For four long years, Afghanistan has been waiting for an air force. Now, they're finally going to get one -- courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.
Given their druthers, the Afghans would probably like an air force geared toward close-air support of their troops combating Taliban fighters on the ground. For that role, the A-10 Warthog is by all accounts the best plane for the job. But beggars can't be choosers. Instead of the A-10, the U.S. Air Force will outfit Afghanistan with 20 brand-new A-29 Super Tucano fighter planes from Embraer.
Wait -- "Tucano"? Like the Froot Loops bird?
A lot like Toucan Sam, yes -- except that Embraer's bird has serious claws. An evolution of Embraer's original Tucano design, the Super Tucano is a prop-driven ground-attack fighter powered by a single 1,600 SHP Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68/3 turboprop engine, and featuring:
An armored cockpit to protect against small-arms and anti-aircraft fire.
Two internal, wing-mounted .50" machine guns for strafing, with magazines of 200 rounds each.
10 additional hardpoints along the wings for attaching up to 1,800 pounds of bombs and rockets -- or additional machine guns or 20mm cannon pods.
A top speed of 370 mph, a 340-mile combat radius (fully loaded), and a ceiling altitude of 35,000 feet. (Oh, and Embraer says the plane can also conduct limited air-to-air operations, carrying AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.)
Perhaps best of all, the Super Tucano costs an estimated $500 an hour to operate -- a big selling point for a cash-strapped customer such as Afghanistan, In fact, that's about one-sixth the operating cost of Textron's ultra-cheap Scorpion light fighter jet.
What it means to investors
The U.S. Air Force awarded Embraer the contract to build 20 Super Tucanos for $427 million -- $355 million for the planes themselves, plus $72 million in additional costs incurred as the Air Force dealt with multiple challenges to the contract award. Back out those extra costs, and it looks like the Air Force is paying about $17.8 million per plane -- just under the likely cost to build a new A-10 Warthog today.
What's more, Afghanistan might buy more planes (or the Pentagon might do so for them). When first announced, in fact, the Super Tucano contract was said to be worth potentially $950 million to Embraer. That suggests long-range plans to buy as many as 52 Super Tucanos.
Is this how things will play out? With U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, the Air Force cooling its enthusiasm for the A-10 Warthog, and Lockheed's F-35 in hot water over its gun's inability to shoot, it's entirely possible we might buy more A-29 Super Tucanos for Afghanistan. In which case, the value of Embraer's initial sales contract could double or more.
At a hypothetical value of $1 billion, this single contract could be worth nearly 18% of Embraer's overall annual revenue -- and nearly as much as the company's entire defense business sells in a year. Fifty-two new planes would also grow the global fleet of Super Tucanos in service by 30%, producing more maintenance and services revenue, potentially even bigger economies of scale in production, and bigger profits for Embraer.
Speaking of which, profit-wise, Embraer already earns a 10% operating profit margin on its defense business, according to S&P Capital IQ. That makes defense Embraer's single most profitable business division.
As these birds start alighting in Afghanistan, Embraer's profits could get even bigger.
Bombs:
Mark 80 series of unguided iron bombs or
Mk 77 incendiary bombs or
BLU-1, BLU-27/B Rockeye II, Mk20, BL-755[163] and CBU-52/58/71/87/89/97 cluster bombs or
Paveway series of Laser-guided bombs or
Joint Direct Attack Munition (A-10C)[164] or
Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (A-10C)
Other:
SUU-42A/A Flares/Infrared decoys and chaff dispenser pod or
AN/ALQ-131 or AN/ALQ-184 ECM pods or
Lockheed Martin Sniper XR or LITENING targeting pods (A-10C) or
2× 600 US gallon Sargent Fletcher drop tanks for increased range/loitering time.
#3
...The Super Tucano is absolutely perfect for the Afghans - who, in all honesty, probably won't be doing their own maintenance anyways. Keep in mind that even the Hog (All Glory And Honor Unto Her) is 'austere' only by USAF standards and would be roughly the equivalent of dropping an F-4 onto a USAAF base in 1945.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/06/2015 7:59 Comments ||
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#4
Wonder where the Soro 'piece of the action' is on the Tucano?
#5
Not a bad little prop plane for air to mud. Definitely can see it being wanted by a lot of smaller countries that don't need or can afford the jets.
#8
The Tuc is already being used by a few South American air forces that can't afford jets.
Fred points out the similarities to the P51. Check in Wiki on the fly-off competition of the turbo-prop derivative P51 versus the A10, back when the AF was required to have the competition.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2015 12:41 Comments ||
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[Tolo News] For the first time a senior Afghan government official has confirmed that the 31 passengers kidnapped in Zabul recently were taken by Daesh hard boy group.
The second deputy chief executive Mohammad Mohaqiq told News Agency that Dare Not be Named (AP) on Saturday that two former Taliban leaders, Mullah Abdullah Kaka and his deputy Mullah Mansur Dadullah, who switched allegiance to Daesh, were behind the abduction of 31 passengers belonging to Hazara ethnic minority group.
The passengers, who had been travelling on Kabul-Kandahar highway in southern Zabul province, were kidnapped by unknown armed masked men on February 24.
After the incident, eyewitnesses and drivers told TOLOnews that the passengers were driven away to Khak Afghan district of Zabul.
Despite operations by the security forces in Khak Afghan district, which left more than 50 holy warriors dead, the whereabouts of the abductees is still unknown.
"Daesh wants to create a problem here, but the people of Afghanistan are careful about it and they will not allow this to happen, that foreigners come here to create fratricides and crises," Mohaqiq said.
Earlier, in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, Mohaqiq said that the abductees were alive and had been split up into groups of three or four and were being held in different mountainous areas.
He admitted that efforts by the government for their release had not been successful.
However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... speaking to AP, he vowed that the government will do everything possible to secure their release, "from negotiations to fighting".
But the families of those kidnapped are emotional and have little hope. They accuse the government of not doing enough to release their loved ones.
"These days our only hope is their release, we only hope that they will come back one day, but right now our only hope is towards God," Ismail Kayhan, son of an kidnapped man told AP.
The families of a number of kidnapped men on Sunday rallied at the residence of the first Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... , asking him to help secure the release of their loved ones.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
who? Daesh? what's their real name? Islamic State. Why do we change their name to Daesh? some bs reason but under that so the government can pretend they're not islamic
[DAWN] The Afghan Taliban on Sunday published a descriptive biography of their "charismatic" supreme leader Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... , in a surprise move apparently aimed at countering the creeping influence 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 within hard boy ranks.
The Taliban have reportedly seen defections to the Islamic State in recent months, with some Death Eaters expressing their disaffection with the one-eyed warrior-holy man who has not been seen since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
The biography, posted just after midnight on the Taliban's main website to commemorate Omar's 19th year as supreme leader, described him as being actively involved in "jihadi activities", dispelling speculation that he had died.
Despite being "regularly tracked by the enemy, no major change and disruption has been observed in the routine works of (Omar) in... organising the jihadi activities as the leader of the Islamic Emirate," it said.
"He keenly follows and inspects the... activities against the brutal infidel foreign invaders. "Lionising the "charismatic personality", the biography also contained several anecdotes of battlefield valour and described the RPG-7 grenade launcher as Omar's "preferred weapon of choice".
The withdrawn, remote figure has not made a public appearance since the 2001 invasion, and has hardly ever been photographed.
The US State Department -- which has a $10 million bounty on his head -- only describes him as a tall male with a shrapnel wound to the right eye.
The Taliban's surprise move to release his richly-detailed biography, even describing his personal and family life, took security analysts by surprise. But I ask you, what doesn't take intelligence and security analysts 'by surprise' these days ?
"The Taliban have posted Omar's biography for several strategic reasons -- the most important of which is to counter Daesh influence in their ranks," said Ahmad Sayedi, an expert on the Taliban, alluding to the Arabic abbreviation for the Islamic State group.
"This announcement is also meant to show that Omar is alive and well and still in control as the supreme leader of the Taliban."
In the past 13 years, Omar has stayed completely out of the public eye amid growing power struggles within the Taliban and fears of the IS group's influence in their ranks as an ideological rival.
The Afghan government has also raised the ominous prospect of the IS making inroads into the country, though the group that has taken over swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria has never formally acknowledged having a presence in Afghanistan.
In February, a US-led NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... drone strike killed a former Taliban capo and a Guantanamo detainee suspected of links to IS in the volatile southern province of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, who led around 300 men, had reportedly defected from the Taliban to join IS.
The whereabouts of Omar remain a mystery but he is believed to be leading the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan from hiding.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
One of the original younger set widin Osama's inner circle.
* "RPG-7 GL as Omar's 'preferred weapon of choice'" > true enuff, iff MO had joined the army he likely would've demanded to be a Bazooka or AT man, or in the altern Demolitions.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A 24-year-old former University of Nairobi law student was the leader of the Al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... killer squad that slaughtered 148 people at Garissa University College.
Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi, the son of Abdullahi Daqare, the chief of Bulla Jamhuri location in Mandera County, will likely go down in history as the mass murderer with the most innocent face.
Nicknamed Ababmo by his classmates at the Law Faculty in Nairobi's Parklands Campus, he was a sharp dresser, tending to favour tailored suits and loved to shoot pool with his friends.
He had a room on campus but he rarely stayed there, preferring to operate out of Eastleigh, where he was said to run a business selling cooking gas. Classmates assumed that this accounted for the fact that he seemed to have more money than them.
Mr Dedan Wachira, who played pool with him often at Parklands recalled: "I asked him once, and I don't know whether he was joking or lying, but he told me his suits cost Sh16,000. They looked like they cost that much. He actually introduced me to my first tailor."
Mr Wachira described his former schoolmate as a well-spoken fellow who did not shy away from making his point of view known in the debates that are regular in law classes.
But below the nice suits and the veneer of normality was a cauldron of hatred and religious fanaticism which culminated in mass murder last week.
JOIN ISIS
Blogger and independent journalist Yassin Juma wrote on his blog that when Abdirahim left home, it was generally known that he had gone to join Al-Shabaab. According to the blogger, Abdirahim's initial intention was to join 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.... in Iraq and Syria (Isis) but he did not have a passport.
According to the blogger, Abdirahim's classmate from Wamy Secondary School, known as Mohammed but nicknamed Atom, managed to fly to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and is assumed to have crossed into Syria to join Isis.
Like Abdirahim, Atom failed to complete his degree course at the University of Nairobi.
A former schoolmate at the university told the Nation Abdirahim might have dropped out to concentrate on becoming a terrorist.
Another friend and classmate from Wamy Secondary School also reportedly joined Al-Shabaab with Abdirahim, said the journalist.
Mandera County Commissioner Alex ole Nkoyo told Nation the chief had reported that his son would call him using numbers unfamiliar to him and when asked where he was, he would terminate calls.
Mr Nkoyo said he had spoken to the chief on Sunday morning and the administrator had told him he had forgotten about his son and considered him dead until his re-emergence in Garissa.
Mr Nkoyo added that from his interactions with the chief from Bulla Jamhuri, he suspected Abdirahim may have come into contact with bully boyz while at Wamy High School.
Mr Wachira, who knew Abdirahim, Sunday said of him: "His arguments were very rational. Even in class, he was very rational. That's why I'm surprised he could have been radicalised."
Mr Wachira was among several people on Twitter who identified the dead terrorist on the floor in a striped shirt with the left side of his face visible as a former student at the University of Nairobi.
The photographs of the dead terrorists, who were also paraded to the public in Garissa on Saturday, have been widely shared on social media, but Abdirahim was the only one immediately identified.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Turkey
[IRISHTIMES] The son of a Kenyan government official was one of the masked gunnies who killed nearly 150 at a university last week, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as churches hired armed guards to protect their Easter congregations.
Pope Francis decried Thursday's attack in his Easter Sunday service, praying for those killed by Islamist gunnies who hunted down Christians while sparing Moslems.
At one church in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa, worshippers were evacuated and a bomb disposal unit deployed due to a suspicious vehicle parked outside the church.
Interior ministry front man Mwenda Njoka said Abdirahim Abdullahi, son of a government official in the northern Mandera county bordering Somalia, was one of four gunnies who stormed the college campus in northeastern town of Garissa.
"The father had reported to security agents that his son had disappeared from home... and was helping the police try to trace his son by the time the Garissa terror attack happened," Mr Njoka told Rooters.
Deeply embedded
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday said the planners and financiers of Islamist attacks were "deeply embedded" within Kenyan communities and urged Moslems to do more to fight radicalisation.
A Garissa-based official said the government was aware Abdullahi, a former University of Nairobi law student, had joined the krazed killer group al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... after graduating in 2013.
"He was a very brilliant student. But then he got these crazy ideas," said the official.
Al-Shabaab group said the assault on Garissa, some 200km from the Somali border, was Dire Revenge for Kenya sending troops into Somalia to fight alongside African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... peacekeepers against the al-Qaeda-aligned group.
The hard boyz have threatened to turn Kenyan cities "red with blood" and police have stepped up security at shopping malls and public buildings in the capital Nairobi, and the eastern coastal region which has been prone to al-Shabaab attacks.
The Garissa assault has further strained the historically cordial relations between Kenya's Christian and Moslem communities, which have deteriorated due to frequent Islamist attacks on Christian priests and churches.
Church concerns
Kenyan priests said they feared churches could be targeted on Easter Sunday, the main liturgical feast in the Christian calendar.
"We are very concerned about the security of our churches and worshippers, especially this Easter period, and also because it is clear that these attackers are targeting Christians," Willybard Lagho, a Mombasa-based Catholic priest and chairman of the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics (CICC), said.
He said churches in Mombasa were hiring armed police and private security guards for mass on Easter Sunday. Christians make up 83 percent of Kenya's 44 million population.
In Nairobi's Holy Family Basilica cathedral, two uniformed coppers armed with AK-47 rifles manned the entrance gate. One officer said more plain clothes officers were inside.
Three private security guards frisked churchgoers with hand-held metal detectors, while a fourth guard used a mirror to check for explosives underneath cars.
"Everyone is anxious and you never know what will happen next, but we believe the biggest protector is God and we are praying," said Samuel Wanje (27), a youth member at the church.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Muhajiroun (East Africa AQ)
Authorities in Kenya said Sunday they have identified one of the four dead Shebab gunmen who massacred nearly 150 people at Garissa University as an ethnic-Somali Kenyan national and law graduate.
Did he wear white shoes during the attack?
Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka named one of the attackers as Abdirahim Abdullahi, saying he was “a university of Nairobi law graduate and described by a person who knows him well as a brilliant upcoming lawyer.”
Law school doesn't look so hard after all...
The spokesman said Abdullahi’s father, a local official in the northeastern county of Mandera, had “reported to the authorities that his son had gone missing and suspected the boy had gone to Somalia”.
Guess he wasn't studying for the bar exam...
Describing Abdullahi as a high-flying A-grade student, Njoka said it was “critical that parents whose children go missing or show tendencies of having been exposed to violent extremism report to authorities.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under:
[ARABNEWS] Britannia's Deputy UN Ambassador Peter Wilson said Britannia continues to support Saudi-led military action against the Houthis in response to "a legitimate request" from President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Wilson said it's extremely important to remember that the current crisis was caused by the Houthis repeatedly violating cease-fires and taking military action instead of genuinely engaging in political talks.
"The only way out of this crisis is a return to genuine political talks on an equal basis and not using force," he said.
His remarks came as Russia urged the UN Security Council to call for a "humanitarian pause" in the conflict in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... to help diplomats and civilians caught in the fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Houthis
[ARABNEWS] Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, head of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques, said that the Kingdom's efforts to defend the oppressed and deter the oppressors have added prestige, power and glory to the Arab and Islamic nations.
In an interview with Saudi TV Channel 1, the widely respected religious scholar said Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... has taken action which is supported by a number of Shariah laws.
Al-Sudais described Operation Decisive Storm, which was launched on the orders of King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Cutodian of the Two Holy Mosquesand Lord of Most of the Arabians.... , "as a historic decision that came at the right time."
"The wise and brave operation was initiated keeping in view the provisions of Shariah laws," he said.
"It was not dependent on personal or political gains."
He said any threat to the Kingdom and any evil intention toward the two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Madinah cannot be tolerated.
"There is no possibility of forgiving whoever tries to threaten or jeopardize the security of these Holy Mosques," he said.
According to Al-Sudais, there is a need to protect Saudi and Yemeni interests.
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) blessed Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and sent Ali bin Abi Taleb and Maaz bin Jabal and a number of his lover companions, he said.
"Under Islam, you are obliged to support your neighbors if they seek help," said Al-Sudais.
The militias have foreign support, he added. They have their own agenda and they only wish to spread their domination over the Gulf countries, he said.
Al-Sudais said that Decisive Storm came after the Kingdom exhausted all efforts to contain the crisis through dialogue.
All nations need to stand together during times of hardship to serve the Ummah, he said.
He called on the people to get their news from authentic sources. "Do not pay attention to rumors spread through social networking sites," he said.
Al-Sudais expressed gratitude to King Salman and highlighted his courageous position.
He also expressed appreciation to the Yemeni people whom he asked to remain united.
To the Saudi soldiers engaged in the noble action, he said: "May Allah grant you victory."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ARABNEWS] Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassine has claimed that the ousted former Yemeni President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... had left Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... on a Russian airplane sent to Sanaa to evacuate Russian diplomats.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
[ARABNEWS] Former Bangladesh Prime Minister the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... avoided arrest on corruption charges Sunday after a court granted her bail.
Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadder approved Zia's request for bail when she surrendered to court in the capital, Dhaka.
Zia left her office for the first since Jan. 5, when authorities had initially barred her from leaving to attend an anti-government rally calling for the resignation of Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. , her archrival. Authorities later said she was free to move to her nearby residence, but Zia refused, vowing to continue with anti-government protests that have turned violent, leaving nearly 115 people dead since the beginning of the year.
Zia's lawyers have rejected allegations that she illegally collected more than $1 million in donations for a charity during her last premiership in 2001-2006, and say the charges are politically motivated, which authorities deny. The trial began early last year.
The court had issued an arrest warrant for Zia in February after she failed to appear to answer the charges against her. Prosecutors on Sunday did not oppose Zia's bail request.
Zia currently leads a 20-party opposition alliance that has been enforcing a nonstop transportation blockade across the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under:
Bowe Bergdahl's defense lawyer has raised questions with the Army on why the 28-year-old sergeant was allowed to enlist despite having been separated from the Coast Guard after only 26 days.
Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl's lead lawyer, also noted Bergdahl's cooperation with the FBI since his release in efforts to "identify, capture and bring to justice" his captors as part of the argument to permit Bergdahl to leave the Army with an honorable discharge and veterans benefits.
Other than the five we traded to get Bergdahl back, of course, we know who they are...
The defense cited the Army's award last August of Bergdahl's second Good Conduct medal. The award covered the period from June 12, 2011, to June 11, 2014, shortly after Bergdahl was released, and cited him for "exemplary behavior, efficiency and fidelity in active federal military service."
Yeah, that's going to be a problem at the court-martial...
#4
...The Army will argue that basic training for all the services (including that of the USCG) can be stressful - indeed, is supposed to be stressful - and not everyone adapts well to it. Bergdahl had a bad day (okay, a couple of them), went home and got his head together, and tried again. Did just fine, but combat has its own unique stresses, and he lost it.
As far as the GCM, there's precedent when someone is in an unknown/POW status: CAPT Scott Speicher, USN.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/06/2015 8:08 Comments ||
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#5
cited him for "exemplary behavior, efficiency and fidelity in active federal military service."
of course, his C-in-C doesn't even know what those terms mean
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/06/2015 9:58 Comments ||
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[DAWN] LAHORE: Mustafa Kanju, son of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Siddique Kanju, confessed to firing the shots that resulted in the death of Zain, a 16-year-old orphan.
Kanju asserted he was not intoxicated at the time, and that he resorted to gun sex as he become enraged after an accident. He said Zain was not the target of the fire, nor did he intend to kill Zain or anyone else.
Forensic reports reveal that Kanju's fingerprints are on a Kalashnikov firearm that was recovered from the scene.
Apparently carrying a gun has become fashionable among the young elite set in Pakistan. Proper training, apparently, has not.
Kanju had been sent on an eight-day physical remand on Friday after a hearing at an anti-terrorism court.
During the hearing, Kanju argued that the fact that he fired shots did not mean they led to Zain's death. He had claimed he was innocent and that the police and the victim's relatives were conspiring to trap him in the case.
The lawyer of the accused stated that Zain had fallen victim to cross-firing between Mustafa and his 'opponents' ─ whom he did not identify ─ and that Kanju had no personal enmity with Zain.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) on Sunday decided to join parliament after almost seven months of absence from the National Assembly and provincial assemblies of Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... and Sindh.
Speaking to news hounds after emerging from a huddle with the parties core policy makers, PTI Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... said, "We have decided to attend the joint session of Parliament tomorrow. The Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... issue is very important... I will attend myself and present my party's point of view."
The PTI Central Executive Committee (CEC) met today to discuss the party's fate in the national and provincial assemblies after the government granted its demand of a judicial commission to probe alleged rigging in the May 2013 general elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[AnNahar] A radio station catering specifically to northern Iraq's large displaced population began broadcasting on Sunday near the Kurdish capital Arbil.
"This radio station is for all those who were forced from their homes, for all the refugees," Pascal Gollnisch said in Radio al-Salam's inaugural broadcast.
Gollnisch is a French Catholic priest whose organization L'Oeuvre d'Orient helps Christians in the Middle East and backed the new station.
He is part of a delegation of several French groups supporting the broadcaster, which will put out several hours of programming daily on 95.5 FM.
"As its name suggests, it is a radio station for peace, that also gives practical help in the daily lives of all the displaced," Gollnisch said.
Some 2.5 million people have been displaced by conflict in Iraq since the beginning of 2014. Around half are hosted by the northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, which has also received Syrian refugees.
Kurdish and federal Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition and Iran, are waging a war to retake swathes of land lost last year to 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 (IS).
However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... it could be months or years before all of the displaced are able to return to their homes.
The station aims "to send out a message of peace, a message of coexistence to the communities," Falah Mustafa, the head of Kurdistan's foreign relations department, told news hounds.
The Nineveh plain between the main IS hub of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and Arbil was home to a very ethnically and religiously diverse population, most of which fled to Kurdistan last summer.
The displaced who found shelter there include people from the Christian, Yazidi, Kaka'i, Shabak, Turkmen and other minorities.
Radio al-Salam is hosted by another media group in Ainkawa, a Christian town on the edge of Arbil where many of the Christians displaced last summer live in camps.
"We want to build a bridge between the displaced from different communities and different religions, and the Kurdish community hosting them," said Vincent Gelo, the station's young resident coordinator.
The new stationed tailored to the needs of the displaced evolved from an initial plan to relaunch a Christian station formerly based in Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town, which is now occupied by IS jihadists.
[RUDAW.NET] djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... 's exiled governor Atheel Nujaifi ruled out any role for the Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militia in the battle for Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and ISIS' Iraq stronghold since the bully boyz captured it 10 months ago.
After a crucial role in liberating Tikrit from ISIS, fighting alongside the Iraqi Army, the militia's leaders have been eyeing the bigger anticipated battle for Mosul.
"We are dealing with the Iraqi government and the Ministry of Defense, not militias operating under specific groups," Nujaifi said.
In the places the militias have liberate of ISIS there have been reports of atrocities against Sunnis, including in the fight for Tikrit.
In one incident, bully boyz affiliated with the militia attacked a court in the town of Dour near Tikrit, taking prisoner at least 30 Iraqi coppers, according to a Rudaw news hound.
The militia withdrew from Tikrit on Sunday and let the military take charge, in a move to defuse the rising sectarian tensions.
"The presence of Hashd al-Shaabi in Mosul will cause sectarian tensions. The Iraqi government already agreed to exclude the group in the Mosul operation," Nujaifi told Rudaw.
Nujaifi vowed that the "liberation of Mosul will take place soon." But he warned, "it may be delayed for a short period of time due to what is going on in Anbar and ISIS getting closer to Baghdad."
Hadi al-Ameri, the head of Iraq's powerful Shiite militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), said Friday that the forces will capitalize on a hard-won victory in Tikrit and advance westward to liberate Anbar province and finally march for Mosul.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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[Washington Post] When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group's promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.
Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.
Abu Hamza, who became the group's ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis' real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State's own shadowy security service, he said.
His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq's former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.
Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.
They have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the Islamic State's illicit oil trading.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Despite promises by President Obama that Iranian cheating on a new treaty will be detected, verifying Tehran's compliance with a future nuclear accord will be very difficult if not impossible, arms experts say. No. It will be easy. When Israel disappears, we will know they cheated.
"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will not be effectively verifiable," said Paula DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance, and implementation from 2002 to 2009.
Obama said Saturday that the framework nuclear deal reached in Switzerland would provide "unprecedented verification. And when we finally figure out they cheated, they will be in the home stretch already, if not past the finish line.
International inspectors "will have unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear program because Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world," he said in a Saturday radio address. Sure. Everyone loves a good body cavity search.
"If Iran cheats, the world will know it," Obama said. "If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it's based on unprecedented verification." The will delay, find some reason to bar entry, scrub the site, and then we will go in with our hands tied and find "nothing". And since we couldn't prove anything, nothing will happen to them.
But arms control experts challenged the administration's assertions that a final deal to be hammered out in detail between now and June can be verified, based on Iran's past cheating and the failure of similar arms verification procedures. Cheating which was revealed by a disgruntled citizen years after it happened.
A White House fact sheet on the outline of the future agreement states that the new accord will not require Iran to dismantle centrifuges, or to remove stockpiled nuclear material from the country or convert such material into less dangerous fuel rods.
The agreement also would permit continued nuclear research at facilities built in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970 but has violated repeatedly since at least the early 2000s.
The centerpiece for verifying Iranian compliance will be a document called the Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to the White House.
However, the State Department's most recent report on arms compliance, made public in July, states that Iran signed an IAEA Additional Protocol in 2003 but "implemented it provisionally and selectively from 2003 to 2006," when Tehran stopped complying altogether.
"The framework claims that Iran will once again execute an Additional Protocol with IAEA," said William R. Harris, an international lawyer who formerly took part in drafting and verifying U.S. arms control agreements. "This might yield unprecedented verification opportunities, but can the international community count on faithful implementation?"
Harris also said Iran could cheat by shipping secretly built nuclear arms to North Korea, based on published reports indicating Iran co-financed North Korea's nuclear tests, and that Iranian ballistic missile test signals reportedly showed "earmarks" of North Korean guidance systems.
"So what would prevent storage of Iranian nuclear weapons at underground North Korean sites?" he asked. "If there is to be full-scope inspection in Iran, the incentives for extraterritorial R&D and storage increase."
U.S. intelligence agencies, which will be called on to verify the agreement, also have a spotty record for estimating foreign arms programs. After erroneously claiming Iraq had large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, the intelligence community produced a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that falsely concluded that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons in 2003.
The IAEA, in a restricted 2011 report, contradicted the estimate by stating that Iran continued nuclear arms work past 2003, including work on computer modeling used in building nuclear warheads.
White House officials who briefed reporters last week on the new framework agreement said the key to verification of the future pact will be the new IAEA protocol. The protocol will provide greater access and information on the Iranian nuclear program, including its hidden and secret sites, they said.
The nuclear facilities at Fordow, an underground facility where centrifuges will be removed, and Natanz, another major centrifuge facility, were both built in violation of the NPT and will not be dismantled.
Additionally, the nuclear facility at Parchin, where Iran is believed to have carried out most of its nuclear weapons work, is not mentioned in any of the fact sheets by name.
The sole reference to Iran's work on nuclear arms is the reference in the fact sheet to a requirement that Iran address "the possible military dimensions" of its nuclear program.
Officials who briefed reporters also said that under the new agreement inspectors would have access to Iran's nuclear "supply chain"--the covert system used to circumvent global sanctions and procure materials and equipment.
DeSutter, the former State Department arms verification official, said the transparency measures announced after talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday at best could detect quantitative excesses at known locations, but not secret illegal activities, like those that Iran carried out on a large scale in violation of its obligations under the NPT.
The transparency regime for the new deal also will "undermine the already challenging verifiability of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by legitimizing Iran's illegal enrichment and reprocessing programs," DeSutter said.
Thomas Moore, former professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who specialized in arms control matters, also said Iran's past cheating on the NPT makes verifying a new agreement nearly impossible.
Iran, in its statement on the framework, also denied it would sign a new IAEA protocol. Tehran said of the protocol that it will be implemented on a "voluntary and temporary basis" for transparency and confidence-building.
The imprecise language is a sign "Iran is keeping its weapon option open but refuses required openness to confirm it no longer wants one," Moore said.
"Iran would not divert centrifuges or the material they make from a declared site," Moore said. "Rather, it will instead cheat at an undeclared site."
Because Iran will not ratify the new protocol, the IAEA will be unable to verify the completeness and correctness of Iran's declarations, Moore said, both declared and undeclared materials and activities.
Iran is already the single most IAEA-inspected nation in the world and additional IAEA inspections are not expected to be better, although Iran's nuclear expertise will grow, he added.
"The deal is silent on Iran's actual military dimensions, except to the extent that its supporters claim the IAEA will be able to verify the absence of a weapons program in Iran. They won't," Moore said.
"Contrary to the imprecise political rhetoric, this deal does not yet contain the 'most intrusive' inspections ever tried," he said.
David S. Sullivan, a former CIA arms verification specialist and also a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee arms expert, said confirming Iran's compliance with new nuclear obligations will be difficult.
"U.S. national technical means of verification is always difficult, fraught with the political process of monitoring, collecting, analyzing, and [achieving] consensus on usually ambiguous evidence of cheating that opponents are trying to hide," Sullivan said.
"These difficulties are even greater for the UN's IAEA, which is a multinational political agency."
Past cheating by Iran, confirmed as recently as July 2014 raised questions about why there are negotiations with Tehran, Sullivan said.
"Why are we negotiating for a new agreement, when existing Iranian NPT violations remain in effect, ongoing, and unresolved, suggesting that Iran is unlikely to comply with any new agreement?" Sullivan said.
"Iran alarmingly is officially within three months of having nuclear warheads, according to the international negotiators, and is therefore about to become another nuclear-armed North Korea," he said, noting that Pyongyang also cheated on the NPT and now has nuclear-tipped missiles.
By not requiring Iran to correct past violations of the NPT, the new agreement will in effect codify its current cheating. "The negotiations started as an attempt to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, but now they have legitimized it," Sullivan said.
As Iran's nuclear negotiators returned home with the framework of a deal with world powers, joyous revelers joked that "still, there is no whiskey" in the Islamic Republic, a jab at its theocratic government. But hard-liners here aren't laughing.
Hard-liners face a crisis as Iran looks to reach a permanent deal with world powers over its contested nuclear program, long a point of nationalistic pride. The nuclear deal, which they view as a disastrous capitulation to an implacably hostile West, is being welcomed as a turning point and the start of a new era by moderates, who yearn for greater openness. Somehow, methinks the hardliners will find a way to carry on.
This is "the first big step in 36 years toward detente with the West," prominent analyst Sadeq Zibakalam said. "This is a turning point, one of the reasons why hard-liners are depressed."
Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all major issues, including the nuclear program, has backed the negotiators, further stepping up the pressure on hard-liners.
But opponents of any deal hold important sway over the pace and direction of Iran's nuclear program through the country's Revolutionary Guard, the single most powerful institution in Iran. It's still unclear whether the Guard, which exerts a strong behind-the-scenes role in Iranian affairs, would agree to potential demands such as increased international monitoring at nuclear and related sites. That could further complicate efforts to translate last week's framework into a final agreement by June 30.
Already, hard-liners have complained that Iranian state television, which for the first time aired a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama live last week, has not allowed them to criticize the deal on air, forcing them to confine their views to conservative websites and newspapers.
Hard-line lawmaker Mahdi Kouchakzadeh took the fight to parliament Sunday, holding up a placard reading: "Any contract that brings foreign domination ... is forbidden."
Anti-American sentiment in Iran goes back to at least the 1950s, when the U.S. helped depose an elected leader and re-install the monarchy of the Western-backed shah. But the country has long been divided between those determined to maintain the fervor of the 1979 Islamic revolution and reformers who want to ease restrictions inside Iran and soften its foreign policy.
Reliable opinion polls are hard to come by in Iran; the government regularly conducts its own opinion polls but the results are rarely made public.
The government cracked down on reformers following Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 re-election, but since then moderates have staged something of a comeback through the election of President Hassan Rouhani. The framework agreement, which prompted joyous street celebrations and has sent stocks soaring by 6.9 percent over the past two days alone, could further boost their fortunes.
Should Iran reach a final nuclear accord with world powers that loosens sanctions, the economic opening could give moderates a major boost ahead of crucial parliamentary elections next February.
For now though, the framework deal struck in Switzerland has brought cautious optimism, and a series of jokes traded by text message.
"I went to the shop today and they still don't have whiskey! What sort of a deal is this?" one joke goes.
Another offers advice, considering the deal remains preliminary at best: "This is a deal restricted to the nuclear program, don't walk in the street in shorts!"
US President Barack Obama has said that a weakened Israel will would be a "fundamental failure of my presidency," affirming solidarity with the long-time ally despite recent differences over the Iran nuclear deal. Then his lips fell off.
Obama said while Israel has reason to be concerned about foe Iran, he defended the framework agreement on Iran's nuclear program that negotiators drew up last week.
Obama made the comments to The New York Times in a 45-minute video interview on Saturday that was posted on Sunday.
"I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch or as a consequence of work that I've done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable," Obama said.
He said he would consider it "not just a strategic failure, I think that would a moral failure," adding that no disagreements between Israel and the United States can break their bond.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denounced the agreement between Tehran and world powers as a bad deal, arguing it will leave Iran with a large nuclear infrastructure.
The two leaders have also clashed over the Middle East peace process, with Israel opposing the creation of a Palestinian state, while the White House is seeking a "two state" solution to the conflict.
"Even in the midst of the disagreements that I have had with Prime Minister Netanyahu both on Iran as well as on the Palestinian issue, I have been consistent saying that our defense of Israel is unshakable," Obama said.
The US president also defended the Iran nuclear deal, which paves the way for Tehran to curtail its nuclear activity in exchange for relief from punishing economic sanctions.
"There is no formula, there is no option, to prevent Iran from getting a new weapon that will be more effective than the diplomatic initiative and framework that we put forward, and that's demonstrable," he told the newspaper.
But Obama said Israel was "right to be concerned" about Iran, and sent a strong message to enemies of Israel.
"What we will be doing as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anyone messes with Israel, America will be there," he said.
On the Iranian negotiations, Obama said that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is "a pretty tough read" and "deeply suspicious of the West."
But Obama added: "He does realize that the sanctions regime we put together was weakening Iran over the long term, and that if in fact he wanted to see Iran enter into the community of nations, there would have to be changes."
#1
This man has rats running around in his brain, he sets up shit to kill the Israeli State and then submits this shit as a statement of his presidency ? You sir are squirrel.
#8
I don’t want to rag on Netanyahu, but he’s a wimp compared to past Israeli leaders. Begin did not ask for Reagan’s permission - he struck Osirak, and that was that. Netanyahu’s Hamlet-like indecision has given Iran the time it needed to get its nuclear program going. It seems Bibi was more interested in milking the Iranian nuclear program for domestic political points than in actually striking it. Thanks to his lollylagging, the Iranians are now on the verge of a nuclear weapon. Begin understood that even under Reagan, the US was not to be trusted on matters of mortal import to Israel. It’s incomprehensible that Bibi has wasted so much time talking when the time for action was yesterday.
President Barack Obama staunchly defended a framework nuclear agreement with Iran as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to prevent a bomb and bring longer-term stability to the Middle East. He insisted the U.S. would stand by Israel if it were to come under attack, but acknowledged that his pursuit of diplomacy with Tehran has caused strain with the close ally.
"It's been a hard period," Obama said in a weekend interview with Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times. He added that it is "personally difficult" for him to hear his administration accused of not looking out for Israel's interests. Yeah. Right. And the whole ME is filled with examples of your successes.
Now in his seventh year in office, Obama cast the Iran talks as part of a broader foreign policy doctrine that sees American power as a safeguard that gives him the ability to take calculated risks.
"We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting ourselves at risk," he said, citing his overtures to Cuba and Myanmar as other examples of his approach.
The president's comments come days after the U.S. and other world powers reached a tentative agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The framework cleared the way for negotiators to hammer out technical details ahead of a June 30 deadline for a final deal.
Obama argued that successful negotiations presented the most effective way to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but insisted he would keep all options on the table if Tehran were to violate the terms.
"I've been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on my watch, and I think they should understand that we mean it," Obama said in the interview published Sunday. "But I say that hoping that we can conclude this diplomatic arrangement -- and that it ushers a new era in U.S.-Iranian relations -- and, just as importantly, over time, a new era in Iranian relations with its neighbors."
The president said there are many details that still need to be worked out with the Iranians and cautioned that there would be "real political difficulties" in implementing an agreement in both countries. He reiterated his opposition to a legislation that would give the U.S. Congress final say in approving or rejecting a deal, but said he hoped to find a path to allow Congress to "express itself."
The White House plans an aggressive campaign to sell the deal to Congress, as well as to skeptical Arab allies who worry about Iran's destabilizing activity in the region. The president has invited leaders of six Gulf nations to Washington this spring and said he wanted to "formalize" U.S. assistance.
On the substance of the Iran framework agreement, Obama outlined more specifics of how the U.S. would seek to verify that Tehran wasn't cheating. He said there would be an "international mechanism" that would assess whether there needed to be an inspection at a suspicious site and could overrule Iranian objections.
The nuclear talks have marked a remarkable shift in the frozen relationship between the U.S. and Iran. It has become normal for officials from both countries to communicate and hold face-to-face meetings. Obama is yet to meet with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, though they did speak on the phone. He has also exchanged letters with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Obama said the letters include "a lot of reminders of what he perceives as past grievances against Iran." But he said the concessions Khamenei allowed his negotiators to make in the nuclear talks suggests that "he does realize that the sanctions regime that we put together was weakening Iran over the long term, and that if in fact he wanted to see Iran re-enter the community of nations, then there were going to have to be changes."
#1
Any knummb nuts like you , who puts on his socks correctly, and believes he has achieved a success, has no notion that he is a Chamberlain, who has sold this country down the river for a pot of beans.. you sir, are a traitor and charlatan and are deserving of repudiation by the knowledgeable people everywhere
#2
Again, as per US-LED ANTI-US OWG-NWO + GLOBALISM, iff US-specific, Globalist Amerikan unilateral or self-retreat or pullback/fallback ideally = World Peace, then why the need for a future US to sink or destroy any Pacific Islands at all in order to deny to MilPol Enemies or Protagonists, e.g. OWG Co-Superpower Sibling China + [ISIS = post-ISIS led?] Nuclear Islam???
For "Anti-Access, Area-Denial" = "A2/AD"???
* As per GLOBALIST CO-SUPERPOWER "PARITY", WHY DOES THE US BELIEVE IT CAN UNILATERALLY ATTACK-N-SINK FOREIGN LANDS BUT CONUS = AMERIKA ITSELF CANNOT BE ATTACKED-N-SUNK???
#3
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > MUSLIMS TO OUTNUMBER CHRISTIANS IN WORLD BY 2070, [Pew]STUDY SHOWS.
> Rising China desiring to replace US as World#1 by 2040-2050???
> Iff not China, then NUCLEAR ISLAM as led by Neo-Ottoman Nuclear Turkey + US-born, US-raised, Convert-to-Islam Islamic Mahdi/Hidden Imam by 2030-2050.
AND STILL NO CARAMEL POPCORN AT THE LOCAL THEATER
- WHY, WOMAN, WHY!
#4
More like once in several hundred thousand lifetimes opportunities which Obama would blow - and Iran will literally blow away...
This idiot actually still believes he's some sort of super diplomat in spite of all his failures.
How many peoples have been killed due to this fools policies?
#9
"It's been a hard period," Obama said in a weekend interview with Thomas Friedman, a Diplomat columnist for The New York Times.
Inasmuch as Friedman has been our go-to guy for off the record peace ideas and discussions with his close Arab friends.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/06/2015 11:12 Comments ||
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#10
Hard, hard, hard to believe that even someone as stupid as Obama believes the Iranians are presenting him with a "once in a lifetime opportunity". Just simply out of the goodness of their hearts, huh? Or maybe by some miracle the sanctions actually worked? Certainly even he, as stupid as he is, knows better. That leaves only uncomfortable conclusions.
[ALMANAR.LB] Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem ... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies... , hailed as victory the framework accord clinched between Iran and the world powers over the Islamic Theocratic Republic's nuclear program.
His eminence said that the deal is considered a "victory for the will of free peoples and the resistance project led by Iran."Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem
The deal is recognition by the world powers of Iran's position and role in region and the world, Sheikh Qassem said during an Hijab ceremony in al-Mahdi Schools in Beirut.
On the US-Saudi aggression on Yemen, Hezbollah's Deputy S.G. said that Riyadh committed a strategic mistake as it waged the attack on Yemen.
"Saudi claims it is protecting the legitimacy of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the runaway president..." Sheikh Qassem said, wondering why Riyadh did not do so concerning Syria.
"Why didn't you do the same thing in Syria with President Bshar al-Assad, who is legitimate and the people (of his country) have been with him?"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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[ALMANAR.LB] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed US officials' claims that Tehran and the world powers have agreed on the suspension of the sanctions against Iran, reiterating that boycotts and embargos will be lifted forever under a final deal.
"During the negotiations, we have always planned for the termination of the economic, financial and banking sanctions and we have never negotiated on their suspension, otherwise, no understanding would be made," Rouhani said on Sunday.
Stressing that good steps have been taken during the nuclear negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britannia and La Belle France plus Germany), he said, "We will have a difficult path ahead in the stage of drafting the final deal."
Rouhani blasted certain countries which think that Iran's success equals to the country's hegemony over the region, and said, "The Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran has not and is not after aggression against another country and our contemporary history shows this reality, but we will defend our rights against anyone who seeks to violate the people's rights."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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The White House said Friday that there is no convincing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the merits of a nuclear deal with Iran and that the Israeli leader has been fiercely opposed to the diplomatic track even before the first interim agreement was reached in November 2013.
“I think that we’re not going to convince Prime Minister Netanyahu. Frankly, he has disagreed with this approach since before the first Joint Plan of Action, the first interim agreement that was reached with Iran,” said Ben Rhodes, US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser. The White House official was speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Obama himself also reiterated at the weekend that the framework represented “a historic understanding” that if fully implemented would prevent Iran from, attaining nuclear weapons. Talks on a final deal are supposed to be completed by June 30.
The Iranians get a lifting of sanctions, the right to use advanced centrifuges and the right to hide, through the usual subterfuges, whatever uranium they make. How exactly does that keep them from building the bomb?
Rhodes’ remarks came a day after the P5+1 world powers and Iran reached a political framework for a deal in Switzerland on Thursday which aims to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Netanyahu has been a vociferous opponent of the deal, charging that it paves the way for a nuclear Iran and threatens Israel’s very survival.
Netanyahu harshly criticized the negotiations, relentlessly demanding instead that the Iranian program be dismantled. He claims Iran cannot be trusted, and that leaving key facilities intact –as the framework deal does — will allow the Iranians to eventually build a bomb. Other officials described the deal Thursday night as a “dangerous capitulation” to Iran.
The US has maintained that the deal took Israel’s concerns into consideration and that Washington remains committed to Israel’s security.
Except that the Israelis say the deal doesn't take their "concerns" into consideration...
They're Israeli, and by definition incapable of understanding what their real concerns are.
“What we will say to Netanyahu… is we’re making a nuclear deal here, it’s the right thing to do, it’s the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, for the longest amount of time,” said Rhodes.
Netanyahu also demanded Friday that any final deal include a clause demanding recognition of Israel’s right to exist — a demand immediately rejected by the US State Department.
They didn't wait for the Iranians to reject it...
The PM said after a cabinet session Friday that “Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period,” and that the deal must “include a clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.”
“This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday night, according to Fox News. “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.”
In his interview, Rhodes said that the US was not ignoring concerns about Iran’s “destabilizing actions in the region, its threats toward Israel and our other partners, its support for terrorism.”
“While we have a nuclear deal here, we’re going to be very very vigilant in confronting other Iranian actions in the region,” he said.
Sure you will. Just like you've been vigilant with al-Qaeda, the ISIS, Yemen, Somalia, the Ukraine and the rise of China's Navy...
The White House expressed confidence on Friday night that a final nuclear agreement would be attained in the coming months.
“We feel good,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, according to Reuters. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but we are confident we can get those details in place.”
The commitments announced Thursday, if implemented, would substantially pare back some Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. According to a US document listing those commitments, Tehran is ready to reduce its number of centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads.
I think that means that the Iranians have enough uranium for a few bombs now and can afford a few years to make more uranium at a slower rate...
Of the nearly 20,000 centrifuges Iran now has installed or running at its main enrichment site, the country would be allowed to operate just over 5,000. Much of its enriched stockpiles would be neutralized. A planned reactor would be reconstructed so it can’t produce weapons-grade plutonium.
All of that is subject to canoodling by the Iranians.
Monitoring and inspections by the UN nuclear agency would be enhanced.
They'll bring El-Baradei back to run the IAEA, you watch...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
There’s no convincing you that you are an assh^le and a foreign agent, therefore I rest my case.
#5
Bibi tells Obama years ago that it is a bad idea. obama goes forward with it anyway and now says Bibi has not come along. Sounds like obama is the one who needs convincing. Only time will tell.
#7
Iran will probably not get the bomb until sometime after Obama leaves office. Thus, he will be able to claim that he achieved peace in his time. He will then blame his successor when Tel Aviv disappears under a mushroom cloud.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/06/2015 14:55 Comments ||
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#9
Looks like HEZBOLLAH has verified Bibi's concerns ....
* DAILY STAR LEBANON > [Nasrallah = Hezbollah El Supremo/Big Boss] NUCLEAR DEAL WILL EMBOLDEN IRAN, i.e. increase Iran's regional role by improving or strengthening Tehran's economic + geopol proficiencies.
[The Guardian] All UN security council resolutions related to Iran’s nuclear programme will be lifted immediately if a final deal is agreed, Tehran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Saturday, stressing the benefits to Iran of this week’s negotiations.
After leading Iranian negotiators to a preliminary deal with world powers in Switzerland, Zarif must now convince a domestic audience that the talks are heading toward a final deal that is in Iran’s interest.
He disputed a “fact sheet” released by the US shortly after the deal that emphasised Iranian concessions and referred to sanctions being suspended rather than lifted and only after confirmation that Tehran has complied with the terms of the agreement.
“The Americans put what they wanted in the fact sheet … I even protested this issue with [US secretary of state John] Kerry himself,” he said in a television interview cited by the Fars news agency, adding that the UN security council would oversee any deal.
“Either side in this agreement can, in the case of the other side violating the agreement, cease its own steps,” Zarif said. He mirrored earlier comments by the US president, Barack Obama, that sanctions could be reapplied if Iran did not stick to its word.
“Whatever work we have on the nuclear programme can be restored … Our knowledge is local and no one can take that away from us,” he added.
Iran’s lead negotiator, who was welcomed back to Tehran by cheering crowds on Friday, insisted that Iran had negotiated from a position of strength to secure a good preliminary deal.
He pointed to the changes in the demands of the P5+1 group of countries – the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China – as evidence of the success of negotiations that began two years ago.
“They realised they can’t shut down Iran’s nuclear programme.”
Zarif said Iran would keep its promises so long as the west also did so, and suggested a deal could open the door to more productive relations with the international community, echoing comments on Friday by President Hassan Rouhani.
“We don’t want anything more than our rights,” he said. “We’ve never pursued a bomb in the past or now. We’re also not looking for regional hegemony. We want good relations with our neighbours in the region.“
US officials have insisted that a detailed list of specific items agreed at the Lausanne talks, which the US side released on Thursday, was not open to further negotiation and would be part of the final overall agreement to be worked out by end-June.
Oh. So we don't have an agreement yet. End of June, you say.
A senior US official told reporters on Friday that Iran and the six nations had agreed they could release their own interpretations of the deal, but there were not to be any discrepancies about facts.
“We understood we would have different narratives, but we wouldn’t contradict each other,” the official said.
How convenient. Do the fact sheets written in Farsi read differently than the ones written in English?
The US fact sheet described its contents as “the key parameters” of a final deal to be agreed by 30 June. It said key details were subject to further negotiation, adding that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Separately, France has released its own fact sheet on the nuclear deal, which includes additional detail about the easing of limitations on Iran’s enrichment programme after 10 years. While it does not contradict the US fact sheet, it notes that Tehran would eventually be able to use advanced centrifuges. The French fact sheet said Tehran would be allowed a “gradual and precisely defined increase in (enrichment) capacity between the 10th and 13th years with the introduction of advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges”.
The fact that under a final deal Tehran would eventually be permitted to use advanced centrifuges that purify uranium several times more efficiently than the first generation IR-1 machines Iran currently uses is likely to raise concerns in Israel and Republican-dominated US Congress. Under the Lausanne agreement, Tehran would only use IR-1s for the first decade.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
D *** NG, could it be because of ...
* TOPIX > TEXTS ON NUCLEAR DEAL DIFFER BETWEEN IRAN AND ENGLISH VERSIONS.
OOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPSIES.
Looks like all sides flunked their homeroom kiddie primers.
#2
......likely to raise concerns in Israel and Republican-dominated US Congress
Are we then to assume there is universal Democratic concurrence with the 'Deal' ?
Israel, Republican-dominated US Congress, NRA, climate-change deniers, fly-over people, Fox News, Wall Street, Frackers & Crackers, home school advocates, Anti Abortion crowd, small business owners, Rush........the usual pro-American rabble. [sarc off]
In many ISIS execution videos, the victims speak calmly and directly to the camera to describe why they're there. It seems weird that a person would be so tranquil before his death. The hostages are able to retain their poise probably because they don't know they're about to be executed, an ISIS defector told Sky News.
The defector, who called himself "Saleh," said a Turkish member of ISIS hired him to reassure captives they wouldn't be killed. He would tell the victims that the executions being filmed were just rehearsals. "No problem, only video, we don't kill you, we want from your government [to] stop attacking Syria. We don't have any problem with you; You are only our visitors,'" "Saleh" recounted as the words he was ordered to tell the hostages. He always knew that the captives would be killed, he said.
Why the secrecy? It might be because ISIS learned from previous killing videos from the Iraq war, the Washington Post hypothesizes. Hostages who know they're being led to their deaths are more unpredictable and will sometimes offer a disturbing plea or troublesome last words. The viewer might be inclined to feel empathy for the victim, which makes for some bad propaganda.
This defectors' words, although not verified, would explain why the Israeli spy seemed so stoic in his interview released by ISIS Tuesday. Right before an ISIS child soldier shot him dead in broad daylight, the spy is given treatment like any usual documentary subject.
Posted by: gorb ||
04/06/2015 13:41 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
...Either that or - just as, if not, more likely - the poor bastards are being doped up outta their minds.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/06/2015 16:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
By now every person in the world who has a TV set has figured out they are going to kill you. I'm with mike. Serious doping is only answer to cause such passivity.
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.
For four long years, Afghanistan has been waiting for an air force. Now, they're finally going to get one -- courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.
[DAWN] The Afghan Taliban on Sunday published a descriptive biography of their "charismatic" supreme leader 
[ARABNEWS] Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, head of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques, said that the Kingdom's efforts to defend the oppressed and deter the oppressors have added prestige, power and glory to the Arab and Islamic nations.
[ARABNEWS] Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassine has claimed that the ousted former Yemeni President 
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[DAWN] LAHORE: Mustafa Kanju, son of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Siddique Kanju, confessed to firing the shots that resulted in the death of Zain, a 16-year-old orphan.
Despite promises by President Obama that Iranian cheating on a new treaty will be detected, verifying Tehran's compliance with a future nuclear accord will be very difficult if not impossible, arms experts say.
Saddam's giant cannon 'Project Babylon' verified and destroyed, as was designer and project manager Gerald Bull. 
As Iran's nuclear negotiators returned home with the framework of a deal with world powers, joyous revelers joked that "still, there is no whiskey" in the Islamic Republic, a jab at its theocratic government. But hard-liners here aren't laughing.
US President Barack Obama has said that a weakened Israel 
President Barack Obama staunchly defended a framework nuclear agreement with Iran as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to prevent a bomb and bring longer-term stability to the Middle East. He insisted the U.S. would stand by Israel if it were to come under attack, but acknowledged that his pursuit of diplomacy with Tehran has caused strain with the close ally.
[ALMANAR.LB] Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh 
[ALMANAR.LB] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed US officials' claims that Tehran and the world powers have agreed on the suspension of the sanctions against Iran, reiterating that boycotts and embargos will be lifted forever under a final deal.
