12.03.09

ISTANBUL, TURKEY — Prosecutors in Iran says they don’t yet know whether the suspicious death of a doctor – Ramin Pourandarjan – was murder or suicide. But they know the cause: a poisoned salad.

At least, that’s the latest in a case where authorities have already made a number of competing claims, from a car crash that never happened to suicide in a courthouse.

A poisoned salad might sound unlikely, but stranger causes of death have been known in Iranian political circles.

The political and cultural war between hard-line conservatives and more moderate reformists has produced similar surprises – notably in 1999, when a key Iranian intelligence official supposedly committed suicide by drinking hair removal cream. Yes, that’s the official line.

Why was Dr. Pourandarjani’s salad laced with poison?

Ramin Pourandarjani was a 26-year-old doctor working at Iran’s Kahrizak detention facility. He witnessed abuses of Iranians taken there in the violent aftermath of Iran’s June presidential election. He then testified about the abusive treatment to a parliamentary committee. The facility was finally closed down, but not before former detainees said rape and torture were common practice.

Dr. Pourandarjani, as part of his military service, was assigned to the facility. He had seen the badly beaten son of the adviser of one of Iran’s conservative candidates, and one of the most high-profile detainees. ”

That detainee, Mohsen Rouhalamini, was brought to him “in a dreadful state after being subjected to extreme physical torture. He was in a critical state,” the opposition Mowjcamp Web site reported him telling parliamentary deputies, as translated by the AP.

When the detainee died, Pourandarjani reportedly said, “officials at Kahrizak threatened that if I disclosed the causes of the wounds of the injured at Kahrizak, I would not be able to live.”

Iranian opposition and media reports said the doctor was forced to change the cause of death to “meningitis.”

The doctor was concerned about his safety after his revelations further tarnished Iran’s reputation after the contested June vote. More than 4,000 Iranians were arrested and scores killed during weeks of clashes with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia. Accusations of rape and torture by Iranians who were detained have embarrassed the Islamic Republic, adding to what military commanders have called the most serious crisis for Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Accident? Suicide? Or what?

But Pourandarjani’s Nov. 10 death has been shrouded in a trail of false claims. Initially, authorities called the doctor’s father in Tabriz, Iran, saying his son had been in a car accident, broken his leg, and needed their consent for surgery. Then the story changed to a heart attack in his sleep.

Last week, Iran’s police commander claimed that Pourandarjani was facing charges over his Kahrizak duties, had killed himself in a courthouse lounge, and had left a note on his body.

Now, a salad brought to Pourandarjani by a delivery man was found to be laced with heart and blood pressure medicine, according to Iranian news reports, which quoted Tehran public prosecutor Abbas Dowlatabadi as saying that the doctor died of “poisoning by drugs.”

After Pourandarjani’s death, the father said that suicide was unlikely: “Just the night before his death, my child talked to me on the phone, it was around 8 or 9 p.m. He sounded great, very dignified, displaying no sign of someone about to commit suicide,” the father told the Associated Press from Tabriz last month. “He was even full of hope,” and making future plans.

Similar doubt of suicide attended the 1999 death of Saeed Emami, a deputy minister of intelligence who was charged with running a “rogue” death squad in Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The group had brutally murdered a string of dissident intellectuals in late 1998, and were found to have had target lists of 200 more reformists. Many Iranians say they believe Emami was deeply engaged in scores of assassinations of regime opponents in Europe and Iraq through the mid-1990s.

So few Iranians find credible the official report that he took his own life, by drinking hair removal cream, while having a bath.

American Jihad: New Details Emerge About al-Shabaab Recruitment in North America

2009-12-03T19:55:00.001-04:00

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35797&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=81a259e3d0

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 37

December 3, 2009 02:48 PM Age: 2 hrs

By: Raffaello Pantucci

Mahmoud Said Omar, an arrested member of a group of Minneapolis natives that allegedly sent recruits to fight with al-Shabaab in Somalia.

On November 23, federal prosecutors in the United States unsealed indictments against members of a group of Minneapolis natives accused of being at the heart of a cell sending men and boys to fight with al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist movement in Somalia with close ties to al-Qaeda. [1] The unsealing of the documents came in the wake of the arrest of one of the members of the group, Mahamud Said Omar in the Netherlands, and the possible discovery of a similar cell operating out of Toronto (AP, November 10; National Post [Toronto], November 21).

The release of the information, which for the most part does not pertain to new cases, does shed further light on the recruitment structures in place and the radicalization method by which a foreign terrorist organization like al-Shabaab is able to entice young Westernized men to join their ranks. In many ways, the revelations show the degree to which the sort of radicalization that was previously thought to be more prevalent in Europe is in fact a problem shared by the United States. On the basis of the growing numbers of American jihadis, it would appear as though foreign terrorist rhetoric has found an increasing resonance in America.

The released documents which show in detail the path taken by 26-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, a young Somali-American who laid claim to the dubious honor of being America’s first suicide bomber, having been identified by a finger that was found at the site of one of a pair of suicide car-bombings that targeted offices of the Puntland Intelligence Service in Bossaso on October 29, 2008. [2] Ahmed was part of a group of men who left Minneapolis in early December 2007, but while the others headed for Northern Somalia, Ahmed instead went on Hajj to Saudi Arabia, landing in Jeddah on December 4, 2007 (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, November 25, 2008).

Having completed his pilgrimage, Ahmed joined the others who had first passed through a series of al-Shabaab safe houses before starting a training course alongside dozens of “young ethnic Somalis from Somalia, elsewhere in Africa, Europe and the United States.” At these camps, the men were taught to use a variety of weapons while being indoctrinated in “anti-Ethiopian, anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Western beliefs.” [3] The training regimen was apparently tough, with only Ahmed and one other recruit completing the course. These two went on to take part in an assault on Ethiopian troops before the second man left the conflict and lost track of Ahmed.

The documents also show the importance of a local support network of older individuals who help in the radicalization process and aid in supplying the young men with equipment and money to go to Somalia. Three individuals in particular are identified in the new documents: Abdulahi Ahmed Farah, 32; Abdiweli Yassin Isse, 24 (who both remain at large and were last spotted crossing the San Ysidro border into Mexico on October 8 with tickets to Mexico City); and Mahamud Said Omar, 43, who was captured in the Netherlands on November 8. [5]

The three men were allegedly involved in hosting a series of meetings at a variety of locations in Minneapolis, where Farah would tell the others of his experiences fighting in Somalia, claiming “that he experienced true brotherhood while fighting in Somalia and that travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do.” He exhorted them “not to be afraid” and that “to fight jihad will be fun.” Farah emphasized that “they would get to shoot guns in Somalia.” [5] Farah claimed that he had sustained injuries (corroborated by others who knew him in Minneapolis) while fighting on the Somali/Kenyan border and had left soon afterwards for Nairobi where he married two women – undoubtedly intending to persuade the young men in Minneapolis of the possible benefits of jihad in this world as well as the next. He also allegedly helped coordinate a conference call between a group of potential recruits at a Minneapolis mosque and Isse in Somalia (Pioneer Press [St. Paul], November 24).

While both Isse and Omar are reported to have contributed to this radicalization (Isse allegedly referred to fighting in Somalia “a good jihad,” while Omar “provided encouragement”), the released documents point to a greater role as fundraisers. Isse was apparently involved in approaching other members of the Somali community to ask them to contribute money to help individuals study the Koran in Saudi Arabia. [6] It is unclear from the documents where Omar got the money he is alleged to have given the men, but he had enough to help nine of them to travel to Somalia. [7] He is also alleged to have traveled to join the men at a Shabaab safehouse in Somalia, where he supplied them with money to purchase AK-47s and calling cards. He also gave money to their Somali hosts (Pioneer Press [St. Paul], November 27). Finally, he is alleged to have hosted a meeting in Minnesota in November 2008, a few days before another group left for Somalia (Minnesota Public Radio, November 24, 2009).

In early November, six young ethnic-Somali men disappeared from Toronto’s Somali community. Their families are reported to have received a phone call from Kenya, where the men were believed to be preparing to cross into Somalia to join al-Shabaab (Toronto Star, November 19; National Post [Toronto], November 18). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) are searching for information on the missing men. Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan warned that those who traveled overseas to participate in terrorist activities could face prosecution in Canada (National Post, November 20). Toronto is home to about 150,000 ethnic-Somalis, a number of whom have returned to Somalia to join militant Islamist groups since 2006.

None of the new revelations point to a direct threat from these networks to the United States, but the role of a former fighter in the recruitment of others highlights the risk of such individuals returning home. Details are yet to emerge concerning the Minneapolis group (and the apparent Canadian parallel group in Toronto), but their existence shows an appetite for jihad amongst young Muslim men in North America. Whether this presages an impending threat on a scale similar to that seen previously in Europe is unclear, but it certainly shows that the United States is not immune to militant Islamist radicalization.

Notes:

1. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Terror Charges unsealed in Minneapolis against eight men, justice department announces,” November 23, 2009, www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/November/09-nsd-1267.html
2. United States District Court, State and District of Minnesota – Criminal Complaint, United States of America v. 1) Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax; 2) Abdiweli Yassin Isse, October 8, 2009. The document uses the official Somali written form in rendering the names.
3.Ibid, p.8
4.Ibid, p.14
5.Ibid, pp.9-10, 14
6.Ibid, p.12
7. United States District Court, District of Minnesota – Indictment, Case 0:09-cr-00242-JMR-SRN, United States of America v. Mahamud Said Omar, August 20, 2009

Dutch Navy Captures Pirates

2009-12-03T19:52:00.001-04:00

http://www.calcuttanews.net/story/573102

Somali pirates taken in encounter with the Dutch

Calcutta News.Net
Thursday 3rd December, 2009

A Dutch military ship has captured 13 Somali pirates off the coast of Oman, 280 kilometres south of the western town of Salalah.

Navy personnel were also able to take possession of a large haul of weapons when the pirates were finally taken from their fishing vessel.

The incident occurred after the pirates attacked a merchant ship from speedboats.

The armed pirates tried to board the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged BBC Togo, but were repelled after shooting at the vessel.

The BBC Togo had taken on-board precautions to slow the pirates down, causing the pirates to finally give up and flee to a larger fishing boat.

Members of the Dutch frigate then captured them fairly quickly, finding onboard a large amount of weapons, including AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and rifle ammunition.

The pirates are believed to be Somalis.

FW: Terror-tied official teaching troops at Ft Hood, wrote of preemptive strikes against Islam's enemies

2009-12-03T19:51:00.001-04:00

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Terror-tied official teaching troops at Ft Hood, wrote of preemptive strikes against Islam's enemies
The Jawa Report ^ | Dec. 3, 2009 | Barbarossa

Posted on Thursday, December 03, 2009 5:21:53 PM by caper gal 1

Terror-tied ISNA official teaching troops at Ft Hood about to deploy to Afghanistan, wrote of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies(UPDATED) It gets worse.

I was contacted today by an official in the military anti-terrorism community who was extremely upset that a top official for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was conducting classes at Ft. Hood on Islam to troops about to deploy to Afghanistan. The individual in question, Louay Safi, actively promotes the ideology employed by Ft Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan, and has been caught on FBI wiretaps communicating with terrorist leaders operating in the US. Safi has also written a defense of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies, such as that carried out by Maj. Hasan. (Update: It seems that Robert Spencer received the same report about Safi's appearance at Ft Hood today.)

Amazingly, at around 6:00pm this evening, Safi presented a check to the families of those killed less than a month ago in the Ft. Hood massacre.

My source told me: "This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now."

(Excerpt) Read more at mypetjawa.mu.nu ...

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. WINSTON CHURCHILL

Two Views: O's Afghan Speech

2009-12-03T19:50:00.003-04:00

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/57893

Two Views
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
By Rich Galen
Listen to Commentary Podcasts

I watched President Obama's speech at West Point and thought it was a pretty good political speech. That's not entirely correct. I thought it was a very good political speech.

On behalf of everyone, I bristled at the knee jerk "blame it on Bush" section of the speech. And I'm still trying to understand how, if it will take six months to get 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and you have already declared they're coming back out 18 months from now, how much they can accomplish in the 12 months you have allotted.

But, overall, I thought the content was good and the delivery was polished.

Remember, Obama has to protect himself from his own left. House Democrats have all but declared war on Obama's War [the Washington Post's phrase, not mine], Michael Moore took out a full page ad in advance of the speech to announce his opposition, and the MoveOn.org and Pink Slip organizations are threatening to … be really, really, angry.

Obama did what he could to mollify those groups by blaming Bush - always a safe bet when trying to curry favor from the Left - and by declaring there would be a time limit on the new deployment and they would be withdrawn starting in July 2011 - just as the 2012 re-election campaign would be getting underway.

I know Obama hedged his bet by saying that the timing of the withdrawal would ultimately be decided by "taking into account conditions on the ground," which was the rhetorical equivalent of the sticker on a new car - say a MullFord - which, having listed the required EPA information, tells you that your mileage may vary.

An additional 30,000 troops will bring the total of American forces to near 100,000. It is unclear to me how many NATO troops are in Afghanistan.

According to the NATO web site: "Since NATO took command of ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force) in 2003, the Alliance has gradually expanded the reach of its mission, originally limited to Kabul, to cover Afghanistan's whole territory. The number of ISAF troops has grown accordingly from the initial 5,000 to around 50.000 troops coming from 42 countries, including all 28 NATO members."

But if the U.S. already has 60,000 troops and is one of the 28 NATO members then the other 41 countries must have negative 10,000 troops, which I think may be incorrect.

Shortly after the President finished, my phone rang. It was Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt (Ret.) calling to ask me what part of speech the word "successfully" was in this sentence: "I will end the war successfully."

"Successfully," I said, "modifies the word 'end' which is a verb. Hence 'successfully' is an adverb."

This military man immediately understood that the President's goal is not to succeed in Afghanistan, but to end the war in Afghanistan.

"Pretty smart," I said. Kimmitt is a graduate of West Point and has an MBA from Harvard. I, as you know, took something over seven years to get a bachelor's degree from Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750.

"Imagine," General Kimmitt said, "if FDR had done a fireside chat during World War II and told the American people he was going to end the war in Europe rather than saying he was going to defeat the Nazis."

There is precious little to recommend Afghanistan. For every ten kilometers you go outside of a major city, you go back in time 50 years. It is a desperately poor, illiterate, arid country run by tribal warlords and corrupt public officials.

Why do we care about Afghanistan? Because, if the Taliban takes back control of the country then Al Qaeda will once again use Afghanistan as Band Camp for terrorists.

Thus, the Obama strategy is dependent upon the Karzai government about which the NY Times' Dexter Filkins wrote: "But that is the heart of the problem: in laying down the gauntlet for the Afghans, Mr. Obama is setting criteria for success that he and his field commanders may be able to influence, but which ultimately they will not be able to control."

So, there you have the two views of President Obama's speech. From a political standpoint it was very good. From a military standpoint it was very weak.

Barack Obama has been fixated on being known as the Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the 21st century. This speech will do nothing to help him get there.

Conflict in Somalia

2009-12-03T19:50:00.001-04:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUSGEE5B20YO

Conflict in Somalia

Thu Dec 3, 2009 6:12am EST

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Dec 3 (Reuters) - An explosion tore through a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu on Thursday and killed at least 14 people including three government ministers, witnesses and senior government sources said.

Suspicion for the blast immediately fell on the al Shabaab group, which killed Somalia's security minister and at least 30 other people in the town of Baladwayne in June. Somalia has been mired in chaos for nearly two decades. Here are some details about the conflict:

* DESTABILISING THE REGION:

-- President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's Western-backed government is battling Islamist insurgents including the hardline al Shabaab group, which Washington accuses of being al Qaeda's proxy. -- The United States has offered military support to Somalia. It has also offered training for security forces as well as logistical and financial help.

-- The European Union said last month it planned to send some 100 troops to Uganda in 2010 to train Somali government forces. The intention is to train up to 2,000 Somali troops, which will complement other training missions and bring the total number of better-trained Somali soldiers to 6,000.

* BLOODSHED:

-- Violence in Somalia has killed more than 19,000 people since the start of 2007 and uprooted 1.5 million, and the chaos has helped fuel kidnappings as well as piracy off the coast.

-- The government and African Union have pleaded with the United Nations to send a robust peacekeeping force that could take over from the 5,200 AU troops from Uganda and Burundi who have said they are incapable of stabilising Somalia.

-- AU troops (AMISOM) troops come under near-daily attack from the rebels. In September 2009, al Shabaab hit their main Mogadishu headquarters with twin suicide car bombs that killed 17 peacekeepers, including the Burundian deputy force commander.

* ISLAMIST RULE:

-- In June 2006, Islamist militia loyal to the Somalia Islamic Courts Council seized Mogadishu after defeating U.S.-backed warlords. With tacit U.S. approval, Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia sent troops to defend the interim government in Dec. 2006. The Ethiopian force advanced rapidly, taking Mogadishu and driving the Islamists to Somalia's southern tip.

-- Since Ethiopian troops withdrew in January 2009 the biggest threat has come from al Shabaab which, controls much of southern Somalia and parts of the capital Mogadishu.

-- In April 2009, parliament voted to implement sharia law across the country in a move aimed at undermining the rebels.

-- Last month al Shabaab insurgents took over another town - Dhobley, near the Kenyan border after rival insurgents, Hizbul Islam, fled. The two groups were former allies but broke ranks over who should control the lucrative southern port of Kismayu. -- Al Shabaab's aim is to impose a strict version of Islamic law throughout Somalia. It has banned music, sport, videos, and shaving. It has also desecrated graves, beheaded rival clerics and publicly stoned to death women accused of adultery.

* ATTEMPTS AT GOVERNMENT:

-- In 2004 lawmakers elected warlord Abdullahi Yusuf as president and Ali Mohamed Gedi as prime minister to run the 14th attempt at government since Barre's fall. Gedi resigned in October 2007 and was succeeded by Nur Hassan Hussein as prime minister.

-- Yusuf himself resigned in December 2008. Somalia then elected President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke.

-- While some insurgents pledged to support the new administration, the al Shabaab group vowed to fight on.

* PIRACY:

-- Somalia's coastal waters -- strategic shipping lanes linking Asia and Europe -- have also become a focus of pirates who have made millions of dollars in ransom from hijacking vessels. In the latest seizure Somali pirates hijacked a Greek-flagged oil tanker 700 miles off the coast of Somalia last week. At least 15 ships are being held. -- NATO ships began anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast in Oct 2008, but have failed to stop the hijackings.

NYPD Undercovers Often Mistaken for Suspects

2009-12-03T19:49:00.003-04:00

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/NYPD-Undercovers-Often-Mistaken-for-Suspects/1$49582

NYPD Undercovers Often Mistaken for Suspects

Posted: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Updated: December 3rd, 2009 01:07 PM EDT

By COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK --

Nearly 1 in 6 undercover officers in the nation's largest police department has been mistaken for a criminal by fellow officers - and has come face-to-face with a loaded gun.

In most of those instances, the undercover officer remained motionless, followed the orders of the uniformed cop and the situation was defused. There have been only 10 instances since 1930 where officers were killed by fellow cops.

The most recent, the shooting death of Omar Edwards on May 28, spawned a comprehensive review by the department. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly wrote a letter to Gov. David Paterson detailing a 14-point plan to address the issue. Kelly spoke about the letter Tuesday.

The inquiry provides a rare look into the dangers of undercover policing in New York. More than 200 undercover officers were surveyed by the department, and 36 reported they were in gunpoint confrontations with other officers.

"In many instances, they're trying to look as if they're criminals. ... They're buying drugs, they're buying guns," Kelly said Tuesday.

In Edwards' case, he was in plainclothes, having just come from working a shift, and thought someone was breaking into his car, so he took off running with his service weapon in hand. Officer Andrew Dunton and two other uniformed cops mistook Edwards for a criminal and shot him to death.

Dunton and the other two officers were white; Edwards was black. A grand jury did not indict Dunton in the shooting.

Kelly's report outlines an attempt to reach out to fraternal organizations to create a list of suggestions to avoid such encounters.

"We have new training in place. We have officers that work in plain clothes go to roll call so that officers in uniform can identify officers in plain clothes," Kelly said.

The department has also called on Joshua Cornell, a University of Chicago professor who has conducted research on racial bias in officers' shooting decisions, to study NYPD police recruits and to develop new training accordingly.

Officers are using a new shield case that has a luminescent strap on it so it's easier to see in the dark. Also, new instructional videos were developed, and officers were retrained in the days after the shooting.

Gov. David Paterson formed a task force in June to examine confrontations between on and off-duty officers and determine what role, if any, race played. The task force meets again Thursday.

Edwards, 28, was posthumously promoted after his death. His family has expressed outrage over the shooting.

12 Days, 3 Networks and No Mention of ClimateGate Scandal

2009-12-03T19:49:00.002-04:00

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20091202135822.aspx

12 Days, 3 Networks and No Mention of ClimateGate Scandal
Even as Copenhagen looms, broadcast news ignores e-mails suggesting warming alarmists 'manipulated' data, conspired to destroy information and thwarted peer reviews.

By Julia A. Seymour
Business & Media Institute
12/2/2009 2:01:37 PM

It’s been nearly two weeks since a scandal shook many people’s faith in the scientists behind global warming alarmism. The scandal forced the University of East Anglia (UK) to divulge that it threw away raw temperature data and prompted the temporary resignation of Phil Jones of the university’s Climate Research Unit.

Despite that resignation and calls by a U.S. senator to investigate the matter, ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news programming has remained silent – not mentioning a word about the scandal since it broke on Nov. 20, even as world leaders including President Barack Obama prepare to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark next week to promote a pact to reduce greenhouse gases.

Other news outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and Associated Press have deemed ClimateGate worthy of reporting, but the networks were too busy reporting on celebrity car accidents and the killer whale that ate a great white shark. Instead of airing a broadcast news segment that might inform the public about the science scandal, both ABC and CBS relegated the story to their Web sites. There was one mention of the scandal on ABC’s Sunday talk show: “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

The ClimateGate scandal, as it is being called, has the hallmarks of a major news story: private emails purporting to show unethical or illegal behavior supplied by a hacker or whistleblower, high profile scientists like James Hansen and Michael Mann, and a potential conspiracy to distort science for political gain. But the networks haven’t bothered with the story.

Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and BMI adviser, said Nov. 20 of the leaked e-mails and documents: “This isn’t a smoking gun, it’s a mushroom cloud.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded to a question about ClimateGate by insisting that “global warming is happening” and that for most people it isn’t really a question anymore. That is the same message viewers get from the network news about climate change.

An examination of morning and evening news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC since Nov. 20 yielded zero mentions of the scandal, even in the Nov. 25 reports about Obama going to Copenhagen to discuss the need for emissions reductions. But during the same time period, the networks reported on pro-golfer Tiger Woods’ “minor” car accident at least 37 times. They also found time to report on an orphaned Moose and the meal selection at the president’s State Dinner.

ClimateGate began after someone (hacker or whistleblower) attacked servers of University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and made thousands of e-mails and documents public. Those e-mails appear to show a conspiracy to falsify temperature data, a willingness to destroy information rather than release it under Freedom of Information (FOI) law and the intimidation of publications willing to publish skeptical articles.

CRU’s director Phil Jones admitted real CRU e-mails had been stolen when he told New Zealand’s Investigate magazine, “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.” Others argue a whistleblower was responsible for the breach.

One of those alleged e-mails was from Jones to Michael Mann (famous for his hockey stick graph of global warming) and two others appeared to indicate manipulation of scientific data.

Jones wrote: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [Sic] from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Jones, who contributed to a chapter of the U.N.’s IPCC report, claims the term “trick” was used “colloquially as in a clever thing to do.” Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming Policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), supplied his own view of what Jones and Mann meant by hiding the decline.

Ebell wrote in the National Post: “What is the clever method that Prof. Jones learned from Prof. Mann? I think he is referring to the way Prof. Mann constructed his celebrated hockey stick graph. His proxy records showed flat temperatures for the past 1,000 years, including the past century. But everyone knows that temperatures have gone up rapidly in the past few decades … So what Prof. Mann did was splice the last few decades of surface temperature records onto his proxy record. Voila! – the hockey stick.”

The alleged e-mails were enough to force Jones’ temporary resignation. On Dec. 1, Associated Press reported that Jones is “stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.”

Other leaked e-mails asked people to delete e-mails and one said that if information was requested using FOI, it would be deleted rather than turned over:

Alleged e-mail from Jones to Mann Feb. 2, 2005:

“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.”

In Britain, it is a crime to delete information requested under FOI.

Networks Focus on Tiger’s ‘Minor’ Accident, Sea Lions, Pete the Moose

In more than a week, the networks couldn’t be bothered to report on the ClimateGate scandal. Instead they fixated on professional golfer Tiger Woods’ car accident and the rumors surrounding the crash at least 37 times.

And ABC, CBS and NBC had even more trivial stories to discuss during that time than Woods. Somehow the networks considered a sea lion glut in San Francisco, Pete the orphaned Moose, the color of tablecloths at the state dinner, Great White shark vs. Killer Whale, a baby panda and the Sonoma, Calif. crush of grapes. All were more worthy of reporting than a scandal that prompted one U.S. senator to call for an investigation.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said on Washington Times Radio Nov. 23 that “Since Barbara Boxer is the chairman and I’m the ranking member on Environment and Public Works, if nothing happens in the next seven days, when we go back into session a week from today that would change this situation, I will call for an investigation because this thing is serious.”

The three broadcast networks ignored ClimateGate even in reports about the upcoming climate change conference. On Nov. 25, all three evening newscasts mentioned Obama would be going to Copenhagen. NBC’s Brian Williams called global warming “one of the biggest issues facing the planet,” But didn’t say a word about the hacked emails or possibly manipulated data that laid the foundation for emissions reductions.

But just one day earlier, CBS’s Declan McCullagh reported on CBSNews.com that Congress might investigate “whether prominent scientists who are advocates of global warming theories misrepresented the truth about climate change.” McCullagh’s lengthy story detailed the e-mail leak and reactions to it from both warming advocates and skeptics.

ABCNews.com waited until Nov. 28 to do an original report on the leaked e-mails on its Web site.

Scientists implicated…

The e-mails (which can be viewed and searched online) appear to show unethical and potentially illegal behavior on the part of prominent scientists (many of whom are involved in the UN IPCC process).

Here are just a couple of the most embarrassing e-mails that can speak for themselves:

From Kevin Trenberth to Michael Mann and others including James Hansen and Michael Oppenheimer in Oct. 2009:

“The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”

From Jones to Raymond Bradley, Malcolm Hughes and Michael Mann on Feb. 21, 2005:

“PS: I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!”

A May 2009 e-mail from Jones allegedly told Mann to delete e-mails regarding the Fourth IPCC draft and said Keith and Caspar would also delete the correspondence.

One scientist featured prominently in many of the CRU e-mails was Mann, whose research has long been scrutinized by other scientists. He introduced his hockey stick chart in the 1990s, but it was questioned in 1998 by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of Harvard, according to a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article. In 2003 others, including mathematician Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick, also criticized Mann’s hockey stick.

The Journal reported at that time that Mann “tried to shut down debate by refusing to disclose the mathematical algorithm by which he arrived at his conclusions.”

Mann defended himself in a letter to the Washington Post on Dec. 1, 2009 saying “some have engaged in a smear campaign.” “They have stolen thousands of scientists’ personal e-mails, including some of mine, and have mined the e-mails for words or phrases whose meaning can easily be distorted,” Mann continued.

Iain Murray, a senior fellow at CEI, explained why the e-mails were so important and the three things everyone should know about ClimateGate.

“This may seem obscure, but the science involved is being used to justify the diversion of literally trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. The CRU is the Pentagon of global warming science, and these documents are its Pentagon Papers,” Murray wrote.

Murray said the three vital things the documents indicated were that “the scientists discuss manipulating data to get their preferred results,” talked about “subverting the scientific peer review process” to prevent skeptics from being published, and worked to prevent disclosure of the information.

But the leaked e-mails were only the tip of the iceberg. According to The London Times online, scientists at the University of East Anglia “admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.”

That article described CRU as “the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures,” and quoted Roger Pielke, an environmental studies professor from Colorado University.

“The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us.’ So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” Pielke said.

Networks promote global warming, censor skepticism

Sadly, the willingness of the networks to capitulate to the global warming agenda and ignore other voices is not a recent phenomenon.

The Business & Media Institute has reported for years the way in which the news media have latched on to climate scares in the past 100 years (cooling, warming, cooling and now warming again). From ice age threats in the late 1800s to the warming in the 1920s, before returning to cooling fears again in the 1970s, print media encouraged fears of climate apocalypse.

But even more worrisome is the way the network news media have stifled debate on the issue of climate change. BMI released a Special Report in 2008 that found global warming skeptics rarely get any say on the networks, and when they do barbs like “cynics” or “deniers” are often thrown in to undermine them.

On the networks, man-made global warming proponents overwhelmingly outnumber those with dissenting opinions. During the 2007 study window, there was an average of 13 global warming advocates for each skeptic featured. CBS had the worst ratio: 38-to-1. That report also found that the networks frequently omit the cost of so-called solutions to global warming.

In 2009, BMI found that the networks remained silent as House committee passed a cap-and-trade bill out of committee. That bill, known as Waxman-Markey, could cost $9.6 trillion in GDP loss by 2035, according to one estimate. Meanwhile, the networks ignored the bill and almost never explained what cap-and-trade meant.

Ignoring the ClimateGate scandal is just the latest in a long line of poor reporting on climate issues by the network news media. Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com told the Business & Media Institute that the fact that the networks aren’t covering the story is actually “great news for the truth.”

Morano explained that the networks are making the “classic mistake” of thinking if they ignore the story it will go away, but talk radio and the internet are getting the information out to the public without spin from the networks which he said are “heavily invested in manmade global warming.”

Howard Dean's Admitted Socialism

2009-12-03T19:49:00.001-04:00

http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2009/20091202113143.aspx

Dr. Dean's Admitted Socialism
Socialists unmask themselves and the media pretend not to notice.

By Dan Kennedy
Business & Media Institute
12/2/2009 11:34:25 AM

On Sunday’s “Face The Nation” on CBS, Howard Dean, doctor, former Vermont Governor, former head of the DNC, stated that the Veterans Administration’s health care system is, in fact, a socialist system. Yes, he said that. And he praised it as the best, most effective health care provider in all the world.

The show’s host didn’t comment on this characterization of the VA as socialist, and Dean went on to point to Medicare as a single payer system, and praised it as well. This was his argument for the public option, and the certain path to government run health care as only option.

I have a friend currently dealing with the VA. He finds Dean’s assertion that it is the best health care provider laughable – except to him personally at the moment, it’s not very funny. He has been told by his doctor he is in serious and urgent need of as yet uncertain heart disease treatment – perhaps catheterization, perhaps surgery, maybe a stent. And he is waiting two, maybe three weeks for the required stress test and possibly other tests. To be followed by at least a week waiting for results and follow-up appointment.

The VA facility he was sent to is clearly over-burdened, under-staffed, un-clean and S-L-O-W. He’ll arrive for a 9:00 A.M. appointment, but be parked there for 4 hours, waiting.

It’s a look at the future.

And I wonder: has Dean conveniently forgotten the scandal over the disgraceful condition of VA facilities right there in Washington D.C., exposed by the media? Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that privately funded, charitable organizations are needed to provide care and rehabilitative therapy and equipment for wounded veterans. Or maybe he’s unaware of the too-many veterans who need advocates and attorneys to fight for them, to get the care they need, and most certainly have earned.

Dean may be right in calling it socialist, as surprising the admission may be. But praising it as the best? Well, I certainly think I’m getting better care from my private physicians, paid in part by my private insurance, than my friend is from the VA. Were I hosting “Face the Nation,” I think I’d have asked if Dean is getting his health care from the VA. Or if he’s ever even been in a VA facility.

What of Dean’s holding up Medicare as a poster-boy of single-payer systems? Has he missed President Obama’s assertion that Medicare is riddled with hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud, and that his gigantic new health care scheme will pay for itself by eliminating that waste and fraud?

Every time Obama drags that old chestnut out, the media should be in unanimous chorus, screaming about this disgrace, demanding investigations and prosecutions now – not later, after a bigger version of the same beast is birthed.

Maybe Dean has missed the CBO’s analysis of Medicare as functionally bankrupt, a financial corpse waiting for official time of death. Maybe he should carefully examine how the House or Senate health care reform bills promise to gut that corpse, cut benefits, impose new limitations on care imposed by new boards, bureaucracies and czars. If Dean means to suggest that the new health care reform will be Medicare magnified and multiplied, there can be only one result: bankruptcy of the United States.

Dr. Dean is ridiculous. Too bad he went unchallenged.

Dan Kennedy is a serial entrepreneur, adviser to business owners, sought-after speaker and author of 13 books. More information about Dan can be found at www.NoBSBooks.com, and a free collection of his business resources including newsletters and webinars at www.DanKennedy.com.

The Apocalypse, Space Aliens, Vampires and Unbiased Journalists

2009-12-03T19:49:00.000-04:00

http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2009/20091202122152.aspx

The Apocalypse, Space Aliens, Vampires and Unbiased Journalists
Americans believe three out of the four, but know one is a fantasy.

By Dan Gainor
The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
Business & Media Institute
12/2/2009 12:24:06 PM

The imminent end of the world. Aliens (the ones from space, not the illegal kind). Witches and warlocks. Those are some of things Americans believe in.

Unbiased journalism? Not so much.

That’s what the polling tells us. A 2008 Harris Poll reinforced that belief. More Americans believe in ghosts (44 percent), UFOs (36 percent) and witches (31 percent) than believe journalists. No major media outlet scored that high according to the 2009 Pew State of the Media report.

Hollywood must be paying attention. Nearly every top film of 2009 reflects those topics. Everything from the “Transformers” sequel to the “Night at the Museum” sequel to the latest “Star Trek” and “Twilight” movies has been a success. Top 100 films have taken in more than $8 billion according to Boxofficemojo.com. Nine of the top 10 are fantasy, science fiction or horror. They amount to more than $2.2 billion of that total.

You don’t see Hollywood doing many big budget movies about journalism. Of course, that might be due to the wonky and mundane life of reporters and editors. Or it might be because simply no one trusts journalists any more.

The biggest example of a journalist in entertainment these days is the sleazy, Tokyo Rose-like reporter on “V,” who says he modeled his character after real-life CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. “V” star Scott Wolf described his character on “Good Morning America” as a “morally compromised news journalist” or in terms the viewing audience can appreciate, “he’s more of Anderson Cooper-y.”

This natural distrust of the news is essential if Americans are to dig their way out of some of the biggest issues of the day – including the economy, health care reform and climate change. In every case, journalists have been spinning the debate in favor of big government, big cost solutions.

That film is really just getting started. The fight so far has just been the opening scenes of an epic. This week the plot thickens, as they used to say in the old movies. The White House holds its summit on jobs, the health care reform debate heats up and President Obama gets ready for next week’s climate catastrophe marathon in Copenhagen.

The jobs event is laced with irony. Thanks to the stick-it-to-business policies of the Obama administration, the only one hiring is Uncle Sam. And, after the incredibly wrong predictions from the Obama gang that unemployment wouldn’t pass 8 percent if the stimulus passed, it’s amazing he has any credibility on the issue at all. Even lefty blogger entrepreneur Arianna Huffington cautioned that the “unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House” as Hurricane Katrina did for Bush.

Why then did network broadcasts first promote the stimulus and then try to defend its impact on the economy. First they picked stimulus supporters by more than 2-to-1 over anyone who questioned the $787 billion bill. Then when the economy settled a little, journalists were quick to call an end to the recession. Back in August, Newsweek declared the “recession is over.”

The July 28 “Good Morning America” did the same thing, bringing on two separate experts who said the recession was over. Sure, unemployment is called a “lagging indicator,” but it’s not just lagging, it’s in double digits. Ordinary voters know that 10.2 percent – more than twice what it was for much of the Bush administration – isn’t a recovery.

The latest episode of the health care reform saga is much the same script. Obama has pushed for a quick national takeover of one-sixth of the economy. Even many liberals have balked at that. If he doesn’t get the votes, the curtain comes down on his whole plan.

Imagine where Obama would be without his media support on health care reform. Back in spring, network journalists ignored the whole issue of cost – mentioning it in just 9 percent of their many stories on the topic. Now even those rare times when journalists are honest about the failings of health care reform, they still support it. Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas recently described it as “a fiscal fraud.” Of course, here’s the kicker: “I’d still vote for it,” he said.

Then there’s the ClimateGate scandal, which is rapidly escalating into a media scandal as well. So far only a few in the media are even addressing this possible scientific fraud just days before the Copenhagen summit. Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, has stepped aside pending a probe into whether he helped overstate the danger of climate change.

That story is all over the Internet and even in major print outlets. But you can’t find it on the evening and morning news shows on ABC, CBS or NBC, even with a global climate conference just days away.

In every case, the media position has been clear: root for Obama, back bigger government and hope for a happy ending.

Alert: Mumbai Anniversary Marked by Award-Winning Film

2009-12-03T18:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m12d2-Mumbai-Anniversary-Producers-of-film-mark-the-anniversary-of-terror-attack

Mumbai Anniversary: Producers of film mark the anniversary of terror attack

December 2, 5:13 PMLaw Enforcement ExaminerJim Kouri

In an industry swamped with filmmakers such as Michael Moore, it's a surprise to find Obsession.
Photo credit: Police Times

The producers of the award-winning documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West are making it available for free online viewing to mark the anniversary of the deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The Mumbai terror attacks took the lives of 173 and injured more than 300 victims. Mumbai, India is the largest city in the world in terms of population, with the city proper having a population of approximately 14 million inhabitants

"The brutal attacks in Mumbai were yet another instance of innocent individuals murdered at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists," stated Raphael Shore, producer of Obsession. "It is important to recognize that these incidents are not isolated. Rather, each attack is merely a new front in a global jihad being carried out by dangerous extremists that seek to destroy western freedoms and democracy."

"Our hearts go out to the loved ones of the Mumbai victims. It is important for individuals around the world to truly pause and consider the losses suffered in Mumbai, and understand the heinous motivations behind such vicious attacks," Shore added.

The free stream of Obsession is part of a grassroots initiative to mark the anniversary of the attacks and educate the public about the threats that radical Islam pose to the world at large and the United States in particular. Concerned citizens will have the opportunity to watch the film throughout the week, and learn more about a growing radical movement targeting western liberties and ideals.

Over 30 million have seen the groundbreaking film, a powerful and controversial educational tool that media pundits have coined a "must-see." Obsession was the winner of the best feature film award at the Liberty Film Festival.

OBSESSION: Radical Islam's War Against the West documents the call for world domination and global jihad made by Islamic leaders on a daily basis. The film features exclusive footage from Arabic TV, as well as interviews with former terrorists, and experts including Alan Dershowitz, Steve Emerson and Caroline Glick. The film outlines parallels between Chamberlain's strategy of appeasing Hitler prior to WWII, with the West's current attitude of appeasing Iran and radical Islamists.

The free online stream is available for a limited time at: http://www.radicalislam.org/Obsession

Bloggers and web site owners are invited to host the free stream on their blogs or web sites. To embed the stream visit: www.clearspring.com/widgets/4aace992ff38389f

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a columnist for The Examiner (examiner.com) and New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (www.kgab.com). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc.

Fort Hood Killer Faces More Charges

2009-12-03T18:31:00.001-04:00

http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m12d2-Fort-Hood-killer-faces-more-charges

Fort Hood killer faces more charges

December 2, 6:43 PMLaw Enforcement ExaminerJim Kouri

Thirty-two specifications of attempted premeditated murder were preferred today against alleged Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan under Article 80 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to Pentagon spokesperson Gerry Gilmore.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ, is the U.S. military's legal system for service members.

Hasan allegedly killed 13 people -- 12 soldiers and one civilian employee -- and wounded 30 others at Fort Hood during a November 5 shooting spree. He now is confined in a medical facility.

The crazed shooter was confronted and wounded by two civilian police officers posted on the base. One of the officers, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, was wounded during an exchange of shots with the suspected gunman.

Hasan initially was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder under Article 118 of the UCMJ. As with the initial charges, the new charges are allegations only, and the accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, officials emphasized, noting that the investigation continues and additional charges remain a possibility.

Under Article 118, the minimum sentence if he's convicted is life with the possibility of parole. The maximum sentence is death.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appointed former Veterans Affairs Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Admiral Vernon Clark to lead an independent review panel that will examine the circumstances surrounding the Fort Hood shootings to see how potential future incidents could be avoided.

"We will look at policies and procedures that look at how we deal with service members who may cause trouble or harm to their fellows," West said at a November 24 news conference at Fort Hood.

Prior to the murders, Hasan, a Muslim, reportedly made anti-American, pro-terrorist statements on several occasions. He's allegedly communicated with persons suspected of supporting terrorism, as well.

Meanwhile, a ranking US congressman said that he is concerned that President Barack Obama and his administration is being less than forthcoming with details of the Fort Hood Massacre and is withholding requested information.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, claims that the Obama administration may be restricting the dissemination of information and limited information provided so far to the so-called "Gang of Eight."

Congressman Hoekstra, following up on multiple conversations with the Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, requested that Blair and the heads of the FBI, the NSA and the CIA direct their agencies to preserve all documents and materials relevant to the Fort Hood attack and any related investigations or intelligence collection activities.

"President Obama said people should not jump to conclusions about what happened at Fort Hood, but the administration is in possession of critical information related to the attack that they are refusing to release to Congress or the American people," Hoekstra said.

The Missing Tools for the Afghan Job

2009-12-03T18:30:00.002-04:00

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/2009/12/02/Outside-View-The-missing-tools-for-the-Afghan-job/UPI-20201259762400/

The missing tools for the Afghan job

Published: Dec. 2, 2009 at 9:00 AM
By HARLAN ULLMAN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's Afghanistan speech Tuesday, well advertised in advance and delivered at West Point for added effect, provoked predictable criticism from both the left and right. Faced with a set of abysmally bad choices and conditions in Afghanistan that grow worse not better, finding fault with the administration's policy decision was as easy as changing television channels. Unfortunately, the real flaws and limitations in the plan were largely ignored or missed.

No strategist or politician, however brilliant or clever, could have created an approach that was capable of guaranteeing a quick reversal of the "dire" conditions posed by the conflict and upheaval in Afghanistan and the region. But the problem lies not with the craftsman or the policy architect. The problem is the tool kit. That tool kit does not contain the right or effective instruments to achieve the aims and objectives set by the president and his able national security team.

Consider what should be the three most critical tools in the box. First is the means to bring governance to Afghans. In this regard, the government in Kabul is incapable certainly over the next year or two and almost certainly for the longer term. Appointing an overseer or foreign viceroy to put some steel into President Hamid Karzai's backbone is entirely infeasible and will no doubt force the resignation of the three or four capable ministers in the government who do not wish their authority bypassed. Hence, the job of bringing governance will fall on the shoulders of an already overstretched U.S. and NATO military and a so-called surge in civilian capacity that is a fiction. Unfortunately, even if the president had agreed with commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal's upper-limit request of 80,000 additional troops, this nation building is not a job any military can do with confidence.

Second, the Afghan government has been roundly and correctly challenged on the grounds of corruption and waste. But even if those excesses could be magically corrected -- which they cannot -- this criticism misses the point. It is not Afghan waste and incompetence in managing its resources that is the issue. It is the incompetence and waste with which the tool of Western aid has been so grossly mismanaged that needs immediate redress.

The investigations of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan who reports to Congress -- not the White House -- suggest the scope of mismanagement. These could have been harsher. Specifically, for every dollar spent on Afghanistan reconstruction and aid, about a dime goes to the Afghan people. If this tool cannot be made to work, then all the king's horses and men will not turn Afghanistan into a functioning state.

Third and most important is the tool on which NATO and the Obama administration have bet the war -- fielding capable Afghan security forces. As pro-Obama supporters assert, it is the Afghan surge that is critical and not the influx of 30,000 or 40,000 more U.S. and NATO troops that will take months to carry out. The notion is to build an Afghan force of some 400,000 army and police quickly and turn security over to them much as the United States tried to do in Vietnam with the Vietnamization program.

In theory, such logic is clear. However, McChrystal himself concludes it will take three to five years to stand up such a force. And some of his advisers believe this is optimistic. To others, the ethnic and illiteracy realities are more constraining. Enlisting sufficient Pashtun recruits to serve under an officer corps long headed by Tajiks is a non-starter even if literacy were not an issue -- which it is. The police are even more problematic.

And if this tool were not sufficiently dull and in need of purchase or replacement, who will pay for it? Surely not the Afghans, who are broke. And is the West prepared to underwrite these costs for long?

The speech was delivered with the verve and rhetoric people now expect of this president. It bought some breathing room for the administration with an increasingly dubious public, although Republican critics in Congress and among the chattering classes will continue to fire away with some justifiable effect. During this grace period, the administration must look hard on fixing these three tools of governance; development and reconstruction; and recruiting and training a functioning Afghan security force with far greater intensity than ever before.

The administration has purposely sent its best and brightest senior civilian and military leaders to Afghanistan to strengthen its hand. But even the best of us need the right tools to get the job done. This is precisely where Obama must focus his administration if there is to be any kind of happy or at least not disastrous landing when we and NATO finally move to our exit strategy.

(Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business.)

Obama and Chavez Backed Zelaya Repudiated in Honduras election

2009-12-03T18:30:00.001-04:00

Obama and Chavez Backed Zelaya Repudiated in Honduras election

And free people spoke today and kicked Obama in the can and the Chavez backed Zelaya out. Another stunning blow for the insufferable commie President of the US.

In Elections, Honduras Defeats Chávez Wall Street Journal

Unless something monumental happens in the Western Hemisphere in the next 31 days, the big regional story for 2009 will be how tiny Honduras managed to beat back the colonial aspirations of its most powerful neighbors and .preserve its constitution.

Despite the nefarious and incomprehensible backing of Oblunder.

Yesterday's elections for president and Congress, held as scheduled and without incident, were the crowning achievement of that struggle.

National Action Party candidate Porfirio Lobo was the favorite to win in pre-election polls. Yet the name of the victor is almost beside the point. The completion of these elections is a national triumph in itself and a win for all people who yearn for liberty.

The fact that the U.S. has said it will recognize their legitimacy shows that this reality eventually made its way to the White House. If not Hugo Chávez's Waterloo, Honduras's stand at least marks a major setback for the Venezuelan strongman's expansionist agenda.
The losers in this drama also include Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Spain, which all did their level best to block the election. Egged on by their zeal, militants inside Honduras took to exploding small bombs around the country in the weeks leading to the vote. They hoped that terror might damp turnout and delegitimize the process. They failed. Yesterday's civic participation appeared to be at least as good as it was in the last presidential election. Some polling stations reportedly even ran short, for a time, of the indelible ink used to mark voter pinkies.

Latin socialists tried to discredit Honduran democracy as part of their effort to force the reinstatement of deposed President Manuel Zelaya. Both sides knew that if that happened the electoral process would be in jeopardy.

Mr. Zelaya had already showed his hand when he organized a mob to try to carry out a June 28 popular referendum so that he could cancel the elections and remain in office. That was unlawful, and he was arrested by order of the Supreme Court and later removed from power by Congress for violating the constitution.

It is less well-known that as president, according to an electoral-council official I interviewed in Tegucigalpa two weeks ago, Mr. Zelaya had refused to transfer the budgeted funds as required by law to the council for its preparatory work. In other words, he didn't want a free election.

Mr. Chávez didn't want one either. During the Zelaya government the country had become a member of Mr. Chávez's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which includes Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. If power changed hands, Honduran membership would be at risk.

Last week a government official told me that Honduran intelligence has learned that Mr. Zelaya had made preparations to welcome all the ALBA presidents to the country the night of his planned June referendum. Food for a 10,000-strong blowout celebration, the official added, was on order.

ALBA has quite a bit of clout at the Organization of American States (OAS) these days, and it hasn't been hard for Mr. Chávez to control Secretary General José Miguel Insulza. The Chilean socialist desperately wants to be re-elected to his OAS post in 2010. Only a month before Mr. Zelaya was deposed, Mr. Insulza led the effort to lift the OAS membership ban on Cuba. When Mr. Zelaya was deposed, Mr. Insulza dutifully took up his instructions sent from Caracas to quash Honduran sovereignty.

Unfortunately for him, the leftist claims that Honduras could not hold fair elections flew in the face of the facts. First, the candidates were chosen in November 2008 primaries with observers from the OAS, which judged the process to be "transparent and participative." Second, all the presidential candidates save one from a small party on the extreme left wanted the elections to go forward. Third, though Mr. Insulza insisted on calling the removal of Mr. Zelaya a "military coup," the military had never taken charge of the government. And finally, the independent electoral tribunal, chosen by congress before Mr. Zelaya was removed, was continuing with the steps required to fulfill its constitutional mandate to conduct the vote. In the aftermath of the elections Mr. Insulza, who insisted that the group would not recognize the results, presides over a discredited OAS.

The Commanding Problem of Incident Command

2009-12-03T18:27:00.006-04:00

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/industry-sectors/disaster-preparedness/2974.html

The commanding problem of incident command

By David W. Gaier

Published November 18th, 2009

Eight years after 9/11, the question needs asking: Have we developed a flexible and effective network for responding to a major attack or disaster?

Ingrained cultures of insularity
As fires raged unchecked on the twin towers' upper floors, an NYPD helicopter reported an inward bowing of the columns, signaling they faced imminent failure. Yet the NYPD and FDNY didn’t have compatible radio systems, and their insular cultures precluded close coordination, even on something so significant. According to a report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “The NYPD aviation unit reported critical information about the pending collapse of the building,'' it reported, quoting Sivaraj Shyam- Sunder, a NIST investigator. "Any time that information could have been communicated faster to the emergency responders in the buildings, it would have helped save lives."

More to the point, the fire department and the police departments of our largest city occasionally talk, but still don’t really work together. While they’re both tremendously capable and professional, their separate and distinct organizations enable this approach.

And if you think that DHS solved this problem at the federal level, think again. Essentially, DHS cobbled together 22 federal agencies under a single umbrella, but they remain separate agencies in a very real sense -- physically, culturally, logistically and with their own chains of command, politics and priorities.

ICS and NIMS to the rescue?
Of course, many point to the creation of the Incident Command System, or ICS, and its implementation under the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, as evidence that this just isn’t true. ICS/NIMS has helped federal, state and local authorities make strides in this area, and examples of inter-agency and inter-jurisdictional cooperation come to mind. But ICS is a framework, nothing more, and it relies on close, agile and constant coordination among people and organizations. And it hasn’t genuinely been put to the test since 9/11, at anything like the scope, scale and psychological impact of 9/11.

According to Dr. Donald Moynihan, an expert in public management and Associate Professor in Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “One factor poses an inherent difficulty to the ICS: scale. In enormous disasters we need large networks of responders. As these networks grow larger and more diverse, members have less in common and less familiarity with each other. Such networks may be so large as to be ungovernable." Moynihan adds, “The ICS is supposed to be the means of assuring coordination, but it’s a design based on the hierarchy of a single organization rather than a network of many.”

When containment is unattainable
Some potential scenarios present specific, significant challenges. For example, a disaster or attack site with a clearly defined local perimeter is relatively easy to command, usually with local resources. But conflicts arise when a serious incident occurs, with an ill-defined geographical reach, such as a dirty bomb attack, where a lethal radioactive cloud is dispersed by the initial blast, prevailing winds and terrain features.

In that circumstance, who calls the shots? The DHS, yes. Its primary response agent is the Department of Energy, a separate cabinet department over which it has incident command, but no real control. For its part, DOE has seven different types of teams that could respond to nuclear/radiological incidents and provide assistance to state and local authorities. The four armed services also have capable, but very separate, nuclear response teams. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would be involved, but so would the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and State. NASA, too, and NOAA would likely follow, as would the FAA. Add in local firefighter-based hazmat teams who will naturally focus on rescuing their friends and neighbors, as opposed to following a plan they’ve never seen, or taking direction from people they’ve never met. Plus, we have a crime scene, so where does the FBI (which is not part of DHS) fit in? Who decides the scope of evacuation and locations? The National Guard seems logical, but they’re under the control of state governors who rarely agree to federalize them. And so it goes. The ICS structure can’t -- and wasn’t -- meant to deal with these enormous complexities.

Sharing information, intelligently
One of the underlying problems that we haven’t come close to solving is intelligent, practical information-sharing in advance of a crisis or potential attack. Even when we know a problem may be headed our way, we often receive seemingly random pronouncements about the problem’s seriousness or how to react.

For example, one day several years ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed details of a possible terrorist plot against the city’s transit system, while Police Commissioner Ray Kelly flooded the subways and commuter rail stations with NYPD officers. While the city was moving to protect commuters, DHS officials in Washington, DC, were saying that the initial report -- their report -- was of “doubtful credibility.” Ironically, they provided several pages of guidance on how to react to a situation that they didn’t think warranted a response.

React…or adapt?
Many responses often fall apart simply from the rush of events, the natural turf-focused posture of local officials and the natural inclinations and hierarchy of responder organizations. Well before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita came ashore, Amtrak offered would-be victims a ride out of town on an empty train, while hundreds of school buses were available to transport tens of thousands more…and were never used. No one could agree “whose job” it was to command those resources and make the calls, so no one did. As a result, thousands unnecessarily languished in the Superdome, in the convention center or trapped on their own roofs when the levees fell.

Enter the cigar-chomping, Creole-spouting Army Lt. General Russel Honoré, who wrestled control from a paralyzed mayor and squabbling emergency management bureaucrats, and began doggedly solving the next problem in front of him. Most are thankful he did, yet the response and marshalling of resources was FEMA’s legal province and operational responsibility, not the military’s, irrespective of “Brownie’s” glaring incompetence. For all the relief that Honoré’s troops provided, they also contributed to a larger problem because they did what armies typically do: they received orders and marched on them, but made little effort to coordinate with FEMA or anyone else while they worked.

Even in cases where an incident would be specific and confined, the legacy of 9/11 looms: put lots of resources in the public eye, regardless of their ability to respond to a rapidly evolving situation. For example, we still see uniformed National Guardsmen at major rail transit hubs in modified battle dress, carrying automatic weapons. While this probably comforts commuters, it raises many concerns, not because of the Posse Comitatus Act but because Guardsmen are not trained in law enforcement, nor how to respond effectively during a crisis in a crowded and labyrinthine mass transit environment. Moreover, they are not integrated with the existing incident command structure, nor conditioned to take orders from civilians when they’re in uniform.

The bottom line
Big issues are at play here. We still focus most of our post-9/11 transportation security efforts on commercial air travel, and largely neglect mass transit. Our land borders are still porous -- though this is improving -- but our huge coasts are woefully under-protected by a Coast Guard that is disgracefully underfunded. Our urban hospital capacity and triage capability in case of mass-casualty attacks is a huge liability. In this sense, disaster prevention and disaster response cannot be separated.

As for the value and effectiveness of ICS, Professor Moynihan notes, “There are examples where it’s worked well; for example, the response to the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the Pentagon on 9/11. But these disasters were simpler than, say, Katrina, involving areas of limited geography and specific tasks that the incident command could control. Response networks were relatively small and there were generally strong working relationships in place among responders.”

That won’t be the case for major-casualty, wide-area and multi-jurisdictional disasters. Static response plans based on formulaic scenarios can’t substitute for realistic, frequently-practiced drills across organizational, functional and geographical boundaries, with lots of “wild cards” thrown in. And that isn’t happening very often.

NIMS and the ICS have helped the nation prepare for disasters and attacks, and many states and major cities have established professional, if often understaffed, emergency management agencies. But there is further to go than most of us can or want to imagine. The bottom line is that disaster preparedness is a journey, not a destination at which we’ll ever arrive. If you think we’re there, think again.

Seattle Police Slayings May Reduce Pardons and Commutations

2009-12-03T18:27:00.005-04:00

We can only hope.

http://www.officer.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=49595

Wash. Police Slayings May Reduce Pardons and Commutations

Posted: Thursday, December 3, 2009

Updated: December 3rd, 2009 01:07 PM GMT-05:00

BY STEPHANIE CHEN
CNN.com

The ambush-style shootings of four police officers in Seattle allegedly by a suspect whose prison sentence had been commuted likely will affect the way states approach clemency, according to professors, criminologists and attorneys.

"For many governors, the quick response is, 'Huckabee is getting all this attention, so this is the last place I want to be'," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based research group that studies sentencing trends. "They are going to be much more reluctant."

In 2000, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted the nearly 100-year prison sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the shootings, according to documents from the Arkansas Department of Community Correction. Huckabee's action made Clemmons eligible for parole.

Clemmons was 17 when he went to prison on a host of charges, including bringing a gun to school and robbery. Huckabee cited Clemmons' young age at the time of his crimes as a reason for commuting his sentence. He has also said his decision was based on the parole board's recommendations.

Clemency, the ability to mitigate a sentence, is a power held by the executive branch. The practice provides presidents and governors a final check on the judicial system.

They can grant pardons, removing both punishment and guilt. Or they can commute sentences, reducing the time served but leaving the charges intact. Commutations are often granted to sick inmates or prisoners demonstrating good behavior.

After the 1980s, clemency became a target of the tough-on-crime movement, criminologists say. They say it resulted in a decline in pardons and commutations -- a contrast from earlier in the century when some governors were applauded for commuting hundreds of sentences during the Christmas holiday.

"Politically, it's just too risky today to use your discretion to reduce someone's punishment, especially in commutation," said Jefferson Holcomb, a professor of government studies at Appalachian State University.

According to criminologists, one of the most infamous cases that steered some governors and presidents away from issuing commutations involved Willie Horton, a Massachusetts inmate who raped a woman after being released in a weekend furlough program supported by then-Gov. Michael Dukakis. In 1988, the Republican Party used Horton in ads opposing Dukakis, who was then the Democratic presidential nominee. Political scientists believe the perception that Dukakis was lenient on crime helped undermine his election bid.

In some media outlets -- online and on television -- Clemmons has been dubbed "Huckabee's Willie Horton," raising questions on how the Seattle shootings will affect Huckabee if he decides to run for president in 2012.

The Horton incident also resulted in policy changes in the corrections industry. Herbert Hoelter, co-founder of National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, a group that helps file petitions for clemencies, says furlough programs became unpopular after the Horton incident, even though studies have shown they can be effective in helping prisoners re-integrate into society.

"Furloughs used to be popular, but trying to get a furlough now is like trying to avoid a root canal," Hoelter said. "It just doesn't happen."

As the prison population continues to grow, some advocacy organizations and experts argue appropriate clemencies can help manage overcrowding. But experts say the high-profile nature of the Seattle shootings will likely be a setback, just as the Horton case was a generation ago.

At the federal level, the Department of Justice's Office of Pardon Attorney shows a decline in federal clemencies. Experts say presidents and governors usually wait until the end of their terms to grant them because of potential controversy.

"The incentive is not to do it if you want a political future," said Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, assistant professor of political science at the University of North Texas. Victim advocacy groups often criticize lawmakers and push for harsher sentences when a parolee commits a crime or when a clemency goes awry. David Davis, executive director at the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children, says when sentences are shortened, some victims and communities fear the person will commit another offense.

"The Clemmons case underscores the importance of using risk assessment tools to inform release decisions at every point in the system from bail to clemency," said Margaret Love, a U.S. pardon attorney under George Bush and Bill Clinton.

But some say the focus should be on Clemmons' criminal history after his release instead of the commuted sentence that occurred nine years ago.

Still, Huckabee said in a statment on the conservative news Web site Newsmax.com:

"I take full responsibility for my actions of nine years ago. I acted on the facts presented to me in 2000. If I could have possibly known what Clemmons would do nine years later, I obviously would have made a different decision. But if the same file was presented to me today, I would have likely made the same decision."

A year after his sentence was commuted, Clemmons returned to prison after violating his parole. He was paroled again in 2004. Clemmons, 37, had a long rap sheet in Washington and Arkansas, according to authorities and documents. He was accused of child rape and assaulting a police officer in May and had been released on $150,000 bail five days before the shootings, according to court records.

A free man on Sunday, Clemmons walked into a coffee shop and shot the four officers, police say.

They were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Officer Ronald Owens, 37; Officer Tina Griswold, 40; and Officer Greg Richards, 42. All were parents.

Police said Clemmons slipped away from a home in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood Sunday night before police surrounded the residence for about 12 hours. He was missing from the home when investigators moved in Monday morning.

Authorities found Clemmons on Tuesday. Pierce County Sheriff's Department pokesman Ed Troyer said the suspect was carrying a weapon taken from one of the dead officers. Clemmons had suffered a bullet wound to his abdomen in Sunday's shooting, police said.

Clemmons challenged an officer and the officer shot him, police said.

"It's a shame given there are so many cases, which we never hear about because they are commuted and don't go on to commit crimes," said Natasha Frost, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University. "One bad case can change the way the whole system works."

Cocaine and pepper spray - a lethal mix?

2009-12-03T18:27:00.004-04:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427345.300-cocaine-and-pepper-spray--a-lethal-mix.html?full=true&print=true

Cocaine and pepper spray – a lethal mix?

13 November 2009 by Shanta Barley

DEATHS in US police custody during the early 1990s may have been the result of an interaction between capsaicin, the key ingredient in pepper sprays, and psychostimulant drugs, an experiment in mice suggests.

If the two have a fatal interaction in people then police forces might have to rethink their use of pepper spray as a non-lethal weapon, says John Mendelson of the Addiction and Pharmacology Research Laboratory at St Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, who led the mouse research.

In the early nineties, anecdotal reports emerged in the US of people dying after being sprayed by police. "They seemed to die very quickly," says Mendelson. At post-mortem, many of these people showed signs of having taken cocaine, so Mendelson wondered if capsaicin and cocaine could interact fatally in the body.

To investigate, his team injected cocaine, capsaicin or both at once into the abdomens of several groups of about 30 mice. Injections allowed them to control the dose of capsaicin the mice received, which wouldn't have been possible if the mice were simply sprayed, says Mendelson.

In one group of mice, cocaine was injected at a dose of 60 milligrams per kilogram of mouse weight, which killed just a few of them. But when the researchers injected a group with the same dose of cocaine plus capsaicin, the death toll was about half. "The presence of capsaicin in mice makes smaller amounts of cocaine more lethal," Mendelson says. When the team gave another group of mice capsaicin along with a higher dose of cocaine - enough to kill half of the mice on its own - the death toll rose to 90 per cent (Forensic Toxicology, DOI: 10.1007/s11419-009-0079-9). "We don't actually know how capsaicin reacts with cocaine to produce a lethal effect," admits Mendelson.

However, his team also reviewed 26 autopsy reports and Californian police reports between 1993 and 1995 of people who died shortly after being subdued with pepper spray. They noted that 19 of them had evidence of psychostimulants in their blood and nine had cocaine. Mendelson suspects that a fatal interaction takes place in the brain between capsaicin and psychostimulants.

Toxicologists are intrigued, but say further evidence is needed. "In real-life situations, humans inhale pepper spray, whereas these mice had the substance injected directly into their abdominal cavities," says Andy Smith of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK. Kathryn Cunningham of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Texas in Galveston says we don't know how much of the capsaicin that is sprayed in someone's face makes it into their bloodstream.

Peter Bibring, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, says the study adds weight to the ACLU's concern that pepper spray could be fatal. "Police departments need to make adjustments to minimise the chance it will be used on those under the influence of cocaine."

Norm Leong, a sergeant at the Sacramento Police Department in California says this could be a tough call: "It's impossible to know if someone is under the influence of cocaine, some other drug", has mental issues, or is just resisting arrest.

It Isn't Martial Arts

2009-12-03T18:27:00.003-04:00

http://www.officer.com/web/online/POSA/It-Isnt-Martial-Arts/30$49529

It Isn't Martial Arts

At Least What I Do Isn't

Posted: Monday, November 30, 2009

Updated: November 28th, 2009 02:36 PM GMT-05:00

RALPH MROZ
Courtesy of the Police Officers Safety Association

The martial arts. Hmmm. This term for what we do has always puzzled me, because neither word describes what I do.

Martial means relating to war. Thus martial arts are war arts. But almost nothing that is practiced in any martial arts school today relates much to modern warfare. What with distance weapons the mainstay of modern warfare (some really long distance - think ICBM), interpersonal combat in war is fairly rare. Most of the enemy is killed or defeated these days by air strikes, artillery, or other long-distance weapons. Indeed, even the term close quarter battle or even interpersonal warfare these days refers to men firing at each other with rifles at urban or dwelling type distances. And while yes, I do know that many of our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have had to fight - and kill - at belly-to-belly distances, with edged weapons and bare hands, these are pretty rare occasions in the big picture.

The simple fact is that hand-to-hand combat is a rarity in modern warfare. It is still taught - when it is taught at all - to soldiers mainly as a means of improving fighting spirit and morale. (Again yes, I know of the exceptions in the special operations communities, and again, these are exceptions to the general rule.) Ditto for the traditional martial arts weapons taught in a typical school: swords and sticks of various configurations. And has anyone seen a lance or a spear on a battlefield lately?

So whether you are practicing traditional martial arts or street-functional combatives, they are not really martial skills.

But is it art? Well, yes - it could be. Art is a term that has many meanings, but let's go with a pretty general one: art is something that reflects part of life back to us, with an instructive perspective. Note that art is not defined as something useful - indeed, some art scholars might argue that function and art are exclusive of each other. In any case, from a martial arts perspective, art is something that we do, in the words of Paul Vunak, "for self-perfection rather than self-protection." So if you are into the martial arts for discipline, an understanding of a culture or a tradition, to perfect your form, to reach some ideal or any other non-functional reason, you are practicing an art form. But if all you really care about is the self-protection part of the practice, you are developing a practical life skill, not practicing an art form.

Those of us in the latter category are thus involved in a practice that is neither martial nor art. To call it martial arts is to use a common term for something that it really does not describe. What I and those like me do has come to be called combatives recently, and as far as it goes, that's OK. It differentiates traditional martial arts from the street-realistic material that we concentrate on. But it, too, is a sort of vague and undefined term. Combat may be an accurate term for a street fight or the kind of fight that a police officer might get into in effecting an arrest, but it also conjures up the image of war, and to that extent it is misleading.

Where does all this leave us; what are we combatives practitioners to call what we do, if we want to be accurate?

How about plain old self-defense? That is, after all, what we generally want to accomplish with our skills.

Web Links:

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What Officers and Responders Need to Know about Suicide Bombers

2009-12-03T18:27:00.002-04:00

http://www.homeland1.com/print.asp?act=print&vid=603446

11/12/2009

What officers and responders need to know about suicide bombers

By Joel F. Shults, Ed.D.

Speaking at the IACP annual conference, Walter Purdy (former marine and current Vice President of the Terrorism Research Center) clicked through slides of photos he had taken while visiting the sites of some of the most horrific terrorist attacks in the Middle East. After providing a history of suicide terrorism dating back to ancient times, Purdy described various methods of recruitment and some of the technology employed in suicide bomb attacks. He also revealed the most potent prevention method against suicide bombers: catching the intelligence gatherers.

The bomb carriers often are carefully recruited by coercion, psychological manipulation, and appeals to disillusioned or disenfranchised young people. Those recruited or coerced into attacks are determined to die. They expect no escape and the reward of a rich afterlife.

Once an attack is underway there is no strategy for repelling the terrorists other than killing them. A consistent characteristic of these attacks is the intelligence gathering effort that precedes them. Each case study described by Purdy was a case of exploited vulnerabilities discovered by patient gathering of information by operatives.

While intrigue, sophistication, and technology may be used to plan many aspects of a suicide attack, planners rely significantly on eye witness intelligence gathering to formulate their plans. Police agencies have spent time training for responses to suicide bombers, school shooters, and active threats but there has been little emphasis on watching for precursors to these attacks; recruitment of bombers and surveillance of targets. Purdy described in detail case after case of how operatives had watched locations for days gathering intelligence such as delivery times, staffing levels, traffic patterns, and other routines to discover vulnerabilities. In successful attacks, no one had challenged suspicious behavior of persons standing hour after hour watching potential targets.

In one case a female operative had been approached by three separate police officers over a course of days asking her out while she was conducting surveillance on a restaurant later hit by a suicide bomber. The operative noticed that a security officer failed to search a musician’s guitar case upon entering the restaurant. Soon after, a bomber carried out an attack using an explosive in a guitar case he brought into the restaurant.

Noting the recent case in Colorado where a suspect was found to have made several trips to a beauty supply wholesale store purchasing unusual quantities of chemical used for bomb making, Purdy related that he was able to purchase multiple batteries, wire, and other bomb material at a New York City hardware store without raising suspicion, even though he was deliberately obvious about it. The message was clear: patrol officers and citizens reporting suspicious behavior are key to preventing the inevitable proliferation of suicide attacks on American soil.

Years ago a veteran officer heard me complaining about having to respond to a barking dog call. He explained that sometimes a barking dog means a prowler or burglar is near. I remembered his words a few years later after barks led me to a car break-in where I was able to arrest the perpetrator at the scene. Purdy is reminding us that terrorism can be defeated with some good old fashioned police skills that include checking out suspicious person complaints and keeping in touch with our citizens. The suspicious person call may be the barking dog that alerts us to a planned suicide bombing.

Joel Shults currently serves as Chief of Police for Adams State College in Alamosa, Co. Over his 30 year career in uniformed law enforcement and in criminal justice education Joel has served in a variety of roles: academy instructor, police chaplain, deputy coroner, investigator, community relations officer, college professor, and police chief, among others. Shults earned his doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Missouri, with a graduate degree in Public Services Administration and bachelors in Criminal Justice Administration from the University of Central Missouri. In addition to service with the US Army military police and CID, Shults has done observational studies with over fifty police agencies across the country. He currently serves on a number of advisory and advocacy boards including the Colorado POST curriculum committee as a subject matter expert.

BioDefense Safeguards the Nation's Mail Streams

2009-12-03T18:27:00.001-04:00

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/features/news-analysis/2970.html

BioDefense safeguards the nation’s mail streams

By Jacob Goodwin, Editor-in-Chief

Published November 18th, 2009

The device looked somewhat incongruous sitting in a meeting room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel – in fact, John Meyer, president of BioDefense Corp., described it as "a cross between a safe and a washing machine" – but the ungainly appliance could mean the difference between life and death if a terrorist tried to send you a piece of mail containing anthrax or another lethal bio-agent.

Dubbed the MailDefender, the device is intended to kill anthrax, small pox, ricin, avian flu and a host of other dangerous bio-agents by subjecting stacks of mail, placed inside its tumbling drum, to a combination of dry heat, short injections of moist heat and doses of ultraviolet irradiation, for a total cycle time of 80 minutes, followed by a 10-minute cool-down period.

Any organization that placed all of its incoming mail through such a decontamination protocol could be highly confident that any worrisome bio-agents would be totally neutralized, said BioDefense execs, at an informative symposium offered to about 100 corporate security directors, law enforcement officers and other security professionals in New York City on November 17.

Tom Daschle, who was sent an anthrax-laden envelope while he served in the Senate in 2001, may be gone from office. And Tom Brokaw, who was mailed an envelope containing anthrax in 2001, may have left his anchor’s chair at NBC News. But the threat of such a deadly bio-terrorist act -- more than eight years later -- continues to haunt government security officials and those responsible for the safety of large companies across the country.

Anthrax, small pox and ricin may be among the most obvious bio-agents that could wreak havoc on an organization’s mail stream, explained Dr. Gregg Mosely, the CEO of Biotest Laboratories, Inc., who addressed the group. But he also noted that the MailDefender could kill such hemorrhagic viruses as Ebola, Dengue, Lassa and Marburg, which he called “incredibly virulent.”

Unlike anthrax, which is “resistant to almost everything and can remain around essentially forever,” explained Mosely, these hemorrhagic viruses typically don’t last very long. However, he added, with a sobering note of caution, “if you encounter one, you’re probably dead within 18 hours.”

The MailDefender, which will kill all biological agents, is designed to make sure that such an attack doesn’t succeed, said Jonathan Morrone, BioDefense’s senior vice president for sales and marketing. He explained that typically about three pounds of mail are placed in the appliance’s metal basket and agitated repeatedly, while the envelopes are subjected to intense heat. Once the door is closed and the machine is started, it cannot be opened until the decontamination cycle has been completed.

“This is the only machine that is certified by UL,” said Morrone, referring to Underwriters Laboratories, the global product safety certification organization.

Currently, the MailDefender is designed to neutralize any bio-agents inside any of the envelopes placed in the basket, but the device does not contain any detection or alert system that would notify the operator that a bio-agent had, in fact, been discovered. BioDefense says it hopes to add such a detection and alerting feature in the near future.

According to the company, the MailDefender has already been sold to the U.S. Department of Justice (for use by a U.S. Attorney’s office in Virginia and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in Virginia), the Department of Defense, the Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC and the United Nations in New York City, where enough machines have been purchased to provide “executive protection for higher UN officials,” said Morrone.

But that’s only the beginning. The company is now targeting the 9,000 federal buildings that BioDefense believes should also be scrutinizing their mail streams. And the company is contemplating the possibility of opening a facility in northern England which could serve as a jumping-off point for its planned penetration of the European market.

Media accounts have put the cost of a MailDefender machine at $90,000, but specific prices were not discussed at the Waldorf-Astoria event.

The presentations were designed to describe not only the continuing threat of anthrax and other bio-agents -- and the role that the MailDefender can play in safeguarding an organization’s mail stream -- but also to point out the importance of advance planning by any organization for such an attack.

To drive that point home, BioDefense presented two of its newest advisors, Andrew Clancy and Gordon “Spike” Townsend, of the UK-based International Risk and Security (ISR) consultancy, who brought long experience in police and counter-terrorism work in the UK to the New York gathering. By walking the audience through a hypothetical anthrax attack in an office on the 15th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, Clancy and Townsend were able to underscore the importance of training personnel before a bio-agent incident actually takes place, the need to isolate the scene of the attack, the danger created if first responders rush to the scene or if nearby employees flee the area, the legal and human consequences of “holding captive” dozens of employees on that specific floor, and a host of related issues.

When pressed, Dr. Mosely acknowledged that no decontamination device could realistically claim to be 100 percent perfect, 100 percent of the time. A vast quantity of lethal bio-agents -- referred to as “the challenge” in the argot of bio-terrorism -- might enable a small quantity of bio-agents to survive even the most rigorous sterilization protocol.

“You can create a challenge that will overcome any process,” acknowledged Mosely. “There are no guarantees in life.”

9/11 Terrorist to Plead not Guilty: Attacks Justified

2009-12-03T18:27:00.000-04:00

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/23/terror.suspect/

Lawyer: 9/11 suspect to plead not guilty, argue attacks justified

From Dugald McConnell, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

· Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali to argue that the 9/11 attacks were justified, attorney says

· Ali is one of five suspects to be tried in civilian court in connection with the attacks

· 9/11 Commission Report: Ali helped hijackers with money transfers, guidance

Washington (CNN) -- At least one -- and possibly all five -- of the detainees with alleged ties to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, will plead not guilty in a "justification defense," arguing the attacks were responses to American foreign policy, according to a lawyer who met with one of the defendants.

Attorney Scott Fenstermaker said he met with defendant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility last week, and that when Ali and four other men face trial in New York, they likely will plead not guilty and then argue that the attacks were justified.

Fenstermaker, who is representing Ali in a procedural matter at Guantanamo, said he expects Ali will acknowledge a role in the 9/11 attacks, and believes Ali's goal in pleading not guilty would not necessarily be acquittal. The attorney said Monday that during his meeting with Ali at Guantanamo, "he said, 'Here's my goal,' and he wrote down the word 'death' on a piece of paper."

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is described in the 9/11 Commission Report as having helped the hijackers with money transfers, plane tickets, hotel reservations and guidance.

Fenstermaker said that although he is Ali's attorney in the Guantanamo proceeding, so far he has not been asked to represent Ali at trial in New York. He said he cannot speak on behalf of the other four suspects, but he understands they have agreed to coordinate their strategies.

No charges have been filed yet, but Attorney General Eric Holder said this month he intends to try the five suspects in New York. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ali's uncle, who has boasted to investigators that he masterminded the attacks of 9/11.

A decision by the suspects to plead not guilty opens the possibility of acquittal, although CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said of Mohammed, "I think the chances of him being acquitted are approximately .001 percent."

Holder has pledged that, even if acquitted, none of the five defendants would be released in the United States.

But many Republican lawmakers say holding the trials in normal public courts is an unnecessary risk, because it gives the suspects rights they would not have had if they were tried in military tribunals. And although cameras are not allowed in federal courts, the trials could also give the defendants a soapbox to incite others.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week told Holder he was concerned that holding the trial in open court "will provide Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the position to be a martyr and a hero among al Qaeda sympathizers around the world."

And after Holder finished testifying before the committee, Alice Hoagland, the mother of a passenger killed on one of the planes hijacked on 9/11, told him, "I am afraid that the theatrics are going to take over."

Toobin said that during the trial, "a judge would have to restrict the defendants to using, and speaking about, relevant evidence as to guilt or innocence."

"Their views of geopolitics," he said, "are not related."

But during the penalty phase, the defendants could be given more leeway.

"There's always a time during the penalty phase where the defendant is basically allowed to say whatever he or she wants to," said Patrick Rowan, a former top prosecutor in the National Security Division. "I suspect the judge here will be quick to cut them off if they go too far afield, but some of that will definitely happen."

Still, even if a defendant like Mohammed has a chance to speak in court, Holder said, the world "will see him for the coward that he is."

"I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to be afraid, either," Holder said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/23/terror.suspect

al-Qaeda Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims

2009-12-03T14:42:00.001-04:00

Irrelevant. If they are true-believers, and die in a martyrdom operation, they are guaranteed entry into Paradise…thus have nothing to complain about.

If they are not true-believers, they are bad Muslims or apostates and their deaths don’t matter.

12/03/2009 04:09 PM

Surprising Study On Terrorism

Al-Qaida Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims

By Yassin Musharbash

Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists.

In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question.

A leading al-Qaida ideologue for the terror network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has developed his own theologically-based theory of collateral damage that allows militants to kill Muslims when it is unavoidable.

Even the Iraqi affiliates of Osama bin Laden's terror group, who are known to be particularly bloodthirsty, claim that they too consider this question. For instance, in a message claiming responsibility for an August attack in Baghdad, the group wished those Sunnis injured in the "operation" a speedy recovery and expressed their hope that those killed would be accepted by God as "martyrs."

But even as such apologetic communiqués from al-Qaida show the terror network stylizing itself as a defender of the true faith wrestling with religious concepts, they also make it look as though any dead Muslims are regretful but isolated cases. The facts, though, tell a different story.

Between 2004 and 2008, for example, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West -- in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 -- only 12 percent of those killed (371 deaths) were Westerners.

New Report Shows Many More Muslims Killed Than Non-Muslims

It is, of course, no surprise that al-Qaida kills more Muslims than non-Muslims -- particularly for people in the Islamic world. But a new report by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States' Military Academy at West Point in New York -- which has gathered together these and other relevant figures in one report ("Deadly Vanguards: A Study Of al-Qaida's Violence Against Muslims "), spells out the discrepancy in black and white.

The authors of the study admit that their report likely omits a number of Muslim victims. But that was the price of their rigorous methodology, used in an effort to avoid accusations of partisanship.

The researchers only counted the attacks for which al-Qaida claimed responsibility, thus preventing accusations that they were seeking to make al-Qaida look even worse than it is. Still, it is well known that al-Qaida does not claim responsibility for every attack perpetrated, meaning that many victims are likely left out of the report. Furthermore, the researchers only included attacks reported on by the Arab media and relied on the numbers they reported -- out of a conviction that the Arab media is more highly regarded in the Muslim world than the Western media. That, though, is not always the case.

Blurred Figures And Inexact Categories Are Problematic

The greatest potential for inaccuracy in the report, however, is the placing of victims into only one of two categories: Western or non-Western. The assumption being that Western would also mean non-Muslim and vice versa. The problems with such a system of categorization are myriad. Not all those living in the Muslim world are Muslim: In Iraq, al-Qaida has launched attacks against Kurds, Yazidi and Christians. Secondly, a lot of the Muslim victims are actually -- and deliberately -- Shiites. A Sunni group, al-Qaida considers the Shiites to be unbelievers.

Unfortunately news reports don't tend to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, explains Scott Helfstein, one of the writers of the report. This is also the reason for the non-Western and Western categories. "It is easy for journalists to count nationality but they rarely, if ever, identify religion," Helfstein writes in reply to e-mailed questions from SPIEGEL ONLINE. The report's writers were well aware of the problem. "But we were not able to find a way around it," Helfstein notes.

Indeed, the report's authors confront the shortcomings of their methodology head on. In one passage, they remove attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan from their calculations altogether, resulting in the share of Westerners killed in al-Qaida attacks rising to a much more significant 39 percent. If one removes the Madrid and London attacks from the statistics, though, the share of murdered Westerners drops back down to 13 percent.

Perhaps more significantly, if one only examines attacks in 2007 and disregards those having been perpetrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the share of non-Westerners killed by al-Qaida rises to 99 percent. In 2008, it was 96 percent.

Non-Westerners 38 Times More Likely To Be Killed

Put another way, between 2006 and 2008, non-Westerners were 38 times more likely to be killed by an al-Qaida attack than Westerners.

"Since al-Qaida has limited capability to strike against its Western enemies, the group maintains its relevance by attacking countries with Muslim majorities," the study concludes.

The conclusions reached by Helfstein and his co-authors are hardly world changing. They are valuable nonetheless, in that they provide a numerical foundation to the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim al-Qaida victims.

Still, critics will no doubt point out that the study comes from the CTC, an organization that is part of an American military school. In recent years, the CTC has released a number of excellent studies on terrorism. But because it is actually supplying arguments, backed by scientific research, for the fight against terrorism to decision makers, politicians and military personnel in the US, it cannot be considered strictly neutral. That also applies to this case, especially since a number of American officials have recently begun stressing the point that al-Qaida is particularly violent toward Muslims and can now rely on solid data to back up their argument.

This perceived lack of neutrality doesn't change the fact that the fundamental findings of the report are correct and meaningful. The authors conclude that if they compare statistics for the years from 1995 to 2003 (excluding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US as a solitary event), they find that al-Qaida is becoming more violent and "increasingly indiscriminate" in its attacks.

Just how big a problem this discrepancy between Muslim and non-Muslim victims will become for al-Qaida remains to be seen. Even prior to the report's release, however, it had become a subject of intense debate within the Jihadist seen -- with more and more ideologues coming to the conclusion that al-Qaida's fight on behalf of the downtrodden Muslims isn't worth it.

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660619,00.html

Something is wrong here

2009-12-03T14:30:00.001-04:00

Let me see if I can understand all this...

IF YOU CROSS THE "NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOUR.IF YOU CROSS THE"IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU WILL BE TORTURED AND DETAINED INDEFINITELY.IF YOU CROSS THE "AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU GET SHOT.

IF YOU CROSS THE "SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU WILL BE JAILED.

IF YOU CROSS THE "CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.

IF YOU CROSS THE "VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.

IF YOU CROSS THE "CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO A POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT.IF YOU CROSS THE"US BORDER ILLEGALLY" YOU SIMPLY GET THROWN OUT.

IF YOU CROSS THE "UNITED KINGDOM" BORDER ILLEGALLY.

YOU GET A JOB,

A DRIVERS LICENSE,

PENSION CARD,

WELFARE,

CREDIT CARDS,

SUBSIDISED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE,

FREE EDUCATION AND FREE HEALTH CARE.Do you understand this?

The French cannot understand why we are so "Stupid" about "Immigration"

they call the UK "Le Cul de Sac" !!!

So, was this a language misunderstanding or terrorist dry run?

2009-12-03T11:43:00.000-04:00

No language misunderstanding.

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/12/so-was-this-a-language-misunde.html

So, was this a language misunderstanding or terrorist dry run?

10:13 AM Wed, Dec 02, 2009
Terry Maxon/Reporter

A reader called me, then sent me an email Wednesday morning about an incident that occurred Nov. 17 on an AirTran Airways flight.

According to an Atlanta Journal Constitution story, the flight was delayed two and a half hours after a confrontation between some passengers and the flight crew.

The AJC story quoted a passenger sitting toward the back of the airplane who recounted what she saw. That passenger thought it was just a problem with miscommunication.

But there's an email circulating, apparently going viral, from a Texan on the flight, who describes what appeared to him to be a practice run by a bunch of 11 terrorists:

* A guy in the front section talking by phone to a guy in the back, and both refusing to shut off their phones.

* Two in the back watching a porno on a camcorder.

* All 11 got up together to walk in the aisle.

According to the story and/or the emailer, Transportation Security Administration officials and police officers boarded the airplane. A group of 13 people were taken off. After a time, 11 reboarded the airplane, and the newspaper said . Then the pilots and flight attendants walked off the airplane and were replaced with a new crew. Some passengers, including the emailer, decided to take a later flight.

Very curious.

We've had a number of other instances when alarmed passengers witnessed what they thought were terrorist dry runs, followed by airline apologies and accusations of religious or ethnic insensitivity.

Read the AJC by clicking on that link in the first paragraph, then read the email below.

One week ago, I went to Ohio on business and to see my father. On Tuesday, November 17, I returned home. If you read the papers, you may have seen a blurb where an AirTran flight was cancelled from Atlanta to Houston due to a man who refused to get off of his cell phone before takeoff. It was on Fox.

That was NOT what happened!

I was in first class coming home. Eleven muslim men got on the plane in full attire. Two sat in first class and the rest peppered themselves throughout the plane all the way to the back. As the plane taxied to the runway, the stewardesses gave the safety spiel we are all so familiar with. At that time, one of the men got on his cell and called one of his companions in the back and proceeded to talk on the phone in Arabic very loudly and very aggressively. This took the first stewardess out of the picture for she repeatedly told the man that cell phones were not permitted at the time. He ignored her as if she wasn't there.

The second man who answered the phone did the same and this took out the second stewardess. In the back of the plane at this time, 2 younger muslims, one in the back aisle, and one in front of him, window, began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it. Now, they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad. If a Muslim man goes into a strip club, he has to view the woman via mirror with his back to her (don't ask me, I don't make the rules, but I've studied). The third stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said, "Shut up, infidel dog!" She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic.

At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk to the cabin. This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say, "I got your back." I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said, "you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!" As I led him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him. I then grabbed the second man and said, "You WILL do the same!" He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go. As I escorted him forward, the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered. Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control. I was happy to oblige actually. There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane. They then unloaded their luggage.

We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happened, when suddenly, the door opened again and on walked all eleven!! Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it). The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it! Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal. She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men. The agent told her they had searched them and were going to go through their luggage with a fine tooth comb and that they were allowed to proceed to Houston. The captain and co-captain came out and told the agent, "we and our crew will not fly this plane!" After a word or two, the entire crew, luggage in tow, left the plane. Five minutes later, the cabin door opened again and a whole new crew walked on.

Again, this is where I had had enough!! I got up and asked, "What the hell is going on?" I was told to take my seat. They were sorry for the delay and I would be home shortly. I said, "I'm getting off this plane." The stewardess sternly told me that she could not allow me to get off.

Now I'm mad! I said, "I am a grown man who bought this ticket, who's time is mine with a family at home and I am going through that door, or I'm going through that door with you under my arm!! But I am going through that door!!" And I heard a voice behind me say, "So am I." Then everyone behind us started to get up and say the same. Within 2 minutes, I was walking off that plane where I was met with more agents who asked me to write a statement. I had 5 hours to kill at this point so why the hell not. Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was cancelled. I was supposed to be in Houston at 6pm. I got here at 12:30am.

Look up the date. Flight 297, Atlanta to Houston.

If this wasn't a dry run, I don't know what one is. They wanted to see how TSA would handle it, how the crew would handle it, and how the passengers would handle it.
I'm telling this to you because I want you to know. The threat is real. I saw it with my own eyes.

Patience with Iran Wearing Thin

2009-12-03T11:10:00.001-04:00

12/02/2009 08:24 AM

'It's 1938, and Iran Is Germany'

Israel's Patience with Tehran Wearing Thin

By Dieter Bednarz, Erich Follath and Christoph Schult

Iran's leaders continue to reject compromises over their nuclear program and are rebuffing the IAEA. The West is likely to respond with tighter sanctions, but that is unlikely to satisfy Israel, which has attack plans already drawn up.

Six men are sitting around a table, deciding the future of the world. The men, who represent the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Iran, are considering questions such as: Is Tehran really building a nuclear bomb? Do sanctions work, and if they do, how should they be intensified? Will bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities end up being the only real solution, and what would be the consequences?

The men are not politicians, but scientists and diplomats involved in a role-playing scenario. They are all Israeli citizens. That doesn't make the experiment, which took place two weeks ago at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, any less spectacular. The participants in this role-playing exercise, all of whom were very familiar with the issues involved, were capable of taking a completely different approach to what-if scenarios than politicians, because they cannot be held responsible for anything -- good or bad -- that results from their decisions.

The outcome of the experiment was supposed to be kept secret, but this much was leaked: The participant playing the United States emphasized negotiations and shunned confrontation for a long time, while "Iran" was convinced that it had excellent cards and viewed the risk of truly hard-hitting sanctions as slim. "Israel" initially pushed for international isolation and crippling economic sanctions by the United Nations, but then -- as a last resort -- threatened to attack.

Plans at the Ready

The results probably pleased Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, because they reflected the way he thinks. Although the premier is not yet prepared to deploy Israeli fighter jets to conduct targeted air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the military has plans at the ready.

Netanyahu has said often enough that he will never accept an Iranian nuclear bomb. He doesn't believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he insists that Iran's nuclear program is intended solely for civilian purposes. But he does take Ahmadinejad -- a notorious Holocaust denier -- at his word when he repeatedly threatens to wipe out Israel. Netanyahu draws parallels between Europe's appeasement of Hitler and the current situation. "It's 1938, and Iran is Germany," he says. This time, however, says Netanyahu, the Jews will not allow themselves to be the "sacrificial lamb."

But even politicians who normally take a less extreme view, like Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, Israel's minister of intelligence and atomic energy, are now realizing that the situation is coming to a head. A narrow majority of the Israeli population currently favors bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities, while 11 percent would consider leaving Israel if Tehran acquires nuclear weapons.

Meridor says that his counterparts in the US government are reporting a sharp increase in the level of concern among Iran's moderate Arab neighbors. "Ninety percent of the conversations between the United States and countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia now revolve around Iran, while 10 percent relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he says.

Decisive Stage

This concern is not limited to the region. In Washington and in the European Union -- and, more recently, in Moscow --, the focus has shifted dramatically toward Iran. After years of maneuvering and deception, and after a long period of missed opportunities, including on the part of the West, the conflict is moving toward a decisive stage.

In a SPIEGEL interview in mid-November, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that she had no intention of taking the military option "off the table." Her German counterpart, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, attended a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry last Tuesday, where he was briefed on the latest Israeli intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program. The next day in Vienna, while standing next to Nobel Peace Prize winner and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, who is leaving office this week after heading the UN nuclear watchdog agency for 12 years, Westerwelle said that the international community's "patience with Iran" is "not infinite."

Tehran played a cat-and-mouse game with the IAEA for a long time. However, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has both privileges -- such as technical assistance in the civilian use of nuclear energy -- and clearly defined obligations. The regime has repeatedly failed to live up to these obligations, despite many efforts to build bridges, particularly on the part of ElBaradei. This incurred the wrath of the administration of former US President George W. Bush, who even had ElBaradei's telephone conversations tapped.

In its most recent internal report, dated Nov. 16, 2009 and marked "for official use only," the IAEA has adopted an unusually sharp tone. According to the report, the Fordo uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom in northwestern Iran, which the UN inspectors only discovered in September, was "clearly reportable," because it had apparently been under construction for much longer than the Iranians had indicated. A possible military nuclear program, which the Iranian leadership has consistently denied, raises "alarming" questions, according to the report, while Tehran continues to refuse to permit unannounced inspections. In summary, the report states: "Iran has not fulfilled its obligations. Its behavior is not conducive to the establishment of trust."

Just a Year Away from the Bomb?

Behind the scenes in Vienna, there are grave concerns over news that Iran could be well on its way to developing a Shahab-3 midrange missile that could be upgraded to carry nuclear weapons and could reach Tel Aviv. Iranian scientists are believed to have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Detonation is one of the most technologically challenging problems in the construction of this type of nuclear weapon. Experts believe that it could take Iran as little as a year to acquire the expertise and a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium to build a real nuclear warhead.

Intelligence reports about a restructuring in the Iranian Defense Ministry are no less alarming. According to those reports, a "Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications" (FEDAT) is now under great pressure from the government in Tehran to push ahead with a military nuclear program. According to an organizational chart of FEDAT that SPIEGEL has obtained, the department is divided into sub-departments for uranium mining, enrichment, metallurgy, neutrons, highly explosive material and fuel supply ("Project 111"). FEDAT is headed by the mysterious Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, one of the key officials the IAEA wants to interview, although Mahabadi has so far refused to talk to the agency.

Repeated Overtures

US President Barack Obama has made many overtures to Iran. He has admitted to historical mistakes, such as the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled liberal Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. In a video message to the Iranian people coinciding with the festival of Nowruz, which marks the beginning of the Iranian new year, Obama spoke of the great civilizing achievements of the Persian nation. He abandoned Washington's demand that Tehran give up uranium enrichment altogether, which had been a precondition to negotiations under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

And he proposed, together with other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, a barter deal that would allow all parties to save face: Iran was to ship a large share of its low-enriched uranium abroad for one year, to Russia or Turkey, and in return would receive nuclear fuel elements processed by France.

The benefit for Tehran was that it would receive, for its research reactor, urgently needed radionuclides that are used in cancer therapy. The benefit for the international community was that it could be sure that the Iranians, during the period covered by the deal, would have no opportunity to pursue their own extensive enrichment activities needed to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make bombs.

The Iranians seemed interested at first, but then they began setting conditions. In the end, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rejected the offer, stating that Tehran would definitely not send fissile material abroad.

Clinging to Last Hopes

In an almost desperate appeal, ElBaradei then addressed the Iranian leadership directly, saying: "You need to engage in creative diplomacy, you need to understand that this is the first time that you will have a genuine commitment from an American president to engage you fully, on the basis of respect, with no conditions." In his last few days in office, the IAEA chief is clinging to the hope that a final response is still forthcoming.

But Iran currently favors threatening gestures over compromises of any sort. The Iranians were so enraged over a resolution Germany presented to the IAEA board of governors last Thursday, which was supported by Washington, Moscow and Beijing, that they threatened to limit their cooperation with the UN. The resolution, which was accepted the next day by a large majority, is essentially nothing but a demand for assurances from Tehran not to maintain any further undeclared nuclear facilities. In one of the biggest military maneuvers in recent years, the Iranian leadership spent five days parading all of its available military equipment, almost as if it were preparing for the worst.

But the display of Iran's tanks and fighter jets was not only intended to intimidate the "Zionist aggressor" and its allies. The mullahs also used the maneuver to demonstrate their resolve and capacity to take action on the domestic front, where the regime has been at odds with its detractors for the last six months. Since Iran's presidential election in June, when the uncompromising Ahmadinejad deprived his reform-oriented challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi of victory through apparent election fraud, the opposition has been unrelenting.

Paying the Price

The regime takes the nightly protest chants of "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") and "Marg bar Dictator" ("Death to the dictator") very seriously. In the months of the revolution, in 1978 and 1979, millions of Iranians used the same slogans in protest against then Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his brutal Savak intelligence service.

Dozens of supporters of the "Green Movement" have already paid for their protests with their lives, and at least 4,000 regime critics have been arrested. Although many were released after a few days, reports of torture and rape only increased the population's loathing of the regime. The elderly Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who challenged the regime's legitimacy and issued a fatwa declaring nuclear bombs to be "un-Islamic," is under de facto house arrest once again.

'The Enemy Is Everywhere'

The leadership has increased the pressure once again in recent weeks. It strengthened the feared Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran, considered the regime's most loyal supporters, by adding two units to "combat the psychological operations of the enemy." Another new unit was established to monitor opposition Internet sites and combat "insults and the spreading of lies." These units are under the command of the Tehran public prosecutor's office, notorious for its show trials. The country is in a "soft war," said Pasdaran General Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, "and the enemy is everywhere." One of the targets of the latest government crackdown was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose prize was confiscated by authorities.

Popular rage is not directed only at the "vote thief" in the presidential office. Many believe that Ahmadinejad is merely a puppet of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was previously virtually untouchable. He is the strong man, he appoints the highest-ranking judges, and he is in charge of the intelligence services, the armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards and the hated Basij militias. He determines the basic features of government policy and decides on Iran's course in the nuclear conflict.

Willing to Compromise?

But to what extent is this leadership now capable of taking action? Will it accommodate the global community in the nuclear conflict, or does the regime see confrontation with the West as its opportunity to survive?

According to conservative sources in Tehran, President Ahmadinejad was recently quite willing to make a compromise. He apparently hoped that he could spruce up his reputation, heavily tarnished as a result of the election disaster, at least internationally. This, say the Tehran sources, explains why Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili signaled a willingness to make concessions at the historic nuclear summit in Geneva in early October, a meeting at which an Iranian official came face-to-face with a senior representative of the "Great Satan" for the first time since the Iranian revolution. But in Khamenei's eyes, the deal -- uranium outsourcing in return for fuel delivery -- was a non-starter. Ironically, opposition politician Mousavi agrees with him.

A key reason for the Iranian politicians' self-confidence is that they do not believe that Israel would truly risk an attack on Iran. US experts also warn against the bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities. David Albright, head of the Washington think tank ISIS, believes that a "surgical strike" against the nuclear facilities would be completely impossible. According to Albright, no one knows how many nuclear sites Iran has, and the centrifuges in existing facilities like Natanz are apparently installed in tunnels so deep underground that even bunker-busting bombs could not destroy everything.

The Israelis, on the other hand, believe that Iran is merely playing for time. The Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, has long had its capacities directed at Iran, and not just since Netanyahu came into office. Israeli envoys quietly visit European companies that export products to Tehran. When agitated German executives insist that their products are intended purely for civilian purposes, the Israelis produce photos showing the European components installed in one of Iran's nuclear plants.

Chances of Success

"The West approves UN sanctions by day and trades with Tehran by night, and Ahmadinejad takes advantage of this ambivalence," Israeli Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told SPIEGEL. Ben-Eliezer, a retired general, believes optimistically that Iran can be stopped, but that this would require a total embargo: "Nothing can be allowed in or out."

With the Iranian economy weakened, the regime under internal pressure after the disputed elections and the Russians distancing themselves from Iran, the chances that sanctions will succeed have never been this good, say some diplomats in Tehran.

"The regime in Iran is not irrational," says Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor. According to Meridor, only if possessing the bomb jeopardizes the regime's survival, will Ahmadinejad decide against building the weapon.

Others, however, believe that the timetable of escalation is already as good as fixed, and that the conflict is coming to a head. They believe that tighter sanctions will start in the spring of 2010, followed by air strikes perhaps in the summer of 2010.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Iranian government has already issued precautionary threats: "If the enemy want (sic) to test its bad luck and fire a missile into Iran, before the dust settles, Iran's ballistic missiles will target the heart of Tel Aviv."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,664329,00.html

Obama's Hedged Bet on Afghanistan

2009-12-03T11:07:00.004-04:00

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/02/obama%e2%80%99s-hedged-bet-on-afghanistan-by-jacob-laksin/

Obama’s Hedged Bet on Afghanistan – by Jacob Laksin

Posted By Jacob Laksin On December 2, 2009 @ 1:18 am In FrontPage | 11 Comments

President Obama is committed to victory in Afghanistan – at least for 18 months. That seemed to be the upshot of the president’s announcement yesterday that he would order an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, a bold decision he hedged with the political caveat that they would be withdrawn in time for the 2012 election.

The president’s new strategy ^[1], unveiled before an audience of military cadets in West Point after months of deliberation, certainly has its virtues. While the new deployment falls short of the 40,000 troops originally requested by General Stanley McChrystal, it represents an important escalation in American forces – an essential element in McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy to secure the Afghan outlands, marginalize the resurgent Taliban, and allow the central government in Kabul to assert a measure of control over the turbulent country.

Just as significant, President Obama showed that he grasps Afghanistan’s importance to American national security. Reminding a watching world that the United States had been forced to invade Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, Obama stressed that the U.S. mission would be to prevent the country from relapsing into the “epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda” that incubated the plot to mass murder nearly 3,000 Americans. “We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country,” Obama said. And while Obama did not use the word victory in his remarks, he underscored that he intended to bring the war to a “successful conclusion.” It was the president’s strongest expression to date that he considers success in Afghanistan vital to the national interest.

Obama painted a realistic picture of what success would mean. The primary goal of the new strategy will be denying safe havens to al-Qaeda elements on Afghanistan’s border and reversing the recent momentum of the Taliban. To that end, the president outlined a three-part campaign that would include a military surge to secure population centers, as proposed by General McChrystal; an effort to fight corruption in the central government and among provincial administrators; and an increase in support for Pakistan as it continues its offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan. While one might have wished for more specifics on some of these points, the overall objective is both reasonable and achievable.

The trouble with Obama’s strategy is that it hinges on the success of a troop surge bounded by a timeline designed to serve political rather than strategic aims. It is one thing to suggest that the United States cannot maintain an “open-ended” commitment in Afghanistan. It is far less sensible to set a specific date for the drawdown of American troops – timed to precede the U.S. presidential election – before the surge has been given a change to work. Not only does the timeline present the Taliban with the option of waiting out the U.S. military, but it vitiates the president’s message that his administration is fully committed to the success of the Afghan war effort.

In other respects, though, the president’s new strategy is politically brave. It represents a sharp rebuff to the Democratic Party and its antiwar base, which has made no secret of its opposition to a troop surge. Obama did not shy away from that schism in his remarks, challenging the Left on its claim that Afghanistan has become a Vietnam-like quagmire. Obama asserted that this was a “false reading of history”: Among other differences, the United States is not facing a broad popular insurgency but a backlash from Taliban extremists that most Afghans do not wish to see return to power.

Obama also derided the “efforts against al-Qaeda from a distance” approach supported by many Democrats, including Vice President Joe Biden. The argument that withdrawing troops in favor of a limited aerial campaign against terrorist targets has gained a following among war critics, but Obama insisted that this approach would have the effect of ceding ground to the jihadists and thus “would create unacceptable risks of additional attacks on US and allies.” As for those who opposed expanding troop levels, the president noted that keeping levels the same would prove more costly in the long-term, since it would make it difficult secure the country and to stand up Afghan security forces.

That this repudiation has been seen as exactly that by the Left is well illustrated by groups like Code Pink ^[2], which has already launched a campaign ^[3] against the president and his “hopeless escalation.” Incessant attacks from the antiwar Left are probably not what Obama had in mind when he lamented the poisonous partisanship that has “left our unity on national security issues in tatters,” but his willingness to confront the left-wing critics head on was at least a rhetorical breakthrough for an administration that has tried to blame just about every political hardship on its predecessor.

Obama also deserves credit for supporting a strategy that goes against not only the wishes of his party and the Left but also, increasingly, of the country at large. Polls show that nearly half of Americans now oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, and the president in particular is faulted for his war leadership, with just 35 percent approving of Obama’s handling of the war effort in Afghanistan, according to the latest Gallup poll ^[4]. For the president to risk his political capital on an unpopular but critical campaign is a commendable gamble, even if the arbitrary pre-election timeline smacks of political calculation.

If the stakes in Afghanistan are immense, the scope of the challenge is no less so. As the president himself acknowledged, corruption, an underdeveloped economy, a thriving drug trade, the power of the Taliban and the weakness of the internal security forces make pacifying Afghanistan a singularly difficult task. And yet General McChyrstal, backed by General Petraeus, believes that the United States can still prevail if given the resources to do so. At long last, President Obama has given the generals a chance to prove they are right.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/02/obama%e2%80%99s-hedged-bet-on-afghanistan-by-jacob-laksin/

URLs in this post:

[1] new strategy: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/obama.afghanistan.speech.transcript/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=Rapichat.com&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+(RSS%3A+Most+Recent)

[2] Code Pink: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6149

[3] campaign: http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=5190

[4] Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/124520/Obama-Approval-Afghanistan-Trails-Issues.aspx

[5] Image: http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffrontpagemag.com%2F2009%2F12%2F02%2Fobama%25e2%2580%2599s-hedged-bet-on-afghanistan-by-jacob-laksin%2F&linkname=Obama%E2%80%99s%20Hedged%20Bet%20on%20Afghanistan%20%26%238211%3B%20by%20Jacob%20Laksin

Afghanistan Timetable Raises Questions

2009-12-03T11:07:00.003-04:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-congress-afghan3-2009dec03,0,5988071.story

latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-congress-afghan3-2009dec03,0,5988071.story

latimes.com

Afghanistan timetable raises questions

President Obama's plan to expand, then shrink, the U.S. forces fighting the Taliban has critics and supporters at home and in Europe asking for clarification.

By Paul Richter and Julian E. Barnes

December 3, 2009

President Obama's timetable for rapidly expanding and then shrinking U.S. force levels in Afghanistan, a central feature of his new war strategy, raised questions from critics and supporters alike Wednesday, and left top administration officials struggling to explain the plan.

The war plan presented by the president Tuesday night, which fixes the beginning of troop reductions in July 2011 but does not set an end, was the subject of widespread confusion as lawmakers, diplomats and others debated whether it meant that American forces were headed for a hasty exit or a protracted military engagement.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was sent by Obama to Brussels to explain the policy to European officials. When he arrived Wednesday, he was asked whether the new policy meant that the U.S. military was on the way out.

"Europeans sought clarification on this key point because of confusion over some initial press reports," said Holbrooke, who explained that the drawdown would be based on conditions in Afghanistan, a point Obama made during his speech.

The first American reviews of the plan showed how a policy carefully designed to appeal to differing points of view nonetheless found doubters in virtually all camps.

In Washington, Republicans said it was contradictory to add 30,000 U.S. troops by mid-2010 and begin withdrawing them a year later.

"That gives the wrong impression to our friends; it's the wrong impression to give our enemies," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Democrats worried that Obama's emphasis on a "conditions-based" withdrawal set up the possibility of an enduring involvement.

"I need to be convinced that . . . we are not making an open-ended commitment and that there is a sensible way to pay for the war," said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).

Obama outlined the timetable for his Afghanistan troop buildup during an address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Whipsawed by political pressures, Obama has been eager to show war-weary Americans that he intends to end the eight-year mission, while signaling allies and the enemy that he intends to remain long enough to achieve U.S. goals.

"You can call it contradiction. You can call it challenge," Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a televised interview. "The United States, according to the president, has vital national interests there and the United States is going to add 30,000 troops. But in 18 months we're going to start taking those troops out."

Obama and other administration officials have chosen their words carefully in arguing that their approach will help pressure Afghan President Hamid Karzai to build up his security forces and improve the government, winning the support of ordinary Afghans away from Taliban-led insurgents.

Administration officials have also struggled to explain the policy. David Axelrod, a senior White House advisor, said Tuesday: "I'm not putting . . . an end, you know, a timetable. But . . . the president made clear, this is an action that has an end to it."

Gates, under questioning by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, at Wednesday's hearing, explained that the troop drawdown would begin in July 2011, no matter the situation in Afghanistan.

When pressed by McCain, however, Gates portrayed the July 2011 date as less definite, asserting that the president may change his plans as needed.

"The president has indicated that we will have a thorough review of how we're doing in December of 2010, and I think we will be in a position then to evaluate whether or not we can begin that transition in July," Gates said.

Later, Gates conceded that it is possible for Obama to alter the July 2011 date for beginning withdrawals, if conditions require.

"I think the president, as commander in chief, always has the option to adjust his decisions," Gates told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The complicated message was interpreted in different ways by different audiences. For instance, Clinton testified that though the decision to withdraw was not irrevocable, the administration had no interest in occupying the country.

In a broadcast interview later, Graham focused on the first part of her answer: "Secretary of State Clinton said we're not locked into withdrawing, which is music to my ears and I think will be bad news for the enemy. I hope that's the final answer."

Administration officials say -- and some outside analysts agree -- that they will know by mid-2011 whether the "extended surge" strategy has begun to reverse the Taliban's gains. But critics have argued against waging war by a time clock because it enables the insurgents to simply wait out the foreign troops' departure.

The plan may have political advantages, allowing Obama to approach the start of his expected 2012 reelection campaign by arguing that the military mission in Afghanistan is on the downslope, even though few troops will have returned home by then.

M. Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, praised the plan for its signs of commitment, saying the administration will not withdraw troops if they are needed in the fight.

Haidari said he does not expect the United States to "prematurely disengage from Afghanistan . . . that would be a recipe for disaster."

Obama is seeking wider international support for the stepped-up mission that he called in his speech "a test of the common security of the world."

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday that allies in the war effort "will send at least 5,000 more soldiers and probably more" to Afghanistan next year.

"This is not a U.S. mission alone. America's allies in NATO have shared the risks, costs and burdens of this mission from the beginning," said Rasmussen, who welcomed Obama's announcement of a troop increase as "proof of his resolve."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the Obama speech courageous, but said a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan required further review.

In Germany, officials said they were prepared to conduct more police training in Afghanistan, but would not determine whether to send more troops until a strategy review early next year.

In the United States, several members of Congress expressed particular concern at the possibility that the Obama plan would result in greater militancy in the region.

"We cannot support your decision to prolong and expand a risky and unsustainable strategy in the region," wrote Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and two House members in a letter to Obama. "There is a serious danger that the ongoing, large-scale U.S. military presence will continue to provoke greater militancy in the region and further destabilize both Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan."

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy

2009-12-03T11:07:00.002-04:00

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001?printable=true

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy

Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.

By Adam Ciralsky

January 2010

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm (recently renamed Xe), at the company’s Virginia offices. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

Iput myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.” Prince—the founder of Blackwater, the world’s most notorious private military contractor—is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.

Erik Prince has an image problem—the kind that’s impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover. The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navy seal, he has had the distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq—though Blackwater’s own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The New York Times reported in a page-one story that Prince’s firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy, had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls “lies … undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous.” (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)

In Hollywood, meanwhile, a town that loves nothing so much as a good villain, Prince, with his blond crop and Daniel Craig mien, has become the screenwriters’ darling. In the film State of Play, a Blackwater clone (PointCorp.) uses its network of mercenaries for illegal surveillance and murder. On the Fox series 24, Jon Voight has played Jonas Hodges, a thinly veiled version of Prince, whose company (Starkwood) helps an African warlord procure nerve gas for use against U.S. targets.

But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009—by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officials—Prince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambition—the very attributes that have galvanized his critics—also made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence. (Full disclosure: In the 1990s, before becoming a journalist for CBS and then NBC News, I was a C.I.A. attorney. My contract was not renewed, under contentious circumstances.)

But Prince, with a new administration in power, and foes closing in, is finally coming in from the cold. This past fall, though he infrequently grants interviews, he decided it was time to tell his side of the story—to respond to the array of accusations, to reveal exactly what he has been doing in the shadows of the U.S. government, and to present his rationale. He also hoped to convey why he’s going to walk away from it all.

To that end, he invited Vanity Fair to his training camp in North Carolina, to his Virginia offices, and to his Afghan outposts. It seemed like a propitious time to tag along.

Split Personality

Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around—an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a “Christian supremacist” who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive—Howard Hughes without the O.C.D.—he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.

The common denominator is a relentless intensity that seems to have no Off switch. Seated in the back of a Boeing 777 en route to Afghanistan, Prince leafs through Defense News while the film Taken beams from the in-flight entertainment system. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays a retired C.I.A. officer who mounts an aggressive rescue effort after his daughter is kidnapped in Paris. Neeson’s character warns his daughter’s captors:

If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills … skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you [don’t] let my daughter go now … I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Prince comments, “I used that movie as a teaching tool for my girls.” (The father of seven, Prince remarried after his first wife died of cancer in 2003.) “I wanted them to understand the dangers out there. And I wanted them to know how I would respond.”

You can’t escape the impression that Prince sees himself as somehow destined, his mission anointed. It comes out even in the most personal of stories. During the flight, he tells of being in Kabul in September 2008 and receiving a two a.m. call from his wife, Joanna. Prince’s son Charlie, one year old at the time, had fallen into the family swimming pool. Charlie’s brother Christian, then 12, pulled him out of the water, purple and motionless, and successfully performed CPR. Christian and three siblings, it turns out, had recently received Red Cross certification at the Blackwater training camp.

But there are intimations of a higher power at work as the story continues. Desperate to get home, Prince scrapped one itinerary, which called for a stay-over at the Marriott in Islamabad, and found a direct flight. That night, at the time Prince would have been checking in, terrorists struck the hotel with a truck bomb, killing more than 50. Prince says simply, “Christian saved Charlie’s life and Charlie saved mine.” At times, his sense of his own place in history can border on the evangelical. When pressed about suggestions that he’s a mercenary—a term he loathes—he rattles off the names of other freelance military figures, even citing Lafayette, the colonists’ ally during the Revolutionary War.

Prince’s default mode is one of readiness. He is clenched-jawed and tightly wound. He cannot stand down. Waiting in the security line at Dulles airport just hours before, Prince had delivered a little homily: “Every time an American goes through security, I want them to pause for a moment and think, What is my government doing to inconvenience the terrorists? Rendition teams, Predator drones, assassination squads. That’s all part of it.”

Such brazenness is not lost on a listener, nor is the fact that Prince himself is quite familiar with some of these tactics. In fact Prince, like other contractors, has drawn fire for running a company that some call a “body shop”—many of its staffers having departed military or intelligence posts to take similar jobs at much higher salaries, paid mainly by Uncle Sam. And to get those jobs done—protecting, defending, and killing, if required—Prince has had to employ the services of some decorated vets as well as some ruthless types, snipers and spies among them.

Erik Prince flies coach internationally. It’s not just economical (“Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time”) but also less likely to draw undue attention. He considers himself a marked man. Prince describes the diplomats and dignitaries Blackwater protects as “Al Jazeera–worthy,” meaning that, in his view, “bin Laden and his acolytes would love to kill them in a spectacular fashion and have it broadcast on televisions worldwide.”

Stepping off the plane at Kabul’s international airport, Prince is treated as if he, too, were Al Jazeera–worthy. He is immediately shuffled into a waiting car and driven 50 yards to a second vehicle, a beat-up minivan that is native to the core: animal pelts on the dashboard, prayer card dangling from the rearview mirror. Blackwater’s special-projects team is responsible for Prince’s security in-country, and except for their language its men appear indistinguishable from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy trousers. They remove Prince’s sunglasses, fit him out with body armor, and have him change into Afghan garb. Prince is issued a homing beacon that will track his movements, and a cell phone with its speed dial programmed for Blackwater’s tactical-operations center.

Prince in the tactical-operations center at a company base in Kabul. Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

Once in the van, Prince’s team gives him a security briefing. Using satellite photos of the area, they review the route to Blackwater’s compound and point out where weapons and ammunition are stored inside the vehicle. The men warn him that in the event that they are incapacitated or killed in an ambush Prince should assume control of the weapons and push the red button near the emergency brake, which will send out a silent alarm and call in reinforcements.

Black Hawks and Zeppelins

Blackwater’s origins were humble, bordering on the primordial. The company took form in the dismal peat bogs of Moyock, North Carolina—not exactly a hotbed of the defense-contracting world.

In 1995, Prince’s father, Edgar, died of a heart attack (the Evangelical James C. Dobson, founder of the socially conservative Focus on the Family, delivered the eulogy at the funeral). Edgar Prince left behind a vibrant auto-parts manufacturing business in Holland, Michigan, with 4,500 employees and a line of products ranging from a lighted sun visor to a programmable garage-door opener. At the time, 25-year-old Erik was serving as a navy seal (he saw service in Haiti, the Middle East, and Bosnia), and neither he nor his sisters were in a position to take over the business. They sold Prince Automotive for $1.35 billion.

Erik Prince and some of his navy friends, it so happens, had been kicking around the idea of opening a full-service training compound to replace the usual patchwork of such facilities. In 1996, Prince took an honorable discharge and began buying up land in North Carolina. “The idea was not to be a defense contractor per se,” Prince says, touring the grounds of what looks and feels like a Disneyland for alpha males. “I just wanted a first-rate training facility for law enforcement, the military, and, in particular, the special-operations community.”

Business was slow. The navy seals came early—January 1998—but they didn’t come often, and by the time the Blackwater Lodge and Training Center officially opened, that May, Prince’s friends and advisers thought he was throwing good money after bad. “A lot of people said, ‘This is a rich kid’s hunting lodge,’” Prince explains. “They could not figure out what I was doing.”

Blackwater outpost near the Pakistan border, used for training Afghan police. Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

Today, the site is the flagship for a network of facilities that train some 30,000 attendees a year. Prince, who owns an unmanned, zeppelin-esque airship and spent $45 million to build a fleet of customized, bomb-proof armored personnel carriers, often commutes to the lodge by air, piloting a Cessna Caravan from his home in Virginia. The training center has a private landing strip. Its hangars shelter a petting zoo of aircraft: Bell 412 helicopters (used to tail or shuttle diplomats in Iraq), Black Hawk helicopters (currently being modified to accommodate the security requests of a Gulf State client), a Dash 8 airplane (the type that ferries troops in Afghanistan). Amid the 52 firing ranges are virtual villages designed for addressing every conceivable real-world threat: small town squares, littered with blown-up cars, are situated near railway crossings and maritime mock-ups. At one junction, swat teams fire handguns, sniper rifles, and shotguns; at another, police officers tear around the world’s longest tactical-driving track, dodging simulated roadside bombs.

In keeping with the company’s original name, the central complex, constructed of stone, glass, concrete, and logs, actually resembles a lodge, an REI store on steroids. Here and there are distinctive touches, such as door handles crafted from imitation gun barrels. Where other companies might have Us Weekly lying about the lobby, Blackwater has counterterror magazines with cover stories such as “How to Destroy Al Qaeda.”

In fact, it was al-Qaeda that put Blackwater on the map. In the aftermath of the group’s October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, in Yemen, the navy turned to Prince, among others, for help in re-training its sailors to fend off attackers at close range. (To date, the company says, it has put some 125,000 navy personnel through its programs.) In addition to providing a cash infusion, the navy contract helped Blackwater build a database of retired military men—many of them special-forces veterans—who could be called upon to serve as instructors.

When al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. mainland on 9/11, Prince says, he was struck with the urge to either re-enlist or join the C.I.A. He says he actually applied. “I was rejected,” he admits, grinning at the irony of courting the very agency that would later woo him. “They said I didn’t have enough hard skills, enough time in the field.” Undeterred, he decided to turn his Rolodex into a roll call for what would in essence become a private army.

After the terror attacks, Prince’s company toiled, even reveled, in relative obscurity, taking on assignments in Afghanistan and, after the U.S. invasion, in Iraq. Then came March 31, 2004. That was the day insurgents ambushed four of its employees in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. The men were shot, their bodies set on fire by a mob. The charred, hacked-up remains of two of them were left hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates.

“It was absolutely gut-wrenching,” Prince recalls. “I had been in the military, and no one under my command had ever died. At Blackwater, we had never even had a firearms training accident. Now all of a sudden four of my guys aren’t just killed, but desecrated.” Three months later an edict from coalition authorities in Baghdad declared private contractors immune from Iraqi law.

Subsequently, the contractors’ families sued Blackwater, contending the company had failed to protect their loved ones. Blackwater countersued the families for breaching contracts that forbid the men or their estates from filing such lawsuits; the company also claimed that, because it operates as an extension of the military, it cannot be held responsible for deaths in a war zone. (After five years, the case remains unresolved.) In 2007, a congressional investigation into the incident concluded that the employees had been sent into an insurgent stronghold “without sufficient preparation, resources, and support.” Blackwater called the report a “one-sided” version of a “tragic incident.”

After Fallujah, Blackwater became a household name. Its primary mission in Iraq had been to protect American dignitaries, and it did so, in part, by projecting an image of invincibility, sending heavily armed men in armored Suburbans racing through the streets of Baghdad with sirens blaring. The show of swagger and firepower, which alienated both the locals and the U.S. military, helped contribute to the allegations of excessive force. As the war dragged on, charges against the firm mounted. In one case, a contractor shot and killed an Iraqi father of six who was standing along the roadside in Hillah. (Prince later told Congress that the contractor was fired for trying to cover up the incident.) In another, a Blackwater firearms technician was accused of drinking too much at a party in the Green Zone and killing a bodyguard assigned to protect Iraq’s vice president. The technician was fired but not prosecuted and later settled a wrongful-death suit with the man’s family.

Those episodes, however, paled in comparison with the events of September 16, 2007, when a phalanx of Blackwater bodyguards emerged from their four-car convoy at a Baghdad intersection called Nisour Square and opened fire. When the smoke cleared, 17 Iraqi civilians lay dead. After 15 months of investigation, the Justice Department charged six with voluntary manslaughter and other offenses, insisting that the use of force was not only unjustified but unprovoked. One guard pleaded guilty and, in a trial set for February, is expected to testify against the others, all of whom maintain their innocence. The New York Times recently reported that in the wake of the shootings the company’s top executives authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi higher-ups in order to buy their silence—a claim Prince dismisses as “false,” insisting “[there was] zero plan or discussion of bribing any officials.”

Nisour Square had disastrous repercussions for Blackwater. Its role in Iraq was curtailed, its revenue dropping 40 percent. Today, Prince claims, he is shelling out $2 million a month in legal fees to cope with a spate of civil lawsuits as well as what he calls a “giant proctological exam” by nearly a dozen federal agencies. “We used to spend money on R&D to develop better capabilities to serve the U.S. government,” says Prince. “Now we pay lawyers.”

Does he ever. In North Carolina, a federal grand jury is investigating various allegations, including the illegal transport of assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in dog-food sacks. (Blackwater denied this, but confirmed hiding weapons on pallets of dog food to protect against theft by “corrupt foreign customs agents.”) In Virginia, two ex-employees have filed affidavits claiming that Prince and Blackwater may have murdered or ordered the murder of people suspected of cooperating with U.S. authorities investigating the company—charges which Blackwater has characterized as “scandalous and baseless.” One of the men also asserted in filings that company employees ran a sex and wife-swapping ring, allegations which Blackwater has called “anonymous, unsubstantiated and offensive.”

Meanwhile, last February, Prince mounted an expensive rebranding campaign. Following the infamous ValuJet crash, in 1996, ValuJet disappeared into AirTran, after a merger, and moved on to a happy new life. Prince, likewise, decided to retire the Blackwater name and replace it with the name Xe, short for Xenon—an inert, non-combustible gas that, in keeping with his political leanings, sits on the far right of the periodic table. Still, Prince and other top company officials continued to use the name Blackwater among themselves. And as events would soon prove, the company’s reputation would remain as combustible as ever.

Prince at a Kandahar airfield. Photograph Adam Ferguson.

Spies and Whispers

Last June, C.I.A. director Leon Panetta met in a closed session with the House and Senate intelligence committees to brief them on a covert-action program, which the agency had long concealed from Congress. Panetta explained that he had learned of the existence of the operation only the day before and had promptly shut it down. The reason, C.I.A. spokesman Paul Gimigliano now explains: “It hadn’t taken any terrorists off the street.” During the meeting, according to two attendees, Panetta named both Erik Prince and Blackwater as key participants in the program. (When asked to verify this account, Gimigliano notes that “Director Panetta treats as confidential discussions with Congress that take place behind closed doors.”) Soon thereafter, Prince says, he began fielding inquisitive calls from people he characterizes as far outside the circle of trust.

It took three weeks for details, however sketchy, to surface. In July, The Wall Street Journal described the program as “an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives.” The agency reportedly planned to accomplish this task by dispatching small hit teams overseas. Lawmakers, who couldn’t exactly quibble with the mission’s objective, were in high dudgeon over having been kept in the dark. (Former C.I.A. officials reportedly saw the matter differently, characterizing the program as “more aspirational than operational” and implying that it had never progressed far enough to justify briefing the Hill.)

On August 20, the gloves came off. The New York Times published a story headlined cia sought blackwater’s help to kill jihadists. The Washington Post concurred: cia hired firm for assassin program. Prince confesses to feeling betrayed. “I don’t understand how a program this sensitive leaks,” he says. “And to ‘out’ me on top of it?” The next day, the Times went further, revealing Blackwater’s role in the use of aerial drones to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders: “At hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan … the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Erik Prince, almost overnight, had undergone a second rebranding of sorts, this one not of his own making. The war profiteer had become a merchant of death, with a license to kill on the ground and in the air. “I’m an easy target,” he says. “I’m from a Republican family and I own this company outright. Our competitors have nameless, faceless management teams.”

Prince blames Democrats in Congress for the leaks and maintains that there is a double standard at play. “The left complained about how [C.I.A. operative] Valerie Plame’s identity was compromised for political reasons. A special prosecutor [was even] appointed. Well, what happened to me was worse. People acting for political reasons disclosed not only the existence of a very sensitive program but my name along with it.” As in the Plame case, though, the leaks prompted C.I.A. attorneys to send a referral to the Justice Department, requesting that a criminal investigation be undertaken to identify those responsible for providing highly classified information to the media.

By focusing so intently on Blackwater, Congress and the press overlooked the elephant in the room. Prince wasn’t merely a contractor; he was, insiders say, a full-blown asset. Three sources with direct knowledge of the relationship say that the C.I.A.’s National Resources Division recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or unusual access to targets of interest. As assets go, Prince would have been quite a catch. He had more cash, transport, matériel, and personnel at his disposal than almost anyone Langley would have run in its 62-year history.

The C.I.A. won’t comment further on such assertions, but Prince himself is slightly more forthcoming. “I was looking at creating a small, focused capability,” he says, “just like Donovan did years ago”—the reference being to William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who, in World War II, served as the head of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the modern C.I.A. (Prince’s youngest son, Charles Donovan—the one who fell into the pool—is named after Wild Bill.) Two sources familiar with the arrangement say that Prince’s handlers obtained provisional operational approval from senior management to recruit Prince and later generated a “201 file,” which would have put him on the agency’s books as a vetted asset. It’s not at all clear who was running whom, since Prince says that, unlike many other assets, he did much of his work on spec, claiming to have used personal funds to road-test the viability of certain operations. “I grew up around the auto industry,” Prince explains. “Customers would say to my dad, ‘We have this need.’ He would then use his own money to create prototypes to fulfill those needs. He took the ‘If you build it, they will come’ approach.”

According to two sources familiar with his work, Prince was developing unconventional means of penetrating “hard target” countries—where the C.I.A. has great difficulty working either because there are no stations from which to operate or because local intelligence services have the wherewithal to frustrate the agency’s designs. “I made no money whatsoever off this work,” Prince contends. He is unwilling to specify the exact nature of his forays. “I’m painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I’m paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket.” (His pocket is deep: according to The Wall Street Journal, Blackwater had revenues of more than $600 million in 2008.)

Clutch Cargo

The Afghan countryside, from a speeding perch at 200 knots, whizzes by in a khaki haze. The terrain is rendered all the more nondescript by the fact that Erik Prince is riding less than 200 feet above it. The back of the airplane, a small, Spanish-built eads casa C-212, is open, revealing Prince in silhouette against a blue sky. Wearing Oakleys, tactical pants, and a white polo shirt, he looks strikingly boyish.

A Blackwater aircraft en route to drop supplies to U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan in September. Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

As the crew chief initiates a countdown sequence, Prince adjusts his harness and moves into position. When the “go” order comes, a young G.I. beside him cuts a tether, and Prince pushes a pallet out the tail chute. Black parachutes deploy and the aircraft lunges forward from the sudden weight differential. The cargo—provisions and munitions—drops inside the perimeter of a forward operating base (fob) belonging to an elite Special Forces squad.

Five days a week, Blackwater’s aviation arm—with its unabashedly 60s-spook name, Presidential Airways—flies low-altitude sorties to some of the most remote outposts in Afghanistan. Since 2006, Prince’s company has been conscripted to offer this “turnkey” service for U.S. troops, flying thousands of delivery runs. Blackwater also provides security for U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff, and trains narcotics and Afghan special police units.

Once back on terra firma, Prince, a BlackBerry on one hip and a 9-mm. on the other, does a sweep around one of Blackwater’s bases in northeast Afghanistan, pointing out buildings recently hit by mortar fire. As a drone circles overhead, its camera presumably trained on the surroundings, Prince climbs a guard tower and peers down at a spot where two of his contractors were nearly killed last July by an improvised explosive device. “Not counting civilian checkpoints,” he says, “this is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border.” His voice takes on a melodramatic solemnity. “Who else has built a fob along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?” It doesn’t quite have the ring of Lawrence of Arabia’s “To Aqaba!,” but you get the picture.

Going “Low-Pro”

Blackwater has been in Afghanistan since 2002. At the time, the C.I.A.’s executive director, A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard, responding to his operatives’ complaints of being “worried sick about the Afghans’ coming over the fence or opening the doors,” enlisted the company to offer protection for the agency’s Kabul station. Going “low-pro,” or low-profile, paid off: not a single C.I.A. employee, according to sources close to the company, died in Afghanistan while under Blackwater’s protection. (Talk about a tight-knit bunch. Krongard would later serve as an unpaid adviser to Blackwater’s board, until 2007. And his brother Howard “Cookie” Krongard—the State Department’s inspector general—had to recuse himself from Blackwater-related oversight matters after his brother’s involvement with the company surfaced. Buzzy, in response, stepped down.)

As the agency’s confidence in Blackwater grew, so did the company’s responsibilities, expanding from static protection to mobile security—shadowing agency personnel, ever wary of suicide bombers, ambushes, and roadside devices, as they moved about the country. By 2005, Blackwater, accustomed to guarding C.I.A. personnel, was starting to look a little bit like the C.I.A. itself. Enrique “Ric” Prado joined Blackwater after serving as chief of operations for the agency’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC). A short time later, Prado’s boss, J. Cofer Black, the head of the CTC, moved over to Blackwater, too. He was followed, in turn, by his superior, Rob Richer, second-in-command of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service. Of the three, Cofer Black had the outsize reputation. As Bob Woodward recounted in his book Bush at War, on September 13, 2001, Black had promised President Bush that when the C.I.A. was through with al-Qaeda “they will have flies walking across their eyeballs.” According to Woodward, “Black became known in Bush’s inner circle as the ‘flies-on-the-eyeballs guy.’” Richer and Black soon helped start a new company, Total Intelligence Solutions (which collects data to help businesses assess risks overseas), but in 2008 both men left Blackwater, as did company president Gary Jackson this year.

Prince in his Virginia office. His company took in more than $1 billion from government contracts during the George W. Bush era. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

Off and on, Black and Richer’s onetime partner Ric Prado, first with the C.I.A., then as a Blackwater employee, worked quietly with Prince as his vice president of “special programs” to provide the agency with what every intelligence service wants: plausible deniability. Shortly after 9/11, President Bush had issued a “lethal finding,” giving the C.I.A. the go-ahead to kill or capture al-Qaeda members. (Under an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, it had been illegal since 1976 for U.S. intelligence operatives to conduct assassinations.) As a seasoned case officer, Prado helped implement the order by putting together a small team of “blue-badgers,” as government agents are known. Their job was threefold: find, fix, and finish. Find the designated target, fix the person’s routine, and, if necessary, finish him off. When the time came to train the hit squad, the agency, insiders say, turned to Prince. Wary of attracting undue attention, the team practiced not at the company’s North Carolina compound but at Prince’s own domain, an hour outside Washington, D.C. The property looks like an outpost of the landed gentry, with pastures and horses, but also features less traditional accents, such as an indoor firing range. Once again, Prince has Wild Bill on his mind, observing that “the O.S.S. trained during World War II on a country estate.”

Among the team’s targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun Darkazanli, an al-Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agency’s radar for years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The C.I.A. team supposedly went in “dark,” meaning they did not notify their own station—much less the German government—of their presence; they then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down. Another target, the source says, was A. Q. Khan, the rogue Pakistani scientist who shared nuclear know-how with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. The C.I.A. team supposedly tracked him in Dubai. In both cases, the source insists, the authorities in Washington chose not to pull the trigger. Khan’s inclusion on the target list, however, would suggest that the assassination effort was broader than has previously been acknowledged. (Says agency spokesman Gimigliano, “[The] C.I.A. hasn’t discussed—despite some mischaracterizations that have appeared in the public domain—the substance of this effort or earlier ones.”)

The source familiar with the Darkazanli and Khan missions bristles at public comments that current and former C.I.A. officials have made: “They say the program didn’t move forward because [they] didn’t have the right skill set or because of inadequate cover. That’s untrue. [The operation continued] for a very long time in some places without ever being discovered. This program died because of a lack of political will.”

When Prado left the C.I.A., in 2004, he effectively took the program with him, after a short hiatus. By that point, according to sources familiar with the plan, Prince was already an agency asset, and the pair had begun working to privatize matters by changing the team’s composition from blue-badgers to a combination of “green-badgers” (C.I.A. contractors) and third-country nationals (unaware of the C.I.A. connection). Blackwater officials insist that company resources and manpower were never directly utilized—these were supposedly off-the-books initiatives done on Prince’s own dime, for which he was later reimbursed—and that despite their close ties to the C.I.A. neither Cofer Black nor Rob Richer took part. As Prince puts it, “We were building a unilateral, unattributable capability. If it went bad, we weren’t expecting the chief of station, the ambassador, or anyone to bail us out.” He insists that, had the team deployed, the agency would have had full operational control. Instead, due to what he calls “institutional osteoporosis,” the second iteration of the assassination program lost steam.

Sometime after 2006, the C.I.A. would take another shot at the program, according to an insider who was familiar with the plan. “Everyone found some reason not to participate,” says the insider. “There was a sick-out. People would say to management, ‘I have a family, I have other obligations.’ This is the fucking C.I.A. They were supposed to lead the charge after al-Qaeda and they couldn’t find the people to do it.” Others with knowledge of the program are far more charitable and question why any right-thinking officer would sign up for an assassination program at a time when their colleagues—who had thought they had legal cover to engage in another sensitive effort, the “enhanced interrogations” program at secret C.I.A. sites in foreign countries—were finding themselves in legal limbo.

America and Erik Prince, it seems, have been slow to extract themselves from the assassination business. Beyond the killer drones flown with Blackwater’s help along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (President Obama has reportedly authorized more than three dozen such hits), Prince claims he and a team of foreign nationals helped find and fix a target in October 2008, then left the finishing to others. “In Syria,” he says, “we did the signals intelligence to geo-locate the bad guys in a very denied area.” Subsequently, a U.S. Special Forces team launched a helicopter-borne assault to hunt down al-Qaeda middleman Abu Ghadiyah. Ghadiyah, whose real name is Badran Turki Hishan Al-Mazidih, was said to have been killed along with six others—though doubts have emerged about whether Ghadiyah was even there that day, as detailed in a recent Vanity Fair Web story by Reese Ehrlich and Peter Coyote.

And up until two months ago—when Prince says the Obama administration pulled the plug—he was still deeply engaged in the dark arts. According to insiders, he was running intelligence-gathering operations from a secret location in the United States, remotely coordinating the movements of spies working undercover in one of the so-called Axis of Evil countries. Their mission: non-disclosable.

Exit Strategy

Flying out of Kabul, Prince does a slow burn, returning to the topic of how exposed he has felt since press accounts revealed his role in the assassination program. The firestorm that began in August has continued to smolder and may indeed have his handlers wondering whether Prince himself is more of a liability than an asset. He says he can’t understand why they would shut down certain high-risk, high-payoff collection efforts against some of America’s most implacable enemies for fear that his involvement could, given the political climate, result in their compromise.

He is incredulous that U.S. officials seem willing, in effect, to cut off their nose to spite their face. “I’ve been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services,” Prince observes. After 12 years building the company, he says he intends to turn it over to its employees and a board, and exit defense contracting altogether. An internal power struggle is said to be under way among those seeking to define the direction and underlying mission of a post-Prince Blackwater.

He insists, simply, “I’m through.”

In the past, Prince has entertained the idea of building a pre-positioning ship—complete with security personnel, doctors, helicopters, medicine, food, and fuel—and stationing it off the coast of Africa to provide “relief with teeth” to the continent’s trouble spots or to curb piracy off Somalia. At one point, he considered creating a rapidly deployable brigade that could be farmed out, for a fee, to a foreign government.

For the time being, however, Prince contends that his plans are far more modest. “I’m going to teach high school,” he says, straight-faced. “History and economics. I may even coach wrestling. Hey, Indiana Jones taught school, too.”

Never Before Has Obama Sounded so False

2009-12-03T11:07:00.001-04:00

12/02/2009 12:58 PM

Opinion

Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic

By Gabor Steingart

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

Obama's Magic No Longer Works

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama's magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a talent for oration -- are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called "Hope."

In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself.

URL:

Europe Reluctant to Pledge More Troops to Afghanistan

2009-12-03T11:07:00.000-04:00

12/02/2009 05:00 PM

Reaction to Obama's New Strategy

Europe Reluctant to Pledge More Troops

The US government is looking for up to 7,000 additional troops for Afghanistan from its NATO allies. But few countries in Europe are rushing to fill the void. Germany and France want to wait until the Afghanistan conference at the end of January.

For months, pressure had been growing on US President Barack Obama to reveal just what his oft-mentioned, revamped Afghanistan strategy would be. Now that he has announced it -- a US troop increase of 30,000 combined with a timeline for the beginning of withdrawal -- the focus has shifted. Now it is time for America's European allies to make pledges of their own. But on Wednesday, concrete pledges of additional troops were few and far between.

The Obama White House has already ratcheted down expectations for America's NATO allies, saying that it hopes for between 5,000 and 7,000 additional troops from all partners combined. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday that he was confident that non-US NATO members would pledge at least an additional 5,000 soldiers.

But reactions from many European leaders were much more reserved. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm welcomed Obama's timeline for withdrawal saying it was "correct and sensible." But on the question of whether Germany would send more troops, he preferred to point to the Afghanistan conference set to take place at the end of January in London. After the conference, Germany will decide "whether and if so what kind of additional efforts we might undertake."

'We Will Take Our Time'

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also pointed to the January conference. "Obama also took his time to work out the speech and his strategy and we will take our own time to assess what he said and discuss this with our allies," he said.

Indeed, the only countries which immediately offered to up their troop contingent were Britain, Poland and Italy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the UK would send an additional 500 troops with Poland likely to up its contribution to 2,600 from 2,000. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said his country would send more as well, but avoided a concrete pledge, saying only that Rome would "do a lot."

Speaking before gathered Cadets at West Point on Tuesday, Obama promised, in addition to an immediate surge in troop numbers, that America would begin bringing soldiers home in 2011. He expressed confidence that Afghan forces would be able to begin taking responsibility for security in the country by that time.

'Not a Run for the Exit'

In commenting on Obama's speech, Westerwelle emphasized that "we Germans are ready to do more in the area of police training, because that is the only route to self-sufficient security, to a handover of responsibilities."

France too emphasized the training aspect of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. Despite ruling out sending more troops to Afghanistan just a few days ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday said that Paris would "look at its contribution to international strategy, giving priority to the training of Afghan security forces."

In response to Obama's clear withdrawal timetable, Rasmussen on Wednesday was at pains to emphasize that the mission was not coming to an abrupt end any time soon. The allegiance's strategy "was not a run for the exit" he said, adding that no one was talking about a date for complete withdrawal. "We will stay as long as it takes to finish our job," he said.

cgh -- with wire reports

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,664828,00.html