Friday, January 3, 2014

SEAL Team 6 Disaster Will Get Congressional Hearing

SEAL Team 6 Disaster Will Get Congressional Hearing

 
 
 
 
 
 
2 Votes

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.
Seal-Team-6
Readers who have been watching this story know that it was a complete cover up from the get go with the goal to silence alleged members to allegedly took our bin Laden.
This of course never happened.
For additional refrences please seeDead men tell no lies the fabrication of Osama bin Laden’s demise.”
There are many more references available, it’s just a matter of digging using your favorite search engine.
According to this article, “SEAL-gate” is potentially a bigger scandal than Benghazi. 
Congress has been want to bring in significant testimony by those who perjure themselves, on Benghazi and Operation Fast and Furious. 
seal-team-six2
It was Aug. 6, 2011, when a CH-47D Chinook helicopter carrying Navy SEALs and other U.S. military personnel were shot out of the sky over Afghanistan.
The helicopter, carrying elite special operators to reinforce Army Rangers engaged in a firefight, was attacked from the ground by insurgents wielding rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses later told military investigators.
The Chinook crashed and exploded in a fireball, and all 38 people and a working dog on board perished.
More than two years later, the incident remains shrouded in mystery, and is still the deadliest day for the United States in 12 years of war in Afghanistan. Now, the case of Extortion 17 – the call sign for the downed helicopter – will get its day on Capitol Hill.
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The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing to probe Extortion 17′s demise early next year, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Foreign Policy.
The decision raises the possibility that senior U.S. commanders could be put in the hot seat to answer for a mission that critics say was poorly planned at best and doomed from the start at worst, despite it involving one of the United States’ most celebrated military units.
Entire article below.

“I hope to be able to get answers that the families have been unable to secure,” said Chaffetz, chairman of the oversight subcommittee on national security. “I think they have raised some legitimate questions, and the Pentagon has been inadequate in their response.
I hope to be the conduit to come to some sort of resolution. I don’t know that I can ever alleviate all their concerns, but if I can shed and illuminate some light on what was the most horrific tragedy of our time in Afghanistan, I hope to do so.”
Chaffetz said he wasn’t certain yet whether the whole House committee would call the hearing, or whether it would be handled by his subcommittee.
He also wouldn’t say who may be called to serve as witnesses, but it seems clear it will be senior Defense Department officials. The Washington Times and The Hill reported previously that the oversight committee was researching the Extortion 17 case, but Chaffetz’s comments to Foreign Policy mark the first time a member of Congress has confirmed a hearing will occur.
“I want to give the Pentagon an opportunity to respond,” Chaffetz said.
The mission killed 30 U.S. service members, seven Afghan commandos, an Afghan interpreter and a U.S. military working dog in Afghanistan’s Tangi Valley in Wardak province, west of Kabul, U.S. officials said. The group included 17 SEALs, all but two of whom were from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, popularly known as SEAL Team 6.
A different unit within the SEAL team executed the daring raid in which U.S. forces killed terrorist mastermind and al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden in his safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, early May 2, 2011.
The other Americans on board Extortion 17 included five special operations support personnel and members of the Army National Guard who manned the helicopter.
The families of the fallen service members received more than 1,000 pages of documentation from the military in 2011 outlining the U.S. investigation into the case.
It was led by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Colt, who is currently the deputy commander of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. He was a one-star general when he was appointed by now-retired Gen. James Mattis, then the commander of U.S. Central Command, to conduct the investigation.
Family members told Foreign Policy that Colt later briefed the family members in an emotionally charged meeting at Dam Neck, Va., which SEAL Team 6 calls home.
It was attended by Adm. William McRaven, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command; Vice Adm. Sean Pybus, then the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command; and other senior military officers, said Charles Strange, whose son, Michael, was a cryptologist with SEAL Team 6 and killed in Extortion 17.
The briefing the families received raised as many concerns as it answered, he said.
Among the questions, the families want to know why the SEALs were all placed in one helicopter when a second one nearby was nearly empty, why the mission proceeded with less drone surveillance than normal, and why the men were on a decades-old Chinook, rather than the high-speed MH-60 Blackhawks they typically used.
All of those details appear as fact in U.S. military documents reviewed by Foreign Policy.
Strange also questions why the military decided to cremate many of the service members on board. While U.S. military officials initially told him his son’s body was burned beyond recognition, he later obtained a photograph from the military that showed his son’s remains were recognizable and not seriously burned, the father said. Those details were not released in a five-page executive summary published by CENTCOM in September 2011.
“There are just too many coincidences,” the elder Strange said. “There are too many questions left unanswered. I want to know what happened so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to someone else’s son or daughter.”
Colt’s investigative team also did not address why the Afghan military was allowed to swap in the seven commandos who participated in the deadly mission at the last-minute.
They were not on the manifest for Extortion 17, but joined the mission anyway, said Doug Hamburger, whose son, Patrick, was an Army staff sergeant and crew chief on board the helicopter when it went down.
The swap has raised questions whether the commandos — or someone else in the Afghan military — may have tipped off the insurgents that the SEALs were coming.
“Nowhere in there is there any mention of the Army talking to the Afghan command to find who they were, why they switched in and what they were doing on that Chinook,” the elder Hamburger said.
The initial operation that night was launched by Army Rangers who boarded Chinooks from a base in nearby Logar province late Aug. 5, 2011, to kill or capture Qari Zahir, who had assumed a senior role with the Taliban in the region, Colt’s team found.
The Rangers assaulted a compound where they believed the insurgent leader was, but they couldn’t find him.
The SEAL team took off as an additional response unit known as an Immediate Reaction Force, and prepared to land after 2:20 a.m. that morning. That’s when disaster struck:
A group of insurgents U.S. forces had not observed through aerial surveillance fired two or three RPGs from a second-story tower about 220 meters away from the helicopter, the investigation found.
The helicopter was traveling less than 150 feet off the ground at the time.
“The first RPG missed the helicopter, but the second RPG struck one of the blades of the aft rotor assembly and exploded, compromising the structural integrity, and causing a rapid chain reaction resulting in the loss of over 10 feet of the rotor blade,” Colt’s executive summary states. “…
The main fuselage dropped vertically into a dry creek bed. The airframe was immediately engulfed in a large fireball, causing multiple secondary explosions of fuel and munitions until the aircraft burned out several hours later.”
Colt’s team surmised that the attack was not the result of a “baited ambush” by the Taliban, but the result of insurgents being prepared after more than three hours of coalition military operations that night.
Documents among the 1,000 pages released to Gold Star families raise the possibility that the enemy fighters may have used heat-seeking man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADs, but Colt’s findings describe the weapons used as RPGs, which are not as accurate.
Regardless, it took until the following afternoon for Army Rangers to recover the remains of all who were on board Extortion 17. As many as 140 people took part in the recovery of the aircraft, which lasted three days.
The mission was complicated by a flash flood the afternoon of Aug. 6 that washed some of the wreckage 200 yards downstream, the investigation found.
Still, some of the families remain skeptical that they have the full story.
They point out that while the military’s investigation found commanders did not allocate enough aircraft to perform surveillance for the mission, no one was held accountable for that mistake.
The series of bizarre and ugly details that led to the helicopter’s demise make it hard for them to believe that no one in the chains of command — U.S. or Afghan — sold out their dead loved ones.
A Pentagon official declined to comment on what a  congressional hearing could mean, and referred other questions to Centcom’s existing report.
A few of the families, including Strange’s and Hamburger’s, sought legal representation from Freedom Watch, an advocacy organization run by Larry Klayman, a lawyer closely affiliated with the Tea Party.
They met with staff members of the House oversight committee this week, and plan to continue pressuring the government for answers.
“It’s a matter of great personal and national importance,” Klayman said. “The way our fallen heroes are treated by the administration affects not only the families, but the desire of new recruits to enter the military.
Currently, many in the military feel betrayed by the government. Hopefully this congressional investigation will get to the truth and clear the air.”

Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq

Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq

MOHAMMED JALIL/EPA - Thousands of people attend Friday prayers in Fallujah on Jan. 3.
BEIRUT — A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.
The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.

Al-Qaeda affiliate captures Fallujah

Al-Qaeda affiliate captures Fallujah
“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” a local journalist said.

Record number of peacekeepers fails to stop African wars

Record number of peacekeepers fails to stop African wars
Despite thousands of troops and billions of dollars, conflicts keep erupting in South Sudan, elsewhere.

More U.S. Embassy staff to leave South Sudan

More U.S. Embassy staff to leave South Sudan
The drawdown underscores U.S. concerns about the deteriorating security situation.
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Elsewhere in the province, local tribal militias claimed they were gaining ground against the al-Qaeda militants who surged into urban areas from their desert strongholds this week after clashes erupted between local residents and the Iraqi security forces.
In Fallujah, where Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in 2004, the militants appeared to have the upper hand, underscoring the extent to which the Iraqi security forces have struggled to sustain the gains made by U.S. troops before they withdrew in December 2011.
The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the rebranded version of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization that was formed a decade ago to confront U.S. troops and expanded into Syria last year while escalating its activities in Iraq. Roughly a third of the 4,486 U.S. troops killed in Iraq died in Anbar trying to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, nearly 100 of them in the November 2004 battle for control of Fallujah, the site of America’s bloodiest confrontation since the Vietnam War.
Events Friday suggested the fight may have been in vain.
“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”
At Friday prayers , held outdoors and attended by thousands of people, a masked ISIS fighter took the podium and addressed the crowd, declaring the establishment of an “Islamic emirate” in Fallujah and promising to help residents fight the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Iranian allies.
“We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to take any of your possessions,” the man told the crowd, according to the journalist, who attended the prayers. “We want you to reopen the schools and institutions and return to your normal lives.”
The extent of the militants’ control over the city was unclear, however. Some local tribes were challenging their presence, and there were scattered firefights, according to another Fallujah resident who also did not want to be named because he is afraid. The Iraqi army fired shells into Fallujah from bases outside the city, killing at least 17 people, and most residents spent the day hiding indoors, he said.
In the provincial capital, Ramadi, tribal fighters have succeeded in ejecting al-Qaeda loyalists, according to Ahmed Abu Risha, a tribal leader who fought alongside U.S. troops against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the “surge” of U.S. troops in 2007.
The tribesmen are cooperating with Iraqi police, Abu Risha said, and are receiving weapons and support from the Iraqi army. Among those killed in the fighting was Abu Abdul Rahman al-Baghdadi, the emir, or leader, of ISIS in Ramadi.
“All the tribes of Anbar are fighting against al-Qaeda,” he said. “We are happy this fight is taking place. We will confront them face to face, and we will win this battle.”
But it was unclear whether all the tribal fighters battling the al-Qaeda-affiliated militants were doing so in alliance with the Iraqi government. The current violence evolved from a year-long, largely peaceful Sunni revolt against Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government that drew inspiration from the Arab Spring demonstrations elsewhere in the region. But it was rooted in the sectarian disputes left unresolved when U.S. troops withdrew and inflamed by the escalating conflict in neighboring Syria.
Those disputes include the exclusion of Sunnis from important decision-making positions in government and abuses committed against Sunnis in Iraq’s notoriously inequitable judicial system.
When Maliki dispatched the Iraqi army to quell a protest in Ramadi this week, local tribes fought back. Maliki ordered the troops to withdraw, creating an opportunity for al-Qaeda fighters to surge into towns from their desert strongholds and triggering battles across the province.
Though some tribes have turned against the al-Qaeda-affiliated militants, others have not, said Kirk Sowell, a political risk analyst based in the Jordanian capital, Amman, who edits the newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics.
“Basically, no one is in control,” he said. “The situation was really horrible anyway, and the operation against Ramadi made it worse.”
A group representing the tribal fighters, calling itself the Military Council of the Anbar Rebels, posted a video on YouTube in which masked men declared their opposition to Maliki’s government but made no mention of al-Qaeda. The fighters called on local members of the Iraqi security forces to desert, hand over their weapons “and remember always that they are the sons of Iraq, not slaves of Maliki.”
Whether or how the Iraqi security forces will be able to regain the initiative is unclear. ISIS fighters have steadily asserted their control over the province’s desert regions for months, buoyed by their consolidation of control over territory just across the border in Syria. They are more disciplined and better armed than the tribal fighters drawn into the fray over the past week, and the Iraqi security forces lack the equipment and technology that enabled U.S. troops to suppress the al-Qaeda challenge.
In the past year, al-Qaeda has bounced back, launching a vicious campaign of bombings that killed more than 8,000 people in 2013, according to the United Nations. Sectarian tensions between Iraq’s Sunnis and the Shiite-led government have been further inflamed by the war in Syria, where the majority Sunni population has been engaged in a nearly three-year-old struggle to dislodge President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Shiite Alawite minority.
Al-Qaeda’s ascendant influence in Syria has given the militants control over the desert territories spanning both sides of the ­Iraqi-Syrian border, enabling them to readily transfer weapons and fighters between the arenas.
In Syria on Friday, there were demonstrations in several rebel-held towns against ISIS’s presence, and in at least one town ISIS fighters opened fire on protesters, echoing the suppression of anti-government demonstrations by Syria’s government in the early days of the revolt. Clashes also erupted between the al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters and Islamist fighters from the newly formed Islamist Front in the rebel-held north, in a sign of growing tensions between Syrians and foreign-influenced extremists.
Most residents of Fallujah do not support the al-Qaeda fighters, the journalist there said, but they also lack the means to oppose them, and they also oppose the Iraqi government.
“It is sad, because we are going back to the days of the past,” he said. “Everyone is remembering the battles of 2004 when the Marines came in, and now we are revisiting history.”

Ahmed Ramadan and Loveday Morris in Beirut and Ben Van Heuvelen in New York contributed to this report.

Global Warming High Priest Al Gore Closes All Alliance for Climate Protection Field Offices, Lays Off 90% of Staff

Global Warming High Priest Al Gore Closes All Alliance for Climate Protection Field Offices, Lays Off 90% of Staff

Al Gore
Malcolm Gladwell’s great book The Tipping Point presents the case that sudden seismic shifts in society can result from small events, if the right factors are present.  Tipping points happen when momentum toward an idea builds and finally crosses a threshold where it is evident that a major cultural change has occurred.  The global warming tipping point is coming, but not the one anticipated by climate change “experts.”
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has been dominant for the past three decades as absolute fact in the public mind.  In the last several years, however, cracks in the fortress of “settled science” have appeared, and public opinion has begun to shift.  Increasingly, alarmist predictions have failed to come to fruition.
In 2004, NASA’s chief scientist James Hansen authoritatively announced that there is only a ten-year window to act on AGW (presumably by transferring mass quantities of taxpayer funds to global warmist causes) before climate Armageddon destroys humanity.  Well, that window has now shut tight, and AGW is AWOL.
Al Gore, the high priest of AGW theory, has closed all of his Alliance for Climate Protection field offices, and laid off 90% of his staff.  Contributions have all but dried up since 2008.

[Continue Reading at American Thinker...]

The New York Times Destroys Obama

The New York Times Destroys Obama

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By Caroline Glick:
The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration and its Middle East policy. Call it fratricide. It was clearly unintentional. Indeed, is far from clear that the paper realizes what it has done.
Last Saturday the Times published an 8,000-word account by David Kirkpatrick detailing the terrorist strike against the US Consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. In it, Kirkpatrick tore to shreds the foundations of President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism strategy and his overall policy in the Middle East
Obama first enunciated those foundations in his June 4, 2009, speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University. Ever since, they have been the rationale behind US counterterror strategy and US Middle East policy.
Obama’s first assertion is that radical Islam is not inherently hostile to the US. As a consequence, America can appease radical Islamists. Moreover, once radical Muslims are appeased, they will become US allies, (replacing the allies the US abandons to appease the radical Muslims).
Obama’s second strategic guidepost is his claim that the only Islamic group that is a bona fide terrorist organization is the faction of al-Qaida directly subordinate to Osama bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Only this group cannot be appeased and must be destroyed through force.
The administration has dubbed the Zawahiri faction of al-Qaida “core al-Qaida.” And anyone who operates in the name of al-Qaida, or any other group that does not have courtroom-certified operational links to Zawahiri, is not really al-Qaida, and therefore, not really a terrorist group or a US enemy.
These foundations have led the US to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are the rationale for the US’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide. They are the basis for Obama’s allegiance to Turkey’s Islamist government, and his early support for the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition.
They are the basis for the administration’s kneejerk support for the PLO against Israel.
Obama’s insistent bid to appease Iran, and so enable the mullocracy to complete its nuclear weapons program. is similarly a product of his strategic assumptions. So, too, the US’s current diplomatic engagement of Hezbollah in Lebanon owes to the administration’s conviction that any terror group not directly connected to Zawahiri is a potential US ally.
From the outset of the 2011 revolt against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it was clear that a significant part of the opposition was composed of jihadists aligned if not affiliated with al-Qaida. Benghazi was specifically identified by documents seized by US forces in Iraq as a hotbed of al-Qaida recruitment.
Obama and his advisers dismissed and ignored the evidence. The core of al-Qaida, they claimed, was not involved in the anti-Gaddafi revolt. And to the extent jihadists were fighting Gaddafi, they were doing so as allies of the US.
In other words, the two core foundations of Obama’s understanding of terrorism and of the Muslim world were central to US support for the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
With Kirkpatrick’s report, the Times exposed the utter falsity of both.
Kirkpatrick showed the mindset of the US-supported rebels and through it, the ridiculousness of the administration’s belief that you can’t be a terrorist if you aren’t directly subordinate to Zawahiri.
One US-supported Islamist militia commander recalled to him that at the outset of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion, “Teenagers came running around… [asking] ‘Sheikh, sheikh, did you know al-Qaida? Did you know Osama bin Laden? How do we fight?”
In the days and weeks following the September 11, 2012, attack on the US installations in Benghazi in which US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, the administration claimed that the attacks were not carried out by terrorists. Rather they were the unfortunate consequence of a spontaneous protest by otherwise innocent Libyans.
According to the administration’s version of events, these guileless, otherwise friendly demonstrators, who killed the US ambassador and three other Americans, were simply angered by a YouTube video of a movie trailer which jihadist clerics in Egypt had proclaimed was blasphemous.
In an attempt to appease the mob after the fact, Obama and then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton shot commercials run on Pakistani television apologizing for the video and siding with the mob against the movie-maker, who is the only person the US has imprisoned following the attack. Then-ambassador to the UN and current National Security Adviser Susan Rice gave multiple television interviews placing the blame for the attacks on the video.
According to Kirkpatrick’s account of the assault against the US installations in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, the administration’s description of the assaults was a fabrication. Far from spontaneous political protests spurred by rage at a YouTube video, the attack was premeditated.
US officials spotted Libyans conducting surveillance of the consulate nearly 15 hours before the attack began.
Libyan militia warned US officials “of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi,” two days before the attack.
From his account, the initial attack – in which the consulate was first stormed – was carried out not by a mob, but by a few dozen fighters. They were armed with assault rifles. They acted in a coordinated, professional manner with apparent awareness of US security procedures.
During the initial assault, the attackers shot down the lights around the compound, stormed the gates, and swarmed around the security personnel who ran to get their weapons, making it impossible for them to defend the ambassador and other personnel trapped inside.
According to Kirkpatrick, after the initial attack, the organizers spurred popular rage and incited a mob assault on the consulate by spreading the rumor that the Americans had killed a local. Others members of the secondary mob, Kirkpatrick claimed, were motivated by reports of the video.
This mob assault, which followed the initial attack and apparent takeover of the consulate, was part of the predetermined plan. The organizers wanted to produce chaos.
As Kirkpatrick explained, “The attackers had posted sentries at Venezia Road, adjacent to the [consulate] compound, to guard their rear flank, but they let pass anyone trying to join the mayhem.”
According to Kirkpatrick, the attack was perpetrated by local terrorist groups that were part of the US-backed anti-Gaddafi coalition. The people who were conducting the surveillance of the consulate 15 hours before the attack were uniformed security forces who escaped in an official car. Members of the militia tasked with defending the compound participated in the attack.
Ambassador Stevens, who had served as the administration’s emissary to the rebels during the insurrection against Gaddafi, knew personally many of the terrorists who orchestrated the attack. And until the very end, he was taken in by the administration’s core belief that it was possible to appease al-Qaida-sympathizing Islamic jihadists who were not directly affiliated with Zawahiri.
As Kirkpatrick noted, Stevens “helped shape the Obama administration’s conviction that it could work with the rebels, even those previously hostile to the West, to build a friendly, democratic government.”
The entire US view that local militias, regardless of their anti-American, jihadist ideologies, could become US allies was predicated not merely on the belief that they could be appeased, but that they weren’t terrorists because they weren’t al-Qaida proper.
As Kirkpatrick notes, “American intelligence efforts in Libya concentrated on the agendas of the biggest militia leaders and the handful of Libyans with suspected ties to al-Qaida. The fixation on al-Qaida might have distracted experts from more imminent threats.”
But again, the only reason that the intelligence failed to notice the threats emanating from local US-supported terrorists is because the US counterterrorist strategy, like its overall Middle East strategy, is to seek to appease all US enemies other than the parts of al-Qaida directly commanded by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Distressingly, most of the discussion spurred by Kirkpatrick’s article has ignored the devastating blow he visited on the intellectual foundations of Obama’s foreign policy. Instead, the discussion has focused on his claim that there is “no evidence that al-Qaida or other international terrorist group had any role in the assault,” and on his assertion that the YouTube video did spur to action some of the participants in the assault.
Kirkpatrick’s claim that al-Qaida played no role in the attack was refuted by the Times’ own reporting six weeks after the attack. It has also been refuted by congressional and State Department investigations, by the UN and by a raft of other reporting.
His claim that the YouTube video did spur some of the attackers to action was categorically rejected last spring in sworn congressional testimony by then-deputy chief of the US mission to Libya Gregory Hicks.
Last May Hicks stated, “The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya. The video was not instigative of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrators related to the video anywhere in Libya.”
Kirkpatrick’s larger message – that the reasoning behind Obama’s entire counterterrorist strategy and his overall Middle East policy is totally wrong, and deeply destructive – has been missed because his article was written and published to whitewash the administration’s deliberate mischaracterization of the events in Benghazi, not to discredit the rationale behind its Middle East policy and counterterrorism strategy. This is why he claimed that al-Qaida wasn’t involved in the attack. And this is why he claimed that the YouTube video was a cause for the attack.
This much was made clear in a blog post by editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, who alleged that the entire discourse on Benghazi is promoted by the Republicans to harm the Democrats, and Kirkpatrick’s story served to weaken the Republican arguments. In Rosenthal’s words, “The Republicans hope to tarnish Democratic candidates by making it seem as though Mr. Obama doesn’t take al-Qaida seriously.”
So pathetically, in a bid to defend Obama and Clinton and the rest of the Democrats, the Times published a report that showed that Obama’s laser-like focus on the Zawahiri-controlled faction of al-Qaida has endangered the US.
By failing to view as enemies any other terror groups – even if they have participated in attacks against the US – and indeed, in perceiving them as potential allies, Obama has failed to defend against them. Indeed, by wooing them as future allies, Obama has empowered forces as committed as al-Qaida to defeating the US.
Again, it is not at all apparent that the Times realized what it was doing. But from Israel to Egypt, to Iran to Libya to Lebanon, it is absolutely clear that Obama and his colleagues continue to implement the same dangerous, destructive agenda that defeated the US in Benghazi and will continue to cause US defeat after US defeat.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 


Watch] Anonymous Issues a “Call to Arms” – Forms Anonymous Liberation Army


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[Watch] Anonymous Issues a “Call to Arms” – Forms Anonymous Liberation Army



The complexion of the battle for American sovereignty took a turn over the holidays that will likely get no coverage from the main stream media at all. That is to be expected. Every act of omission of the activist group Anonymous from the discussion reinforces the premise and the foundation for their existence and serves to further validate their declared purpose.
On December 28th, Anonymous announced the creation of the Anonymous Liberation Army by means of a YouTube video. YouTube is the preferred method of communication for the secretive group. The text of that announcement is below:
Greetings United States citizens,
We are Anonymous. This is an open page message to all occupy protesters or any protesters for that matter. Please allow us to introduce ourselves. We are the Anonymous Liberation Army. Our goal is to protect you the people from any government officials that would choose to violate your rights.
We will begin by showing at large scale protests where riot police would be called. We will be your offensive line so that you may protest where and when you want. You will no longer be beaten into submission or made to be caged for exercising you Constitutional rights.
If they try to block you from protesting or having your voices heard then we will push them back. If they use force against you then we will use force to defend you. No matter how peaceful your assembly may be, it seems that the police react with violence.
They no longer work for the people but instead are body guards of the elite. This cannot continue if we the people seek to change this country. We believe like many others that the future our children will have is a future not worth having.
The only reason occupy was not successful the first time was because the media and the police kept our true voices from being heard. We stand here today to tell you that this will no longer happen. We will fulfill the promises of our founding fathers and we will defend you even at the cost of our own lives.
We are inviting all able-bodied men and women alike to join us in defending the rights of others. this is a call to arms. The elite commit horrible crimes and when we announce those crimes then we are the ones who are put in prison. We no longer need career politicians in government, but instead we need people who have suffered at the hands of those same career politicians to be the ones representing the people. Therefore we are also asking any individual that wishes to represent the people of the United States to stand up and make your voice heard.
We encourage all activists and protesters to take to the streets and make your voices heard. The only way to hold these criminals accountable is to act now before it’s too late. We no longer need to ask the government to stop taking our rights because they were never theirs to begin with.
Thomas Jefferson said that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Militias of the United States, the time to act is now. We have stood idle for far too long and now it’s time to wake the sleeping giant.
The video ends with an exclamation point in the form of a sound bite from the movie “V for Vendetta.” In the clip, the main character “V” says, “violence can be used for good.”
The influence of this video upon the actions of those American citizens who feel they have a government that has become the enemy of the country is difficult to predict. One thing is certain, though, this “call to arms” has raised the stakes in the debate.
It represents at a minimum a reset of the conflict between the oppressors and the oppressed. There is an increasingly broad base of support for a grass roots action against the controllers who have usurped the Constitution and inserted themselves as the illegitimate masters of an increasingly enslaved citizenry.
Formerly free Americans who value feel a responsibility to their nation and to their children to safeguard their way of life are the true and legitimate form of homeland security. They may have reached a point where a simple nudge is enough to inspire them to take to the streets and to demand their country back.
This could be that nudge that is felt around the world.
Please scroll to the bottom of this page for more posts from Rick Wells, or to “Like” him on Facebook or “Follow” him on Twitter.

Finally! Obama To Be Sued Over Massively-Invasive NSA Spying Scandal

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is leading a class-action lawsuit with hundreds of thousands of Americans against President Barack Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) over its spying on the American people, Breitbart News has learned.
Sen. Paul will be discussing the lawsuit in an exclusive appearance on Fox News with host Eric Bolling at 10 PM ET on Friday. Breitbart News has learned that Paul will file the class action lawsuit soon in the D.C. District Court and that he will be filing it as an individual, not as a U.S. Senator. For a U.S. Senator to file a such a class action lawsuit against the President of the United States would be extremely rare.
obama-lawsuit-nsa-spying-rand-paul-police-state
CLICK IMAGE TO SEE WHAT ELSE OBAMA IS UP TO THESE DAYS…
With regard to NSA spying, this is the first class action lawsuit against such activity. This allows the American people to join together in a grassroots manner against President Obama’s NSA for the first time in the legal system, as all other lawsuits have been individuals suing against the agency.
The focus of the lawsuit will be how the NSA’s actions violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The lawsuit will target the NSA’s metadata program.
Via Paul’s campaign website, more than 300,000 Americans have already indicated they will sign up for the suit when it is officially filed in D.C. District court. Americans can join the lawsuit by visiting Paul’s website.
The class action suit from Sen. Paul against the president comes on the heels of two different conflicting court rulings in individual suits against the NSA, with one court ruling that the NSA was within its bounds to spy on Americans shortly after a different court ruled the NSA’s actions were unconstitutional. The conflicting decisions all but guarantee an eventual Supreme Court-level case on the matter. source – Breitbart


Complete System Recovery using DriveImage XML

The healthy state of a system is in constant jeopardy each and every day. Viruses, Hardware
Malfunctions and User Error are just some of the potential threats facing your PC. At some
point it is very possible that your Windows operating system will become unavailable for any
number of reasons. If you have used DriveImage XML to backup your system state to an
alternate location from where your Windows operating system is stored, chances are very good
your system will make a full recovery :)

Before proceeding, please make sure you have created a BartPE Boot CD as described in
the Obtaining & Installing BartPE and Installing BartPE Plug-Ins & Burning sections

Insert your newly created BartPE boot disk into your cdrom drive and reboot your computer.
Depending on the setup of your computer you may need to press a certain keystroke to enable
booting from your cdrom drive. Many modern computers have this feature enabled by default,
and simply require that a bootable CD be present in the cdrom drive when the pc is turned on
(please refer to your computer documenation if you are experiencing problems booting from
cdrom).
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(1)
If you created the BartPE boot disk
properly and have enabled the booting
off of your cdrom properly, you will be
presented with the BartPE boot screen,
with the first prompt asking if you wish
to enable Network Support. Given our
image is located on an external USB
drive; we do not need to able
networking at this time, so please click
No
We will first begin with
partitioning our hard drive with
SwissKnife. Swissknife
recommends that BartPE be
configured to have a screen
resolution of 1024x768.. To
configure BartPE to 1024x768,
click
Go - System - Display -
Screen Resolution - 1024 x
768
(3)
To launch the SwissKnife plugin
you installed on the boot disk,
click
Go in the lower left hand
corner, click
Programs and click
CompuApps SwissKnife V3
(4)
On the SwissKnife menu you will
see two attached hard drives
(Primary Master and Primary
Slave). As you click each of the
drives, pay attention to what is
displayed on the right hand side
of the screen underneath the
volume label. You will note that if
you followed my advice and
labeled your Drive C and Drive E:
with volume labels you will see
them listed here. Immediately
because of this, drive_c is
identified as the Primary master
(with our Drive E as the Primary
Slave given the DRIVEIMAGE
volume label). If the destination
hard drive for the backup image
to be restored on is an existing
hard drive that you will simply do
a restore on, I suggest you delete
and recreate the partition before
continuing with the DriveImage
XML restore. To delete and
recreate the partition, click
Primary Master, click drive_c
partition and click
Delete. If you
are restoring your backup image
to a brand new hard drive that
has never had an Operating
System on it, you can skip this
step and go directly to the
creating a partition step
(5)
Click Yes to confirm you wish to
proceed with deleting the drive
partition.
I wish to repeat that your
particular configuration may be
different then what I am describing
in this tutorial, and ask that you
feel confident in your
understanding about your current
and existing environment before
attempting to delete or modify your
hard drive partition
(6)
Select from the drop down box
the Partition Type
Primary.
Select from the drop down box
the File System
NTFS. Define a
volume label in the Volume Label
field (I suggest
drive_c if this is
your Drive C: ) .Place a tick mark
in the box labeled
Set this
partition to Active
. Click Create
It only takes a few moments to complete, and when it does, you will have a fresh partition table,
ready for DriveImage XML to restore your backup image onto. To exist the CompuApps
SwissKnife application, click '
X' in the upper right hand corner or click File - Exit from the
SwissKnife toolbar

(7)
With the destination hard drive
properly partitioned, DriveImage can
now be used to restore the backup
image. To launch DriveImage XML
click
Go - Programs - DriveImage
XML
(8)
On the DriveImage XML main
menu click
Restore
(9)
Click the drive labeled drive_c and
click
Next
(10)
Click on the browse icon
(11)
Click My Computer and double
click the drive labeled
DRIVEIMAGE (this is the drive
which we stored our backup image
earlier)
(12)
Click drive_c.xml and click
Open (This is the backup image
we created earlier)
(13)
Click Next
(14)
Select a drive which the backup
image will be restored to.
Because we volume labeled each
of our hard drives earlier and
because we know we want to
restore the backup image to our
Drive C:, click the drive which
has the label
drive_c. Click Next
(15)
Click on Next to begin the restore
operation
(16)
A confirmation dialog box will
appear asking you to type in a
confirmation word. Type
DISK0#1 and click OK. Your
particular confirmation word
might be different depending on
the drive # and partition you will
be restoring.
Note the
confirmation warning is here for a
reason. Make absolutely sure you
are confident you have identified
the destination drive correctly
before proceeding, to avoid
overwriting one of your hard
drives in your system with the
incorrect data.
(17)
When the restore is complete click Finish. After clicking the Finish button, remove the CD from
your cdrom drive and turn your system off and on. If the restore was successful, your PC will
boot up and it ones did prior to the failure and you will be back to
a fully functioning PC :)

I wish to add that if your PC becomes unavailable, it is not always obvious if the reason for the
failure is a software problem or a hardware problem. If it is a software problem, inserting a
BartPE boot disk, rebuilding the disk partitions with SwissKnife and restoring your backup
image back to the failed hard drive should repair the failure. However if the system failed
because of a physical failure of the hard drive, you need to replace the drive first with a new
one and follow the restore procedure. If you try to restore a backup image to the original drive
which failed and are experiencing errors or even begin to hear ticks and rattling from your hard
drive, it probably means you need to replace the drive first before a fully system restore can be
done.

Simple and easy ways to keep your computer safe and secure on the Internet

By on August 17, 2004 | Last Updated: December 6, 2012 | Read 297,774 times.
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Introduction
Let's face it, the Internet is not a very safe place. There are hackers trying to access your computer, worms trying to infect you, malicious Trojans disguised as helpful programs, and spyware that reports your activities back to their makers. In many cases those who become infected unknowingly become a breeding ground for unwanted programs and criminal activity. It does not have to be this way. With proper education and smart computing the Internet can be a safe, useful, and fun place to visit without having to worry about what is lurking around the corner.
This tutorial was created to provide tips and techniques for smart and safe computing. When using these techniques you will not only protect yourself and your data from hackers and viruses, but also keep your computer running more smoothly and reliably. The advice in this tutorial applies to all computer users and all operating systems, but we have tried to point out specific steps for various operating systems as it becomes necessary.

What you need to know to keep your computer safe on the Internet

Tip 1: Always install Operating System updates
The most important steps for any computer user is to always install updates, especially security updates, when they become available for your operating system. When operating systems are developed, bugs, or programming errors, are unfortunately created that could cause security vulnerabilities or make your computer act unexpectedly. Though the developers spend many hours trying to prevent these bugs, they are ultimately human, and bugs occur. It does not matter what operating system we are talking about, bugs are always introduced. Due to this, companies will routinely release updates and patches to fix any security vulnerabilities or errors as they are discovered.
In order for your computer to operate smoothly and safely it is imperative that all users install updates, especially security updates, as they are released. By not installing these updates you leave your computer at risk from remote users hacking into them or viruses exploiting these bugs to gain access to your computer. Thankfully, all modern operating system provide easy methods for installing new updates. In fact, most of these methods do all the work for you and just require you to click a prompt to allow the updates to install. Therefore, there really is no reason not to install them.
Below are two tutorials that can be used to learn how to update your operating system in Windows and MacOS:
For Macs: How to install Software Updates on your Mac
For Windows: How to update Windows

Tip 2: Keep your installed applications up-to-date
A common method that computer infections use to infect your computer are security vulnerabilities in your installed programs. Common programs that are targeted due to their large install base are web browsers, Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, and Oracle Java. In order to make your computer as secure as possible, you need to make sure these programs are updated when new security fixes are released. The problem is that many people just ignore alerts about new updates, even though these updates fix security problems that could allow hackers into your computer.
If you are prompted by a known application that you commonly use stating that there is a new update, just click the button to allow it to be updated. This is especially true for web browsers, which are commonly targeted by malicious code on web sites. If there is a new version of your web browser available, you should upgrade it so that any security vulnerabilities are fixed.
If you use Windows, there is a great program called Secunia PSI that automatically scans your computer for applications and automatically updates them for you. Information about this program can be found at this tutorial:
How to detect vulnerable and out-dated programs using Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)

Tip 3: Do not use the same password at every site
It has now become common to hear about a company who was hacked and the hacker was able to access the company members email addresses and passwords. If you use the same password at every site, and one of those sites was hacked, the hacker now has your account information everywhere that you have an account. They can now login to your email, see what other accounts you have, banks that you use, etc and gather even more private information about you.
It is very important to use a different password at every site where you have an account. Unfortunately, we all know it's not realistic and even possible to remember a different password for every account you may own. To help with that you can use a password management program like Keepass to help you store your account information for each site you login to. Keepass also contains plugins that allow you to automatically login to sites you visit using the information stored in its database.
If you would rather not store your passwords in another program, then creating a standard password format is better than using the same password at each site. For example, for each site you visit you can create a password in the format <year born><sitename>!55. So if you were registering an account at Bleepingcomputer and you were born in 1975, you could use the password 1975bleepingcomputer!55. Then at CNN you could have an account 1975cnn!55. As you can see you are now using a different and strong password at each site, but you have an easy to remember format that you can use to determine the password.

Tip 4: Install and be sure to update your anti-virus software
It is very important that your computer has antivirus software running on your machine. By having an antivirus program running, files and emails will be scanned as you use them, download them, or open them. If a virus is found in one of the items you are about to use, the antivirus program will stop you from being able to run that program and infect yourself.

Is it also important to note that there is no point in running an antivirus program if you do not make sure it has all the latest updates available to it. If you do not update the software, it will not know about any new viruses, trojans, worms, etc that have been released into the wild since you installed the program. If a new infection appears in your computer, the outdated antivirus program will not know that it is bad, and not alert you when you run it and your computer becomes infected. It is imperative that you update your Antivirus software at least once a week (Even more if you wish) so that you are protected from all the latest threats.
It is also suggested that you install a free anti-malware scanner in addition to your normal anti-virus program. These free anti-malware scanners do not offer real-time protection unless you upgrade to the commercial version, but offer excellent detections when scanning with them periodically. Two recommended Windows anti-malware programs are MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware. Tutorials on how to use these programs are listed below:
How to use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to scan and remove malware from your computer
How to use SUPERAntiSpyware to scan and remove malware from your computer
The following link has a list of some online and stand-alone antivirus programs: Virus, Spyware, and Malware Protection and Removal Resources
 
Tip 5: Use a firewall
The importance of using a Firewall on your computer or on your network cannot be stressed enough. Just because you have all the latest security updates, you are still susceptible to unreported, unpatched, or unknown vulnerabilities that a hacker may know about. Sometimes hackers discover new security holes in a software or operating system long before the software company does and many people get hacked before a security patch is released. By using a firewall the majority of these security holes will not be accessible as the firewall will block the attempt.
For a tutorial on Firewall's and a listing of some available ones, please visit the following link: Understanding and Using Firewalls

Tip 6: Backup your data!
Backing up your data is not necessarily a way of keeping your computer safe, but it is a way of keeping your data safe. As you use your computer there may come a time that you cannot find a document or your hard drive fails. Having a regular backup of your data available saves you from the anguish of losing those hours of work or precious baby photos.
Both Windows and MacOS have free built in backup software so please be sure to use them to protect your data. In Windows, you can use Windows Backup program and Macs have the Time Machine program. If you wish to use a third-party program, we have listed two tutorials below that utilize free backup programs.
How to backup and restore your data using Cobian Backup
How to Backup and Restore your hard drive with DriveImage XML

Tip 7: Enable the display of file extensions
It is important to enable file extensions so you can see the complete file name. A file extension, or file name extension, is the letters immediately shown after the last period in a file name. Many viruses that are sent via email as attachments contain two periods. For example, picture.jpg.exe. Since Windows is by default configured to not display extensions, Windows will strip off the .exe and instead the file will appear as picture.jpg. To you this looks like harmless image file. Once you click on it, though, instead of an image opening, it actually runs the virus and you become infected. Though a Mac hides file extensions by default as well, this is less of a problem on that operating system.
For more information about file extensions and how to show them click here:
How to show File Extensions in Windows
How to show filename extensions on a Mac
What is a File Extension?

Tip 8: Do not open attachments from people you do not know
Don't open an attachment from someone you do not know. Simple as that. If someone you do not know sends you something, just delete it. If you receive an attachment from someone you know well, then you should still never open attachments that end with the following extensions: .exe, .pif, .com, or .bat. For more information about file extensions, please see step 3.
Attachments are a common way that computer infections spread from computer to computer. As described in the previous tip, malware writers exploit default settings on operating systems to make attachments harmless looking so that you will then open them.
If you really want to see the file, first scan it by saving it to a folder on your drive and then scanning it using a site like Virustotal. You can also email the person directly and ask if they actually sent you that file.

Tip 9: Ignore emails that state you won a contest or a stranger asking for assistance with their inheritance
A common online scam are emails from strangers that state that you won a contest or that they need help transferring money or receiving an inheritance. These are all scams where they are trying to get your personal information in order to perform identify theft or want to use you as part of a money laundering scheme. When you receive these emails just delete them.

Tip 10: Watch out for online and phone support scams
Phone support scams are becoming more common and involve receiving a phone call from someone pretending to be from Google, Microsoft, or another large company. They state that they have detected you are having computer problems and are offering free remote diagnostics to see what is wrong. After they take control of your computer and pretend to look at various things, they state that your computer has a lot of problems and then try to sell you a support contact or software. Microsoft, Google, and other large companies will NEVER call you out of the blue and do this. If you do receive a call like this say "No thanks" and hang up.
Just like phone support scams, online support scams are common as well. These scams come in the form of online advertisements that display misleading messages stating that your computer is having an issue. Just like the phone support scams, these are just advertisements from people who are trying to sell you software or services. Just ignore any advertisements and messages you see like this.

Tip 11: Ignore web pop ups that state your computer is infected or has a problem
When browsing the web, it is not uncommon to be shown an advertisement that pretends to be an online anti-virus program. These advertisements will pretend to scan your computer and then state you are infected. It will then prompt you to install a piece of software.
Examples of these types of advertisements can be seen below:

Fake Mac & Windows Online Scanners
Click on each image to enlarge
If you see these types of advertisements, just close your browser to close the message. If you are having issues closing your browser, then you can use the Alt+F4 keys in Windows or the Apple Key+Q in MacOS to force the program to close. If the browser refuses to close, then you can use these guides to help you close the programs:
How to force quit a program on a Mac
How to close a program in Windows

Tip 12: Ignore and close web pop ups that pretend to be a Windows alert
Another tactic some software vendors use is to display web pop ups that pretend to be an alert from your operating system. These alerts look just like a Windows or Mac window, but are instead a web popup trying to get you to click on the ad.
If you see these types of advertisements, just close your browser to close the message. If you are having issues closing your browser, then you can use the Alt+F4 keys in Windows or the Apple Key+Q in MacOS to force the program to close. If the browser refuses to close, then you can use these guides to help you close the programs:
How to force quit a program on a Mac
How to close a program in Windows

Tip 13: Some types of web sites are more dangerous than others
Some types of sites are more prone to distribute malware or use deceptive techniques to have you click on ads. With this said, do not visit porn sites! I know some of you may not be happy about this, but the reality is that many sites in this category happily try to infect machines who visit them.
Other sites that you can commonly become infected from are Warez and Crackz sites. Not only is pirated software illegal, but the sites that distribute them are a breeding ground for malware.

Tip 14: Be vigilant when using Peer-To-Peer Software
Using a program like Bittorrent for legitimate applications is perfectly fine. On the other hand, if you use P2P applications for copyrighted movies or software there is a good chance that they may contain Trojans as well. It is very common for malware developers to distribute malware on P2P networks that pretends to be a program required to view a movie or play a game. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that you do not use Peer-to-Peer software for illegal activities as you will probably get what you pay for.

Tip 15: When installing a piece of software, watch out for "bundled" tool bars and programs that you may not want
A common practice used by free programs is to bundle others programs with them. This allows the developer to offer a program for free, but still earn revenue by bundling tool bars and other software in them. When installing a program, please read through all the prompts and instructions carefully. If you come to a screen where the program is asking if you wish to install another companies tool bar or program, then please do some research as to whether or not you think these programs will be useful to you. If you do not wish to install these bundled programs, then uncheck the option to install them.
On a general note, having too many browser tool bars can negatively affect the functionality of your web browser. As most browsers have built-in search fields that you can customize, there is typically no need to install separate search tool bars unless they contain specific functionality that you would find useful.

Tip 16: When installing a piece of software, read the End User License Agreement (EULA) so you know what your getting into
When you install a piece of software be sure to read the end user license agreement, or EULA, before allowing it to install. By law, an EULA must contain information on how this program will interact with your computer and use your private information. If you find that a particular program is using your personal data or tracking your computer use, then you can use that information to determine if you really want to continue installing the software.