amendment:
http://www.qatarsucks.com/

Posted by: thomas | Apr 14 2013 19:25 utc | 3

see North Korea is Reacting to US Aggression Feel free to embed this video to give it a boost, I’m really working hard to prevent a war and could use all the help I can get. Also, did people here about Operation Plan 5029?

Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 14 2013 21:27 utc | 5

What about that Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline? Is it nearly done? Not quite.
Actually, it’s an eastern mystery. The pipeline has been “inaugurated,” but beyond that the actual situation is hazy.
President Asif Ali Zardari along with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad inaugurated the multi-billion dollar Pak-Iran gas pipeline in Chahbahar on March 11. “We have finally signed the agreement with the Iranian government. Under the deal between the National Iranian Oil Company and Pakistan’s Interstate Gas System.”
But there also needs to be a contract to the Iran company Tadbeer to actually lay the Pakistan section of the IP pipeline. The Iran section is mostly completed. Some news reports:
Apr 2: An inquiry has been started into the matter of awarding contract of laying Pak-Iran Gas Pipeline to an Iranian company, Tadbeer, on relatively higher rates than the international market.
Apr 4: Recent reports claiming the launching of an inquiry into the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project are unfounded, mala fide, and devoid of any truth. No contract for the laying of the 781-kilometer-long pipeline within Pakistan has been awarded.
Apr 4: “An Iranian team will arrive in Islamabad on April 15 and 16 to finalise the award of contract to Tadbir Energy of Iran.” [this week — don’t hold your breath]
There are some other questions too, like how much gas will flow through this 56-inch diameter pipe. News reports have varied from 21.5 mcmd (million cubic meters per day) to 110 mcmd (latest figure) to 750 mcmd. Pick a number. Also: It will be completed by the end of 2014 and provide enough energy to generate 4,000MW of electricity. Pakistan needs it, badly.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 14 2013 22:11 utc | 7

@4, leaving weapons caches to be “found” by their agents is not new for the US Wehrmacht. See “Operation Bathtub”

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 14 2013 23:02 utc | 9

The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats

John Stauber
(….)
Does this information concern you? If not, you need to get out of the propaganda bubble of your Progressive Movement echo chamber and think. Think hard. Think about fundamental, radical, democratic, social and economic change, who might bring it about and how. Ask yourself if the the rich elite, the 1%, are going to fund that. Leave The Nation and Mother Jones on the shelf; turn off Ed Schultz, Rachel Madow and Chris Hayes; don’t open that barrage of email missives from Alternet, Media Matters, MoveOn, and the other think tanks; and get your head out of the liberal blogosphere for a couple days. Clear your mind and consider this:
The self-labeled Progressive Movement that has arisen over the past decade is primarily one big propaganda campaign serving the political interests of the the Democratic Party’s richest one-percent who created it. The funders and owners of the Progressive Movement get richer and richer off Wall Street and the corporate system. But they happen to be Democrats, cultural and social liberals who can’t stomach Republican policies, and so after bruising electoral defeats a decade ago they decided to buy a movement, one just like the Republicans, a copy.
The Progressive Movement that exists today is their success story….

(more)
Want transparency? First step: travel to DC

Even before it was enacted, the United States House and Senate voted unanimously to repeal a provision within the STOCK Act, a bill aimed at curbing insider trading among senior government officials. The repealed provision required that financial disclosure forms were accessible online.
Members of Congress and various government agencies weighed in after the National Academy of Public Administration issued an independent report in March which concluded that “posting personal financial information as required by the act does indeed impose unwarranted risk to national security and law enforcement, as well as threaten agency missions, individual safety, and privacy.”
The Sunlight Foundation states that this action “sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online,” and had previously noted that attempts to remove the online disclosure provision were reliant upon scaremongering and security through obscurity.
Additional coverage by The Center for Responsive Politics. Here’s the 60 Minutes report from 2011 which investigated the ability of Congress members to trade stocks based on non-public information.

To many links, to post, go read it… Also, It’s worth reading the comments too.. here’s one that stood out, “Richard Shelby R-Alabama sponsor the original amendment expanding the stock act to cover much of the executive branch.”
Yay! Casino house of mirrors and horror…
“I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 15 2013 3:23 utc | 11

Venezuela’s opposition leader Henrique Capriles has refused to concede defeat in the presidential election, saying Nicolas Maduro is not the winner and votes must be recounted.

Posted by: hans | Apr 15 2013 5:54 utc | 13

This is pretty intriguing; Galilee Hospital in Isreal: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/130415/western-galilee-hospital-israel-perfect-horror-movie-syrians

Posted by: Kev | Apr 15 2013 12:14 utc | 15

Must read for today: Gitmo Is Killing Me
I usually do not quote in full length, but the NYT has a paywall and this IS a must read:

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.
I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.
I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.
I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.
When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.
I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.
Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.
I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.
I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.
There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.
During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.
It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.
When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.
The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.
I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day.
Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.
I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.
The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.
And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.
I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.

Posted by: b | Apr 15 2013 15:46 utc | 17

Good post b, but…
“I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.”
People who frequent these threads will understand, but, the rest of the world, at least the American part of it, just plain doesn’t give a damn about injustices committed against any foreign person. The USA is morally bankrupt.

Posted by: ben | Apr 15 2013 16:29 utc | 19

Explosion at Boston Marathon from RT.
http://rt.com/usa/finish-line-marathon-boston-908/

Posted by: ben | Apr 15 2013 19:47 utc | 21

completely different subject, but in North Carolina Social Services are being prosecuted after the death of toddler Aubrey Kina-Marie Littlejohn. the story is that Social Services lied to cover up their failure to respond to serious complaints of abuse, and the mother has a lawyer who wants to sue, but who claims that Social Services are simply overwhelmed (but not too overwhelmed to falsify records???) in most places in the US, the real problem is that child protective services are paid to relocate kids, never mind that the stats show that the kids are abused and killed more in foster care, and the system is designed to prove the parent unfit while leaving kids in places they don’t even look at.
I personally attended a case in Southern CA where the court didn’t even want to hear where the kids were housed (which was in a different county!)
there’s some sick incentive to yank the kids from the custodial parent and then not check up on them. North Carolina is quite a case in point.

Posted by: anon | Apr 16 2013 2:51 utc | 23

hmm
must be those chinese *terrarists*
they r already blaming everything on china …nk, the economy, cyberterror, military threat etc etc, innit ?
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308445.shtml

Posted by: denk | Apr 16 2013 5:01 utc | 25

if people who reads alternate media still believe these cold war era bushits
what chance do the *sheeples* have, those who read only *cnn, faux , nyt ?
http://www.countercurrents.org/chan150413.htm

Posted by: denk | Apr 16 2013 9:11 utc | 27

For further analysis of the recent election in Kenya I’d recommend a look at Gathara’s World both for the commentary and his political cartoons. He also adds historical perspective regarding the 2002 and 2007 elections. All of his March postings are worth reading, continuing into April, at least though April 11.

In these new waters, the familiar landmarks are still there but seem strangely reversed. The villains of yesterday have become the new heroes of today; the rehabilitation of Daniel Moi as a lovable and wise elder statesman is almost as complete as is the demonization of those who stood against him. In a darkly ironic twist, during the election season one paint manufacturer saw fit to run ads calling for brightly coloured “peace, love, unity,” the slogan behind which Moi had wreaked havoc with our lives and livelihoods. Those who oppose impunity, who take a stand against corruption and electoral malpractice, who demand the freedom to speak their thoughts or dress as they wish – these are today’s enemies.

Although he scathingly mocked foreign journalists looking for violence, he also says:

I would like to believe that what we just witnessed was nothing exceptional, in the grand scheme of things. After all, as Charles Onyango Obbo puts it, “are messy and divisive not just in Kenya but everywhere.” So what’s the point of dwelling on it? Like everyone else, I long for an easy patriotism.
But I know that something is seriously wrong when we have to be constantly reminded that the outcome of an election is not a matter of life and death, when people stockpile food and water in its anticipation. I cannot ignore the fear that the election exposed, and the ease with which we were stampeded into tribal stockades. I know that this was not the best election we could have had, and that a democracy in which a large proportion of the population feels it has no say is neither working nor strengthened.

and

In 2007, so we are told, historical grievances, sparked by the refusal to accept a stolen election, led to a spontaneous orgy of killing and destruction. This, I think, is largely a work of fiction. Or at best, it is a selective retelling. It seems pretty much everyone who has looked into it has concluded that most of the violence was premeditated and prearranged. Meetings had been held and targets pre-selected; pre-outraged thugs had been paid, prepped, armed and ferried about. Politicians and radio stations incited, homes and churches were burnt and people died.

This picture is also interesting, all Kenyas presidents together in one room, taken over 30 years ago: pic.twitter.com/6zWdpbySPS

Posted by: xcroc | Apr 16 2013 23:30 utc | 29

HEALTH WARNING [no its not about h7n9]
**************************************************
the following is strictly for conspiracy nuts, else read it at ur own peril !
so they just *lock down* boston , easy does it
but u aint seen nuthin yet
one of these day they might even *shut down* a god damned country !
during the sars scares in 2003,
someone, i think its the cdc, was proposing that WHO be given the power to slap a quarantine order on any nation in the grip of a major epidemic…to protect the rest of the world !!
2003
*In the days preceding the emergence of the first SARS cases, American raced to the Pacific Rim to impact escalating aggressions on the Korean peninsula. Communist China-a “most favored” trading partner with America, is politically allied with several American enemies, including those said to possess weapons of mass destruction, including Iraq. Coincidental? Not likely when viewing the larger political picture involving the Ango-American oligarchy’s RMA and instigated “conflicts short of war.*
http://rense.com/general36/scam.htm
ffw 2013
+*In the days preceding the emergence of the first h7n9 cases, American raced to the Pacific Rim to impact escalating aggressions on the Korean peninsula. Communist China-a “most favored” trading partner with America, is politically allied with several American enemies, including those said to possess weapons of mass destruction, including iran. Coincidental? Not likely when viewing the larger political picture involving the Ango-American oligarchy’s RMA and instigated “conflicts short of war.*
just like 2003
WHO’S head honcho n his coterie of *h7n9 experts* [sic] are *combing* china , poking their collective noses in every chinese health facilities as they please, barking orders to an army of trembling chinese health officials.
at this moment if WHO snap *jump*, the chinese could only muster *how high my lord*, else a holler from WHO would *shut down* the country ,with devastating effect to the faltering economy ., already battered by the h7n9 assault
2003
*toronto will suffer half a billion dollars worth of lost business. Economies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland China are taking heavy hits. Global airline $$ have fallen off. *
http://www.whale.to/v/sars1.html
2013
*More and more masks are appearing on the faces of commuters in Shanghai. Drug stores like Watsons were sold out of hand sanitizer, a relatively novel product in China. The line for a popular storefront that sells roasted ducks on Huaihai Road, which in the early evening sometimes holds a hundred people, had just a dozen waiting at 5 pm on Sunday.
A new strain of avian flu has begun to take a toll on the Chinese economy.*
http://h7n9flunews.com/h7n9-challenging-east-china-economy/
http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/feature_2/AInfluenza/Live/t1062275.htm
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-airline-stocks-are-getting-massacred-on-bird-flu-fears-2013-4
now where do i hear this before.. ?
*New methods of attack — electronic, ‘non-lethal’, biological — will be more widely available … combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes … advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool*.
inquiring minds want to know
why’r the health sleuths loitering at the crime scene harrassing the victims ?
shoudnt they be over here, apprehending the criminal ?

Posted by: denk | Apr 21 2013 14:20 utc | 31

So far the best compendium of the Boston marathon bombing by the Boston Globe:
102 hours in pursuit of Marathon suspects

In more than 100 interviews with police, government officials, residents, and tourists who witnessed the week’s events, Globe reporters sought to reconstruct the actions of law enforcement agents between the April 15 bombing that killed three people on Boylston Street and the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seven miles away in Watertown on April 19 after his brother Tamerlan was killed, the conclusion of an epic 102-hour manhunt that left one police officer dead and another badly injured. The newspaper inquiry turned up scores of new details, fleshed out the hard questions law enforcement confronted along the way, and the harder decisions it was forced to make. It also helped put many previously reported elements in proper order and context. A maelstrom of information — some factual, some speculative, some flat out wrong — followed in the wake of the calamity, as it always does in times of tumult. This story aims to assemble what is known, and remains to be seen, in one consecutive account.
…

Posted by: b | Apr 28 2013 18:37 utc | 33

somebody – Here’s an interesting article from 2000 where Graham Fuller comments and speculates(in a professional capacity I assume)on an ‘FBI-busted’ bomb plot supposedly hatched by ‘Algerian militants tied to Bin Laden’
The tone in his quips reek of Fuller having inside knowledge, so needlessly snarky and argumentative.

Posted by: L Bean | Apr 28 2013 21:00 utc | 35

thanks, yes Fuller seems to have been deeply involved in US policies making use of Islam

Ex-CIA Graham Fuller who served 15 years as an intelligence officer in various countries of the Middle East and Asia, wrote a book about Turkey, titled “The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World”, published in 2008. In his book, he fervently promotes the idea of “Moderate Islam”. The problem is, the man he helped escape to U.S.A. by providing references, Fethullah Gulen, was nothing but a “moderate.”
Fuller was deeply involved in Afghanistan in the 1980s, encouraged the Reagan administration to begin arming Iran against Iraq during their slugfest, and suggested to the Clinton administration that it should use Muslims to further US interests in Central Asia.
As a side note here, I wanted to mention that Muller’s daughter Samantha A. Fuller was married to Ruslan Tsarnaev. Yes, the uncle of the two Chechen brothers who are suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon. The couple divorced sometime before 2004. Interestingly, Ruslan worked for companies connected to Halliburton, the multinational juggernaut run by Dick Cheney before he became Vice President of the United States. He was also a “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia barred USAID from its soil in late 2012, alleging USAID together with CIA was attempting to influence the internal political processes in the country.
Morton Abramowitz, the other reference for Gulen’s Green Card, was also deeply involved with Afghan mujahedin and Kosovo rebels. Currently, he is a Council Member (Senior Fellow) of US Asia Pacific Council.
Gulen was a staunch enemy of secularism in Turkey. He pushed for an authoritarian Islamic state. In fact, a Wikileaks wire reveals how Istanbul Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva tried to warn USA of this man’s activities, saying he is a “radical Islamist” whose moderate message cloaks a more sinister and radical agenda.
In 2010, a retired Turkish Intelligence Chief, Osman Nuri Gundes, published his memoir titled “Close Witness to Revolutions and Anarchy” where he claimed Fethullah Gulen’s worldwide Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s, and that in the 90s, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone.
Central Asia’s Islamisation has started with Turkey; Gulen having deep ties with the current Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdoğan was elected in 2003, despite having been banned from holding office for his anti-secular, Islamist views and actions in Turkey. Gulen openly and financially supported Erdogan’s election. Today, Turkey has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens—compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens—the highest number per capita in the world and, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers. And Erdogan enjoys his reign over the country since 2003 with the US’s blessings.
Why would USA give refuge to this Islamist and even provide high level officials to attest for him?
Turkey (Asia Manor) is located right in the middle of Europe, Asia and Middle East. Old Soviet bloc countries in Central Asia have two common grounds with Turkey: ethnicity and religion. Many of them are Turkic and Muslim. Turkey being a NATO member for 61 years and on the side of U.S.A. since the Korean War of 1950s, has proven to be a trusted ally to US, willing to do whatever it takes to further American interests.
Turkey is to U.S.A. in the Central Asia is what Israel is to U.S.A. in the Middle East. Central Asia (with its vast natural resources, including a lot of oil) is being turned into another Middle East by Islamists with the covert support of U.S.A., against the Godless China. Not only because Central Asia is rich in natural resources and oil, but also geopolitically is a great buffer zone next to China and Russia…
Plus, ‘War on Terror’ excuse can be used to invade more and more countries as we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. We did not invade those countries to squash terror; that was the excuse used for the public, not the real intent. And that same excuse can and will be used again and again for more invasions or interventions. Therefore it is in the best interest of U.S.A. to fuel it, manage it and use it as needed.
Ahh, Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. – Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)

Posted by: somebody | Apr 28 2013 22:03 utc | 37

the Russians are beginning to talk
This here is the World Assembly of Muslim Youth – funded by Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 28 2013 23:48 utc | 39

@39
Edmonds would say that the Russians have a deal with the CIA to spoon-feed these details about contacts etc. when really the big picture is that Boston was a setup precisely so we that we can be spoon-fed random details, with the larger objectives that this new chumminess will lead to the US looking the other way while Russia attacks Chechnya, while Russia gives the US a green light to attack Syria (with an assist from scary bogus chemical weapon threats).
It’s a lot to believe, but on the other hand if part of it (a conspiracy) is believable, then why not all of it.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 29 2013 0:07 utc | 41

@38, I thought it was Sibel; Jones and his sidekicks keep calling her See-bell.
Lol, Jones loves him some gold! Is there an argument for digging up more? I haven’t heard it.

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 29 2013 0:20 utc | 43

Lol, the CIA needs more dusky spies!

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 29 2013 0:31 utc | 45

@46
I mostly agree with you, while keeping the door open for more possibilities and more revelations — contrived or not. Because power corrupts, and absolute power (which the CIA has) corrupts absolutely. The company has no limits, I’m sure.
The ethos of those in the army, which I’ve been in, is that they know everything better than anyone, and they are motivated to follow through on those beliefs. It’s a total-faith religion-like belief. So the CIA, which I haven’t been in, being almost totally secretive, must be even more dedicated toward doing whatever they consider to be in the best interests of the empire, and they have the freedom to do it without any restraint.
So Edmonds’ story is conceivable, to me. It’s her appraisal, but even she can’t always predict the future (although she has had some success doing it). There are many variables, for one thing.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 29 2013 1:29 utc | 47

More members of the board of the “Transnational Assembly for Peace and Democracy in Chechnya inc.”
Is the director of the organization founded in 2003 the same Salman Masaev, who is deputy of the Caucasian Muslim Board here?
From “Peace and Democracy” to “The right to believe, worship and witness, the right to change one’s belief or religion, the right to join together and express one’s belief” in Azerbaijan? Where the president is firmly in Russia’s sphere of influence.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 29 2013 7:03 utc | 49

@49 Lol: Status Unknown. Must be one of those unknown unknowns.

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 29 2013 15:01 utc | 51

Zygier

The day before he died, Zygier rejected a plea bargain, insisting he had done nothing wrong so should not plead guilty.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 29 2013 18:19 utc | 53

54) that is just trying to intimidate her, I guess – it would not prove anything as of course she lived in the same househould and might even have used the pressure cooker – it is kitchen gear.
It is getting hot in Georgia – and clear, what political use for Russia is in the plot.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 30 2013 5:35 utc | 55

National Air Cargo
Information Related to Flight NCR102

A National Airlines B747-400 cargo plane was involved in an accident at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan today.
At approximately 7 a.m. EST, National Flight NCR102 from Bagram to Dubai, UAE with seven crewmembers on board crashed on takeoff. None of the crew members survived. This was a purely cargo flight and no passengers were aboard. Cargo consisted of vehicles and routine general cargo.
“Safety is always our top priority at National Airlines,” said National Airlines President Glen Joerger. “This is a devastating loss for our family and we’ll work diligently with authorities to find the cause,” said Joerger. “Most importantly, our thoughts and prayers are with our crewmembers and their families.”

Part of the cost of evacuating military vehicles and cargo from the failed effort in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 30 2013 17:33 utc | 57

This here is discussion by Graham Fuller, the FBI official father in law of the Tsarnaev brothers’ uncle, Ariel Cohen, “heritage expert”, and Abid Ullah Jan, who either is two persons or a very shady one (I suggest one)
It is full of arrogance telling Muslims what to do and an intentional blindness on the different currents of Islam whilst dinstinguishing between Catholics, Protestants and Christian Fundamentalists.
However, there is a mindboggling argument, when it comes from a high CIA official involved in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus and Turkey:
“The problem comes more with his definition of radical. If all
armed resistance to foreign occupation is to be condemned – which over the
course of history has widespread acceptance as a legitimate action – then of
course large numbers of Muslim activists fall into the category of
radical
.
Surely Cohen would not wish to suggest that those guerrilla activities that
have led to the founding of such countries as the United States, Israel,
Kenya, South Africa, and Algeria via anti-colonial struggles are all unac-
ceptable because they passed through a certain violent phase – including
elements of what might be terror. I agree with him, as do most Muslims,
that in principle, killing innocent civilians constitutes an act of terrorism.
But that holds true whether it takes place from suicide bombers at a distance
of five feet or from 5,000 feet when “legitimate government” bombs are
dropped on resistance forces and surrounding civilians.
It also poses an interesting question by Abid Ullah Jan
“Similarly, in examining the issue of martyrdom bombings, a few basic
questions require answering to demystify the issues: Who does not love
life? What is the state of mind of those who martyr themselves? If it is sim-
ply because of some delusional sermons and faulty interpretations, why do
Muslims not commit martyrdom bombings in areas other than those under
American and Israeli control? If Iraqi “Islamists” want to establish Islam
through martyrdom bombing now, why did they not try when Saddam’s
regime was much weaker during its last days, rather than under the
American occupation today?”
And it sums up in all its stupidity what was sold to (and by) the Obama administration in order to support the Muslim brotherhood and Erdogan’s AKP
“Muslims will be able to take care of extremists of any variety when the
extreme conditions that produce them disappear. Muslims will no longer
support or even acquiesce to jihadi violence if, in their view, the conditions
do not warrant such actions. At that point, dealing with jihadi violence will
become a relatively simple problem for legitimate police and security
forces to deal with, one that enjoys public acceptance.
Only through empowering Muslims to freely choose their own leader-
ship and policies can the blight of violence on the Muslim world begin to
wind down. The United States must support this trend toward democracy,
even if the tyrant is friendly to Washington. Most smart tyrants seek to be
friendly to Washington in order to remain in power, and thus contribute to
the very problem that produces contemporary violence in Muslim societies”

Posted by: somebody | May 4 2013 10:42 utc | 59

:-)) the view from Georgia – the one in Caucasus

In light of the Boston bombings and based on human intelligence, it is highly likely that the
Tsarnaev brothers were recruited by US intelligence agencies to liaise with anti-government militant groups in Chechnya and Dagestan, and to further take part in militant activities.
It is clear now that the FBI and the CIA had been monitoring them for years and the elder brother managed to circumvent the no-fly list despite supposedly being on two terrorist watch lists, and took time out on his visit to Dagestan to take holiday snaps of himself posing with Dagestani jihadist Gadzhimurad Dolgatov who later killed in a firefight with Russian security services in 2012, as reported by the Dailymail.
The Russian FSB’s two messages to the FBI and CIA were not simply meant to warn the Americans that the Tsarnaev
brothers had become radicalized; it was meant to be a clear message to the US that Russia was aware of what was going on. Such collaboration is standard practice when it comes to espionage in the post-9/11 period, but these
warnings were clearly different, as subversive assets who are not intelligence officers are usually simply killed when they no longer serve their purpose or are caught in the act.
It is highly likely that the Russians realized that this was an accident waiting to happen and a potential PR bonanza,and it is conceivable that they flipped the older brother while he was in Russia, perhaps by blackmailing him
with threats that his mother would be put in harm’s way, or other means, to carry out the attack on US soil rather than against Russia,in spite of the fact that this would come with huge risks for US-Russian relations.
Moscow jumped on the chance to capitalize on the US’s own portrayal of the events. The attacks help to expose the dangers and apparent hypocrisy of the United States foreign policy, with more and more Americans now questioning US support for regime change in Syria, where the US recently allocated an additional USD 123 million to rebel forces, which include known Al-Qaeda affiliates.
They also help to spur efforts to alter the entire American public’s perception of Russia’s own domestic threats: no longer do the Americans consider anti-Russian groups in Chechnya to be “freedom fighters”, but rather hardcore terror
ists.
Moreover, the terrorist attacks in Boston also continue to justify the “War on International Terrorism” and the need for closer cooperation between Russia and the US in combating this shared threat. It is even conceivable that the US and Russia could now reach a consensus on Syria, as well as draw a “red line” on what kind of foreign activity/in-
fluence is permitted in the Caucasus region, especially Georgia.
This is particularly important for Moscow in the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where post-Soviet Russian grandiose showmanship will be on display. By uniting US and Russian counter-terrorism efforts, the
Boston bombings have been an unexpected windfall for all concerned: the Russian government finds itself with increased leverage in countries of strategic importance and in its domestic war against terrorism, and the Amer-
ican government finds itself with a useful escape clause for all that happened in Georgia under the
Saakashvili administration, including Georgia’s role in supplying material support and fighters
to Syria and to Chechen rebels.

Posted by: somebody | May 4 2013 17:54 utc | 61

Humor blowback (video)

Posted by: b | May 8 2013 10:18 utc | 63

Tsarnaevs’ family connections get more and more intriguing. There was the CIA uncle with the Nationalist Cechen front and now there is the prominent Dagestan Islamist cousin discussing politics with him conveniently arrested by Russian authorities after the Boston bombings.

Posted by: somebody | May 8 2013 19:32 utc | 65

Mark Ames on Tsaernev (Open to read only for 24h) : “I Hope I Didn’t Contribute To It”

For now, I want to start with one of the biggest “What The Fuck?!” elements of the bombing story, a detail so far completely overlooked: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s high school project “mentor,” Brian Glyn Williams. Brian Glyn Williams happens to work for the CIA, on Islamic suicide bombers, Chechnya, and jihadi terrorism. Williams is also an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the university where 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled, and where he spent many of his last free hours between the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, and his arrest on April 19.

…
There’s another link to the Tsarnaev brothers’ story that wasn’t so much overlooked as it was avoided as just too weird: That angry Chechen uncle of theirs in Maryland, the clean-cut attorney who called his nephews “losers”—Uncle Ruslan Tsarni (neé Tsarnaev) —who was married to the daughter of ex-CIA officer Graham Fuller. What hasn’t been reported about Fuller is that he was the CIA’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan in the late 1970s — when, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA planted a trap for the Soviet Union, in the form of radicals who overthrew the Soviet-backed regime, sparking the disastrous invasion and occupation that eventually destroyed the Soviet Union, and gave rise to Al Qaeda and radical jihadis in their place.
So Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s former uncle-in-law was the top CIA officer in Kabul who brought down communism and empowered Islamic jihadi radicals; and when he was just 16 years old, Dzhokhar’s high school project “mentor” was also a CIA specialist on Islamic terrorism, suicide bombers, and Chechnya.
As disturbing as these facts are, they’re part of a much larger narrative, too big to call a “plot,” whose center of gravity during the Bush years was a K Street front group called “The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya” — which brought together over 100 of the leading neocons, Zionists, liberal hawks, Cold War imperialists and a smattering of libertarians and non-interventionists to promote Chechen separatism. Starting a few weeks before the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the White House, and right through Bush’s two terms , Chechen separatism — violent, Wahhabi-influenced, funded and tied in with Al Qaeda, the global jihadi network, and even a handful of the 9/11 hijackers — was promoted, defended, and exploited for all it was worth by A-list foreign policy establishment names including William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Robert Kagan, James Woolsey, Stephen Solarz, Richard Perle, Geraldine Ferraro, Norman Podhoretz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, to name just a few.

…

Posted by: b | May 9 2013 5:36 utc | 67