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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Nuristan Airstrike Kills 14 Insurgents
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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2 13:48 g(r)omgoru [336086] 
2 14:56 Pappy [336086] 
4 15:10 Ana [336096] 
2 20:58 JosephMendiola [336115] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
3 19:19 Thrater Thrineger7877 [336137]
2 14:21 DarthVader [336118]
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2 16:53 lord garth [336101]
4 13:51 g(r)omgoru [336089]
10 12:51 DarthVader [336084]
1 02:05 g(r)omgoru [336086]
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5 15:36 Fred [336094]
15 19:17 Richard Aubrey [336130]
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Page 6: Politix
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Africa North
Obama delivers modern fighter jets to Muslim Brotherhood
A mini-squadron of four state-of-the-art F-16 fighter jets left American airspace Tuesday, heading to the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egyptian government. They were a down payment on a previously agreed-to foreign aid package with Egypt according to Fox News.

The total package, approved in 2010, calls for 16 F-16s and 200 Abrams tanks to be delivered before the end of 2013. At that time, Egypt’s president was a longtime U.S. ally, Hosni Mubarak.

However, in June 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi rose to power, changing the dynamics of the original agreement. Morsi has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s anti-American and anti-Israel.

“One American president after another — and most recently, that Obama talks about American guarantees for the safety of the Zionists in Palestine,” Morsi said in 2010, according to Fox News. “[Obama] was very clear when he uttered his empty words on the land of Egypt. He uttered many lies, of which he couldn’t have fulfilled a single word, even if he were sincere — which he is not.”

This is hardly a person we want to give 16 modern fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks.

Now I’m going to get logical here.

The president has been stumping for massive gun control measures since late December, including calls for detailed background checks for anyone desiring a weapon.

If he calls for a background check for a single mom who wants to protect herself and her children with a 22-caliber handgun, shouldn’t we expect at least the same before we deliver high-tech weapons systems to another country?
Posted by: tipper || 01/23/2013 12:51 || Comments || Link || [336103 views] Top|| File under:

#1  On the bright side the Jihadist minded folks don't seem capable of studying and practicing and actually becoming good at something as complicated as a fighter jet (piloting or maintaining). Western pilots should have little problem.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 01/23/2013 15:02 Comments || Top||

#2  They can always get their spare parts from the Chengdu J-10 factory.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 01/23/2013 16:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Parts from China? There is (or will be) too much lead in them.
Posted by: Glolunter Flirt1070 || 01/23/2013 16:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Is there a background check & waiting period before you can buy an F-16?
Posted by: SteveS || 01/23/2013 17:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Don't be silly SteveS! It's not as if they are (or ever were) a terrorist organization like the Teaparty!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/23/2013 17:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Now, now, when TV's BENSON, etal. was kidnapped by Central American terrorists back in the late 1970's, their Dear Leader demanded one mighty F-4 PHANTOM for each one of his group's members, espec sexy slinky Bandita Maria - IIRC IT CAME OUT TO SIX PHANTOMS IN ORDER TO GET BENSON + GANG RELEASED.

NO WORD IFF MARIA ASKED FOR HERS IN PINK.

lol.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/23/2013 20:43 Comments || Top||

#7  "a single mom who wants to protect herself and her children with a 22-caliber handgun"

I'd up the calibre...
Posted by: linker || 01/23/2013 21:07 Comments || Top||


Is Benghazi Fast and Furious on Steroids?
As the Congressional hearings on the fiasco in Benghazi gear back up, and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to testify all manner of questions are floating around about who knew what and when.The seemingly poignant question that everyone wants to ask is, “Was the initial report that the attack was a spontaneous demonstration caused by outrage over an “offensive YouTube video” that was offensive to Allah.

This question attempts to drive to the root of the motivation behind putting out a seemingly implausible explanation in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. But frankly, this question falls short of getting to the crux of the issue. The answer here is, “Yes, of course they tried to cover up their actions surrounding Benghazi.”

But the assumption behind that question is that they did so to cover up a systematic failure to provide security for both an ambassador and a CIA facility. That falls short of answering the key question, which has critical national security and international security questions.

The other broad question that needs to be answered is, “Was this just a terrorist attack designed to humiliate the United States on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, or was there another motive behind it?”

Strong evidence exists, and has been reported here at Conservative Reports Online, that the tensions in Benghazi were fueled by the purpose of Special Mission Benghazi. It was not an embassy. It was not a consulate. It was the CIA facility that had been used to arm and coordinate the rebel forces who were attempting to overthrow Moammar Qadaffi.

Conservative Report also previously reported that the arming of the rebels was facilitated through the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and that a significant part of the arms sales were brokered by a US arms dealer named Marc Turi who has an office outside Phoenix.

Initially, he was brokering the sale of Russian Kalashnikov rifles and French arms to the Libyan rebels. Later, after being refuse permission to sell US made arms directly to the Libyans, he was granted a permit to sell those arms to the Qataris who would then forward them to the Libyans.

Had Marc Turi been given the permit to arm the Libyan rebels directly, the Special Forces personnel who were on TDY (temporary duty) to CIA and were working at the mission in Benghazi would have ensured they went to the proper hands in Libya.

Because the Obama administration chose to “go hands off”, a less stringent Qatar supplied these weapons to both the militias friendly to the United States, and to those allied with Al Qaeda.

What occurred was the arming of our most staunch adversaries on the planet by an inept Obama administration. And what occurred subsequently was that the TDY SF operators were sending back questions to Foggy Bottom and MacDill as to why Al Qaeda rebels were armed with US weapons like the M-4 rifle, and after the revolution was successful, the purpose of Special Mission Benghazi shifted from arming and organizing the rebel groups to disarming the Al Qaeda groups we had been armed. Anger over the disarming of these groups formed the motivation behind the attack.

Therefore, the question that is simply asked and objectively answered, without placing any of the SF or CIA operatives at mortal risk is a simple one. You see, the Kalashnikov rifle chambers a 7.62 mm round. The US M-4 rifle chambers a 5.56 mm round. What is widely reported and accepted is that at least two of the TDY Green Berets who were assigned by the CIA as ARSO’s (assistant regional safety officers) were badly wounded and were treated for multiple gunshot wounds after they rescued over 20 civilian CIA workers from the compound.

The single question that needs to be asked is: “Were the rounds taken out of the wounded ARSO’s 7.62 mm or 5.56 mm?” And when the answer comes back “5.56 mm”, it opens the door to the proof that the cover up was meant to hide the fact that the Obama administration had been caught once again arming offshore groups that did not have the interests of our country at heart. It would open the door to proof that Benghazi was “Fast and Furious on Steroids.”
Posted by: Beavis || 01/23/2013 08:34 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, which brave congressman is going to ask that very question of Ms Clinton?
Posted by: jvalentour || 01/23/2013 13:21 Comments || Top||

#2  The US M-4 rifle chambers a 5.56 mm round

So do other NATO weapons.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/23/2013 14:56 Comments || Top||


Denial is still a River in Egypt
By Spengler

Denial, it turns out, really is a river in Egypt. I refer not to the world's longest waterway, but the world's largest outpouring of pious expressions of confidence in Egypt by American and European politicians. Infusions of real cash, to be sure, could delay Egypt's deterioration into a failed state, but not by long, because the country requires more than US$20 billion a year simply to meet its basic needs...

The country's trade deficit was running at an annual rate of nearly $42 billion as of November 2012, before the central bank allowed the Egyptian pound to sink on foreign exchange markets. That's 15% of Gross Domestic Product ...

Egypt's cash position is even worse than it appears. The $7 billion or so in the central bank's liquid cash reserves does not take into account the billions of dollars that Egyptian importers owe to unpaid suppliers. Nor does it take into account new obligations that Egypt has had to assume to get cash up front...
Spengler sees what we've been seeing...
Posted by: lord garth || 01/23/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336115 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The trouble is that the speech exposes Egypt's president as a pre-modern creature of barbaric habits of thought and Dark Age ignorance

Just like western pols---except the line of bull he adheres to is different (though equally ridiculous).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/23/2013 2:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Iff Imran Khan is to be believed, ditto in PAKISTAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/23/2013 20:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Schumer, Hagel, and Obama’s ‘Good Jews.’
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/23/2013 06:36 || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Neither geography nor religion make one an American or an Israeli. People such as Chuck Schumer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are societal neoplasms that give upright primates as a whole, a bad name.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/23/2013 7:50 Comments || Top||

#2  There is nothing at all "Jewish" about these scumbags. Soros toties. They would load cattle cars themselves given the chance.

Hint: You are NOT JewISH.
Posted by: newc || 01/23/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Jews but also Kapos.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/23/2013 14:52 Comments || Top||

#4  The Holy Torah is not only an historical book, but an account of past, present and future at the same time, becuase G'd it is not limited by time, or any other human limitation.
When is talking about how Moses was turn by other two Jews to the evil Egiptians, it is talking at the same time about similar events, that happened later in Jewish history in our days and beyond
Posted by: Ana || 01/23/2013 15:10 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Islam disturbs evolution of Iran
Iranians could have continued evolving into their advanced culture and being today a great, free, and advanced nation if this process had not been stopped by the Muslims’ invasion 1400 years ago. This 1400-year old belief system is now politically re-grafted on our society after the 1979 revolution disturbing progress in democracy, economy, social justice, ethics and all fields and process of human evolution.

Islam in general and, worse, political Islam in particular can never be in harmony with the evolution of human species. People under Islamic domination are the prisoners, trapped in the dark era of terror until the unsupported preys to Allah's clutches. Under such circumstances, the subjects have no motivation to evolve, at best they have to beg and clamor so that their sinister does not worsen.

During the 1979 anti-Shah revolution, people were looking for a quick demise of the Shah’s dictatorship at any price. They were not aware of a totalitarian state, which could flick out of Islam -- a bitter ignorance for which Iranians are today paying a colossal price.

The politicised Islam under the Mullahs’ regime has since 1979 committed the most hideous crimes since the first invasion of Islam on Iran in the seventh century. On its black records, one routinely sees torture, rape before execution, application of Sharia by stoning, amputation, lashes, state terrorism (chained killings, kidnappings, mass killings in / out of the country) -- all these crimes are well-documented.
Posted by: tipper || 01/23/2013 11:52 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yep, that's about nailed it.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/23/2013 12:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Personally, I always thought that Mazdaism makes a lot of sense.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/23/2013 13:48 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
33[untagged]
5Govt of Pakistan
4Arab Spring
2al-Qaeda in North Africa
1Govt of Syria
1Lashkar-e-Islami
1Lashkar e-Taiba
1Taliban
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Thai Insurgency
1Boko Haram

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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2013-01-23
  Nuristan Airstrike Kills 14 Insurgents
Tue 2013-01-22
  French seize control of Diabaly, Douentza
Mon 2013-01-21
  Nigeria: Gunmen attack Kano emir's convoy
Sun 2013-01-20
  Algeria crisis: Hostage-takers 'taken alive' at gas plant
Sat 2013-01-19
  Boko Haram leader Shekau shot, escapes to Mali
Fri 2013-01-18
  1,400 French soldiers in Mali for ground assaults: minister
Thu 2013-01-17
  41 snatched by AQIM in Algeria gas plant attack
Wed 2013-01-16
  France deploys armoured vehicles towards northern Mali
Tue 2013-01-15
  Pakistan paralysed after court demands PM arrest
Mon 2013-01-14
  Famed Tunisia Mausoleum Torched by Salafists
Sun 2013-01-13
  19 Killed in Failed French Raid to Free Somalia Hostage
Sat 2013-01-12
  French commandos attack al-Shabab base, explosions, gunfire heard
Fri 2013-01-11
  France confirms Mali intervention
Thu 2013-01-10
  Taliban suspects arrested over Karachi polio killings
Wed 2013-01-09
  Indonesia Foils Terror Plot on Tourist Spots

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