Happy ending story
In a PJ Media exclusive, the Iraqi native turned Navy SEAL interpreter and bestselling author who goes by the code name "Johnny Walker" told his story and made a huge announcement: he will receive his U.S. citizenship on Wednesday morning! At that time, he will also reveal his real name. (This article will be updated with that name when it becomes public.)
"It's a big honor," Walker told PJ Media. He is looking forward to posting videos of the ceremony and predicted a beautiful moment where "people from different backgrounds and different religions" will be united by loyalty to the United States.
Walker was born and grew up in Iraq and he started working with the U.S. military after the invasion began in 2003. He worked as an interpreter ‐ called a "terp" ‐ until 2009. That year, the military finally cleared him and his family to come to America.
While he lived in Iraq, he kept his work for the U.S. military a secret. If he had been exposed, it could have cost him his life. Since he will receive his citizenship Wednesday, however, Walker and his family will finally be safe, so he can go public with his name. (The Johnny Walker code name came from the Iraqi-American's love for Johnnie Walker whiskey.)
In 2014, Johnny Walker released a bestselling book, Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs.
In his interview with PJ Media on Tuesday, Walker explained how the American dream entered his imagination. When he was a kid, his parents encouraged him to play basketball to let out some of his youthful energy. "I started to love it," Walker told PJ Media. "I started watching the Harlem team [the Globetrotters], listened to Country music, watched John Wayne movies."
"It gave me the American dream in my mind, built it in my imagination," the Iraqi-American said. When the U.S. military came to Iraq in 2003, he saw Americans as a liberating force.
"The SEALS were targeting bad guys in my city I didn't know about. They came thousands of miles to clean my city and I was born in this city," Walker told PJ Media. "I was disappointed in myself."
He suggested he didn't take sides. "I didn't support American or Iraqi or anyone, I supported the good side versus the bad side," the Iraqi-American said. He saw the damage Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) left behind. "They will destroy us. They are the enemy of human beings." Rest at PJ Media link
#2
Heh. Not a big Scotch guy but my daughter got me a Balvenie 17 yr old. Might have just turned me...
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/20/2019 10:50 Comments ||
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#3
The Iraqis love Scotch.
It is literally impossible to get anything except Scotch and Raqqa in Baghdad.
I should know my driver and I spent an afternoon looking for one bottle of bourbon.
I finally settled on a mediocre bottle of Spanish brandy.
[ToloNews] The Afghan National Army’s 209 Shaheen Corps has conducted 88 military operations during the last one year, inflicting 3,771 losses to Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... and other holy warrior groups, the Deputy Commander of the Shaheen Corps, Gen. Adam Khan Matin, said.
Officials from 209 Shaheen Military Corps in north said in the security and defense forces operations, around 3,771 faceless myrmidons were killed of whom 64 of them were imported muscle.
Around 64 of the 3,771 faceless myrmidons killed in the operations were foreign nationals.
"In total, we launched 88 operations under Operation Walid 97," Matin said. "The operations were carried out to support rule of law, security and people’s safety. Around 64 of the 3,771 faceless myrmidons killed in the operations were foreign nationals."
Sources said that security forces also suffered heavy causalities during this year in the north and north-eastern parts of the country, but Matin rejected the claims.
"No security outpost of Afghan forces is under siege in the north and northeastern provinces of the country," Matin added.
Operation Walid 40 in Balkh, operation Toofan 25 in Kunduz and Operation Shaheen 1 in Baghlan are ongoing against holy warriors, he said.
Army soldiers in the north said they are ready to defend the country and the people to the last drop of their blood.
"We do not lack anything in terms of equipment and we are ready to stand against the enemy in any situation," said Zamir Sayedkhaili, a security force member in Balk.
"We are ready to defend our soil and our country. We will not allow anyone to destabilize the country," said Toi Mohammad, an Afghan soldier.
The remarks come as that according to local officials who talked to TOLOnews, Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... at district in Sar-e-Pul ...a city and eponymous province in northern Afghanistan, population about 500,000. Demographically it is majority Tadjik and Uzbek. There are small Pashtun, Arab, and Hazara ...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets... communities, of which the Hazaras mostly don't bother anyone... , Darzab district in Jawzjan and some other parts of the northern provinces are under the control of Taliban.
Military analysts said the battles will increase with the arrival of the new war season.
[KhaamaPress] The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has warned of possible attacks by Death Eaters during the Afghan New Year which will be observed on 21st of March.
"As of mid-March 2019, the U.S. Embassy has received increased reports regarding possible attacks coinciding with the Afghan New Year holiday that will be observed on March 21," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement.
The statement further added that Death Eaters continue to plan attacks against a variety of targets in Kabul, including Afghan, U.S., and other foreign government offices and facilities.
"Additionally, forces of Evil have threatened other facilities around the country where foreign citizens may gather, including Jalalabad Airport in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province, schools, hotels, and housing compounds. There also may be demonstrations and large gatherings, and celebratory gunfire," the statement added.
[DAWN] One of the world's biggest aluminium producers, Norway's Norsk Hydro, on Tuesday said it had been hit by a cyber-attack of unknown origin.
"Hydro became victim of an extensive cyberattack in the early hours of Tuesday, impacting operations in several of the company's business areas," the energy group said in a statement.
Spokesman Halvor Molland said it was too early to determine the full extent of the attack, or its origin.
"Our IT department is working to contain the impact" of the attack, he told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Source of Nazi heavy water back in the day...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/20/2019 6:54 Comments ||
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#2
Chinese posing as Russians
Posted by: Shamble Scourge of the Visigoths4461 ||
03/20/2019 17:15 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Military operation aimed at PKK bases near border shared by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... , Iraq and Iran
Iran has denied a claim by the Ottoman Turkish interior minister that it took part in a joint operation on Monday targeting Kurdish rebels in the border area.
In recent weeks, Ankara has talked up the prospects of joint military action with Tehran against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its allies but Monday marked the first time it had spoken of a joint operation being carried out.
"Iran’s armed forces have no role in this operation," the official IRNA news agency quoted an "informed source" in the general staff as saying on Monday evening.
However Iran "will forcefully confront any group that seeks to create unrest on our country’s soil," the source added.
Earlier on Monday, Ottoman Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: "We started staging a joint operation with Iran against the PKK on our eastern border as of 8 am (0500 GMT)."
Soylu did not specify where the joint operation was taking place, but President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... has said previously that joint military action would focus on PKK rear bases in Iraq near where the three countries’ borders meet.
The Ottoman Turkish military has carried out repeated bombing campaigns against PKK targets in Iraq’s northern mountains during its more than three-decade campaign to crush the rebels’ campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
In recent years, Tehran too has carried out operations in northern Iraq against suspected rear bases of the PKK’s Iran-focused ally, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
PJAK is one of a number of Kurdish rebel groups that have fought the Iranian security forces in ethnic Kurdish districts along the border.
Another PKK ally, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), is the main Kurdish gang in Syria where, to the fury of Ankara, it has been a key ally in the US-led campaign against the jihadists of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group which is now drawing to a close.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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[FoxNews] John Walker Lindh, a former American Taliban militant convicted in 2002 for supporting the terrorist organization, is due to be freed in May.
The former Islamist fighter, dubbed “Detainee 001 in the war on terror,” was arrested in 2001, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks and the start of the war in Afghanistan. Then just 20 years old, he was among a group of Taliban fighters who were captured by U.S. forces.
Within a year, Walker Lindh was convicted of supporting the Taliban and sentenced to 20 years in prison -- even as some hardliners urged authorities to consider treason charges that could have resulted in the death penalty.
Walker Lindh’s release later this year is likely to be met with headaches for security services across the globe, especially since he has since acquired Irish citizenship and plans to move there -- even though he hasn’t denounced radical Islamic ideology and has even made pro-Isis comments to the media.
The National Counterterrorism Center penned a document dated Jan. 24, 2017 claiming the former Taliban fighter remains as radicalized now as he was in 2001.
“As of May 2016, John Walker Lindh (USPER) — who is scheduled to be released in May 2019 after being convicted of supporting the Taliban — continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts,” the Foreign Policy magazine reported.
The report added Walker Lindh told “a television news producer that he would continue to spread violent extremist Islam upon his release.”
It appears, however, that the Irish government won’t follow the example of the British government -- which rescinded a Jihadi bride’s British citizenship -- and won’t stop Walker Lindh from entering the country.
Walker Lindh confirmed his plans to head to Ireland after his release in remarks he made to CAGE, a London-based organization focused on supporting people impacted by the War on Terror.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/20/2019 5:53 Comments ||
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Jonathon Pollard, pled guilty to Espionage and served March 4, 1987 until his pardon on November 20, 2015 on a lifetime sentence for espionage.
This worm got a sweeter plea bargain deal because...? Throw him back behind bars and let his disappear from sight.
[IsraelTimes] From midnight Wednesday to midnight Sunday, only those granted humanitarian-related exceptions will be permitted to enter Israel, as is customary during festivals throughout year.
[IsraelTimes] The David’s Sling interceptor is designed to deal with missiles coming from between 40 kilometers (24.85 miles) to 300 kilometers (186.41 miles) away, making up the middle tier of Israel’s advanced air defense array.
The system is aimed to protect the country against missiles like the Iranian Fateh 110 and its Syrian equivalent, the M600, both of which have seen extensive use in the Syrian civil war and are known to be in the Hezbollah terrorist group’s arsenal.
Israel also has the Iron Dome system for short range projectiles, and the Arrow 3, which is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.
[IsraelTimes] Three diplomats to be stationed in new mission, which is billed as a ’branch’ of country’s embassy.
"We have always fought for a fair and balanced approach on behalf of the international community towards Israel," Szijjártó said. "I have to underline here once again that we reject to combine restrictive economic and commercial measures with political issues," he added, reiterating his government’s opposition to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ’s directive to label Israeli goods produced in settlements.
"We will not apply the decision of the European Commission on labeling. We do not support the list of companies in the settlements to be announced by the high representative of Human Rights of the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... and we urge for a tighter, better and more dynamic cooperation between Israel and the European Union," he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Szijjártó hailed the fact that 200 Israeli companies operate in Hungary, providing 5,000 jobs. In 2018, bilateral trade exceeded $525 million, he noted.
"Cooperation with Israel is gaining increasing importance during the Hungarian economy’s period of dimensional transition," he said. "Hungary continues to play an important role in the business strategies of Israeli enterprises; they are maintaining their presence in Hungary, and will be expanding their activities practically without exception," he told Hungarian journalists during a phone briefing from Jerusalem.
[IsraelTimes] Paperwork to be filed in an Iranian court; sanctions reimposed by Trump condemned as ’crime against humanity’.
Tehran is preparing a lawsuit in Iran against US individuals involved with economic sanctions imposed by Washington, President Hassan Rouhani said Monday.
Rouhani said the presidency’s legal affairs office as well as the justice and foreign ministers have been tasked with "drawing up a lawsuit against all those within America involved with designing and executing these sanctions."
The case would be lodged in a "competent court inside Iran," he said, quoted by state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Speaking after the last cabinet meeting of Iran’s calendar year which ends on March 20, Rouhani condemned the sanctions as a "crime against humanity" that was hitting ordinary Iranians.
"The world should know that what America has done was not against the Iranian state, it was not against Iran’s nuclear program, it was against the well being of the Iranian people," he said.
Rouhani said the sanctions targeted "the normal life of the people... the food supply... the medical supply of the people."
Last May, US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
The renewal of American sanctions, which had been eased in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program, sent shockwaves through Iran’s economy.
The IMF reported that the Iranian economy slumped into recession in 2018 and has forecast a 3.6 percent decline in GDP for 2019.
The sanctions have indirectly impacted medical and food supplies and a steep decline in the value of the rial has pushed up prices of basic goods.
In October, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the United States to lift sanctions affecting imports of "humanitarian" goods to Iran.
The court said sanctions "may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2019 00:29 ||
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#1
Go after some key marks, get the ICC to make some judgements against them. The MM’s grand strategy for sticking it to the Man(TM).
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/20/2019 1:43 Comments ||
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[Rudaw] Iran's Mahan Air has been forced to cancel its Gay Paree flights over "sanctions", its customer services team said Tuesday weeks after Germany banned the airline.
"We have been told that (flights to La Belle France) have been cancelled... as of the first of April," an operator at the airline's office in Tehran's Imam Khomeini Airport told AFP.
The Gay Paree schedule will be scrapped "because of sanctions" by the French, the source said by phone without elaborating.
Two of the airline's French customers in Iran were notified by email that their flights booked for next month were cancelled.
Mahan, the Islamic republic's second-largest carrier after Iran Air, flies up to four services a week between Tehran and Gay Paree.
Germany imposed a ban on Mahan in January, which the foreign ministry said was necessary to protect Berlin's "foreign and security policy interests".
That decision came amid broader sanctions adopted by the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... against Tehran over attacks on opponents in the bloc.
Iran has denied any involvement in the alleged plots and described Germany's move as "hasty and unjustifiable."
Mahan Air was blacklisted by the US in 2011, as Washington said the carrier was providing technical and material support to an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards known as the Quds Force.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) ‐ The military chiefs-of-staff of Iraq, Iran and Syria have agreed to develop the intelligence coordination center, which groups the three Middle East countries alongside Russia, during their meeting in Damascus, an Iraqi military front man said on Tuesday.
"The tripartite meetings of the military chiefs-of-staff of Iraq, Syria and Iran were positive and very successful," Almaalomah news website quoted front man for Iraq’s Joint Operations Command Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul as saying.
He pointed out that the meetings came up with "an agreement to coordinate joint action to secure the Iraqi-Syrian border and continue intelligence exchange."
"The coming period will see an increase in coordination between the Iraqi and Syrian armies to prevent the infiltration of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... turbans," he said, noting that the military leaders agreed to develop the center of exchange intelligence between Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia to increase coordination with regard to the anti-terror war.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Islamic Theocratic Republic’s Atomic Energy Organization, says work on $8.5-billion power station project ’moving ahead in an excellent manner’.
Construction of two new nuclear plants in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only current working nuclear power station, is on schedule and going to plan, the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s atomic chief said on Monday.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that the latest additions to its nuclear portfolio were "moving ahead in an excellent manner," according to Iranian media reports.
"I was in Bushehr two or three days ago and the Bushehr 2 and Bushehr 3 power plants are being constructed," Salehi reportedly said at a cabinet meeting in Tehran.
The project, which will cost more than $8.5 billion and is being built with Russian assistance, is expected to go online by 2026.
Iran’s sole operational nuclear reactor, also built with Russian assistance, currently produces 1,000 megawatts of electricity. The new plants will produce an additional 1,057 megawatts.
Western nations do not view the Bushehr plant as a proliferation risk because Russia supplies the fuel for the reactor and takes away spent fuel that could otherwise be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.
Earlier this year, Salehi said that Iran had deceived nuclear inspectors by quietly purchasing replacement parts for its Arak nuclear reactor while it was conducting negotiations for an international agreement under which it knew it would be required to destroy the original components.
Salehi recalled that during talks for the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 deal that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for it dismantling the weapons-capable parts of its nuclear program, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned his country’s negotiators that he expected Western parties to renege on the agreement.
"When our team was in the midst of the negotiations, we knew that [the Westerners] would ultimately renege on their promises," Salehi said. "The leader [Khamenei] warned us that they were violators of agreements. We had to act wisely. Not only did we avoid destroying the bridges that we had built, but we also built new bridges that would enable us to go back faster if needed."
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... pulled out of the nuclear deal in May last year but the other signatories ‐ Britannia, La Belle France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran ‐ have all agreed to try to keep the pact alive on their own. Trump insists the original agreement did not go far enough in curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and wants to renegotiate the JCPOA with stricter terms. In the meantime Washington has imposed heavy sanctions on Iran that could weaken the ability of the remaining parties to maintain the deal.
Last month Salehi said Iran has begun "preliminary activities for designing" a modern process for 20-percent uranium enrichment. Restarting enrichment at that level would mean Iran had withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal.
Tehran has in the past warned that if the remaining parties are not able to keep up the trade and financial benefits the deal provided, it will also pull out and restart controversial parts of its nuclear program.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
"...Or at least as well as can be expected. Yes, those guys are supposed to glow like that; it's an Iranian thing."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/20/2019 4:09 Comments ||
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#2
Let them get to $30-50 billion invested and then send in the IAF...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/20/2019 6:48 Comments ||
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#3
Nice targets you have there. 'Twould be a shame if something were to happen to them.
[ALMASDARNEWS] After nearly half a year of silence, ISISfront man Abu Hassan al-Mujahir posted a new message on social media Monday calling for Moslems to "take vengeance for their religion" in response to the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50 Moslems last Friday.
A 44-minute recorded message was posted on Telegram Monday from the ISIS spokesperson, who had been presumed dead, the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported. In the recording, Mujahir called for Dire Revenge killings in retaliation for the Christchurch attack on two mosques by a 28-year-old Australian gunman who himself claimed to be killing in Dire Revenge for Moslem terror attacks on Europeans.
"This slaughter in those two mosques is no more than another tragedy among past and coming tragedies, which will be followed by scenes of force that reach all who were tricked to living among the polytheist," Mujahir said, the UK Independent reported.
"The scenes of death in the two mosques are enough to wake the sleep and incite the supporters of the caliphate who live there, to take vengeance for their religion and for sons of their Ummah, who are killed everywhere in the world."
It’s long been the political line of ISIS that Moslems and non-Moslems cannot live side by side, so events like that in Christchurch are grist to their bad boy mill.
Since the Friday attack, New Zealand’s government has raised the national security threat level, and bigwigs have had national security crisis meetings, the New Zealand Herald reported. The Independent noted they’re preparing for "domino effect" atrocities.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2019 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a city and eponymous province in northern Afghanistan, population about 500,000. Demographically it is majority Tadjik and Uzbek. There are small Pashtun, Arab, and 
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
[FoxNews] John Walker Lindh, a former American Taliban militant convicted in 2002 for supporting the terrorist organization, is due to be freed in May.
[IsraelTimes] Ali Akbar Salehi, head of 
