U.S. officer got no reply to requests for more security in Benghazi

Original Post: Yahoo

By Susan Cornwell and Mark Hosenball

A U.S. security officer twice asked his State Department superiors for more security agents for the American mission in Benghazi months before an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, but he got no response. The officer, Eric Nordstrom, who was based in Tripoli until about two months before the September attack, said a State Department official, Charlene Lamb, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi "artificially low," according to a memo summarizing his comments to a congressional committee that was obtained by Reuters.

Nordstrom also argued for more U.S. security in Libya by citing a chronology of over 200 security incidents there from militia gunfights to bomb attacks between June 2011 and July 2012. Forty-eight of the incidents were in Benghazi. A brief summary of Nordstrom's October 1 interview with the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was contained in a memo prepared by the committee's minority Democratic staff.

Nordstrom's actions and those of his superiors are likely to figure prominently in a House committee hearing on Wednesday that will be Congress' first public examination of what went wrong at the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi.

The State Department has defended security procedures in Libya and convened its own independent review board. A State Department official declined to comment on what Nordstrom told lawmakers in private, noting that Nordstrom would testify at the public hearing on Wednesday and "that's something that will come out in the hearing." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department's "posture is to be as cooperative as we possibly can" at the Wednesday hearing. In addition to Nordstrom, it will feature testimony by Lamb, Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who headed a security support team at the Tripoli embassy.

Debate over whether the Americans were caught unprepared for the assault by militants on the diplomatic mission in Libya's relatively lawless eastern section has put the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, on the defensive in the run-up to the November presidential election.

A leading Republican on the committee probing the attack, Representative Jason Chaffetz, told Reuters Tuesday he thought security decisions U.S. officials made for the Benghazi mission had turned out to be "deadly" ones.

The top U.S. intelligence authority, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, says the four Americans were killed in an organized terrorist assault, but the attackers have not been identified.

Separately, a U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that in addition to the four Americans who were killed in the Benghazi attacks on September 11, three more Americans were injured. Only one of those remains in hospital, the official said.

Nordstrom, a State Department regional security officer, told lawmakers that Kennedy issued a "decision memo" in December 2011 requiring that the Benghazi post be manned with five diplomatic security agents, but that it usually had only three or four. "He (Nordstrom) stated that he sent two cables to State Department headquarters in March and July 2012 requesting additional Diplomatic Security Agents for Benghazi, but that he received no responses," the memo said.

At some point, however, it appears Nordstrom learned the views of Lamb because he told the committee she "wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi artificially low," the memo said.

"He said that Deputy Assistant Secretary (for international programs) Lamb believed the Benghazi post did not need any Diplomatic Security Special Agents because there was a residential safe haven to fall back to in an emergency, but that she thought the best course of action was to assign three agents," the memo said. It is unclear who made the final decision about how many agents were stationed in Benghazi.

"Sadly, that was a deadly decision," Representative Chaffetz said of leaving the mission with just a few security agents.

"Look at the result -- the first (U.S.) ambassador killed since the 1970s," Chaffetz said in an interview.

The Oversight and Government Reform committee has been investigating the handling of security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi before the attack. The committee's Republican Chairman Darrell Issa and Chaffetz, a subcommittee chairman, have led the probe.

Chaffetz said he suspects the devotion of so much effort and money to Iraq and Afghanistan has drained resources away from security for U.S. diplomatic efforts in other parts of the world. U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq but thousands of security contractors remain there, he said.

"We have 15,000 (security contractors) in Iraq, and we have a hard time having more than two dozen in Libya," Chaffetz said. "It doesn't seem to balance itself out right."

Democrats counter that Republicans have pushed for cuts in the funding of the very embassy security that they now are charging is insufficient. The Democratic staff memo that outlined Nordstrom's pleas for more security also said that House Republicans voted to reduce embassy security funding by about half a billion dollars below the amount requested by the Obama administration since 2010. The Democratic-led Senate had been able to restore "a small portion" of these funds, the memo said.

Ambassador Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation when he was trapped alone inside the burning building in Benghazi in an attack that began on the evening of September 11.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a conference in Florida on Tuesday that there was no advanced warning about the Libya attack. He scoffed at media portrayals of him as "hapless and hopeless" for acknowledging on September 28 a shift in the intelligence assessment of the Benghazi assault, calling it a deliberate terrorist attack instead of an event stemming from spontaneous protest, as initially thought.

Clapper suggested it was unrealistic for anyone to expect the U.S. intelligence community to have a "a God's eye, God's ear certitude" right after an attack like the one in Libya.

U.S. SOLDIERS URGED NOT TO SHOOT TALIBAN AT NIGHT SO LOCALS CAN SLEEP

Original Post: Breitbart

by AWR HAWKINS

Reports indicate U.S. soldiers and British Royal Marines have been urged to show "courageous constraint" by not shooting Taliban members spotted planting IEDs. The reason? Shooting them might disturb the locals.

This news comes out on the heels of an investigation into the death of Royal Marine Sergeant Peter Rayner, whom witnesses say watched the Taliban plant IEDs at night but was ordered not to engage them. Families of other soldiers and Royal Marines are telling stories of how their loved ones were not allowed to use mortars or night illumination when they came across Taliban members in an area full of IEDs.

The reason given was that "the sound of shooting 'might wake up and upset the locals.'" This is not "courageous restraint" -- this is appeasement.

guantanamo detainees get new 750g soccerfield

Original Post: Fox News

By Catherine Herridge Published February 28, 2012

At a time of record deficits, a new soccer field for detainees at Camp 6 in Guantanamo Bay is just getting the finishing touches -- at a cost of $750,000 to taxpayers. The project was the highlight of a tour Tuesday of the detention camp for reporters at the facility covering the arraignment in a military court of Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident and the the only legal U.S. resident on trial at Guantanamo.

In this April 27, 2010, file photo, reviewed by a U.S. Department of Defense official, a Guantanamo detainee's feet are shackled to the floor as he attends a "Life Skills" class inside Camp 6, the high-security detention facility at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base.

The project began in April 2011 and is due to finish this spring. The detainees will now have three recreation facilities at Camp 6, which is home to "highly compliant" detainees who live in a communal setting. In addition to an indoor recreation field and the existing outdoor recreation field, the new soccer field -- selected because it is such a popular sport with detainees -- is half the size of an American football field. The new field has been specially constructed so that the detainees "have maximum access" -- about 20 hours a day. Special passageways allow the detainees to pass into the new recreation yard without being escorted by the military. On the tour, a military police representative who asked not to be identified by name said allowing high levels of activity outdoors helped reduce behavioral problems at the camps, and it also limited the amount of interaction between detainees and the guards.

Since the detention camps opened in 2002, some half dozen cases have been prosecuted -- four ended in plea agreements with minimal jail time. Khan, accused of being hand-selected by Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a second wave of attacks inside the U.S., including a plot to blow up gas stations, is expected to cut a deal. He is also implicated in an assassination plot against former Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff and a car bombing at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2003.

His appearance will be the first time anyone outside the U.S. military or intelligence community has seen him since his capture after Sept. 11 and transfer to secret prisons formerly maintained by the CIA.

Even some of President Obama's most ardent supporters suggest the administration seems eager to close the camps and reduce the detainee population, and plea agreements with minimal jail time are a sweetheart deal for all involved.

Detainees like Usama bin Laden's personal cook and his driver are spending less time in prison than American citizens prosecuted in federal courts on lesser charges. By example, Zachary Chesser of Charlottesville, Va., who was convicted for making threats against the creators of "South Park" and for supporting a Somali terror group, but who never fired a shot on the battlefield, is now serving a 25-year sentence. By contrast, Omar Khadr, who killed an American soldier on the battlefield in Afghanistan is nearly half way through his eight-year sentence at Guantanamo, and may finish out his term in Canada.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying about the Justice Department budget on Capitol Hill, said the recidivism rate for Guantanamo detainees overall is in the mid-20s. But the recidivism rate for those transferred during the Obama administration is 7 percent. Holder acknowledged that part of that comparison may be because the former detainees have been out for a shorter period of time, but also because the determinations about each of their release had to be unanimously approved by a task force.

Obama allows military to detain American citizens on American soil indefinably with out a trial

Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial

Original Post: Guardian

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.

"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."

There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.

The law applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces".

Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.

"We're facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life," he said. "When you join al-Qaida you haven't joined the mafia, you haven't joined a gang. You've joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat."

Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.

But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said "detaining citizens without a court trial is not American" and that if the law passes "the terrorists have won".

"We're talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk," he said. "Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts."

Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

"Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," she said. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."

Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.

"There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist," Paul said. "If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?"

Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial "until the end of hostilities". They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year's election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.

Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.

"The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people's minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is," Malinowski said. "It wasn't asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs."

In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau's ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.

"The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we've been fairly successful in gaining," he told Congress.

Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", Umar Farouk, the "underwear bomber", and Faisal Shahzad, the "Times Square bomber".

Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.

Malinowski said "vague language" was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. "The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law," he said.

Pentagon Hit Over Ft. Hood Shooting as 'Workplace Violence'

Original Post: News Room America

(Newsroom America) -- Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are blasting the Pentagon for classifying the Ft. Hood, Texas shootings by a radicalized Muslim officer as "workplace violence," saying it amounts to little more than political correctness run amok.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized the Defense Department classification on Wednesday during a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee, saying the White House was also at fault for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

Thirteen people were killed and scores more wounded when Maj. Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, went on a shooting rampage allegedly inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September, Fox News reported.

The men exchanged as many as 20 emails, authorities have said, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the U.S. military has become "a "direct target of violent Islamist extremism" within United States borders.

"The stark reality is that the American service member is increasingly in the terrorists' scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting," Lieberman told Fox News.

Authorities have arrested a number of suspects who have been linked to planned attacks on U.S. servicemembers.

In June, two men were charged with planning to attack a military facility in Seattle, Wash., with guns and grenades. In July, Army Pvt. Naser Abdo was accused of plotting a second Fort Hood attack. And in November, New York City police arrested Jose Pimentel, who has been accused of planning to attack military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There is a serious threat within the military from people who have enlisted who are radical jihadists," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"The Defense Department is very concerned about them. They feel they're a threat to the military both for what they can do within the military itself and also because of the weapons skills they acquire while they're in the military," he said.

First Communists and Nazis now terrorists support Occupy Wall Street

Original Post: Daily Caller

Islamist group joins with Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street organizers have invited support from Muslim groups, and on Friday, their camp in New York City’s Zuccotti Park played host to an Islamist group with ties to Islamist anti-Semites, radicals and terrorists.

The Islamic group held a small prayer service that featured roughly 30 men and 30 women. As required by Islamist rules, the women sat in the back and wore head coverings, as the prayer leader cried out “Allahu Akbar,” or “Allah is the Most Powerful of All.”

The group from the Council on American-Islamic Relations – New York was introduced by an Imam, Aiyub Abdul Baki of the Islamic Leadership Council, and by Linda Sarsour, a leader of the Arab-American Association of New York.

CAIR-NY is an affiliate of the D.C.-based Islamist group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Several of CAIR’s employees and former employees have been jailed and deported for terror-related offenses, and it has been criticized even by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin for ties to Islamist terrorists.

Although widely publicized in the media, CAIR is regarded as a leadership group by only 12 percent of Muslims in America, according to an August 2 report by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center. Muslim groups that separate politics from religion, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, do not ally with progressive groups and get little media attention.

CAIR’s arrival will stoke fears of anti-Semitic views among the disparate protesters.

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League complained about a few anti-Semitic comments and protesters at the Wall Street protests. “While we believe that these expressions are not representative of the larger views of the OWS movement, it is still critical for organizers, participants and supporters of these rallies to condemn such bigoted statements clearly and forcefully,” national director Abraham Foxman said.

The Islamist group’s arrival is part of a larger trend in the progressive movement to ally left-wing groups with Islamist groups. The groups differ on issues such as rights for women, the legality of homosexuality and the right of people to quit Islam, but they share many common aims, such as larger government role in the economy and increased immigration.

At the prayer event, for example, members of the left-wing Workers World Party help up signs demanding “Stop Entrapment of Muslims.” That matches the demands by many Islamist groups for an end to police surveillance of suspected Islamic radicals in New York.

The arrival of the Islamist group followed outreach by the Wall Street protesters. On Sept. 25, organizer Matthew Bralow urged the group to contact leaders of the Muslim Day Parade. “That could really start to diversify our movement and build it!” Bralow said. His proposal was boosted by several other organizers, including two who had been urging the Zuccotti Park movement to protest the U.S. government’s anti-terror policies.

The protesters’ alliance mirrors the strategy adopted by Democratic Party of growing by incorporating often-fractious groups. But the progressive movement’s growing alliance with U.S. Islamist groups makes its unity-through-diversity coalition more unstable, and prone to splits and public opposition.

Sarsour, for example, helps run the Arab Muslim American Foundation which is a umbrella group for numerous Muslim groups, including American Muslims for Palestine. Many of these groups are focused on opposition to Israel, not the economic and government factors that have stalled the U.S. economic growth. In 2004, American-born Sarsour said some of her Arab friends living beside Israel have been jailed or pursued by the Israeli government for terror offenses, according to a report from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

The Muslim groups’ focus on Israel spurs opposition with American Jewish groups, such as the ADL. The AMP’s webpage, for example, features a recent criticism of the Anti-Defamation League. “The mullet-million-dollar agency has morphed into an organization intent on stifling any honest public discourse about illegal Israeli policies … by a variety of methods, including intimidation, censorship, spying on American citizens and smearing the reputation of individuals and organizations,” according to the AMP’s website.

Obama has American citizen assassinated

Original Post: CBS

Al Qaeda's Anwar al-Awlaki killed in Yemen

WASHINGTON - In a devastating double-blow to al Qaeda's most dangerous franchise, U.S. counterterrorism forces killed two American citizens who played key roles in inspiring attacks against the U.S., U.S. and Yemeni officials said Friday.

U.S-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who edited the slick Jihadi Internet magazine, were killed in an air strike on their convoy in Yemen by a joint CIA-U.S. military operation, according to counterterrorism officials. Al-Awlaki was targeted in the killing, but Khan apparently was not targeted directly.

In remarks at Fort Myer, Va., President Obama called the death of the jihadist cleric a "major blow" to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and praised the United States' successful alliance with Yemen's security forces.

"This is further proof that al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world," Mr. Obama said. "Working with Yemen and our other allies and partners, we will be determined, we will be deliberate, we will be relentless, we will be resolute in our commitment to destroy terrorist networks that aim to kill Americans, and to build a world in which people everywhere can live in greater peace, prosperity and security."

Seeking to justify the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen, Mr. Obama outlined al-Awlaki's involvement in planning and directing attempts to murder Americans.

"He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010," Mr. Obama said. "And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda."

Yemeni intelligence pinpointed al-Awlaki's hideout in the town of Al Khasaf, a Yemeni official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. "He was closely monitored ever since," by Yemeni intelligence on the ground, backed by U.S. satellite and drones from the sky, the official said.

His death will deal al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula a serious blow, says CBS News terrorism analyst Juan Zarate, particularly his work to draw young Muslims into the jihadi mindset.

"His role as a propagandist actually will be very difficult to fill," says Zarate.

After three weeks of tracking the targets, U.S. armed drones and fighter jets shadowed the al Qaeda convoy before armed drones launched their lethal strike early Friday. The strike killed four operatives in all, officials said. All U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

Al-Awlaki played a "significant operational role" in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said Friday, as they disclosed detailed intelligence to justify the killing of a U.S. citizen. Khan, who was from North Carolina, wasn't considered operational but had published seven issues of Inspire Magazine, offering advice on how to make bombs and the use of weapons. The magazine was widely read.

Following the strike, a U.S. official outlined new details of al-Awlaki's involvement in anti-U.S. operations, including the attempted 2009 Christmas Day bombing of a U.S.-bound aircraft. The official said that al-Awlaki specifically directed the men accused of trying to bomb the Detroit-bound plane to detonate an explosive device over U.S. airspace to maximize casualties.

The official also said al-Awlaki had a direct role in supervising and directing a failed attempt to bring down two U.S. cargo aircraft by detonating explosives concealed inside two packages mailed to the U.S. The U.S. also believes Awlaki had sought to use poisons, including cyanide and ricin, to attack Westerners.

The U.S. and counterterrorism officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters.

Al-Awlaki was killed by the same U.S. military unit that got Osama bin Laden. Al-Awlaki is the most prominent al Qaeda figure to be killed since bin Laden's death in May.

U.S. word of al-Awlaki's death came after the government of Yemen reported that he had been killed Friday about five miles from the town of Khashef, some 87 miles from the capital Sanaa.

The air strike was carried out more openly than the covert operation that sent Navy SEALs into bin Laden's Pakistani compound, U.S. officials said.

Counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Yemen has improved in recent weeks, allowing better intelligence-gathering on al-Awlaki's movements, U.S. officials said. The ability to better track him was a key factor in the success of the strike, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Al-Awlaki's death is the latest in a run of high-profile kills for Washington under Mr. Obama. But the killing raises questions that the death of other al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, did not.

Al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, who had not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned the drone attack on Awlaki, saying, "The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law.

"As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts," Jaffer said. "The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President - any President - with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country."

Awlaki's father, Nasser al-Awlaki of Yemen, had sued Mr. Obama and other administration officials 13 months ago to try to stop them from targeting his son for death. The father, represented by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued that international law and the Constitution prevented the administration from assassinating his son unless he presented a specific imminent threat to life or physical safety and there were no other means to stop him.

But U.S. District Judge John Bates threw out the lawsuit in December, saying a judge does not have authority to review the president's military decisions and that Awlaki's father did not have the legal right to sue on behalf of his son. But Bates also seemed troubled by the facts of the case, which he wrote raised vital considerations of national security and for military and foreign affairs. For instance, the judge questioned why courts have authority to approve surveillance of Americans overseas but not their killing and whether the president could order an assassination of a citizen without "any form of judicial process whatsoever."

U.S. officials have said they believe al-Awlaki inspired the actions of Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt said he was "inspired" by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet.

Al-Awlaki also is believed to have had a hand in mail bombs addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, packages intercepted in Dubai and Europe in October 2010.

Al-Awlaki's death "will especially impact the group's ability to recruit, inspire and raise funds as al-Awlaki's influence and ability to connect to a broad demographic of potential supporters was unprecedented," said terrorist analyst Ben Venzke of the private intelligence monitoring firm, the IntelCenter.

But Venzke said the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will remain the most dangerous regional arm "both in its region and for the direct threat it poses to the U.S. following three recent failed attacks," with its leader Nasir al-Wahayshi still at large.

Al-Awlaki wrote an article in the latest issue of the terror group's magazine justifying attacking civilians in the West. It's titled "Targeting the Populations of Countries that Are at War with the Muslims."

Al-Awlaki served as imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., a Washington suburb, for about a year in 2001.

The mosque's outreach director, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, has said that mosque members never saw al-Awlaki espousing radical ideology while he was there and that he believes Awlaki's views changed after he left the U.S. I support the war on terror. I applauded president Obama for telling the Seals to take the shots on the Somali pirates. I was pleasantly surprised when he had Bin Laden shot on the battle field and gave him laud for that. I cannot support this action. I'm sorry (actually I'm not), but I cannot support the president ordering the assassination of an American citizen with out a trial. I'm terrified of a government that would do that. It's straight up totalitarian. Do I think he was guilty and deserved to be executed for that? Yes, but he deserves due process. I have no guarantee that the president won't just decide that I should be assassinated with out a trial and neither do you. That should chill you to the bone.

And the Intimidation of Private Businesses in WI by Unions Begins

Original Post: Redstate

by lineholder

This letter was written by Director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, Jim Palmer. Sounds quite a bit like extortion, doesn’t it?

The following is an excerpt from a letter to the owner of a convenience store, the Kwik Trip, in LaCrosse, WI. The content of this letter speaks for itself:

“The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly oppose Governor Walker’s efforts to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. While we appreciate that you may need some time to consider this request, we ask for your response by March 17.

In the event that you do not respond to this request by that date, we will assume that you stand with Governor Walker and against the teachers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and other dedicated public employees who serve our communities.

In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company. However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table.

Also be advised that we are concerned about your company’s participation in Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and its continued effort to support candidates who oppose collective bargaining. It makes no difference to us how much or little money you put into that effort. Your participation in that organization provides you an opportunity to halt this practice. We would also request that Kwik Trip disclose whether it makes contributions to any other organizations, such as Americans for Prosperity or the Club for Growth or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

We recognize your right to form political associations but we also believe the public has a right to know what kind of contributions or payments you make that impact the political process. As labor organizations we and our members do not care to provide profits to companies that are working directly or indirectly to threaten the livelihood of our members.

So they will “cut off” these businesses that don’t toe the line? They see themselves as being in the position to “punish” those businesses that don’t toe the line, do they? They will now proceed to “put their foot down” and “lay down the law” to the private sector businesses that they, the Unions, will control the future of the state of Wisconsin, come what may come, is that it????

The gloves are off now, folks. They aren’t going to let this be resolved in a reasonable manner.

I knew that public sector unions saw themselves as being “entitled”. I also knew that they take private sector business profits for granted as a “gimme”.

Now, they are revealing, for all of the world to see, just how vindictive, malicious, and unscrupulous they truly !!!

I used to think that unions broke collusion laws. After all, business can't get together and set the price of goods and services but unions can? Labor is a service to their respective employers. I now think unions break Rico statutes.

They are an organized entity that are organizing illegal strikes and having their police members turn their backs on felonies happening right in front of them. Now they want you to "pay" for their "protection" or else something bad might happen to you and we wouldn't want that now would we? You can just hear the Godfather music playing in the background of this letter.

The time of the Unions sticking up for the little guy and doing actual good things has long past. Now they're nothing more than extortionists and thugs. End unions and prosecute the ones who are guilty of crimes.

Suspect Located In Wisconsin GOP Death Threats UPDATE: Female Suspect Has Confessed

Original Post: Gatewaypundit

Posted by Lady Liberty on Saturday, March 12, 2011, 1:14 PM

The Wisconsin authorities actually located one of the loons who sent the Wisconsin GOP members death threats. They found the violent crackpot who sent this email to 15 different Republican lawmakers.
The Port Washington-Saukville Patch reported:

News that the state Justice Department has identified one suspect in connection with death threats sent to Republican state senators comes as at least a minor relief to Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend).

“They caught someone? Good,” he said Friday night. “I am waiting to hear the background of the type of person who would do such a devious thing.”

“The Division of Criminal Investigation takes these kind of threats seriously and will follow through with the investigation and prosecution whenever possible,” DCI Administrator Ed Wall said in the release.

“I and the group of people that are working with me have decided that we’ve had enough,” one of the threatening e-mails read. “We feel that you and your Republican dictators have to die.”

The message then went on to say the “group” planned to shoot the senators, and plant bombs in various locations, such as their homes and cars.

“If you and your goonies feel that it’s necessary to strip the rights of 300,000 people and ruin their lives, making them unable to feed, clothe and provide the necessities to their families and themselves then we will ‘get rid of’ (in which I mean kill) the eight of you,” the e-mail continued. “Please understand that this does not include the heroic senator that risked everything to go aganist what you and your goonies wanted him to do.”

The second message was much shorter, and stated:

“(Expletive) you, (expletive). I am formally requesting to see the 30,000 e-mails you have gotten making you comply with the open records law. I assure you that none of them are in support of you or anything that you or your staff stand for. Your staff members have now been added to the hit list as well as those of the other Senate members we have threatened. Please advise them of the impending danger leading to their deaths.”

Grothman said the threats made in response to the budget repair bill, and the passing of the revised version, are something unseen before in his nearly 20 years in office.

“We have never — you could add up all of the nasty emails and phone calls I have gotten on the first 17 years on the job — and they would not begin to match the obscenities we have seen from opponents of Gov. Walker,” he said.

WHBL is reporting that the suspect is a female.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice says it has located one of the people who sent death threats to elected officials during the controversy at the state Capitol. The female suspect wasn’t named, but the state says she was located last Thursday.

WisPolitics.com is reporting that the suspect has confessed to authoring and sending two e-mails threatening to kill the Governor and members of the Senate.

Here is the text of the email.

I am reprinting verbatim an email that was sent to Republican senators. The email was signed, but I have deleted the name pending what I hope will be a thorough police investigation.

Alan Colmes thinks there's no such thing as radical Islam

I really, really want to be a liberal now. It must be so easy going through life and any time something bad happens, you just deny it's existence. That would be so unburdening! Islamic extremists don't exist! Wisconsin deficit, didn't happen! War in Afghanistan, wut war (wut intentionally misspelled for artistic reasons)?

The problem with this outlook is that you still need people grounded in reality because even if you deny these problems they do in fact exist. But still, it must be so nice.

Wikileaks documents show WMDs found in Iraq

Original Post: Hot Air

by Ed Morrissey

In this case, the surprise isn’t the data but the source. Wikileaks’ new release from purloined files of the Department of Defense may help remind people that, contrary to popular opinion and media memes, the US did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and in significant quantities. While the invasion of Iraq didn’t find huge stockpiles of new WMDs, it did uncover stockpiles that the UN had demanded destroyed as a condition of the 1991 truce that Saddam Hussein abrogated for twelve years (via Instapundit):

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base. …

Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

Some of these discoveries have been known for years. To the extent that the media covered these at all, these finds were generally treated as long-forgotten leftovers that somehow never got addressed by the Iraqi military in twelve years of UN inspections. That, however, disregards completely the kind of totalitarian state that Hussein had imposed on Iraq, up to the minute that circumstances forced him into his spider hole in 2003. Had Saddam Hussein wanted those weapons destroyed, no lower-ranking military officer would have dared defy him by keeping them hidden. It would have taken dozens of officers to conspire to move and hide those weapons, as well as a like number of enlisted men, any and all of whom could have been a spy for the Hussein clique.

That would have had to have happened a number of times, not just once, organically arising in the ranks. And why create a vast conspiracy of defiance to save the weapons that Saddam Hussein liked the most while Hussein himself complied with the UN? Why not a conspiracy to just remove Hussein and his sons and let the military run the country instead? Obviously, Hussein wanted to keep enough WMDs to use as terror weapons, not against the US, but against Iran in the event of an invasion from the east.

This isn’t exactly vindication of one of the arguments the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq, which was that Hussein had already begun stockpiling new WMDs and was working on nuclear weapons, but it is another vindication of the primary reason for restarting the war: Hussein and Iraq had violated the truce and refused to comply even after 17 UN resolutions demanding compliance. Hussein never had any intention of abiding by the truce, for whatever motivations one wants to assign to him. After the invasion, the US proved (through an armed-version of Wikileaks in Iraq’s diplomatic files) that the UN had allowed Hussein to grab billions in personal wealth by perverting the embargo in the Oil-for-Food Program, which would have given Hussein the means to fuel another WMD program as soon as the West withdrew from Iraq, and to restart Hussein’s dreams of pan-Arab dominance through military adventurism. In the end, there were no good options.

Wikileaks: Saddam's WMD program existed in Iraq

Original Post: Examiner

he recent release by WikiLeaks of classified Pentagon documents reveals that U.S. military intelligence discovered chemical weapons labs, encountered insurgents who were specialists in the creation of toxins, and uncovered weapons of mass destruction.

The latest WikiLeaks document dump reveals that as late as 2008, American troops continued to find WMD in the region.

There are numerous mentions of chemical and biological weapons in the WikiLeaks documents, however the U.S. media appear only interested in those portions of the leaked material that highlight actions that are viewed as embarrassing for the U.S. military such as the accusation that U.S. commanders were aware of abuse and "torture" of prisoners by Iraqi soldiers and police officers.

The U.S. Defense Department continues to demand that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange immediately return the stolen military documents in his possession, including recent documents that created another stir when published, according to Elaine Wilson of American Forces Press Service.

The department also wants the whistle-blowing web site to permanently delete all versions of these documents, which contain classified and sensitive information, from its web site, computers and records, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.

WikiLeaks documents don't reveal evidence of a massive weapons program by Saddam Hussein — the Bush administration’s leading rationale for invading Iraq -- or some enormous stockpile of WMD, but do reveal that chemical weapons did vanish from the Iraqi battlefield.

According to the latest WikiLeaks document "dump," Saddam’s toxic arsenal, significantly reduced after the Gulf War, remained intact. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict and may have brewed up their own deadly agents, according to the WikiLeaks web site.

During that time, former Iraqi General Georges Sada, Saddam's top commander, detailed the transfers of Iraq's WMD. "There [were] weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

Gen. Sada's comments came just a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, claimed that Saddam Hussein "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."

in 2004, for example, American special forces members secretly purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard which have been used since World War I. Following testing in a military lab, the chemical was then secured and transferred to a secret location.

Meanwhile, also in Iraq, U.S. recon soldiers inspected a suspected “chemical weapons” plant:

“One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interested in trying to get into the bunkers.”

During the a battle in Fallujah, American forces claim they discovered a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there was a call in another part of the Fallujah requesting "explosives experts to dispose of a chemical[weapons] cache."

In addition, an armored vehicle came upon "155mm rounds filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”


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.

In bra, panties and wheelchair, woman goes through Oklahoma City airport screening this morning

Original Post: Newsok

A woman who missed her flight at Will Rogers World Airport Tuesday when she showed up in a wheelchair, bra and panties, passed through the airport screening process this morning and has left the city.

In her bra, panties and wheelchair, woman passes through OKC airport screening

Tammy Banovac, clad in undergarments and sitting in a wheelchair, failed to pass the Transportation Security Administration screening process Tuesday when security officers detected traces of nitrates on her wheelchair.

Airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said the issue was resolved this morning and Banovac, 52, caught her flight out of the city at 7 a.m. after going through screening without incident.

Banovac did show up at the airport this morning in her wheelchair wearing her bra and panties again, Carney said. But Banovac had a change of clothes that she put on after being screened, Carney said.

She boarded her flight to Phoenix without incident. Carney said Banovac also had a dog with her, who left on the same flight.

Tuesday night Banovac said she chose to wear her underwear because of an unpleasant experience two weeks ago at airport security. She is typically hand-searched at airports because she uses a wheelchair, she said, and she felt violated by the more invasive searches employed at airports recently.

“If it happened anywhere else, it would have been sexual assault.”

Banovac said she was trying to board a flight to Phoenix on Tuesday when she was pulled aside at security for a more thorough search.

She said TSA employees told her equipment detected traces of nitrates, which are used in bombs, on her clothing and luggage. She said a TSA supervisor told her to leave the airport and “come back tomorrow” after more than an hour of hand searches and questioning.



My comments: Well thank god our crack TSA is on the job. This woman has a clear hatred for America and all her inhabitants in her eye. She dresses in the manner of an Islamic Jihadist. She is clearly a menace to our society and has suicide bomber written all over her luscious, creamy, soft...

Ex-CIA agent: Waterboarding 'saved lives'

Original Post: CNN

December 11, 2007

A former CIA agent who participated in interrogations of terror suspects said Tuesday that the controversial interrogation technique of "waterboarding" has saved lives, but he considers the method torture and now opposes its use.

Former CIA operative John Kiriakou also told CNN's "American Morning" that he disagrees with a decision to destroy videotapes of certain interrogations, namely of al Qaeda's Abu Zubayda. Kiriakou made the remarks as two congressional committees prepared to grill CIA Director Michael Hayden on the destruction of the tapes and on "alternative" means of interrogation.
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Waterboarding begins by placing a suspect on a table with the suspect's feet slightly elevated, said Kiriakou, who was waterboarded several years ago as part of his CIA training. He said he elected not to learn how to perform the technique, which is designed to emulate the sensation of drowning.

Once a suspect is secured on the table, interrogators wrap his or her face in a cellophane-like material, Kiriakou said. Watch journalist undergo, discuss waterboarding"There is a bladder, or a water source, above the head with water pouring down on the mouth, so no water is going into your mouth, but it induces a gag reflex and makes you feel like you're choking," Kiriakou said. Watch the ex-agent describe the procedure

Kiriakou said he lasted only a few seconds during his training because his body felt like it was seizing up almost immediately.

"It's entirely unpleasant," Kiriakou said. "You are so full of tension that you tense up, your muscles tighten up. It's very uncomfortable."

Abu Zubayda lasted a little longer, said Kiriakou, but not much.

The former agent, who said he participated in the Abu Zubayda interrogation but not his waterboarding, said the CIA decided to waterboard the al Qaeda operative only after he was "wholly uncooperative" for weeks and refused to answer questions.

All that changed -- and Zubayda reportedly had a divine revelation -- after 30 to 35 seconds of waterboarding, Kiriakou said he learned from the CIA agents who performed the technique.

The terror suspect, who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reportedly gave up information that indirectly led to the the 2003 raid in Pakistan yielding the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged planner of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Kiriakou said.

The CIA was unaware of Mohammed's stature before the Abu Zubayda interrogation, the former agent said.

Sublime irony: Muslim TSA guard feels Catholic nun’s genitals

Original Post:Barbados Free Press

Muslim TSA security guard searches Catholic nun’s groin for bombs and weapons

As the outcry over virtual strip searches and genital feeling by minimum wage TSA airline security guards grows, this photo from Drudge Report really says it all.

Matt Drudge captioned the photo “The Terrorists have won” and I quite agree with him.

It’s totally out of control. If you had to pick the risk factor in that photo, which person is the most likely to be a threat to commercial air travel?

That’s right, Islamic Supremacists are the risk. How do you tell them apart from normal non-threatening Muslims? I don’t know, but I do know that feeling the genitals of Catholic nuns and New York Jews on their way to Disneyland with the grandchildren is not the answer.

The Muslim terrorists have accomplished what they set out to do.

My family will probably not fly to or through the USA again for some time. If the Brooklyn relatives want to visit us, they are welcome anytime – but Shona and I will not inflict flying upon our family if we can at all help it.

I suspect that we aren’t the only ones who feel that way.

Barbados Tourism industry: prepare to take another hit because this anti-flying feeling is turning into a movement in Europe and the USA.

Religion of peace continues it's "gift giving"

Original Post: Yahoo

Al-Qaeda vows to continue parcel bomb attacks

HONG KONG (AFP) – The Yemen-based branch of Al-Qaeda has vowed further small but frequent attacks against the West such as last month's cargo plane parcel bombs, in a "strategy of a thousand cuts" that will "bleed the enemy to death", a monitoring group said.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said the packages it put aboard freight planes bound for the US in late October were never intended to cause mass casualties, but were aimed at creating maximum economic damage.

The group said the parcels, which were intercepted in Dubai and Britain, were part of "Operation Hemorrhage," a plan that had cost just 4,200 dollars to mount.

It said there was now little focus on large-scale mass-casualty attacks like those on New York and Washington in September 2001.

"To bring down America we do not need to strike big," the network said in an English-language magazine called Inspire, which was monitored Saturday by the US-based Intelcenter.

"In such an environment of security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch and thus we may circumvent the security barriers America worked so hard to erect," AQAP said.

"This strategy of attacking the enemy with smaller, but more frequent operations is what some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim is to bleed the enemy to death."

The two parcels were addressed to synagogues in Chicago and found to contain the hard-to-detect explosive PETN hidden in ink toner cartridges.

A massive global security clampdown on airfreight followed the discovery, with a number of countries banning cargo or flights originating from Yemen, including the United States, Canada and several western European countries.

The AQAP magazine details the "total bill of 4,200" dollars for Operation Hemorrhage, adding that it was three months in the planning and execution.

"On the other hand this... will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures. This is what we call leverage.

"From the start our objective was economic... It was determined that the success of the operation was to be based on two factors: The first is that the packages pass through the latest security equipment.

"The second, the spread of fear that would cause the West to invest billions of dollars in new security procedures.

"We will continue with similar operations and we do not mind at all in this stage if they are intercepted. It is such a good bargain for us to spread fear amongst the enemy and keep him on his toes in exchange of a few months of work and a few thousand bucks."

The magazine says AQAP intends to pass on its know-how to other radical Islamists around the world, to encourage them to mount similar operations.

"We are laying out for our enemies our plan in advance because... our objective is not maximum kill but to cause a hemorrhage in the aviation industry, an industry that is so vital for trade and transportation between the US and Europe."

IntelCenter chief executive Ben Venzke said the level of operational detail AQAP had provided in the magazine marked a departure for Islamists.

"We have never seen a jihadist group in the Al-Qaeda orbit ever release, let alone only a few weeks after, such a detailed accounting of the philosophy, operational details, intent and next steps following a major attack," he said.

"This may represent a new level of interaction by jihadi groups following an operation and is a far cry from the days of shadowy claims and questions as to who was actually responsible.

"AQAP is a dedicated, unwavering and sophisticated group. It will continue to strike at the US in creative new ways and it is only a matter of time until one of their attacks results in thousands dead and/or severe economic damage."

Former TSA security director: No one likes Fourth Amendment violations, but we’re going to have to do it

Related Article: Hotair.com

posted at 7:41 pm on November 16, 2010 by Allahpundit
I’ll say this for the guy: He’s not one for sugar-coating. If he has to break a few constitutional eggs to make a security omelette, not only is he going to do it, he’s going to tell you that he’s doing it. Bend over — this Fourth Amendment violation won’t hurt a bit. I wonder what that’ll do to the poll numbers: As of yesterday, fully 81 percent of the public supports the use of full-body scanners at the airport, but as Nate Silver notes, that may be because relatively few people have had to endure them yet. Poll it again in a month, after “don’t touch my junk” fee-vah has had term to percolate culturally, and who knows where it’ll be.


Speaking of which, Gizmodo’s touting the fact that it’s obtained 100 images from a full-body scanner used at a courthouse in Florida showing photos of people side-by-side with their (fuzzy) X-rayed selves. Which isn’t supposed to happen, of course, per the endless assurances from the feds that the machines don’t save images they record. Two things, though. One: We already knew about this incident. That doesn’t diminish the privacy breach, but strictly from the standpoint of public awareness, everyone should already know that these things are indeed capable of exporting images. (Which makes sense: They’d want that as evidence afterwards if a suspect is apprehended.) As for the side-by-side real-life/X-ray comparisons, if you believe Napolitano — a very big if, I know — that wouldn’t happen at the airport. She’s sworn up and down that images from the full-body scanner are viewed at a remote location in the airport so that the screener observing them doesn’t see the actual passenger. In theory, at least in airports, side-by-side comparisons that identify people shouldn’t be possible. But then, in theory, the machines aren’t saving images either. Go figure.

Update: Elsewhere, Greenroomer Howard Portnoy explores the claims about dangerous radiation. Are these things really firing off damaging rays? Well … maybe, yeah.

Obama sued for authorizing an assassination on an American citizen

My Comments: I believe Awalki should be put to death, but you can't have the President authorizing assassinations on American citizens. That's blatantly un-American. We have rights, we have due process. Obama himself made a big stink about giving civilian trials, and Miranda rights, to capture Al-Qaeda operatives, but he won't extend those protections to American citizens. I'll stop my point before I get into trouble....

Obama sued over Awlaki slaying order

Original Post: Newstalk 1130

The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights are suing the government over an executive order to kill Anwar al-Awlaki.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Lawyers for the father of radical al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki called on Washington to outline its legal justification for targeting the cleric for death.

U.S. President Barack Obama in early 2010 sparked controversy when he targeted U.S.-born Awlaki for death. Awlaki was in contact with the alleged triggerman in the November 2009 shooting rampage in Fort Hood, Texas, and the suspected would-be suicide bomber on a U.S. passenger plane Christmas Day and recently said the killing of Americans is permissible for Muslims even without a religious edict.

Nasser al-Awlaki retained the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights to challenge the Obama administration's authority in the order.

The Obama administration argues that the executive branch has the unilateral authority to determine threats, noting targeted killings are a "political question" outside of the reach of the judicial branch.

The Awlaki lawsuit calls on the courts to rule that targeted killings are permissibly only in extreme cases and asks Washington to lay out its legal justification for putting U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal direct at the ACLU, said it's the government's responsibility to protect its citizens, though the courts have a key role to play in counter-terrorism policies.

"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," he said in a statement.

It's OK to use the word terrorist again

Authorities thwart terrorist attacks aimed at US

Original Post:Yahoo News

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Eileen Sullivan And Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press – 2 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Authorities on three continents thwarted multiple terrorist attacks aimed at the United States Friday, seizing two explosive packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues and packed aboard cargo jets from Yemen. Parts of the plot might remain undetected, President Barack Obama's counterterror chief warned.

Obama called the coordinated attacks a "credible terrorist threat" amid worldwide fears that al-Qaida was launching a major new campaign of assaults.

"The United States is not assuming that the attacks were disrupted and is remaining vigilant," Obama adviser John Brennan said at the White House.

One of the packages was found aboard a cargo plane in Dubai, the other in England. In the U.S., cargo planes were searched up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and an Emirates Airlines passenger jet was escorted down the coast to New York by American fighter jets.

No explosives were found aboard those planes, though the investigation was continuing on at least two.

Obama's sobering assessment, delivered from the White House podium, unfolded four days before national elections in which discussion of terrorism has played almost no role. The president went ahead with weekend campaign appearances.

The terrorist efforts "underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism," the president said. While he said both packages that contained explosives originated in Yemen, he did not explicitly assign blame to al-Qaida, which is active in the Arab nation and long has made clear its goal of launching new attacks on the United States.

Authorities in Dubai intercepted one explosive device. The second package was aboard a plane searched in East Midlands, north of London, and officials said it contained a printer toner cartridge with wires and powder. Brennan said the devices were in packages about the size of a breadbox.

While the president didn't specifically accuse Yemen's al-Qaida branch, officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said they were increasingly certain that was the source. The same group was responsible for the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner last Christmas.

The radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who now lives in hiding in Yemen, is believed to have helped inspire recent attacks including the Fort Hood shooting, the Times Square bombing attempt and the failed Detroit airliner bombing last Christmas Day.

Most of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation.

Brennan later told reporters that the explosives "were in a form that was designed to try to carry out some type of attack," but he provided no further details.

"The forensic analysis is under way," he said, adding, "Clearly from the initial observation, the initial analysis that was done, the materials that were found in the device that was uncovered was intended to do harm."

My Comments: Oh, and apparently terrorists still hate us and are trying to kill us, even though Bush is no longer president. I thought they just hated him. I thought the Wonderbringer was going to heal the world with his honey dripped words.

WRONG TO BURN QURANS, BUT OK FOR US MILITARY TO BURN BIBLES

Original Post: All Voices

A pro-family organization says it's hypocritical for high-ranking officials in the Pentagon to condemn a Florida church's plans to burn Qurans when U.S. military personnel burned Bibles last year in Afghanistan.

Pastor Terry JonesTerry Jones told reporters outside his church in Gainesville Wednesday afternoon that he remains unconvinced that "backing down is the right thing" to do regarding the planned burning of Qurans on Saturday. That protest has drawn objection from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander, who says images of burning Qurans will be used by extremists to inflame public opinion and incite worldwide violence. (See earlier story)

Earlier today on ABC's Good Morning America, President Barack ObamaBarack Obama criticized the event, calling it a "stunt" and warning it could become "a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda." Other notable Obama administration officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton, have also condemned the planned Quran burning.

But Bryan Fischer, director of issues analysis at the American Family Association (AFA), thinks it is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. government to condemn the church, considering the fact that the U.S. military incinerated Bibles that were sent to Afghanistan in May 2009. "There's really a staggering level of hypocrisy and double standard here for the military to burn the Holy Bible and then complain when a pastor's going to do the same thing to the Quran," Fischer contends. "You know, if the military was going to be fair here and even-handed, they would count up the number of Holy Bibles that they incinerated in Afghanistan, and then they would allow Reverend Jones to burn the same number of Qurans."

The AFA issues analysis director believes the whole incident illustrates the difference between Christianity and Islam. "When these Bibles were burned [in May 2009], the Christian community did not riot in the streets; we did not threaten violence against anyone," he points out. "[But] when even the threat of Qurans being burned takes place, it's like we're dealing with Armageddon [or] with World War III."

In a OneNewsNow poll conducted in May 2009, more than 60 percent of respondents said -- in reaction to the decision by the U.S. military to destroy the Bibles -- that "if it had been the Quran, this never would have happened."

Hypocrisy 'pretty well established'

Meanwhile, a senior Army strategist and Pentagon advisor also sees hypocrisy in high-ranking officials in the Pentagon strongly condemning the plans of Florida's Dove World Outreach Center to burn Qurans, when the Pentagon itself burned Bibles last year in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis (USA-Ret.) says while the concerns expressed by Petraeus, Gates, Clinton, and Obama are certainly legitimate, there is a note of hypocrisy in light of the fact that the U.S. military -- in order to appease Muslims -- last year torched Bibles sent to Afghanistan. (Listen to audio report)

"[Certainly] the armed forces should be sensitive to people's religious symbols or their text," he states. "[And] I said at the time [of the Bible burning] that I thought people would go ballistic if the armed forces were to burn Korans.

"But instead of burning the Bibles, there is no reason that they shouldn't have returned them to those who purchased the Bibles," he continues. "But we recognize that in a Muslim country, Christians are just not welcome. The hypocrisy is pretty well established. It is disconcerting."

Maginnis notes that unlike Islam, which tends to make the Quran itself a symbol of holiness, Christians base their faith on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ -- not on the Bible.

By Chad Groening